Weird Invention Archives - Uncle John's Bathroom Reader

Alternate Uses For Cremated Remains

When you or a loved one dies, you can either opt for a burial, or cremation. Those ashes can then be kept in an urn, spread in a favorite spot…or made into something really cool.

Records. A company called And Vinyly presses cremated ashes into a vinyl record. Along with an album sleeve and label listing the deceased’s name, birth date, and death date, And Vinyly puts the ashes right into the shellac. Customers can choose whether they want music (indie rock is available), soundscapes, a message they record themselves, or just the “pops and crackles” that come with a record. Prices start at about $4,900 for a box of 30 records.

True ‘True Blood’ Blood (For Real!)

Scientists have created artificial blood. This is not a plot point from True Blood.

Researchers at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, Romania, spent months trying to develop an artificial human blood substitute. While this could be considered a medical miracle and a marvel of modern science, the best part about this is that Cluj is located in the Romanian region of…Transylvania.

Who Cut the Cheese?

Would you eat cheese made out of bacteria from the human body?

Scent researcher Christina Agapakis, and Sissel Tolaas, a synthetic biologist, learned that microscopic ecosystems inside the human body are often very similar to the bacteria that makes cheese possible. So, with the cooperation of Stanford University and the University of Edinburgh, they followed this information to its natural conclusion: a product called Selfmade, which is “human cheese.”

Weird Invention: The Stores Have Eyes

A trip to the supermarket is stressful enough, and that’s not even counting the body-scanning cameras checking you out while you try to pick out a toilet brush.

Tesco, a chain of grocery and gas station/convenience stores in the U.K., wants to make sure that you’re receiving full access to all of the products you might want to purchase. How? By using body-scanning cameras to scan customers, and then bombard them with customized advertisements. The system is being tested at all 450 Tesco convenience stores, and if successful, it will be installed in the company’s supermarkets.

How to Turn Down the Volume on the Entire World

Quieter living through chemistry.

There’s nothing worse than trying to concentrate on a very important project (like, say, a blog post) while struggling to tune out loud neighbors. If you live or work in an area with heavy traffic or other types of noise pollution, you’ve likely found yourself wishing you could grab a remote control and turn down the volume on the world outside your window.

Weird Invention: Here Comes the Fake Sun

A low-tech/high-tech cure for the winter blues for a city that is is cut off from direct sunlight for five to six months a year.

As the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, a little sunshine can be hard to come by. It’s especially true in Rjukan, a small town in Norway. Because of a nearby, imposing mountain chain, the area doesn’t receive any direct sunlight from September until March.

Seven months of near darkness can get anybody down, as well as deprived of Vitamin D. Fortunately for the residents of Rjukan, there’s a high-tech cure for the wintertime blues.

Nearly seven months of that kind of gloom can get anybody down, even Vitamin D deprived Norwegians that are accustomed to harsh winters. Fortunately for the residents of Rjukan, there’s a solution. At a cost of 5 million Norwegian Kroner (roughly $841,000 in US dollars), three 183-square foot mirrors were installed on a cliff overlooking the town. On clear days – which are unable to discern from the ground in Rjukan – the mirrors reflect the sunlight down into the town square.

Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Weird Inventions

Three Canadian Inventions You Can’t Live Without!

How have you lived this long without poop paper? Here are three Canadian inventions you can’t live without. Are we right? Or are we right?

Snow Cone Snowstorm Mask. Invented in Montreal in 1939. Picture a transparent plastic cone—sort of like a small traffic cone—on your face (the point sticking straight out from your face), with a strap that goes around the back of your head to hold it on. This, the inventor believed, would protect your face during especially bad Quebec snowstorms.

Mechanical Skirt Lifter. Invented by a woman (name unknown), in Calgary in 1890, this device was meant to aid women who wore the big poofy skirts popular in the Victorian era. The device, which was made of metal, consisted of two clips on either end of a chain. One clip attached to the skirt’s waist, the other to the hem. When a woman had to cross a muddy road, or climb some steps, or found herself in some similar situation in which her skirt hem might become dirty or be in the way, she could pull the chain and put one of its links on a hook hear the waist, thus holding up the hem of her skirt.

Weird Invention: Dumb USB Gadgets

Pet Rock: The item that became synonymous with the whimsical and gullible 1970s has returned! Only now, it’s high-tech. In the spirit of the original, it does nothing; plugging it into your computer’s USB port doesn’t even draw any power away.

Squirming Tentacle: People will think an octopus or the fictional alien monster Cthulhu has taken control of your laptop when they see a moving tentacle coming out of a USB port. Unlike the Pet Rock, at least it moves.