Like my period-rich, tough, dynamic wording of the title of this feature? This is science with balls. Science with machismo. Science that has to stand three feet back from the urinal or it will shatter.

This week, we have something that is surprisingly edible, the most fucking Michael Bay ready piece of technology you will see today, possibly the coolest scar ever, and growing diseased brains in a jar.

For science, of course. And not just because it sounds like the perfect thing to cackle over while you rub your hands together in fiendish glee in your secret underground laboratory.

And what better way to punctaute that thought than with a bolt of lightning?

The Lichtenberg Man

I am not one hundred percent sure that this is truly what this Reddit link says it is, but according to Reddit, the following is a picture of the scar that some dude got from getting hit by lightning.

I mean, how likely is it that getting hit by lightning would give you a picture of lightning on your arm? Well, it’s not quite as ridiculous as it seems.

If it’s legit, then that is an example of a living Lichtenberg Figure, which are figures created in materials by electrical discharges that, lo and behold, look pretty much like fork lightning does in the sky.

You can even create these neato figures in soft plastic if you have the time and the patience to mess around with the two for a while.

So it could be that this guy has an actual Lichtenberg Figure on his arm from his brush with death.

Or, he could have done it himself with a pin.

Either way, it’s an awesome scar with a killer story and probably gets him laid.

So, happy ending(s) either way!

Food Coloring 2.0

Now this is a fun little invention : edible spray paint.

OK, I admit, put that way, it sounds gross, but that’s the way the article describes it. I prefer to think of it as “sprayable food coloring”, but that is just me.

Anyhow… so what does such a thing, whatever you call it, look like?

It looks like this :

Is that not bizarrely wonderful and wonderfully bizarre? But for sheer chic, elegant plate appeal, you have to go with this pic :

Hard to believe that’s still food, huh? But it totally is. The spray paint is as edible and harmless as regular food coloring, and yet, it can make things all shiny!

Technically, it comes in four colors : gold, silver, red, and blue. But really, who cares about red and blue? We can make food that color already!

I admit, I have an odd fascination with food that does not look like food, so I might be biased toward this product a tad.

But just think of the eye-popping effects you could achieve for your fancy restaurant with this stuff!

Growing Your Brain

Scientists in Edinburgh have come up with a way to grow brain cells from the skin cells of people with various mental disorders in the lab, thus making it a lot easier to get them for study without having to get them from animals or cadavers.

This, to me, seems like a fairly amazing leap in stem cell technology. We are up to turning skin cells into brain cells already? That is huge, huge news! If we can grow new brain cells with someone’s own DNA in them, we might just be able to “patch” brain injuries that were previously completely untreatable.

And heck, we might even be able to give people extra brain capacity. Recent revelations about brain plasticity have made it clear that the brain can route its activity around an injury, reassigning rasks and resuming function almost seamlessly.

So now there’s talk that perhaps the brain could use that same flexibility to learn to address and use extra lab grown brain matter incorporated into its structure for the purposes of, quite literally, expanding your mind.

I am not sure if that would make you any smarter. But it might become necessary if we start expanding human lifespan past the point at which our mental address table can handle it.

We might need the extra memory space.

Fire And Iron

Finally, to finish of this week’s entry with a very big bang, we have this story about the American Navy’s latest railgun weapon.

What is so cool about that?

Watch this clip, and you will know.

It belches fire like a dragon and throws what looks like a futuristic anvil at speeds of up to 5,500 MPH with the combined energy of 32 one ton cars hitting a brick wall at 100 MPH, that’s what’s so cool.

I mean, is that the most Michael Bay invention ever, or what? Fire. Speed. Destruction. Baygasm.

Check out the future plans for this thing :

The eventual goal is a ship-mounted 20- to 32-megajoule weapon that shoots a distance of 50 to 100 nautical miles. It shoots projectiles using electricity instead of chemicals, which would theoretically be safer because you would not have to tote dangerous gunpowder on a ship. It uses an electric field to accelerate a metal conductor between two rails and launch a projectile.

I love that it is a purely kinetic weapon. No payload, no propellant, no guidance, no need even to rifle the barrel. Just a hunk of metal moving at speeds that MAKE AIR CATCH ON FIRE.

That is pretty freaking awesome in my books. I wonder if it creates a sonic boom? Not to mention the shockwave created by pushing the air ahead of it so damned fast.

Is it wrong to find a weapon of death this cool?

Well, that’s all for this week, folks! More cool science when next we meet! Ciao!