In an article published Wednesday in Nature, researches in Japan reported the successful passing of a transgene from a primate to its offspring, marking a milestone in this type of research. In the study the scientists injected a number of marmoset embryos with a manufactured virus which contained a gene that would be inserted into the animals DNA, making their feet glow green under ultraviolet light.

Typically a battery functions with lithium ions flowing between a negatively charged anode, usually graphite, and the positively charged cathode, usually cobalt oxide or lithium iron phosphate. But three years ago, an MIT team reported that it had engineered viruses that could build an anode by coating themselves with cobalt oxide and gold and self-assembling to form a nanowire. The “virus batteries” have the energy capacity and power performance similar to rechargeable batteries.

The prototype battery is a coin battery, but the idea is that cell and larger batteries could be made from this process and that one day it will power cars, boats and everything else. As it stands right now, it can go at least 100 charges before performance goes down. That will change of course.

Scotch tape is pretty damn versatile. Right up there with duct tape. But I bet you never thought about scotch tape creating X-rays. . Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have discovered that peeling Scotch tape in a vacuum tube generates X-rays. How they came up with the idea of putting scotch tape in a vacuum in the first place is anyone’s guess.

You can imagine their surprise that a 99 cent roll of tape can give you an X-ray. They managed to develop a slightly blurry X-ray image of a finger using the tape. They think that further research can yield a low cost/low power X-ray machine for use in areas of the world where the money and electricity aren’t available for standard machines.

If ghostbusting is your thing, you’ll want to check out this K2 EMF meter before you get slimed. EMF (electromagnetic field) energy is similar to what is emitted by your gadgets. The device is simple and portable and will have you catching ghosts so easily that you’ll hear them cursing you out when you review your audio recorder for EVP(Electronic voice phenomenon).

The device has 5 LEDs for different levels of EMF. It even knows the difference between EMF emitted by you and your gadgets and by paranormal spookery. EMF from gadgets will light up the LEDs and remain steady. Paranormal activity makes the meter spike since spooks emit a pulsating EMF energy. An otherworldly specter will cause all 5 LEDs to light up and flash. I can attest to this, since I have one and it did the exact same thing when my mother-in-law came over.