If the world of Star Trek were real Spot Cool Stuff would probably spend the majority of our time in a holodeck—a computer generated world fantasy world in which everything feels real. So it is probably for the best that holodecks are fictional. Or, at least, fictional at the moment. Researchers at Tokyo University have come up with a technology that makes holodecks a step closer to reality—”touchable” holograms.

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Obtaining one will set you back $25 million—cheap considering that a single module can power about 20,000 homes

A remote town in Africa, an automobile manufacturing plant and the Smith family next door are among the entities that may soon be able to join the United States, Japan and France on the list of those who have a nuclear power plant.

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To astronomers, Arecibo is the world’s largest radio telescope and one of mankind’s preeminent tools for probing the heavens. To movie buffs, Arecibo is where Jodi Foster first met Matthew McConaughey in Contact and where Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond chased down a villain in GoldenEye. To Caribbean travelers, Arecibo is a great travel destination to mix into your diving, shopping and beach lounging (particularly if you are traveling with children).

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No, we didn’t mis-categorize this post. Onions and all sports drinks containing electrolytes (such as Gatorade) are indeed iPod accessories.

And yes, we mean a real, actual, everyday onion. This isn’t some sort of clever reference to the humor magazine The Onion.

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When we were seven years old, Spot Cool Stuff explored a natural history museum with one of those personal audio tour devices our parents were kind enough to rent for us. The way it worked was: Each exhibit in the museum let out a low level radio transmission. Stand facing, say, the museum’s skeleton of dinosaur bones and the audio tour device would tell you about them. Of course, our seven year old self did not understand the technology of it. We thought the audio tour device was some sort of magic creation that could give you a little insight into any object on earth.

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