Brooklyn-based startup Air Co. claims to have created the world’s first “carbon negative vodka” by capturing carbon dioxide captured from the air and using a solar powered machine to turn it into ethanol.

According to Air Co. co-founder Gregory Constantine, each bottle of carbon negative vodka sucks a pound of carbon dioxide from the air in its entire life cycle, or as much as eight full-grown trees. Unlike traditional vodka, which is made by fermenting starch-rich grains like wheat, or potatoes, in a process that can create around 13 pounds of greenhouse gases, Air Co. vodka is made only with water and carbon dioxide, and its production process actually removes carbon dioxide from the air.

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Onion hardly seems like the best vegetable to base a soft drink on, but Onionade doesn’t contain the kind of onion you’re used to, but a new type that not only doesn’t make you cry when you chop it, but it unusually sweet as well.

Back in 2016 we reported on one of the most interesting inventions to come out of Japan in the past few years – a tear-free onion named “Smile Ball”. Developed over a period of 14 years by scientists at House Foods Group, Smile Ball onions release almost no tear-inducing compounds when chopped or eaten raw, and have a much sweeter taste than regular onions. Available in Japanese grocery stores for the past two years, Smile Balls have been marketed mainly as tear-free alternatives to the common onion, but now its producers want to promote the vegetable’s sweetness and pleasant flavor as well. And what better way to do that than by producing an onion-based drink called Onionade?

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A team of researchers from the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Nanjing University recently unveiled an innovative display that is thin and flexible enough to be worn on skin, like a type of temporary tattoo.

Having to check a stopwatch to see your time while running, or looking at your smartphone screen to see who is calling may soon be things of the past thanks to a new and revolutionary human-machine interface that allows information to be displayed directly on human skin. Called alternating-current electroluminescent (ACEL) display, this new invention consists of an electroluminescent layer made of light-emitting microparticles sandwiched between two flexible silver nanowire electrodes. The ceramic nanoparticles embedded in stretchable polymer make this ACEL display brighter than any other, allowing it be clearly visible even in a well-lit room.

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Called an “e-broom”, Toyota’s latest mobility platform looks like a futuristic witch’s broom that users can ride to get around. Apparently, quidditch fans found the concept very intriguing.

Unfortunately, Toyota’s e-broom isn’t yet able to make quidditch players airborne, like in the popular Harry Potter books, but they are capable of propelling people on the ground, as long as they are wearing roller-skates. The e-broom is meant to be ridden like a witch’s broom, only instead of relying on magic to whisk its users towards the sky, it relies on an electrical motor and a wheel at the bottom to propel its rider forward at moderate speed. It’s not as impressive as we’d like it to be, but at least it’s a step toward a real life quidditch broom.

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Developed by Spanish fashion brand Sepiia, the Ultimate Smart Shirt 3.0 is a special men’s garment that can allegedly reduce the wearer’s stress, improve blood flow and increase energy levels.

Sepiia has been developing smart clothing for years now. Its first generation garments incorporated staining-resistant fabric around the cuffs and neck, thus requiring less frequent washing, while the second generation introduced a more breathable fabric that prevented excessive perspiration and sweat patches, while also being odor resistant. For its latest generation of smart clothing, Sepiia introduced the concept of wellness, by developing a fabric that has all the characteristics of previous generations, as well as new bioceramic nanoparticles that improve the wearer’s well-being.

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Skinny Japanese men looking to get that coveted “slim and macho” look without putting in the work and breaking a sweat at the gym now achieve their goal pretty much instantly. All they have to do is put on the Super Macho T, a special undershirt that instantly gives them a buff physique.

Developed by a Japanese company named “His Company Group”, the Super Macho T features inflatable air bags that go into small pockets located around the chest and upper arm areas and visually enhance the wearers chest, biceps and triceps. The cool thing about this system is that you can inflate the air bags as much as you want, allowing you to go for an inconspicuous moderately toned look, or an absolute gym addict.

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Whether you constantly fall victim to procrastination and just can’t seem to put down your smartphone for more than 10 minutes, or you’re putting on the pounds due to an insatiable sweet tooth, you may want to invest in this “anti-temptation” safe that allows you to lock away things you love for set periods of time.

Sold as a “Kitchen Safe” on Amazon Japan, this ingenious gadget was originally designed to keep users away from stuffing their face with calorie-rich treats, but people have found it to be very effective at curbing their procrastination habits as well. One Twitter user recently posted some photos of his smartphone and Nintendo Switch controllers locked away in this thing, which apparently allowed him to focus on productive tasks.

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A 12-year-old by from Nanning, China recently won first prize at a regional science and innovation contest for creating an automatic clothes drying rack that retracts whenever it detects rain and extends again when the sky clears. The ingenious contraption impressed a lot of people, but it was the inspiration behind it that really got people talking.

Lu Jiezhen, a sixth-grade student at North-East Women’s Education Center in, Nanning, China’s Guangdong Province, came up with the idea for the automatic rain-detecting drying rack after being yelled at by his mother. One day, she had to leave the house and asked him to look after the clothes she had hung out to dry, reminding him that he was to take them inside in case it started to rain. Needless to say, the 12-year-old started playing around the house and forgot to pick up the clothes when the rain inevitably came. When his mother returned, she found the clothes soaking wet, and scolded him for disobeying her. But instead of finding excuses, Lu started thinking about a solution that would make his forgetfulness irrelevant in the future.

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Dutch inventor and businessman Henk Hanskamp has developed an ingenious toilet that collects some of the 15 to 20 liters of urine that the average cow produces in a day.

Cows aren’t regarded as the smartest creatures in the animal kingdom, but Hanskamp claims they can be taught to use the toilet. It may sound like an April Fool’s Day joke, but Dutch agricultural machinery manufacturer Hanskamp has been working on the “Cow Toilet” for the last couple of years and according to early tests it could prove a viable solution to the world’s increasingly worrisome ammonia pollution problem. While most cows require stimulation in order to use the cow toilet, some of them have gotten so used to it that they just urinate in it naturally.

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Fathers sometimes like to say that they can do anything mothers can, except give birth and breastfeed. Well, thanks to a new device developed by Japanese company Dentsu, breastfeeding babies may not be a problem for fathers in the near future.

Recently unveiled at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, the Father’s Nursing Assistant is an intriguing, if somewhat bizarre, gadget that aims to allow fathers to help out with stressful tasks usually reserved for mothers. Data shows that much of the parental stress and difficulties associated with taking care of a baby are related to feeding and sleeping, responsibilities in which fathers’ participation tends to be low. In order to get fathers more involved and relieve some of the burden off mothers, Japanese corporation Dentsu has created a wearable milk or formula tank shaped as a pair of female breasts, which allows men to breastfeed children.

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They say you can tell a lot about a person by the way they walk, but one Chinese startup has apparently developed technology that allows it to identify individuals by their gait, even if their face is covered or they have their back to the camera.

Known as “gait recognition”, the technology invented by artificial intelligence startup Watrix analyses thousands of metrics about a person’s walk, from their body shape and the angle of arm movement to their posture and whether they have a toe-in or toe-out gait. All these individual traits go into a database that the software then goes through when attempting to identify people. According to an official statement from Watrix, the accuracy rate of gait technology at the laboratory level exceeds 96 per cent.

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If you’re looking to give your backyard barbecue a macabre touch, these charcoal skulls created by Japanese artist Sekisadamu are sure to do the trick.

When Sekisadamu came up with the idea for his creepy charcoal skulls, he never really though about commercial potential. He merely wanted something cool to show off at the recently concluded Wonder Festival, in Chiba, Japan. But after posting photos of his creations on Twitter and inviting people to the festival to check them out in person, he got an overwhelming response – over 13,000 likes and almost 9,300 retweets at the time of this writing – and started contemplating the idea of making charcoal skulls for the masses. The Japanese artist has already announced that he has set up a domain name for them and begun procedures to register a trademark on them. So fire up your grill, cause charcoal skulls are coming.

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With open offices being so popular these days and distractions pretty much everywhere you look, it can be difficult to find a personal space to gather your thoughts. But with the Thought Box, a $650 cardboard and fabric box that you put over your head, you can enjoy some personal place anywhere.

The Thought Box is exactly what it sounds like – a box to help you think. Just have a seat on the included Thought Stool, put the box over your head and use the earplugs that come with it to detach from everything around you and just think. If that sounds like the kind of thing you need in your hectic life, head on over to The Form Emporium online store and order one today. Just know that you’ll have to pay £495 ($650) for it.

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Pura Still is being advertised as the first spiked water that doesn’t need bubbles to keep things interesting. It’s still, but definitely not flat as it has an alcohol content of 4.5% by volume.

Alcoholic drink brands have been hard at work trying to come up with new and enticing products for the growing number of health-conscious consumers who like to consume of bit of alcohol from time to time, but hate the calories associated with it. Pura Still is the bet of FIFCO USA, formerly North American Breweries, to capture this important part of the market. It doesn’t have the “annoying carbonated bubbles” that spiked seltzer products are known for, and contains only one gram of sugar and 90 calories. The company describes Pura Still as “the perfect way for consumers to enjoy themselves without straying from their healthy lifestyles”.

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International workspace company Spaces recently teamed up with Dutch lifestyle brand Marie-Stella-Maris to create ‘Spirit de Travail’ a fragrance that can allegedly boost productivity and make people feel more at ease in the workplace.

Productivity at work can be influenced by a variety of factors, of which smell is one of the least obvious. According to research done by Prof. Gary E. Schwartz from the University of Arizona, negative feelings like irritation, annoyance and stress can effectively be countered by fragrances that induce positive effects like happiness, relaxation and productivity. The findings of this study inspired Spaces, a company that specializes in building custom workspaces for businesses and professionals, to come up with a fragrance that both relaxes users and boosts their productivity.

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