Husband ‘cut up wife Emma Ward with saw’

A man murdered and dismembered his wife at their home near Norwich then told police she was missing after leaving him for another man, a jury has heard.

Nicky Ward attacked Emma Ward in their bedroom and cut up her body in the bathroom, prosecuting counsel said.

No body has been found, but jurors heard that evidence revealed she had been killed by Mr Ward between April and June 2010.

Mr Ward denies murder, at Norwich Crown Court — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Dry copper kills bacteria on contact

Metallic copper surfaces kill microbes on contact, decimating their populations, according to a paper in the February 2011 issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. They do so literally in minutes, by causing massive membrane damage after about a minute’s exposure, says the study’s corresponding author, Gregor Grass of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This is the first study to demonstrate this mechanism of bacteriocide — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Café Wall Illusion Table by ExoticTiles

This table is made from hand-cut and hand-glazed trapezoidal tiles. It comprises four concentric circles (believe it or not!) around a central disc. The way the brain processes contrast information causes one to perceive the circles as narrowing. Each circle contradicts the ones beside it. See wikipedia for more info on the illusion.

The table is 36 1/4″ in diameter, edged in aluminum and weighs 44 lbs. It has a detachable wrought iron base that can be replaced to transform it from a coffee table to a kitchen or dining table — via Etsy

Simple life Manhattan: a 90-square-foot microstudio

By choosing a studio that measures just 12 feet by 7 feet, Felice Cohen can afford to live in Manhattan’s Upper West Side where apartments rent for an average of $3,600 per month. She pays just over $700 for her 90-square-foot microstudio. After a bit of adjustment she now loves living smaller, simpler and cozier — via *faircompanies

Autistic brains ‘organised differently’ say scientists

People with autism use their brains differently from other people, which may explain why some have extraordinary abilities to remember and draw objects in detail, according to new research.

University of Montreal scientists say in autistic people, the brain areas that deal with visual information are highly developed.

Other brain areas are less active — via redwolf.newsvine.com

US Government’s ‘Pirate’ Domain Seizures Failed Miserably

The seizure of file-sharing related domain names by the US Government in recent months have stirred up a lot of controversy. Despite heavy critique from various sides, the responsible authorities justified their actions and claimed that it is an effective tool to clamp down on Internet piracy. However, those who take a good look at the end result soon notice that reality paints a different picture — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Seoul tears down an urban highway and the city can breathe again

As a sustainability-loving transportation planner, I was thrilled to learn that Dr. Kee Yeon Hwang would be visiting Vancouver and talking about the project that has made Seoul, Korea a legend in urban planning circles: the Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project.

What he and his colleagues accomplished — tearing down a busy, elevated freeway, re-daylighting the river that had been buried beneath it, and creating a spectacular downtown green space, all in under two and a half years — is nothing short of amazing, not because it actually worked (there was plenty of evidence from other cities to suggest that it could), but because they were able to get public support for it. It’s the stuff urban planners dream about — not to mention a timeline for a major freeway project that would make Seattle drool.

I went to the lecture ready to record all the juicy stats I was sure he was going to throw out: peak hour traffic flows, mode shares, level of service, lane miles. What I got instead was a story told not in numbers and data, but a story about people and the profound impact the project had on the city

— via redwolf.newsvine.com

Cut Wine Bottle Cups and Glasses

These bad boys had me at Helvetica. I love this tutorial from Plastolux on how to cut wine bottles into tumblers. I especially love that he researched a vintage craft tool and gave his take on how best to use it – I’ve often bought old kits at thrift stores and had trouble using them — via CRAFT

Chang Jiang 750

There are quite a few motorcycle manufacturers with murky histories, but few are as clouded by the passage of time as Chang Jiang. The lineage of this bike can be traced back to the 1938 BMW R71, which was copied by the Soviets and released in 1942 as the IMZ M72. Come the mid-50s, the Soviets sold the tooling for the M72 to China, and a few years later the Chang Jiang 750 appeared. The motor is an air-cooled 746cc boxer—in true BMW style—and this particular bike belongs to a motorcycle tour operation called Shanghai Sideways, run by Thomas Chabrieres. According to the website, Shanghai has the biggest number of Art Deco buildings in the world; what better way to visit this gigantic museum than in a 1930s sidecar motorbike? Quite — via Bike EXIF

Patent Watch: StunRay Disables with a Flash of Light

Incapacitating light beam: The suspect is going for his gun, and the police officer doesn’t want to shoot. The founders of a company called Genesis Illumination hope police officers will soon be reaching for a StunRay instead of a gun or Taser. They claim their newly patented device can render an assailant helpless with a brief flash of high-intensity light. It works by overloading the neural networks connected to the retina, saturating the target’s world in a blinding pool of white light. It’s the inverse of blindness—the technical term is a loss of contrast sensitivity, says Todd Eisenberg, the engineer who invented the device. The typical response is for the person to freeze. Law enforcement can easily walk up and apprehend [the suspect] — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Tomes’ time might be up at Newport Beach library

In a sign of the times, Newport Beach is considering closing the city’s original library and replacing it with a community center that would offer all the same features — except for the books.

Instead of a reference librarian, patrons would be greeted by a kiosk equipped with video-calling software that would allow them to speak with employees elsewhere. And books — when ordered — would be dropped off at a locker for pickup.

The proposed bookless library is a reflection of how both the economy and a shift in visitors’ habits are forcing city libraries to redefine their services — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Man discovers rich deposit under outback dunny

A geologist sitting on a bush toilet in a remote part of the Northern Territory has discovered a potentially lucrative mineral discovered a potentially lucrative mineral deposit.

Rum Jungle Resources chief executive David Muller said the company was already looking for phosphate on a site near Barrow Creek, north of Alice Springs, but it was not expecting to find anything of value where it had set up its camp toilet — via redwolf.newsvine.com