Gilpin Family whisky is a new single malt whisky made from the urine of diabetics. Creator James Gilpin doesn’t sell the stuff, but rather gives away bottles as a public health statement. From the product page:

Sugar heavy urine excreted by diabetic patients is now being utilized for the fermentation of high-end single malt whisky for export. The Whisky market is growing faster then any other alcoholic beverage worldwide. With a prevalent genetic weakness being exposed in the northern hemisphere leading to a sharp rise in type two diabetes, economists have found a new exportable commodity to exploit and are keen to capitalize on this resource quickly.

Large amounts of sugar are excreted on a daily basis by type-two diabetic patients especially amongst the upper end of our aging population. As a result of this diabetic patients toilets often have unusual scale build up in the basin due and rapid mould growths as the sugar put into the system acts as nutrients for mould and bacteria growth. Is it plausible to suggest that we start utilizing our water purification systems in order to harvest the biological resources that our elderly already process in abundance?

via: submitter

Gilpin Family Whiskey from urine (JamesGilpin.com) “Whizky, world’s first bio whisky aged with granny whiz“

How astronauts see Hurricane Earl. This image acquired by NASA two days ago:

The relatively placid view from the International Space Station belied the potent forces at work in Hurricane Earl as it hovered over the tropical Atlantic Ocean on August 30. With maximum sustained winds of 135 miles (215 kilometers) per hour, the storm was classified as a category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale as it passed north of the Virgin Islands.

Scandicraft has developed the ScanCam 200, a perimeter security system that features a mini quadrotor helicopter drone that launches from a mailbox-like hangar in order to do surveillance flights around your property.

When there is a security breach and a sensor is triggered, personnel at an operations center, situated anywhere in the world, can launch the drone with a mouse click. Instantly, the hangar opens and the automatic take-off procedure starts.Within maximum one minute the drone is the air and live video is streamed on the screen at the operation center. The MD4-200 flies by waypoint navigation, scanning the perimeter from the air. It then returns to a predefined landing site and lands autonomously.

via Suicide Bots

Over at Instructables, Eric Paulos and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University’s Living Environments Lab explain how to make illuminated balloons that change color based on the local air quality. Each balloon is outfitted with a tri-color LED, tiny air quality sesnsor, rechargeable battery, and a few other inexpensive components. I’d love to encounter these as I walk through the city at night! Air Quality Balloons

This is mesmerizing.

Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto’s “1945-1998″ is an animated map showing the 2,053 nuclear explosions that took place around the world during the 20th century, from the detonations at Alamogordo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to the tests conducted by India and Pakistan in 1998.

Pink Tentacle: Animated map of nuclear explosions, 1945-1998

Two dinosaurs being taking for a walk in Australia, a promo for the “Walking With Dinosaurs” world tour.

via The Next Web

David Choe talks about how David Fincher hired artists to recreate the art that he painted in the Facbook offices.

photo by Fred R. Conrad

Construction workers at the World Trade Center site in Manhattan have unearthed an 18th century ship that has been buried for over 200 years.

via NY Times City Room

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull – May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

Sean Stiegemeier, who created the video embedded above, writes,

So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better. But the flights to get over took forever as expected (somewhat). Four days after leaving I finally made it, but the weather was terrible for another four. Just before leaving it got pretty good for about a day and a half and this is what I managed to get

.

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull – May 1st and 2nd, 2010 (vimeo)

At long last the future has arrived!

Martin Jetpack is selling the world’s first commercially available jetpack for $86,000.

via TechRadar