flowers

Tiny crystal flowers bloom in a beaker

When you think of the word "crystal," you think, perhaps, of wedges of quartz stone, ice crystals, and salt -- not organic flowing forms or flowers. But by manipulating chemical gradients in a beaker of fluid, Harvard postdoctoral fellow Wim L. Noorduin has managed to control the growth of barium carbonate crystals to form very controlled sculptures of flowers, with petals, stems, and leaves.

How the crystal forms depends on the mixture of chemicals in a solution. As the chemical gradients react, the pH can change, causing the crystals to grow away from or toward the gradient, enabling Noorduin to coax the forms into leaves radiating outward, a ling, thin stem, or the petals of the flower head. … Read more

Impossible-to-kill plant and other Mother's Day gifts

The trouble with holidays that fall on a different day every year is they sneak up on you. At least that's how I rationalize my lack of preparation. So consider yourself warned, fellow slackers. Mother's Day is May 12 this year, and on behalf of moms everywhere, I suggest you start planning.

First, let's get something straight. I appreciate the standard, go-to gifts as much as the next mom, but nothing screams "I bought this 5 minutes ago" than flowers or a box of chocolates. Don't phone it in, people! Mother's Day may … Read more

Review: Track Web sites and pages for changes with SunFlower for Mac

Keeping track of the latest updates on all of your favorite Web sites can be a daunting task. Sunflower for Mac tries to simplify this for you. It is a free application that takes snapshots of specific Web pages over time and compares them to a registry of stored images to allow for easy tracking of any updates or changes that occur on these pages.

SunFlower for Mac is easy to install and set up. It offers many features that allow for customization of how the application takes and stores the snapshots it analyzes. A split pane window shows Web … Read more

Make e-books with ReFlower

Most e-readers will open PDFs, but they don't present them as nicely as you might like. ReFlower will quickly edit any PDF into a document that looks much nicer on an e-reader. You don't have much control over the product, but you will end up with something that is easier to read.

The download seems to be tailored to Amazon's Kindle brand of e-readers. That makes sense, since they are the most popular and can be temperamental with non-native formats. However, a little more flexibility would be a welcome addition. It would also be nice if ReFlower … Read more

Click and Grow lets you benignly neglect your plants

These days a lot of life is programmable. But as an avid gardener, I thought that surely nurturing seeds into little green shoots and then full-fledged fruits and flowers would require a nondigital green digit for years to come.

I was wrong. Plants, it turns out, can be activated.

A battery-powered planter pot called Click and Grow out of Estonia lets you grow real, living plants almost without lifting a finger. Even the vernacular around gardening comes fully updated -- sowing a seed can now be described as "inserting a cartridge," watering the soil is "refilling the … Read more

Let us pray (and play): Church service includes video game

Put down the hymnal and pass the PlayStation. A British cathedral plans to incorporate a video game into worship services this Sunday.

At the Exeter Cathedral in Devon, England, the congregation will collaboratively play the PS3 game Flower, passing the Sony controller around until the first level is completed.

Developer ThatGameCompany calls the game a "video game version of a poem." In it, players guide a flower petal through environments that swing between the pastoral and the chaotic, and in doing so, cause the onscreen world to change. Sounds a lot more contemplative than Call of Duty. … Read more

Eat to win!

Munch Time is a reasonably entertaining physics-based arcade puzzler starring (yet another) cute cartoon animal. While most of the gameplay is derivative of similar, earlier games, Munch Time does offer up a relatively interesting twist with its tongue-swinging shtick.

You play as Munch, a photogenic chameleon, as he searches for his lunch on a series of increasingly complex levels. Munch can move across the ground with a tap, but his preferred method of locomotion is with the looping swing of his adhesive tongue, lunging from flower to flower by tapping on them. This requires some timing and momentum management to … Read more

HP hires new VP to oversee IT

Hewlett-Packard has made its first major executive hire under new CEO Meg Whitman.

The company announced today that it's hired John Hinshaw to fill the new role of executive vice president for global technology and business processes. That long title means he'll oversee the information technology and administrative groups, be responsible for procuring services, and manage all of the company's business processes.

Reporting directly to Whitman, Hinshaw will join HP on November 15 and also take a seat on the executive council.

The 41-year-old Hinshaw hails from Boeing, where he was vice president and general manager for … Read more

Web finds new 'Shut Up' meme in Royal Wedding

You are, no doubt, catching up on your sleep after getting up in the middle of the night to watch all of the Royal Wedding.

You will have enjoyed your favorite moments: admiring the slimness of the bride, the baldness of the groom, or the wonderful joy of the cartwheeling clergyman.

However, the Web seems to have spoken with a resounding definitiveness and taken one small image of one small girl and turned it into a meme for the ages. Or at least the week.

The picture in question involves neither kissing nor hugging. Instead, it is one small section … Read more

Digital City 95: AMD kills ATI, Apple event predictions, and video game pottery

We're down a man this week, as Joey calls in with back problems--but the rest of us are on hand to discuss this week's hot topics. The hottest of which may be Apple's upcoming September 1 press event, and we all weigh in with allegedly thoughtful predictions on what new iPods and other gadgets may show up.

Then it's time for a moment of silence as we mourn the death of the ATI brand, with its corporate parent reportedly planning to tag the company's future graphics cards with the AMD brand name instead.

Among the wackier technology antics we look at this week--a collection of pottery figures inspired by the hit casual game Plants vs. Zombies, and a quick visit to a Chicago coffee shop with a pretty sweet pop culture collectible--a full-size model Delorean car from the "Back to the Future" film series.