Norm Cassian's Home Page

Natural disasters often occur in the world's most remote regions, where emergency care is impossible to deliver at the level necessary to save the lives of the survivors. Or as in the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, the devastation is so complete as to incapacitate many hospitals. Kukli Han has designed a fully-functioning, mobile hospital that can be delivered via helicopter, within hours of disaster, to even the remotest regions.

I'm no connoisseur, but I imagine most wine experts consume wine that costs more per bottle than the cost of the common corkscrew used to open that bottle. At my house the typical wine on the bill of fare retails for between $4 and $10. My fancy Rabbit corkscrew runs about five times more expensive than the wine. Now meet Sveid, who manufactures a $72,000 corkscrew that deftly handles wines from $3 to $160,000.

A Salt Lake City-based ad agency has figured out a way to make work more exciting, and cool: Make it illegal for employees to wear pants to work. The conversation in the photo, "What d'ya say we head to that meeting, Boss?"

It's hot, and food is getting more expensive. The solution? Buy a new computer, of course! Designer Omer Deutsch merges the fields of technology with biology, creating Seconday Growth, a computer that uses water to cool itself down while also providing an innovative way to increase your yield of fresh garden vegetables or decorative ivy. Perhaps a flowering wisteria would be nice?

How has rampant computer use, particularly emloyed in the search for esoterica and trivia, changed the way our brain retrieves, collects and stores information? Should we be concerned that a computer named Watson wallopped human Jeopardy champions? How did I get here, where are my car keys and do you have a good recipe for lemon marangue pie? New research by a Columbia University scientist studies The Google Effect and how it impacts whether we store information or simply remember where to find it.

Have you ever tried to drive a nail or open a beer with your iPhone? Be honest now. Up until now, it couldn't be done. While the hammer app may be a ways off yet, the bottle opener app has arrived. The Opena, an iPhone case that flawlessly performs this most important of functions, may well convince this Blackberry user to switch to an iPhone. Can you beer me now?

The coming democratization of the 3-D printer promises to turn every home into a self-manufactured, manufacturing facility, fabricating your food and furniture, your footwear and your fake limbs. There are even plans for a printer that can print itself.

In one of the legendary scenes in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the caterpillar, after exhaling his hookah, informs the young wanderer that, “One side will make you grow taller... and the other side will make you grow shorter.” Alice asks, “The other side of what?” “THE MUSHROOM, OF COURSE!” exclaims the caterpillar. And now we learn that the inside of the mushroom will make you grow stronger, healthier, and likely help you to live better, longer.

The opening scene of George Jetson commuting to work in his aerocar, complete with glass dome and airbrakes, seems like a logical solution to the modern problems of traffic jams, potholes and road maintenance. Imagine getting to your destination as the crow flies instead of where the road lies. The Hoverbike promises to fulfill those animated sci-fi images of how we should travel in the modern era.

As the Country & Western song goes, “It’s five-o’clock somewhere.” But exactly where to go at five-o'clock? Chicago-based SceneTap has developed an eponymous new mobile application that no urban cowboy or hip barhopper will want to leave home without.