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ScienceTech

The (almost) all-plastic 3D-printed Liberator pistol was announced by Defense Distributed late last week, but with the gun’s blueprints and construction details now live on the company’s own DefCAD design site, it’s also released a video taken during its testing. In front of a Forbes onlooker, the clip apparently shows a 0.380 caliber bullet being fired by the Liberator.

The only non-plastic part of the design is a common nail, which acts as the firing pin. Defense Distributed’s founder Cody Wilson has worked over a year on the project, apparently citing the one-shot pistols that were designed to be air-dropped over France during World War II as inspiration — also called the Liberator. This modern version is, however, formed of 15 components made inside a Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer. The video of the test shot and more details are right after the break.
Filed under: Science, Alt
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Source: Defense Distributed (YouTube), Forbes, DefCAD

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MiscNewsScienceTech

Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.

The start of May saw an abundance of groundbreaking stories about flora and fauna — first, there was the heartwarming story of Naki’o, the first dog to be fitted with four prosthetic limbs after losing his legs to frostbite. Then we were surprised and slightly disturbed to learn that scientists in Uruguay used genetic engineering to create glowing sheep with genes from the Aequorea victoria jellyfish. In other illuminating news, a team of bioengineers in San Francisco is using genes from fireflies to create plants that glow. And the Institute of Space Systems in Germany announced plans to use Heliospectra’s new LED lighting systems to conduct research into growing vegetables in outer space.
Filed under: Misc, Science
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Sub-Absolute Zero Achieved for First Time by Scientists

Science

Using quantum gas composed of potassium atoms scientists have managed to reach sub-absolute zero temperature. The temperature dropped a “few billionths of a Kelvin” under absolute-zero with a magnetic field tweak.

“This suddenly shifts the atoms from their most stable, lowest-energy state to the highest possible energy state, before they can react. It’s like walking through a valley, then instantly finding yourself on the mountain peak,” said Ludwig Maximilian University’s Ulrich Schneider.

The