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Agar.io brings massively multiplayer games to the petri dish
Most massively multiplayer online games take place in epic fantasy worlds or the distant future, but one of the latest sensations takes place on a much, much smaller scale. Agar.io pits thousands of players against each other in a web-based petri dish, where each gamer represents a cell. Your only real goal is to grow larger than everyone else by swallowing other cells and dodging your bigger rivals. It sounds simple, but it can get very hectic -- and it's a good abstraction of the fierce survival-of-the-fittest competition that you sometimes see on the microscopic level.
One Shots: Chilling out
Is it time for those fall clothes to come out? In some areas, yes! For the rest of us still dealing with heat, we can always escape to comforting air conditioning and chilly, picturesque climes such as the one in the Guild Wars image we have for today's One Shots. This picture of a lovely, frosted path comes to us from Agar, who stumbled across this area recently while out exploring. He writes in to explain: "After so many years playing Guild Wars, I still find beautiful places I've never seen before. This screenshot was taken while I was vanquishing. Gotta add more stuff to my Hall of Monuments before Guild Wars 2 comes out." We're all about MMOs, but we know we don't have tons of time to get screenshots in every single game out there. That's where you come in! Send in a screenshot of your favorite MMO to us here at oneshots@massively.com. Be sure to include your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing. We'll post it here on Massively and give you the credit! %Gallery-85937%
Future microbes could probe for aircraft stress points
A team of MIT researchers has identified microbes that -- with a little genetic engineering -- could highlight stress points in aircraft wings. The microbes produce certain proteins that bond to metal alloys that form at the stress points: the modified microbes will then emit light when the metal is stressed, thereby alerting the pilot and/or freaking out the passengers. Before we start seeing Jumbos with wings covered in agar jelly, the team still has to find a way of working around the issue of dirt and grime -- and presumably how to stop the gunk from slipping off the wing. Other recent innovations that MIT researchers have brought to the field of "industrial microbiology" include creating a battery out of cobalt oxide secreting microbes and a microbe that can split water with sunlight, with future research proposals to look into creating a microbe that can produce particles that make up solar cells. The future: it's full of stars agar!
