Here's What's Awesome: Fast Bikes, Low Notes

Word of Mouth is on the air Monday through Thursday, so on Fridays we'll bring you more WoM goodness online, with a new feature we're calling "Here's What's Awesome." We'll share a handful of links that caught our eyes during the week; we hope you'll share even more links in the comments.

Off we go!

*How low can you go: Mari Kimura plays “haunting low notes” that evoke a cello - only she plays a violin, which is not acoustically capable of playing cello notes. (NoiseAddicts)

*Number munchers: A new study from the University of Oregon suggests worms use calculus to find food. Or, more precisely, worms track food sources by the rate of change in what they're tasting. If they sense more food in a certain direction, they're more likely to move in that direction. (LiveScience)

*Does everyone stare the way I do: A new DVD set in Japan features women staring at the screen, saying and doing virtually nothing. The producers say this is a way to encourage men with limited social skills to get used to interacting with people. But the "people" on these DVD's are models and Japanese media personalities, so the goal is as much to make shy men into fans as much as social animals. (clast)

*Pedal power: High gas prices have many people rethinking just how much vehicle they need. That's meant a big increase in scooter sales. In Europe and China, electric bikes like the Giant Twist Freedom DX have been a way to travel greener without sacrificing much mobility. Now the producers of "pedelecs" are hoping to popularize them in the US: (ScientificAmerican)

*It's all Pepe, all the time: In Haiti, "pepe" is one of several terms used to refer to secondhand clothes sent from abroad, mostly from the US. The short documentary Secondhand (Pepe) shows that even something as seemingly simple as sending extra clothes to Haiti, a country with huge levels of poverty, has unexpected implications for Haiti's economy, environment and culture. (inhabitat)

Now it's your turn: share an awesome trend, invention, piece of art or question with us in the comments.

(Photo by arquera)