Its a drizzly morning on New Yorks Upper East Side, and Rockefeller University microbiologist David Thaler is sipping a double espresso amid the retro-hippie pillows and dangling paper stars of Java Girl, a favorite haunt of the neighborhoods brainiac Nobel laureates, aging poets and famous entertainers. Thaler somehow manages to embody all three—a long, graying ponytail curling down the middle of his back, wire-frame glasses askew over expansive brown eyes, and a schnozz to rival an Einstein, Ginsberg or Allen. Thaler is one of the leading cheerleaders for a new field of biotechnology aimed at engineering the bacteria inside us to deliver drugs, destroy tumors, actively fight infection, and even vaccinate against their disease-causing kin.

It probably wouldn't seem so funny if a mountain's worth of snow were tumbling down the slope after you, but on its own, the Life Bag looks like a lock for ridiculous product of the year. In an avalanche situation, though, you pull a handle to inflate the bags, which keep you on your back, with your head up and out of the snow.

If you're buried, Snowpulse, the company that designed them, says the bags deflate and create a cavity around you, providing some breathing room. OK, so maybe they're not so funny after all.—Gregory Mone

Via Medgadget