This one just seems cool to me (the engineer), when you think about it. One of the most critical (and sleek) components of the Japanese bullet train - the nose cone - is still hand forged all these years later.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...02868.html
Goes to show that tech sometimes can take you only so far.
And more coolness (not that I planned it this way - just so happens that a high school friend is quoted in this) - you can shut down the morals of someone by directing magnetic pulses at a specific part of the brain. Among other things you can do to the brain or that it can do to adjust to situations.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/75404...brain.html
That article is really not the best description of the study. They supplied a series of situations, eg:
A: Jane intends to put sugar in her friend's coffee and puts sugar.
B: Jane intends to put sugar in her friend's coffee and puts poison.
C: Jane intends to put poison in her friend's coffee and puts sugar.
D: Jane intends to put poison in her friend's coffee and puts poison.
Most people agree that A and B are moral actions and C and D immoral. The magnet-scrambled brains think A and C are moral and B and D immoral. The Telegraph article (and most others I can find) glosses over situation B. I got into a discussion of this study elsewhere and tend to think that more likely than scrambling the morals of the individuals, it affected their ability to understand abstract risk. If I can ever find an article that describes it better, I'll post it, but I'm not having any luck as of now.