One of medical sciences’ great mysteries come from those that have lost a limb by some method (explosion, diabetes, animal attack), but yet still feel the arm or leg actually there. The phenomenon is called Phantom Limb Syndrome and affects many amputees long after their surgeries. ...

I like used games. They are cheaper than buying the original and I can see if I really like playing them without putting out the full retail price. Plus I feel a lot better about buying a game at $50 when I know I can return it my local GameStop and get some credit back towards the latest adventure. But if the rumor that was circulating around the floor at CES 2012 is true, that may not be possible on the Xbox 720. And that wasn’t the only speculation about Microsoft’s next generation game machine. ...

Coming in just over a week, Kinect for Windows, Microsoft hopes, will create a firestorm of original ideas and concepts that will drive a whole new market for them. After all, uses for the Kinect even before this official version have been widespread in the PC market thanks to reverse engineered open source drivers. ...

We haven’t checked out the hacker scene in a bit, so we thought we’d see what’s up in the world of the science in this edition of cool uses.

Just about every movie or TV show of the future has a robotic butler or maid that serves the family (hopefully without killing them). Whether it was Rosie from Jetsons or those creepy guys from iRobot, the idea of having a mechanical man there to cook your breakfast and clean up after that long party while you sleep is very appealing. We haven’t quite got to that point yet, but thanks to the Kinect, researchers are one step closer to that goal. ...