“Overhead power lines, bridges and box trucks beware: The giant, lane-straddling bus Chinese engineers hope will someday conquer that country’s legendary traffic by swallowing it whole is one step closer to cruising over rush hours from Los Angeles to Boston. The Straddling Bus is one part monorail, one part monster truck. As the incredibly awesome illustration above shows, the extra-wide, extra-tall bus straddles two lanes of traffic, allowing passenger cars and small trucks to pass underneath.  It’s the brainchild of Song Youzhou of Shenzhen, who announced yesterday the formation of a U.S. company that will develop business links stateside. U.S. Elevated High-Speed Bus (Group) is looking for manufacturers to build the vehicle and representatives to sell it.” w/ photos

“Of the things that you could do with beer bottles, this has got to be one of the most glorious. Designer Sam Gensburg has created this special packaging for beer bottles — in this example, the adorably-named ‘Southern Bells,’ — that can be transformed into a tone-accurate xylophone. Once you’ve drunk all the beer, of course. [Click here] to discover more about this recycled polyphonic percussion set.” w/ photos

“To get to the top of the world, Petra Franklin Lahaie ushers her two young daughters and their girly bikes through a set of heavy bronze doors, greets the 24-hour elevator operator in the Prussian blue uniform, rides up 35 stories past mostly vacant office suites, debarks next to an observation deck and Chinese-themed banquet room, passes through a portal marked ‘private residence,’ climbs two stories into a neo-gothic pyramid and enters a penthouse apartment. She pauses to scoop up an armful of scattered toys, then mounts another flight of stairs, crosses the living room, circles 38 steps on a cast-iron stairwell (“Look the other way,” she may call to someone below as she gathers her billowing dress around her calves), hauls herself up 13 rungs in a narrow vertical shaft, and emerges — at last! — into a glass globe 462 feet above this city. But how did Ms. Franklin really get here? That is, how did this 46-year-old choreographer-turned-venture-capitalist-turned-no-nanny mom win a long-term lease on what may be the most extraordinary apartment in the city: the space at the top of the historic Smith Tower in Pioneer Square?” w/ photos