Special Things You've Probably Never Heard About (30 pics)

1

I work in a stem cell lab. This is a liquid Nitrogen dry shipper, used to transport cryopreserved products like stem cells and vaccines in -150C.

2

A street sign cleaning vehicle, complete with soap, water, a brush and some kind of reflective wax (or something?). First time seeing one in Germany.

3

This water cleaning boat that is picking up seagrass at the marina where I work

4

A very long sickle to cut down palm leafs.

5

Television tools including a vintage high voltage probe and adjustment/alignment tools

6

Tool for testing smoke detectors. Smoke particles are released from canister in when pressed against ceiling

7

Husqvarna electric wall saw (detached blade guard)

8

A tool for moving 10 flower pots at once

9

Small volume pipettes

10

Lektro Pushback. Used for pushing airplanes to the taxiway.

11

Tool for removing tightly fitted chronograph seconds hands

12

Rocket Fuel Glove

13

This mass spectrometer costs $600K and lets you accurately measure the mass of molecules to within 0.0005% (5ppm) of their true mass. Also used to quantify molecules like PEDs in sporting events and pesticides in fruits and vegetables.

14

A truck with a winch just to pull gliding planes in the air

15

This is a tool I use at work to measure very small insect parts, like this moth genitalia.

16

Another truck, this time with an attachment for watering trees in public parks

17

A helium leak tester

18

Vascular Stent - expired and removed from packaging

19

Tap and Die set with the bit set to go with it

20

Device for smoothing washed linnen

21

This glass syringe used to accurately dispense 1-10 ul of liquid (1ul is 1/1000 of a milliliter)

22

A special wrench for getting the last vacuum pump nut off an aircraft engine

23

Borehole fishing tools (for retrieving dropped pumps from water wells)

24

Custom rig for epoxy overlay applications on concrete roadway surfaces. Proper surface preparation and application can extend surface life 18-20 years.

25

Old Japanese chalkline. Found in an old abandoned upcountry shed. Ulupalakua, Maui. That open top design makes me think you’d be pouring it back into a jar 10 times a day.“Don’t drop it, that’s all the chalk we got bra” ????

26

This is an electrophysiology rig. On the far right two glass electrodes are impaling a neuron. In the middle, the amplifiers allow you to change the membrane potential of the neuron membrane to whatever voltage you want. This allows you to measure the ionic currents across the membrane.