Project Aura is actually a really good idea: rim-mounted LEDs that change colors based on how fast you ride—self-powered (by a front hub dynamo) to boot. It’s the brainchild of Ethan Frier and Jonathan Ota, industrial design students at Carnegie Mellon University who admirably addressed the issue of nighttime cycling accidents with an idea and a Small Undergraduate Research Grant (SURG).

Project Aura: Bicycle Safety Lighting System from Project AURA on Vimeo.

To learn more, check out the rest of the post at Core77!

-Via Core77

The latest “Objects laid out in photos” blog comes from New-York-based Foster Huntington, a man obsessed with “clothes, photography and American lifestyles.” Huntington’s Burning House blog asks creatives around the world, “If your house was burning, what would you take with you?”

The answers are a tad stilted, as most contain more than 15 items—that must be the slowest-burning fire ever—but interesting nonetheless, as it’s really a question of personal curation cloaked in a smokescreen of arson.

Jeffstaple presumes his building isn’t the only one burning and chooses a survivalist-based carry including an Eton self-powered radio and endurance gear. Brooklyn photographer Mikael Kennedy blends archival sentimentality (“Two bricks of the last Polaroid 779 batches ever made”) with the practical (“Harddrive with latest backup from computer.”) Australian designer Rohan L. Anderson brings a Nikon and a hunting rifle, enabling him to shoot both the disaster and looters.

-Via Core77