"The humble screw has changed little in 2,000 years, until a stubborn engineer at Illinois Tool Works came up with a fascinating new twist."

For centuries now the screw has held things together, and for almost as long it has been frustratingly inept at its central purpose. Concrete cracks when it is punctured by a screw. Plastic creeps away from the pressure, sliding down the threads so that even a tightened screw loosens almost instantly. Carmakers have to mold brass inserts into plastic parts to accept screws; otherwise they might loosen and cause a dreaded rattle.

Kenneth LeVey has a better idea. A product development director at Illinois Tool Works, the nation's biggest screwmaker, he has reinvented what the company dubs the threaded fastener in a way that lets it grip tight where it used to let loose -- and compete with cheaper screws made by offshore rivals.

An Italian computer programmer used the Google Earth and Google Maps program to discover an ancient buried Roman villa.

You can bet on what you think the New Orleans population will be in the year 2010. (Via Marginal Revolution.)

Invention of the day: High tech sunglasses that also warn the user about impending heat stroke. It takes advantage of the fact that there's a small patch of skin adjacent to the nose that provides an almost perfect noninvasive reading of core body temperature.