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For Those Incapable of Drawing a Straight Line or a Circle, Help Is on the Way

Drawing a perfect circle is maybe the hardest thing one can do with a pen in hand. A straight line, while much easier to accomplish, is still a chore for some. With that in mind, designer Sunghoon Jung has dreamed up a concept for a tape measure that not only has a line guide in…

Ancient flood myths may have a basis in geological history

10,000 years ago, at a time when humans recorded historical events by telling mythical stories that got passed from one generation to the next, huge parts of the North American continent were deluged by massive walls of water. They were, as geologist David R. Montgomery writes in this month’s Discover magazine, “Biblical-type floods.” Huge regions…

What the game of Operation would look like in the Middle Ages

Feast your eyes on a gruesome “wound man” from London’s Wellcome Library’s collection of medieval anatomy diagrams. This above wound man hails from the 1400s and offers all sorts of valuable advice on how to remove swords from his torso and extremities. And here are a few more of his colleagues from 1420-1430s Germany, 1675…

RIP futurist Shulamith Firestone, who hailed artificial wombs and cybernetics as tools of liberation

Shulamith Firestone, author of the highly influential The Dialectic of Sex, has died at the age of 67. A major figure in the development of cyberfeminism, Firestone will be remembered for her promotion of artificial wombs and other reproductive technologies as a means for women to liberate themselves from biological impositions and patriarchal oppression. She…

Bottle Blender Mixes Fresh Fruit and Water To Flavor Your Boring H2O

If plain old water doesn’t quench your palate, but you don’t want to spring for a fancy flavor-enhanced pre-bottled alternative, feast your eyes upon the Aqua Zinger DIY H2O infuser. It lets you imbue your water with everything from fresh fruit essences, to spices, to candy corn. What’s particularly neat is that you don’t need…

Yeti Roadie 20 Review: This Cooler Defies Thermodynamics

You have to love engineers willing to come up with the best product possible, price be damned. That’s the Texas company Yeti’s approach to coolers. The portable Roadie 20 can keep beer icy in brutal southern sunshine, and it’s tough enough to jack up a truck. Its insulation is incredible, but it doesn’t come cheap.…

Sexual promiscuity among deer mice rewrites DNA and boosts the immune system

The California mouse and the deer mouse are very similar, except California mice find one partner and mate with them for life, while deer mice take on as many mates as possible. That lifestyle difference has a major biological impact. Despite living in similar environments and facing comparable external threats to their health, the immune…

Further evidence that the Yellowstone megavolcano could blow without warning

Yellowstone National Park sits on top of a giant volcanic caldera, or an earthen cap that covers a huge reservoir of superhot liquid rock and poison gasses. Large parts of the park were formed in previous eruptions, the most recent of which happened about 70,000 years ago. Now, the floor of the caldera is rising,…

Futurists set up charitable fund to help terminally ill woman get cryonically preserved

Several weeks ago, 23-year old Kim Suozzi asked the Reddit community what she should do with the last few months of her life. Suozzi, who has terminal brain cancer, is only expected to live for another three to six months, making her request all the more urgent. Among the many responses received, Suozzi was particularly…

Ten Ways To Clear Out Kitchen Cabinet Clutter

Things have a way of stacking up inside kitchen cabinets, robbing you of storage space and leaving cupboards crowded and disorganized. Here’s how to free up room for pots, pans, utensils and cans of clam chowder. Reclaim your space and bring order to the busiest room in the home. Your house is the biggest gadget…

8 Times Captain America Had Bizarre and Embarrassing Dilemmas

Today is Labor Day stateside, and many of you are enjoying a brief respite. Not Captain America though — Marvel Comics’ star-spangled crusader has been fighting crime for decades (only to pause for twenty odd years to be frozen in a glacier). Such a track record guarantees an off day (or eight), so here they…

These birds hold funerals for their dead

It’s sometimes suggested humans are the only species that truly understands the concept of the death. But now researchers have discovered that humans aren’t the only creatures who hold funerals. Researchers at UC Davis have observed this funereal behavior in western scrub jays. When one bird spots a dead jay on the ground, it stops…

How copyright enforcement robots killed the Hugo Awards [UPDATED FURTHER]

Last night, robots shut down the live broadcast of one of science fiction’s most prestigious award ceremonies. No, you’re not reading a science fiction story. In the middle of the annual Hugo Awards event at Worldcon, which thousands of people tuned into via video streaming service Ustream, the feed cut off — just as Neil…

Marshall’s First Stab at Home Audio Will Rock Your Apartment Hard

Marshall branding makes anything look instantly cool: from fridges to headphones. Now you can add home audio to that list. Weirdly, in its 50-year history the English amp manufacturer has never made a home audio device—save for a licensed UK-only digital radio—instead sticking to guitar amplification. Now it’s launching the Hanwell, an active loudspeaker designed…

The FCC’s reviewing how it screens purchases and mergers, which could democratize carrier markets. A bit. [The Hill]

Watch a giant solar filament smash into your face with explosive power — in this NASA video

A couple of days ago, NASA’s solar dynamics observatory captured this spectacular video of a filament of gas arcing in the sun’s magnetic fields. This image shows what the event looked like in extreme ultraviolet light — basically, a tentacle of fire whipping around and blowing up. Writes NASA: Long filaments like this one have…

This Week’s TV: Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris reunite, in the Robot Chicken DC Comics Special!

What’s on television this week? Ridley Scott and Tony Scott bring you the ultimate horror, from the writer of Black Swan — featuring Geena Davis, James Woods and Richard Dreyfuss! Robot Chicken returns with a tribute to DC Comics, featuring Nathan Fillion as a superhero and Neil Patrick Harris as a supervillain. Dragons: Riders of…

How a Fluted Beer Glass Helps You Drink Faster

Today the chances are you’ll enjoy a beer or two to celebrate the break from your toils at work. But depending on the glass you’re drinking from, you may work through your brew faster than you expect. Research carried out at the University of Bristol, UK, shows that the shape of beer glasses has a…

This is the greatest cover of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” ever performed

How does one improve upon the fourth best song on Thriller? Why, with sparkly Illuminati costumes and orc makeup, of course. What you’re seeing above is a performance of “B Project” by the 1980s italo disco act Pink Project on the Italian TV program Discoring. Pink Project — which was composed of members of the…

Neuroscientists successfully control the dreams of rats. Could humans be next?

Researchers working at MIT have successfully manipulated the content of a rat’s dream by replaying an audio cue that was associated with the previous day’s events, namely running through a maze (what else). The breakthrough furthers our understanding of how memory gets consolidated during sleep — but it also holds potential for the prospect of…