Latest

Watching this guy recreate famous logos by hand is utterly relaxing

When I see British designer and calligraphist Seb Lesterwork I picture myself sitting quietly next to him just watching him do his job. I’m sure calligraphy is a very relaxing thing to do, this video—where he skillfully recreates famous logos by hand—proves that it’s also a mesmerizing thing to watch. The first time I’ve learned…

Why No Century Will Ever Start on a Sunday, Wednesday or Friday

The Gregorian calendar is full of wonderful mathematical quirks, and here’s one of them: under its regime, a century will never start on a Sunday. Or a Wednesday or Friday, for that matter. The reason is (fairly) straightforward. The Gregorian calendar completely cycles every 400 years; add 400 years to any date, and the day…

Tons Of Game Of Thrones Hints, Plus A Rumor That Would Change Everything

Simon Pegg talks Star Trek 3 rumors. An unlikely mutant has joined the cast of Deadpool. Plus, the latest on Constantine, and what’s next on Walking Dead, Agents of SHIELD and iZombie. Behold, Spoilers! Top image: Game of Thrones. Avengers: Age Of Ultron Here’s Elizabeth Olsen discussing Scarlet Witch’s costume and powerset: Is that pretty…

Definitely the correct choice.

The Science of Why Chicken Goes Bad So Quickly

Food-borne bacteria are the primary cause of spoilage and food poisonings. Thriving in moist, low-acid environments where lots of protein is present, pathogens like Salmonella, Campylobacter and E. coli live with the bird during its life and stay with its meat after slaughter; likewise, other bacteria, such a Acinetobacter and Pseudomonads fluroescens, putida or fragi,…

This ARM-Powered Chip Could Work for Decades on a Single Battery Charge

As everything around us, from phones and fridges to bicycles and trash cans, begins to connect to the Internet, there’s an increasing desire for low-power chips. Like this one, which can last for over ten years on a single battery charge. Made by Atmel, theSAM L21 32-bit ARM family of microcontrollersr is based on ARM…

Supreme Court Rules Government GPS Trackers Can Break Fourth Amendment

The Supreme Court has confirmed in a ruling that if the government places a GPS tracker on someone’s person or their belongings, the act counts as a search—something that remains protected by the Fourth Amendment. As part of a case referred to as Grady v. North Carolina, the Supreme Court heard about how Torrey Dale…

A Haunting Tale of a Sinking Island, From Its Last House’s Point of View

This animated short by Lynn Tomlinson goes through the history of the last house on a sinking island in the Chesapeake. It functions almost like the house’s life is flashing before its eyes, before it goes under the waves. It’s like an even more depressing version of The Giving Tree Tomlinson’s technique is unique: each…

Among the Many Items Joining King Tut In the Afterlife … Four Socks?

There are all sorts of questions that spring immediately to mind when you think about King Tut: What killed him? Are curses real? What on earth is going on with his penis? One question not asked enough is what he planned to wear in the afterlife. Photo Credit: AP Images It really was a question…

When Is a Spiral Galaxy Just a Disc? When It’s Viewed From the Side.

The Hubble Space Telescope shows us the edge-view of galaxy NGC 5023. Even though NGC 5023 is a spiral galaxy, its orientation to the Hubble means that we can’t see its arms, only a side view which shows us a disk. Image credit: ESA/NASA NGC 5023 is located over 30 million light years away and…

A Medieval Recipe Could Kill Hospital Superbugs. No, Really. 

Staph infections are one of the most pervasive and annoying bacterial infections faced by hospitals every year. It infects half a million people in the US every year, with symptoms ranging from skin infections to heart problems — and worse, some strains (commonly known as MRSA) have evolved to resist common antibiotics. As it turns…

Expanding Wheels Cover Every Type Of Terrain

The normal tire has been adapted over the course of a century to be pretty damn good at carrying people places. But from time to time they still break, Ackeem Ngwenya is a Royal College of Arts graduate who has been working on his expanding wheel concept for a few years now.I met him two…

Buying a Samsung Galaxy S6? You might want to wait: LG just invited us to an event on April 28th, where it’ll likely introduce the G4, another new Android flagship. Oh, and did we mention we haven’t reviewed the Samsung GS6 yet? Look for that later this week.

Glow-In-The-Dark Tampons Are Being Used To Fix Broken Sewers

The UK has a problem: thanks to bad plumbing and a groaning sewer system, ‘grey water’ — the stuff that comes out of your dishwashers and washing machines — is ending up in rivers, bringing all sorts of contaminants with it. Hi-tech solutions exist to monitor the problem, but a much cheaper (and more amusing)…

There’s a Modern TV Hidden Inside This Classic 1950s Philco Predicta

There’s nothing quite as retro-futuristic as the Philco Predicta television from the late 1950s. That bubbly, detached picture tube. The metal frame. It’s gorgeous. Unfortunately, the iconic TV set is also notoriously unreliable—and what good is a broken Predicta TV? Well, it turns out it makes a pretty bitchin’ monitor frame. Redditor Imapm (or “ModularDuck”…

You’ve Never Read A Book About Magic And Loss Like Signal To Noise

Plenty of books use magic to talk about coming-of-age stories and the secrets that people bury… but few of them are as sad, or as evocative, as Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s new novel Signal to Noise. Her story of three friends in Mexico City and their musical obsessions feels true, as well as truly sad. Spoilers ahead……

If You Could Only Use One Social Network, What Would It Be?

Few of us have the mental bandwidth to care about the latest hot new social thing. When Foursquare split its app, I never downloaded Swarm in protest. I never signed up for Ello. Do I sound too get-off-my-lawn when I say screw Snapchat? The never-ending influx of new platforms makes me wonder: If I had…

Microsoft’s New Spartan Browser Is Taking Its First Step Into the Wild

As Windows 10 inches ever closer to its summer release, Microsoft’s been adding new features piecemeal to the preview version of its next-generation operating system, and this may be the biggest update yet. Microsoft’s brand-new browser, Spartan, is about to get its first taste of open internet. We got a brief tour of Spartan at…

Custody Battle Over Massive Emerald Worth $370 Million Rages On

It’s 180,000 carats and weighs 840 pounds. Its value is estimated somewhere in the $370 million range, but really, the Bahia Emerald is so rare it’s virtually priceless. No wonder the raw gem, which was found in 2001, is such a hot property — and has been at the center of a legal saga that’s…

See how the Dreamworks logo before its movies changed over time

Ethan Jones is back with another interesting visual breakdown of movie logos, this time focusing on DreamWorks. You know that intro sequence, where a fishing line gets dropped into the water from a boy on the moon. Here are all the variations that have popped up in DreamWorks movies since they first started using the…