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This Table Slides Together Without Screws, Dowels, Or Glue

Shigeru Ban has had a big spring, what with winning architecture’s highest prize, building disaster housing in the Philippines, and unveiling a huge luxury penthouse in NYC. The Japanese architect has many fans: Including the designer of this wooden table, who says it was inspired by his low-tech cardboard buildings. Ania Wolowska named this piece…

Which Of These Student Films Comes From Animation’s Next Big Thing?

A lot of amazing animators are alumni of the California Institute of the Arts, so it’s not that ridiculous to expect another great talent to rise out of the school’s current batch of students. And since the 2014 BFA student films were just released online, we can sift through to see for ourselves. At the…

AT&T Plans to Bring You LTE on Airplanes

With the FCC blessing the use of smartphones—and their wireless plans—on planes, perhaps it was only a matter of time until carriers started designing services tailored for the skies. Re/code reports that AT&T wants to bring you 4G/LTE connectivity at 35,000 feet. While Re/code’s report is thin on details, it does contain official quotes from…

Make Way For Gamera, The Prince Regent Of The Monsters

Or maybe he’s the Prime Minister of the Monsters. Or the Duke. All I know is that Godzilla is King, but the giant flying turtle known as Gamera deserves his due. Celebrate Japan’s second favorite giant monster in this week’s home video releases (or just check out the goofiest anime concept I’ve heard in quite…

Exploring the Decaying Ruins of Brother Island, NYC’s Last Unknown Place

Surrounding the bustling island of Manhattan are countless lesser-known landforms. One of the most unique is North Brother Island. Sitting in the East River between the Bronx and Rikers Island, this unassuming chunk of land once housed a hospital where the city quarantined sick patients. Now, it’s a protected bird sanctuary—but photographer Christopher Payne was…

8 Awe-Inspiring Mass Transit Systems that Changed Their Cities

At the heart of many cities are its public transit systems, which help people get to work and get out of town. Some of the greatest public transit systems aren’t just large — they also offer their riders something extra, or reshape the cities they serve. Here are some incredible public transit systems around the…

Resilient Birds In Chernobyl Are Actually Adapting to Radiation

Chernobyl is a scary, seemingly sinister place, where trees don’t decay and plants glow. A newly published study, however, shows that not all living things are necessarily doomed in this radioactive wasteland. Some birds in the exclusion zone are actually adapting to the harsh environment. The birds aren’t just adapting, though. Based on years of…

At The Shining‘s Hotel, The Scariest Things Are Lurking In The Carpet

The animated short Mite may open with a view of The Shining’s Overlook Hotel, but it quickly dives into that iconic carpet and unveils another, more alien world, where microscopic beings are only indirectly affected by the horrors above. Walter Volbers spent ten years off and on working on Mite, although he says the animation…

In this week’s Landscape Reads, we visit the giant, steel sarcophagus that will soon encase Chernobyl, go inside the battle for “solar rights,” pay tribute to the blazing fires that created the American prairie, and follow the secret highway crossings of bears. Building Chernobyl’s Massive Radiation-Proof Sarcophagus The steel arch that will encase Chernobyl is…

Can Animal Behavior Help Us Understand Empathy and Dehumanization?

She was just thirteen years old when my grandmother last saw her parents at Auschwitz. On Holocaust Remembrance Day, it’s worth pausing to reflect on how our species led my grandmother to find herself in such a horrific place, and how it might have been avoided. My grandmother was born in a small town in…

Mesmerizing Data Visualization Reveals the Utter Chaos Of Lawmaking

Anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes watching C-Span (before falling asleep) knows that passing laws can be a drawn out, excruciating process. This data vis tool called the Legislative Explorer reveals exactly how insane this process can really be. Created by researchers at the University of Washington’s Center for American Politics and Public…

You Can Download Adobe’s Patch for the Internet Explorer Flaw Right Now (Updated)

Just a little over a day after Microsoft revealed a massive Internet Explorer vulnerability, Adobe is pushing out an emergency security update to patch the Flash-enabled flaw. In other words, if you’re an IE user (and statistically 26 percent of you are), go download it right now. While the flaw affected virtually all versions of…

Why NYC Is Building This $185 Million “Tunnel to Nowhere”

Since it’s right next to the largest private construction project NYC has ever seen, you could easily miss it: A 35-foot-deep trench being dug on Manhattan’s West Side. It looks something like a grave, or an archaeological dig, but no—this is an 800-foot-long insurance plan for the future of the city. In a report from…

Here’s Why Squinting Helps You See Better

Ever wonder why squinting helps you focus when you’ve misplaced your glasses? Or why things appear clearer when viewed through a small hole? Here’s the answer in video form. This video was put together by the fine folks as MinutePhysics. Top animation via MinutePhysic, an interactive explanation of how convex lenses work.

There’s a whole host of improvements coming to Facebook Messenger version 5.0: photo sharing has a new, streamlined design, improving accessibility; there are new shortcuts for downloading sticker packs; and the kicker, recording and sharing video. For the moment, the update is only available on iOs, and will come to Android later this week.

This Cop Car of the Future From 1958 Was Pretty Intimidating

There are few things more anxiety-inducing than seeing a cop car’s flashing lights in your rearview mirror. But that terror probably would’ve been about a thousand times worse had this police car of the future from 1958 ever become a reality. Detroit-based illustrator Arthur Radebaugh designed countless cars for clients in the 1950s, but he…

New Evidence Reveals What a “Typical” Solar System Looks Like

Prior to the discovery of exoplanets, astronomers assumed that our solar system’s configuration was typical. But now, some 1,715 exoplanets later, we know that we’re far from ordinary. So what passes for “normal” in the annals of solar systems? Here’s what we know now. Top Image: Artistic impression of Kepler 186f by Ron Miller (used…

A Pre-El Niño Slosh

Slacking off of the prevailing winds are allowing a pool of warm water to slosh across the Pacific Ocean basin, marking this as a potential El Niño year. The newly-released water-temperature data from NOAA reveal a Kelvin wave of warm water arriving on the west coast of the Americas. Deep pool of warm water sloshes…

Graphene Might Be Way Worse For the Environment Than We Thought

Is there anything graphene can’t do? The miracle material can save aging buildings, generate electricity, fight blood clots, and give you Predator-vision, among many other magical things. But a new study has revealed that graphene could have some negative environmental impacts as well. A lab at University of California, Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering is…

The Ender Quintet, Kindle Paperwhite, 50 Film Blu-ray Collection

Put everything Ender on your Kindle for just $17 today, re-read over and over until you forget the movie happened, then listen to the Dashboard Confessional song. The Ender Quintet | $17 The Best of Warner Bros. 50 Film Blu-ray Collection is one of our most popular media items ever. It features 50 award winning…