Tech news, analysis, culture, business, security, and more
People may joke that others spend too much time on the internet, but this intricate series of tubes has become an important part of everyday life—so much so that it’s become a human rights violation to take it away. That’s according to the United Nations Human Rights Council, which passed a non-binding resolution in June…
Today’s the day that we celebrate our independence—and the best way to do that is by lighting-up a sparkler and holding a little bit of fire in your own two hands. But what’s in that sparkler that burns so bright? That’d be the eternal flame of freedom. (Also incredibly hot-burning chemicals.) The ingredients of a…
Mozilla Firefox was helping web users avoid Internet Explorer long before Google Chrome arrived, and it’s still going strong. Like all apps though, it can slow down over time. Here are four quick ways you can try to get the spring back in Firefox’s step. 1) Manage the cache Firefox’s cache is designed to speed…
It’s a well-known fact that the cadavers of adult men were utilized in medical research and for educational purposes in the 18th and 19th centuries. However, a new anthropological study from the University of Cambridge offers fascinating details about another common, but poorly-documented, area of human medical history. The paper, which was published in the…
An extraordinarily large landslide has been discovered near Glacier Bay in southeast Alaska. Aerial photos show a snow-capped mountain with a huge chunk taken out of it—and a debris field that extends for nearly seven miles. The Lamplugh Glacier rock avalanche, which occurred at 8:21 a.m. on June 28, was discovered by Paul Swanstrom, a…
Scientists at the University of Southeast Norway have released microorganisms into a Pac-Man-style maze made out of fluid to observe how the single-celled euglena (in this case, Pac-Man) avoid their predators, the multi-celled rotifers. In addition to looking cool, these “micromazes” make it easier to view and study microorganisms, which are usually bunched together in…
Israel’s minister for public security Gilad Erdan has called Facebook a “monster” for “sabotaging” police investigations and called on Israelis to “flood” Mark Zuckerberg and make him change the site’s policy. In a television interview, Erdan said that the recent increase in street attacks by Palestinians was encouraged on Facebook, and the company has not…
In a deliciously meta update, Redditor Requag built a working version of Pokemon Fire Red for Gameboy Advance within the world of Minecraft. It’s not fully functional, but it’s still pretty cool. [Reddit via Engadget]
Medieval armor has a bad reputation when it comes to how much movement is possible for a fully-armored and outfitted knight. Chances are you’ve bought into the notion that it resulted in clunky, slow, and awkward battles. Daniel Jaquet of the University of Geneva and several colleagues aim to bust that myth with a new…
Last year, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) released a fireworks safety video that was tough to take seriously. In this year’s PSA, the organization turned down the explosives and instead focused on a story that recently impacted someone in the public eye. New York Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, who appears in the PSA…
According to a recent Twitter user’s visit to the Microsoft offices in Redmond, Washington, the company may be planning to release new devices in its Surface line. The Verge first reported that app developer Shubhan Chemburkar tweeted photos on Saturday he took while at Building 88. The wall shows a number of released Surface models,…
You can quantify just about every part of your life with today’s tech, but what’s more important than getting enough rest? There are now a plethora of ways to keep an eye on the quality of your sleep as well as how much you’re getting. Whether you want to buy a separate device or just…
There are a lot of factors that go into choosing a baby name. My parents, for instance, did enjoy the work of Carly Simon before choosing mine, and I have a relatively normal name. It could be a fandom thing, such as with the babies named Anakin or the children named after Game of Thrones…
The concept behind the short film “Fabricating Performance” by the Interactive Architecture Lab and the study that surrounds it concerns reciprocation in design. Humans interact with space; shapes define space; humans then interact differently with the space after new objects have entered the picture. In the case of the dancer in the video, her movements…
Scientists at MIT have designed an ingenious new concept for a battery that operates on the same fundamental principal as an hourglass—it relies on gravity to generate energy. They described the device in a recent paper for Energy and Environmental Science. The fundamental concept of a battery is quite simple. There is a positive and…
YouTube personality Colin Furze has created some explosive, flashy things in the past, such as a Mad Max-style flamethrower guitar, and an explosive Death Star because, why not I suppose. So it’s rare that we see something as simple as a doorbell show up on his successful channel. Furze introduced the CFDB 500c in a…
Shirley Anderson of Indiana was in great need of a prosthesis. Doctors found a cancerous lump on his tongue in the 1998 and shortly after, he began radiation treatments. He underwent a radium implant to help him replace some of his lower jaw, but it didn’t work. So he turned to prosthetics. Dr. Travis Bellicchi,…
There’s lots of fun things you could be doing this weekend, barring unexpected misfortune—like needing an emergency root canal. It’s arguably the most dreaded dental procedure, but if a promising new type of filling pans out, no one need ever suffer through this often-painful process again. Perhaps you are one of the fortunate few to…
Well, you know exactly what’s going to happen. When a car has 10 times the horsepower of a truck, the truck is going to get smoked. The question is how bad will the torching be? Hilariously bad. The trophy truck was given a six-second head start and still got beat, because the Funny Car is…
No doubt you’re wanting to plan a fireworks display this weekend to honor the most amazing country in North America and its awesome political leaders. Here’s where you can celebrate Happy Canada Day the way it was meant to be celebrated! Each year the American Pyrotechnics Association helps us navigate, state-by-state, where residents are allowed…
