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Back in olden times, people used what were called “postage stamps” to send “letters” to “friends” and relatives. Back in olden times people also believed that the US space program would expand exponentially, returning humans to the moon. These stamps from 1989 survive as an artifact of that vision. Moon rovers, far-out space travel… these…
There is now a better way to image the internal structure of biological molecules at the atomic scale, using powerful x-ray lasers. This could eventually lead to important new innovations in clean energy technologies and drug development, among other uses. Crystals are defined by their regular, lattice-like arrays of atoms, and scientists typically rely on…
Somebody tried to hack into the IRS last month, but don’t worry because the tax man caught them. Nice! Hot on the heels of a very public outage that may or may not have been a hacker, the IRS sent out a press release explaining that somebody else attempted to break into their taxpayer database…
Back in the olden days, most typists were trained to use all their fingers. That’s less of a concern now, leading to all sorts of self-taught typing styles. But as a new study shows, our lack of formal training—and our resistance to using all ten fingers—doesn’t mean we’re not proficient typists. I cringe every time…
How do you put a candle? It’s simple, just blow it out. Easy enough, right? But so not interesting. The always inquisitive Physics Girl shows us five weird and wacky ways to kill the flame from a candle and each are more interesting than the next. You could use a copper coil or a rounded…
In our continuing coverage of Mother Nature’s wrath on the planet Earth (also known as lightning strikes on this blue marble), here is an otherworldly view of how this world of ours gets pummeled by electricity. Being so far removed from the ground, like how British ESA astronaut Tim Peake is, the lightning strikes that…
Gene editing, like CRISPR, is a scientific breakthrough that may help cure diseases, prevent aging, and change humanity. According to the US intelligence community, it’s also a potential weapon of mass destruction. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper added gene editing to a list of threats that includes North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs…
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a… yeti? Nope, you got it right the second time. According to the US Navy, this is the Iranian drone that flew over the USS Harry S. Truman on January 12, 2016. The Associated Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get a…
Home service robots are a part of nearly every vision of the future that doesn’t involve our planet ending as a smouldering wreck. But versions thus far have either been completely unhelpful, or terrible at standing up. The Robit is meant to be a simple, affordable solution to this problem. The $329 robot is essentially…
Swiss researchers have come up with AI that lets small quadcopters automatically identify and follow man-made trails in forests. They say it’s to help in search-and-rescue, but it also sounds like nanny state drones that could one day hunt me down in the woods as I dodge search lights on my scramble toward sweet freedom.…
The Star Wars expanded universe is huge. Really huge. Like, you just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly huge it really is. To grasp the full extent of this hugeness, a team of data scientists used a new computer program to analyze it, revealing some unexpected things about the extended saga. A research team from…
If you think you know Quentin Tarantino movies, you probably do. You know all about the shots he loves and the connected universe of his movies and the Red Apple cigarettes and the relationships each character has throughout his movies and his obsession with feet. And yet, QT still has some director trademarks that you…
Last year’s LG G4 was fantastic. It kept the best features of Android alive (like having a removable battery and expandable storage), while ushering in a few new things, like a slight curve to the phone’s body, optional leather cases, and a camera that’s actually worth a damn. Unfortunately, badass specs and cool design didn’t…
Facebook board director, venture capitalist, and proof-of-concept egg/human hybrid Marc Andreessen has carried out a most impressive feat—a tweet so bad he simultaneously destroyed Facebook’s party line about its Free Basics program and implied that India would be better off still ruled by England. Look at this: Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian…
Twitter’s got a new feature that will show you a bunch of recommended tweets at the top of your timeline, before your regular timeline. Nobody freak out. It’s chill. The new timeline shows you a series of tweets from people you follow before it shows you the real-time stream of tweets. How exactly it determines…
Rube Goldberg machines are always fun because you get to see everything happen in a linear fashion and yet still don’t know what the grand finale is. It’s like you kind of, sort of see where it’s going but still remain excited on the next step of the machine. This Rube Goldberg machine by Arrow…
Most toy stores still have a dedicated girls-only aisle saturated in pink and filled with dolls that can do everything under the sun. But apparently the gimmick barrel is starting to get empty, because instead of just soiling a diaper, these Lalaloopsy dolls poop out plastic charms that can be worn on a bracelet. The…
Not all ATM attacks need an elaborate skimmer. There’s a new kind of crime doing the rounds, which involves hijacking the ethernet cable of an ATM to gather your card information. Krebs on Security reports that NCR—the technology company that makes many of the pay-points and ATMs you use every day—has issued a warning about…
Some very important people think encryption is a very bad thing, which could have serious ramifications at all political levels. But at least a pair of Representatives want to stop such rumblings from becoming a problem at the state level. The Verge reports that Representatives Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Blake Farenthold (R-TX) will today propose…
How much would you pay for an unpopular browser? If you were a group of Chinese companies you’d probably think somewhere in the region of, oooh, $1.2 billion ought to do it. The Financial Times reports that the Norwegian browser company has received an offer of $1.2 billion for its takeover. The potential deal is…
