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Who the hell wants to go to a water park during the winter? Snowboarders. That’s right. Watch as these three snowboarders shred an empty water park and snowboard through water slides, skid down stairs, skip lines, and basically break every rule a water park could possibly have, all while looking like they’re having the most…
The past few months have seen a dramatic rise in the number of experts researching the prevention or treatment of Ebola. That rise hasn’t been dramatic enough, in part because Ebola has to be tested at expensive, highly specialized facilities. Now there’s a plan to change that. A group led by researchers at the Toronto…
The idea of separated medications that only mix inside the body at a desired location is an old one, but it’s never been possible with something that can be injected directly into the bloodstream. Made with three needles, a blast of electricity, and a thorough knowledge of fluid dynamics, these capsules are the first step…
In 1977, astronomer Jerry R. Ehman observed a data signal so unique he drew a red circle around it and wrote “Wow!” to emphasize the discovery. The source of the signal was never identified, leading some to say it was aliens. But a new study suggests it wasn’t aliens at all—but rather a hydrogen cloud…
Now that the Mars Curiosity Rover has reached the Namib Dune, the next challenge is figuring out where to collect samples. This is the first time a robot has visited a sand dune on another planet, so we want to get this right. The Curiosity Rover will be cautiously edging onto the dune, and even…
Imagine owning more than one Apple Watch. Once you stop laughing, consider this: Someone at Apple thinks there’s enough interest in owning multiple Apple Watches to warrant a special feature. Using Apple’s iOS 9.3 beta and watchOS 2.2 beta, developers can now pair more than one Apple Watch with the Watch App. If Apple opens…
Excited rumors began circulating on Twitter this morning that a major experiment designed to hunt for gravitational waves—ripples in the fabric of spacetime first predicted by Albert Einstein—has observed them directly for the very first time. If confirmed, this would be one of the most significant physics discoveries of the last century. Move a large…
Thanks to fracking and other injection processes, small earthquakes are the new normal in the American interior. That poses another, more ominous question. What does the Big One look like in Oklahoma? Canada recently earned the dubious honor of the World’s Largest Fracking-Triggered Earthquake, while Oklahoma continued to deny its even-bigger quakes had anything to…
Despite what you may have learned in school behind your teacher’s back, paper airplanes don’t have to be completely featureless and boring. With the right materials, or these kits from Huntly’s Paper Warplanes, they can actually look like real-life aircraft and still be able to glide across a room. You still get the satisfaction of…
Hoverboards won’t stop exploding lately, perhaps due to overheating batteries. But what if the battery could shut off before all hot and flamey? That’s the idea behind recent research at Stanford, and the benefits go far beyond gimmicky gadgets looking to avoid recalls. Today, Stanford researchers say they’ve made the first lithium-ion battery that shuts…
There’s a lottery meme on Facebook claiming that if we just divided the current Powerball jackpot evenly, every American would get $4.3 million. But that’s not right at all. Why? Simple math: When we take $1.3 billion and divide by 300 million we get $4.33. As in, four dollars and 33 cents. Not $4.33 million.…
Construction for the first phase of Morocco’s Noor 1 power plant is nearing completion. Once complete in 2020, the solar farm will be the largest of its kind in the world. But even now, the plant’s half-million solar mirrors are already visible from space. There’s no question that solar power is the future, an energy…
Amazon’s possibly dystopian Echo voice-controlled speaker might be coming in a new portable version soon, according to the Wall Street Journal. The new version of Echo will supposedly be charged on a dock, and it will only respond to voice commands after a button is pushed. The latter makes sense because the original Echo’s always-on…
Mikhail Lomonosov coined the term “physical chemistry,” was an early advocate of the existence of atoms, and wrote poetry to get himself out of prison after being arrested for brawling. Along the way he became one of the greatest names in science. Lomonosov was born in 1711. In some versions of the story he was…
They say the best camera is the one you have with you, but sometimes the fixed lens on your smartphone can limit your creativity. So Zeiss, makers of some of the finest camera glass out there, is finally making high-quality external lenses for the iPhone 6s including a telephoto, a wide-angle, and a zoomable macro…
Back in 1880, James Garfield was president, and Thomas Edison was alive and tinkering in his Menlo Park lab. That’s also the year also when the camera lens below was made. This year, the seemingly ancient lens helped to shoot this remarkably good-looking YouTube video. As part of a Weird Lens Challenge, French photographer Mathieu…
Whoopie pies are lovely and delightful because they’re big ass freaking Oreos that are fluffy and moist and all sorts of yummy. They’re sort of like a cake but also kind of like a cookie but yet for some reason, they’re called a pie. However you want to describe it, you can’t really go wrong…
Most of us have a vague, abstract concept of life beneath the sea. But a few men and women are dedicated to brining the secrets of the deep into the light of day. And as the 2015 Ocean Art photography contest shows, they’re doing a spectacular job of it. Ocean Art is the most prestigious…
Back in July of last year Capcom teased a truly magnificent wearable Mega Man helmet replica. And while it made appearances at Comic-Con and other geeky events since then, ThinkGeek has finally added the prop to its online store so you can finally do Mega Man cosplay right. As promised, the helmet splits in the…
Researchers in Germany have have grown the innermost layer of human fallopian tubes in a lab. The new technique is offering fresh insights into this essential component of the female reproductive system, while also hinting at potential new directions for the treatment of various reproductive disorders. The fallopian tubes, or oviducts, play a crucial role…
