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The shinkansen—Japan’s bullet train that brought high-speed rail to the world in 1963—is as symbolic for the nation as sushi and cherry blossoms. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to export it across the world. And so far, he seems to be doing just that. Although high-speed rail has flourished in countries like Japan, China, Germany,…
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, they say. But they don’t know how hard it is to make when you’re a zombie rushing to get to work. If only we had the time to carefully consider breakfast and start the day right. Peaceful Cuisine gives breakfast a healthy spin in this video…
These perfectly straight trenches were dug by molecules of gold. Under just the right conditions, gold will act like a mini-snow blower. It will pry molecules out of a material, puff away the detritus, and then move on to the next. One day, we could use this to make entire labs on a chip. Scientists…
Apple has filed trademark applications for Beats 2, Beats 3, Beats 4, and Beats 5. That would be four more stations—does anybody out there even listen to Beats 1? First reported by Consomac, the name and logo trademark applications are all identical. The applications have the broadcasting and transmission of “voice, data, images, music, audio,…
Here at Paleofuture, we love time capsules. But sometimes those thousands of capsules that people have created over the years get lost or stolen. Such is the case with a time capsule in Chicago that was buried by the comedian-magicians (comicians?) Penn and Teller. Back in 1989, Penn and Teller hid a time capsule underneath…
We’ve seen boat loads of personal info dumps online in the last year, but none as bizarre as this: A discovery of personal data from millions of Americans who’ve voted since 2000, found by a researcher and sitting in a sloppily configured database. In other words, it was just hanging out on the web. For…
History’s first confirmed ice cream graced the court of Charles II in 1671. It was made using a special flavor, orange blossom, and one very special chemical ingredient that made ice cream without refrigeration possible in the first place. Ask who served the first ice cream and you’ll get a variety of answers. Sources name-drop…
Paris is the only place you can see Le Défenseur du Temps, a beautiful living sculpture, up close, but the internet is the only place you can see Le Défenseur du Temps at work. This fighting statue is now motionless everywhere except in video. Le Défenseur du Temps fought for our amazement and amusement from…
The hoverpacks have descended. A group of hoverboards is called a “murder.” 2016 is already shaping up to be a trashcan fire in an alley of a year.
Unless you work at a startup that’s trying desperately to be hip, adorning your desk with mountains of Star Wars toys probably isn’t encouraged. But when you pay over $2,000 for a fancy pen from S.T. Dupont Paris that just happens to look like a spaceship, you can display it wherever you want. To celebrate/cash…
Every year the Syfy channel plays a Twilight Zone marathon over New Year’s. But this year they’re starting the festivities early. The first episode airs at 7pm this Wednesday, December 30th. We’ve compiled a schedule so you can catch your favorites, along with links to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon for all you cordcutters. The good…
Opening up links on your phone typically means switching back and forth between apps and screens—Flynx makes the process less painful by queueing up articles in the background until you’re ready to read them. It works like Instapaper for Android, and lets you continue perusing Facebook, Twitter, or whatever else without interruption. Installing and setting…
Daredevil isn’t exactly a popular career choice, but the folks from Eclectical Engineering came up with a novel way to experience what it’s like to be shot out of a cannon, without risking your life or requiring you to join a traveling circus. Taking advantage of the extremely compact form factor of the GoPro Hero4…
GoPro cameras are used to document everything these days—from crazy action sports to awesome first person views to time lapses to traveling the world and more—that it’s really no surprise that a compilation video of all the best GoPro videos that were shot in 2015 is going to be so awesome to watch. Here’s what…
Accidentally dropping an elaborate Lego set and having it smash to thousands of pieces can be heart-breaking—unless you did it on purpose with a high-speed camera filming. But why rely on gravity when explosives make Lego slow-motion destruction even more satisfying? The YouTubers at Glorious Eye Candy built an elaborate Star Wars Lego diorama and…
I can’t whistle for the life of me and that totally sucks. Christopher Ullman, on the other hand, is a four time world champion when it comes to whistling so it’s no surprise that I’m totally impressed with his skills. Though to my untrained ears, a lot of it just sounds like regular whistling, there…
I’m not saying you don’t like your gifts. But here are the return policies at many major retailers in the US, just in case, no reason, whatever. Amazon To return a gift from Amazon, you need the gift’s order number, and you’ll get an Amazon gift card as a refund. You’ll have to ship the…
Welcome to this week’s Reading List, where you’ll find the best popular technology and science stories on the internet assembled in one delightful package. This week: cheap microscopes, physics and saving the planet. How a microscope that costs less than one dollar will revolutionize global health. [New Yorker] What came before the Big Bang? Alan…
In October, 29,000 neuroscientists gathered in Chicago to discuss new research in their sprawling field at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting. Amid mountains of abstracts on every conceivable aspect of brain science, there were a surprising number of studies about an unlikely subject: video games. Plenty of pop cultural bandwidth has been devoted to…
In the first half of the 20th century, the Manfréd Weiss Steel and Metal Works was the largest machine factory in Hungary, located on Csepel island outside the capital, Budapest. In 1944 and 1945, the Allies attacked this important industrial target several times, dropping thousands of incendiary and demolition bombs onto the buildings. The factory…
