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Here’s a good way to spend a day if you need to get away from it all: go to woods, chop down a tree, and then use the wood to make a stool. Not only have you successfully made something with your hands but you can now sit down and rest because you’re gonna be…
Earlier this year, a new study revealed some shocking statistics: For nearly half of the country, gun deaths have outpaced the number of traffic deaths. In much of the US, you are now more likely to be killed by a gun than a car. In the wake of the mass shootings which have become almost…
St. Louis-based retail brokerage firm Scottrade has been hacked. The social security numbers, email addresses, street addresses, and other sensitive information of at least 4.6 million customers was accessed. The data was stolen between late 2013 and early 2014. Scottridge is now offering a year of free credit monitoring for people affected. If that sounds…
“What is it?” the innocent wine drinker asks as she stares at a glass of golden grape nectar. It smells like a light red wine, but it looks like a dark white wine. It tastes like nothing you’ve had before. It is orange wine, and it is delicious. The more you learn about orange wine,…
Next week, an unassuming canal in Delft will start shooting waves 15 feet into the air. And I’m sorry to say the surfers will have to sit this one out, because the Delta Flume wave machine was built for a higher purpose. Namely, destroying dikes and seawalls to figure out how the heck our coastal…
Yes, reusable tote bags may be good for making us feel smug in the grocery store check-out. But the USDA just traced a deadly virus that has killed millions of pigs to an unlikely culprit: tote bags. Not feeling so good about that tote bag now, are you? Last year, Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus killed…
Apple’s “spaceship” campus is scheduled to open next year, but it apparently won’t be big enough: The Cupertino company reportedly just signed a lease for a second spaceship. It, too, looks like it’s ready to blast off. The second spaceship is not an Apple special–it wasn’t designed specifically for the company. The so-called Central and…
Researchers at Itmo University in Russia have found a way to fold mutilated proteins back into the right shape. Afterwards, the proteins work better than they did before. They call it the “Phoenix Effect”: an exhausted protein is ripped apart by heat, only to rise again better than before. Apply heat to a gold statue…
With its Color Alive line, Crayola was the first company to merge coloring books and apps so kids could bring their on-page creations to life. But Disney Research is taking that idea one step further by letting kids see a coloring book character move in 3D while they’re still coloring it. It’s all made possible…
Jet airplanes load up with tens of thousands of gallons of fuel for transcontinental flights, which can lead to massive explosions in a crash or terrorist attack. But adding “molecular velcro” to fuel can dramatically reduce its volatility, or explosiveness. You can see the difference between the two in the above high-speed video. The untreated…
Today the Department of Defense announced that it will soon require all of its contractors to report any major cybersecurity breaches. And if your first question is, why in the hell didn’t they require that before?, that’s a great question. The move comes after a tough few months for US government officials and their data.…
Normally,22.04 percent wouldn’t exactly inspire awe. What about the other 78 percent? Where is it being wasted? But for solar panels, it’s a leap forward. SolarCity, the 9-year-old solar energy company that counts Elon Musk as a co-founder and current chairman, announced this morning that it has reached a new record for solar panel efficiency.…
Developmental biologists noticed back in the 1990s that a lot of the genes that make a penis are the same as the ones that make limbs. They’ve been finding new similarities ever since. Ed Yong, writing at his occasionally penis-obsessed blog Not Exactly Rocket Science, explains how legless, but not penis-less snakes have just showed…
This is absolutely one of the coolest and most fun videos I’ve seen in a while mostly because it’s a time machine back to childhood in the 80’s and 90’s. The stop-motion video, directed by Marc Donahue, reveals the imagination of a kid and it’s filled with everything we love coming to life: Back to…
Remember how Google announced plans to create a new parent company to rule them all? It’s called Alphabet, and the company just announced that today is the day the plan becomes reality. When markets close, Google shares will become Alphabet shares. What does that mean for you? Basically nothing. Even if you own Google stock,…
There are two types of people in this world: Those who appreciate puns, and those who do not. Actually there’s a third type of person: The person who laughs uncontrollably at said pun, talks about the pun relentlessly, then texts you the pun again later along with alternate puns. That person is me. Atlas Obscura…
If a friend told you he was going to blast a rocket to the Moon, and that if you wrote him a check he’d send your selfies along with it, you’d probably tell him to go find a job. But when a group of experienced rocket engineers made the same suggestion, you would probably pay…
It’s a common phenomenon: a touch that normally feels a bit painful can feel much nicer when you’re sexually aroused. In an article at BBC Future, Zaria Gorvett examines how the brain’s natural opiates can produce a shift between pain and pleasure inside our heads. (the hippocampus)…responds to pain signals by ordering the production of…
We’ve come to depend on our smartphones so much that losing one can be a real problem, whether it’s gone missing in a restaurant or been grabbed on the subway. If you want to make sure your phone and its contents are protected, here’s what you need to do next. Most of these pointers rely…
The Durian fruit is famous for being a botanical stink-monster. How does it put off such a rich array of offensiveness? We’ll tell you the results of a chemical analysis. Durian, with its outer spikes, its inner slime, and its arsenal of odors, is an example of what can only be termed edible Stockholm syndrome.…
