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This new cool 3D visualization shows all the airplanes that go through the five major air spaces over the North Atlantic during a 24 hour period. It’s like watching a modern version of the thermonuclear war simulations in War Games—without all the final explosions. The video was created by NATS—a big provider of air traffic…
The molten aluminum being poured out onto the thin black fabric is bubbling at a scorching 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s hot. And yet, for all the heat and fire and flame power, the magic fabric easily withstands the burning liquid metal. The fabric doesn’t catch fire, it doesn’t get burned through and there’s not a…
Before I watched this video by the whip smart guys at AsapScience, I never considered eating bugs in my entire life. Now? Well. Damn. It actually makes a lot of sense. Raising bugs doesn’t take nearly as much space as raising animals and it doesn’t require the same amount of resources either. Heck, bugs may…
In the future, we’ll get the news from fair and balanced android newscasters that’ll somehow terrify us more than the cable newspeople we have today. These android newscasters are frighteningly lifelike and can interact with humans, read the news and Tweets, tell a joke and basically replace the lousy talking heads on TV. The android…
The late 1990s were a fascinating period in the evolution of cinema technology. Film, the only physical medium cinema had ever known, was slowly being replaced by newfangled digital technology. And it was in 2000 that the Academy Award winning film O Brother, Where Art Thou gorgeously illustrated the potential of digital filmmaking. In the…
It’s been 20 years since Forrest Gump was released and Tom Hanks has become the Internet’s friendly uncle, Jenny is the cold hearted wife of a politician and Bubba Gump is a seafood restaurant we all ate at because we remember lines like Run, Forrest, Run. But why did we ever like the movie? Screen…
Astronomers have detected a mysterious signal 240 million light years away from Earth, in the Perseus Cluster (top), one of the most massive objects in the Universe. The unidentified signal is a “spike of intensity at a very specific wavelength of X-ray light.” Scientists don’t know yet what is the origin. One of their theories…
The Expedition 40 crew on the International Space Station are very good at remembering to be awestruck by their surreal surroundings. On May 30, 2014, one of them stayed plastered to a window staring at the delicate sliver of the moon over the gentle curve of the Earth’s horizon. Moon over the Earth from the…
On this day in history, shuttle mission STS-7 safely landed, concluding the mission. What was special about this particular mission? https://observationdeck.kinja.com/pop-quiz-sts-7-1595291555
Did you know that Bobby Womack plays a right-handed guitar upside down? That’s just one of the many nuggets you can cull from the most excellent interview the music legend gave to Soundcheck back in January that aired again yesterday. You have to give credit where credit is due, and it’s insane how long and…
Everyone on Facebook looks like they’re having a great time. Fun adventures, deep romances, amazing jobs. It’s enough to make you feel inadequate, but it’s also a lie. Nobody is really as happy as their Facebook wall claims, as this piercing short from HigtonBrothers confirms. So the next time you’re driven to jealousy by a…
Modernist architecture photographs well, thanks to all those clean lines make for striking shots. But I’ll be damned if modernist architecture doesn’t look even better in the artwork of artist Lucy Williams, who takes a mixed-media palate—balsa wood and Plexiglas, wool embroidery and acrylic paint, cork and paper—and transforms it into near-perfect reproductions of real-world…
Unless you stash them in a case when you’re not wearing them, the arms on your glasses are free to flop and flail about, increasing the risk of them getting bent or broken. It’s admittedly a first world problem, but one that design studio Nendo has still solved with an improved nosepiece that now features…
Using a scientific phenomenon known as the Peltier-Seebeck or thermoelectric effect, where a voltage is produced via a device with contrasting temperatures, this Bluetooth speaker called the Pelty can run on nothing but burning candles. So the next time you lose power during a brownout, you’ll have both light and entertainment to pass the time.…
I’m not saying you shouldn’t rock an Attack on Titan cell phone case in the shape of the 3D Maneuvering Device’s controller from the show. By all means, let your otaku flag fly. All I’m saying is: Don’t pull this thing out in the subway if you don’t want get arrested and/or shot. Because it…
You’re looking at a new awesome nano-material invented that does the seemingly impossible: It hides things from touch. Just a thin layer of this amazing polymer will hide anything under it from being perceived by your sense of touch. In this photo you can see how it “absorbs” a metal cylinder. How is this magic…
Hundreds of feet below sea level in eastern Germany, some of the world’s largest excavators scrape coal from the Earth. The mine shown above—shot by photographer Bernhard Lang—produces 40 million tons of lignite coal per year. It comes at a cost: These mines are tearing up historic parts of Germany. https://gizmodo.com/aerial-photos-of-coal-mining-pits-are-sublime-and-terri-1595373486
I’m ready to pay my $2.99 for this Kill Bill game, which looks like a Kung-Fu Master/Shinobi hybrid. Heck, I would pay $2.99 for Volume 1 and $2.99 for Volume 2. Too bad we can’t: It’s just one of those videos for imaginary 8-bit retro arcade games by those cockteases at Cinefix. Bastards. Watch, want,…
Even though it’s designed for kids, it’s going to be hard for adult Star Wars fans not to trade in their carry-on luggage for this awesome 3D Vader suitcase—even if they are Yoda-sized. Recommended for kids ages three and up, this $40 rolling suitcase can easily accommodate a week’s worth of clothing for a toddler,…
This week, Madrid became the first European city to launch a fully electric bike share system for its residents. It works just like a regular bike share, but better: An electric motor kicks in to help with pedaling, and most importantly, give you an extra push up hills. Why isn’t this standard for bike shares…
