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It’s hard to know which specific emotion this video of kids reacting to old computers from the late 1970s and early 1980s evokes. The feeling is somewhere between sheer delight (how cute are they?!) and utter horror (how old am I?!) Either way, it’s worth it. As we pointed out when the last video in…
As kids, we all wondered what it would be like if you could climb on top of a paper airplane and coast into the sunset. Well, if you watch the latest video from GoPro—shot atop the world’s largest paper plane—you’ll know. It’s about sixty seconds of bliss, followed by an awesome crash. [GoPro]
What happens when you boil a can of Coke with a lava flow? Or leave tall can of an energy drink to be engulfed in molten rock? Now that your drink is steaming hot, what does it look like to try cooking ravioli with an encroaching flow? Bryan Lowry takes a lot of footage of…
A couple weeks ago, the internet lit up with the news of the European Court of Justice ruling that would require Google to delete irrelevant or outdated information from their search results. “Finally!” you might’ve thought. “I can get those frat party pics out of my results!” But, as a new Associated Press story makes…
The Spitzer Space Telescope explores the skies in a wavelength we’re blind to, sensing the heat of infrared. After 3,925 days of service, it’s had plenty of time to built up an impressive gallery. Now continued funding is in jeopardy, it’s a good time to look back on the gorgeous images of science. Top image:…
The New York Times Magazine offers up a healthy dose of inspiration this weekend with the story of David Walmer, a renegade doctor who’s been saving lives in Haiti. When he realized a few years ago how cervical cancer was killing many of his patients, Walmer decided to get creative about solving the problem. Oddly…
This subduction-inspired desk brings planetary dynamics to a home-office scale. The layers of coloured wood draws on geology for the colour scheme, while the sliding drawers evoke the heat of molten rock. When two tectonic plates of different density collide, the denser one subducts under the more buoyant plate. When continental plates encounter oceanic plates,…
The architectural marvels set to be unveiled at Expo Milan 2015 have already wowed our socks off. But the latest design from Nemesi & Partners takes things to the next level with a sprawling smog-filtering façade. It sort of looks like Spiderman’s secret cocoon. The Palazzo Italia is about as green as green gets. Not…
A senior administration official recently listed several ways that the United States is taking aim at the Chinese hacker community on the whole. That list includes everything from economic sanctions to a blanket ban on Chinese hackers attending conferences in the U.S. It’s actually already happening. Reuters reports, “Ten to 12 Chinese citizens were unexpectedly…
As always, a lot of things happened in astronomy and planetary sciences this week. Here’s your weekly round-up of stories from my subsite, and anywhere else that was downright interesting. It’s my last week as a Space Recruit. My numbers are healthy, but I still haven’t passed that critical 300k boundary for US People to…
The composer Bryant O’Hara participates in the Sunday Assembly — a kind of non-religious church, as it were — in Atlanta, Georgia, where some aspects of the secular service involve music. He wanted to think of another means to introduce music into the communal activity, and came upon the idea of a collaborative video game…
BOOM! That’s what happens when you load 164 pounds of Tannerite, the aluminum and ammonium nitrate explosive used in exploding targets, inside a barn you want leveled. Fire at the Tannerite with a rifle, and take cover—bye bye, barn. No, I have no idea why the on-camera guy is wearing a Nixon mask. Probably to…
Prolific doodler Marty Cooper carries around animation cels, a marker, and some Wite-Out as he wanders the city, creating whimsical scenes that turn mundane background imagery into charming mini-stories. And he painstakingly captures them on his iPhone to create the animated world of Aug(De)Mented Reality. http://mcgnarcal.tumblr.com/ These grin-inducing little vignettes defy rigid definition: are they…
Wired reports that Hector Xavier Monsegur, a.k.a. Sabu, the LulzSec hacker who became an FBI informant and helped take down numerous other hackers, will be sentenced on Tuesday, May 27th. The government will seek a sentence of just 7 months, citing time served and his immense cooperation with the government. https://gizmodo.com/sabu-is-still-working-for-the-fbi-5937058 Sabu’s sentencing has been…
Third Rock Radio mixes alt/indie rock with embedded NASA stories and interviews with popular science communicators. Read on for a review on the Observation Deck: https://observationdeck.kinja.com/nasas-streaming-rock-station-is-really-fucking-good-1581160664
A new political party, designed by software devs and engineers, is joining the race in California. If elected, PlaceAVote‘s Congressional candidates vow to decide on every bill based on the majority vote of their constituents—as measured via online polling. Could that sort of direct, digital democracy improve how Congress works? Would it make government more…
Luna Park opened in Brooklyn in 1903, during the heyday of Coney Island attractions. This weekend, artist Fred Kahl pays tribute to the park’s history with a 3D-printed model depicting it as it appeared 100 years ago. It’s being billed as the largest art installation ever created on a desktop 3D printer, and building it…
In the face of growing tension, taunting, and downright weird interactions disrupting space relations between the United States and Russia, it’s reassuring to remember that NASA and Roscosmos have founds ways to cooperate for over four decades. On May 24, 1972, the United States and the Soviet Union signed an agreement to cooperate in space.…
In pro wrestling, the moves may be fake choreographed, but the glittering gold-and-leather championship belts are very real. And while most of what happens at the WWE comes out of an enormously wealthy corporate powerhouse, CNN Money shows us the humble origins of those testosterone-cherished waist trophies: Dave Millican’s house in Tony, Alabama. https://gizmodo.com/wwe-figured-out-the-future-of-tv-last-night-1498110969 Though…
This week sure gave us a lot to talk about over the long weekend. From a giant sinkhole that opened up mere blocks from our NYC office to the weird way that colorized photos are changing how we view history, here’s the best of what we wrote about this week. A Giant Sinkhole Just Opened…
