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Shigeru Ban has had a big spring, what with winning architecture’s highest prize, building disaster housing in the Philippines, and unveiling a huge luxury penthouse in NYC. The Japanese architect has many fans: Including the designer of this wooden table, who says it was inspired by his low-tech cardboard buildings. Ania Wolowska named this piece…
A lot of amazing animators are alumni of the California Institute of the Arts, so it’s not that ridiculous to expect another great talent to rise out of the school’s current batch of students. And since the 2014 BFA student films were just released online, we can sift through to see for ourselves. At the…
With the FCC blessing the use of smartphones—and their wireless plans—on planes, perhaps it was only a matter of time until carriers started designing services tailored for the skies. Re/code reports that AT&T wants to bring you 4G/LTE connectivity at 35,000 feet. While Re/code’s report is thin on details, it does contain official quotes from…
Surrounding the bustling island of Manhattan are countless lesser-known landforms. One of the most unique is North Brother Island. Sitting in the East River between the Bronx and Rikers Island, this unassuming chunk of land once housed a hospital where the city quarantined sick patients. Now, it’s a protected bird sanctuary—but photographer Christopher Payne was…
Chernobyl is a scary, seemingly sinister place, where trees don’t decay and plants glow. A newly published study, however, shows that not all living things are necessarily doomed in this radioactive wasteland. Some birds in the exclusion zone are actually adapting to the harsh environment. The birds aren’t just adapting, though. Based on years of…
In this week’s Landscape Reads, we visit the giant, steel sarcophagus that will soon encase Chernobyl, go inside the battle for “solar rights,” pay tribute to the blazing fires that created the American prairie, and follow the secret highway crossings of bears. Building Chernobyl’s Massive Radiation-Proof Sarcophagus The steel arch that will encase Chernobyl is…
Just a little over a day after Microsoft revealed a massive Internet Explorer vulnerability, Adobe is pushing out an emergency security update to patch the Flash-enabled flaw. In other words, if you’re an IE user (and statistically 26 percent of you are), go download it right now. While the flaw affected virtually all versions of…
Since it’s right next to the largest private construction project NYC has ever seen, you could easily miss it: A 35-foot-deep trench being dug on Manhattan’s West Side. It looks something like a grave, or an archaeological dig, but no—this is an 800-foot-long insurance plan for the future of the city. In a report from…
There’s a whole host of improvements coming to Facebook Messenger version 5.0: photo sharing has a new, streamlined design, improving accessibility; there are new shortcuts for downloading sticker packs; and the kicker, recording and sharing video. For the moment, the update is only available on iOs, and will come to Android later this week.
There are few things more anxiety-inducing than seeing a cop car’s flashing lights in your rearview mirror. But that terror probably would’ve been about a thousand times worse had this police car of the future from 1958 ever become a reality. Detroit-based illustrator Arthur Radebaugh designed countless cars for clients in the 1950s, but he…
Slacking off of the prevailing winds are allowing a pool of warm water to slosh across the Pacific Ocean basin, marking this as a potential El Niño year. The newly-released water-temperature data from NOAA reveal a Kelvin wave of warm water arriving on the west coast of the Americas. Deep pool of warm water sloshes…
Is there anything graphene can’t do? The miracle material can save aging buildings, generate electricity, fight blood clots, and give you Predator-vision, among many other magical things. But a new study has revealed that graphene could have some negative environmental impacts as well. A lab at University of California, Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering is…
One year ago today, the gods smiled upon us and bestowed man with the greatest, most seductive gift since Prometheus first brought fire down from Mt. Olympus. And to celebrate a full year of having a wet, naked Robert Scoble seared into our memory, we thought we’d mark the occasion with a Photoshop contest. Thankfully,…
Chris Carlson does great 3D illusion paintings. This stop motion, forced perspective, chalk painting version of the classic game Snake—present in every single dumbphone and available as a BASIC game for every computer of yore—is pretty damn cool too. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
If you haven’t seen Samsung’s new teaser for its Galaxy S5 “Crystal Collection,” shield your eyes now—this thing has enough reflective power to blind the sun. And judging by the shape of the smartphone market, phones dripping with crystals will soon be the status quo. Get ready for an army of handsets that shine so…
Today, the American Museum of Natural History put online their entire catalog of archival images. The Digital Special Collection consists of over 7,000 photos, slides, and illustration spanning the world over. We sifted through the pile and picked out a few favorites. × Shell and Coral Hall looking west, 4th floor, main building Mountain goat,…
It’s Monday and we already got a winner for the coolest selfie of the week: Scuba diver Jason Neilus and a friendly seal in the Ferne Islands, UK. What about some belly rubs? Belly rubs are amazing, right seal? RIGHT? Right! × SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
Whether you just want to save on gas money, or actually learn better driving habits, you should take a good, hard look at Automatic. This Bluetooth dongle plugs into your car’s OBD-II port (found on almost any car made since 1996) and communicates with your iPhone or Android device phone to track driving habits, mileage,…
In the normal world, it’s what you’d call a bad investment: Spending $2 billion to build the largest moveable structure ever—and knowing that it won’t work for longer than 100 years. But in Chernobyl, it’s the best available option for protecting a whole continent from the worst nuclear disaster in history. Today is the 28th…
Get y0ur T-1000 jokes ready, because we’re one step closer to liquid metal-powered people. As a team of Chinese biomedical engineers recently used an alloy to close the gap between severed sciatic nerves in frogs. In effect, it made electronic circuits out of nerves—and it worked. Shockingly, this sci-fi solution is as simple as it…
