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From afar, the walls at this Gowanus restaurant look like they’re made from grey fabric—but they’re actually made from concrete bricks poured into empty bags of flour from the resident bakery. Concrete masonry unit? More like cookie masonry unit! Sorry. Each block was made from an empty, 50-pound bag of King Arthur flour—emptied by the…
This image—found by Erika Engelhaupt—shows the best places to hide in case of a nuclear blast, part of a recent government guide about what to do in case of a nuclear detonation. It’s scary to see that the US is still actively considering this risk. Take Michael B. Dillon, a scientist at the Lawrence Livermore…
When the WWE announced that it was creating its own digital network—and possibly charting a course for the future of television in the process—it was rightly received here and elsewhere as a Big Deal. But what didn’t receive quite as much fanfare was Vince McMahon’s secret weapon: A second screen experience that’s both beloved and…
In the 1970s, personal rapid transit (PRT) was supposed to be America’s great transportation savior. It combined the privacy of a privately owned car with the efficiency of mass transit. But despite a great deal of hype, this futuristic transportation tech is still mostly relegated to the future that never was. Serious research on PRT…
Lisbon is beautiful: buildings fronted in colorful tiles, cobbled roads, and incredible street art. The Portuguese capital also has hills—lots and lots of steep hills—and a robust tram system that weaves around the highs and lows, complete with a whole tapestry of wires that crisscross above the tracks. Those wires were the inspiration for LX…
Your city’s air quality got you down? Consider picnicking inside this glass-topped park proposed by Orproject. The transparent, ultra-lightweight canopy—inspired by the geometry of butterfly wings—would act as a kind of fresh air reserve: part filter, part outdoor hospital, where you and your friends can breathe in peace. [Orproject]
Think you like gadgets? You don’t hold a candle to Canadian artist William Fisk who’s spent the last decade painting impossibly realistic portraits of everything from vintage cameras to aging computer consoles. In his ongoing “Portraits” project, Fisk focuses on monochromatic objects—with an emphasis on chrome. (A nice way of saying: he likes shiny things.)…
Time to get a little 802.11ac in your life. Apple’s Airport Extreme is down to $169 today at Staples with code 65124. These high-profile Staples deals tend to sell out, so we suggest you act quickly if you’re interested. [Staples] Mirrorless cameras are tempting, no doubt, but the ample external controls, optical viewfinder, and lens…
A cursory glance at this street in Wuxi, China would give the impression of a booming downtown marketplace that runneth over with only the hottest international brands. Look a little closer, and you’ll notice that some of the spellings are a bit—er, off. Look even closer than that, and you’ll realize that this bizarro strip…
IBM’s mad scientists have created a graphene-based circuit that’s 10,000 times more powerful than existing alternatives. This radio receiver is so sophisticated and futuristic, in fact, that it can… send a text message to your friends. Yes, unfortunately the best we can do with this incredible, ultra-conductive, one atom-thick material is create a little chip…
These are the first monkeys with customized mutations were just born in China, marking a new era in precision gene editing. (Read: bringing us closer to a Gattaca-like future where designer babies grow into perfect people that never get sick.) They are twins. Working out of the Model Animal Research Center of Nanjing University, a…
Starting today, you’ll be able to order from GrubHub and Seamless restaurants directly from Foursquare. In addition to the usual info you see when you look up a restaurant, you’ll also see the option to order from participating joints. Which is kind of weird because Foursquare is about going places and delivery is about sitting…
You’re probably not going to instantly become as talented an artist as Marcello Barenghi by simply watching these wonderful timelapses of his photorealistic drawings. But it’s still utterly captivating to see them come to life, and all the tiny details that make them look so real. And who knows, maybe watching someone bring something as…
Four million songs on Spotify—a whopping twenty percent of the site’s tracks—have never been streamed. That is a ton of lonely tunes, but thanks to Forgotify they’re going to start getting some listening love; the service queues up stuff that’s never gotten a spin—the non-Biebers, the un-Mileys, the bizarro-Beys—and creates a running playlist of all-but-unknown…
Not everyone appreciates a GIF. And not everyone appreciates an early Renaissance masterpiece. But there’s more audience overlap than you’d think. Just ask Scorpion Dagger, née James Kerr, an artist whose GIFs feature subjects from 15th century paintings creeping on Instagram and unfriending each other on Facebook. Kerr is a Montreal artist whose Tumblr, Scorpion…
Despite the US military’s robust budget, not every design makes it onto the battlefield. In fact, only a select number of the very best designs ever actually fly. So what the hell was the USAF thinking choosing the defect-ridden F-22 Raptor over this gorgeous jet? When the Soviets rolled out their advanced Su-27 and MiG-29…
Researchers in Japan have developed an incredibly thin wire—just half a micrometer in diameter—made from a new composite material composed of traditional copper and those new fangled carbon nanotubes. But what makes this creation particularly awesome is that the new wire allows over 100 times more current to flow than a traditional copper thread. Furthermore,…
Screw Google Glass. What I want is to see the world slowed down, shot at 500 frames per second and played back at 24 frames per second whenever I want. Or see time-lapses by blinking twice and accelerating time. Example: This corgi. Just imagine being able to watch anything in the real world and be…
Where are the dozens of pictures on your smartphone or tablet going? Nowhere, probably. Printing them at home looks chintzy, and getting professional prints is expensive. Flag wants to change that, with an app that would give you high-quality prints and mail them wherever you want, all for free. Cool! The app, which is currently…
I can’t stop looking at the extraordinary photos by Thomas Shahan, an Oregon-based artist and microphotographer who creates amazing portraits of arthropods, including these awesome jumping spiders. His beautiful monsters don’t make me run in fear, but make me smile (knowing they are tiny, that is.) In fact, some of their faces are hilarious. Above:…
