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GamesArchive for March, 2010
ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition – “The latest development from AMD – the ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition graphics card – could become one of the hottest gadgets of the year. The card, pictured above, takes the September 2009 HD 5870 “Cypress” GPU and equips it with six Mini DisplayPort outputs [...]
If you are overweight or obese, weight loss and dieting might seem impossible. So many people experience the problem known as yo-yo dieting, where every attempt to lose weight is followed by a period of weight gain. One possible solution is a gastric bypass, also known as stomach stapling. But the procedure has some problems: [...]
Do you know what a pyroclastic surge is? It’s when the boiling column of ash spewing out of a volcano drops and rebounds sideways off the slopes of the volcano like a really scary basketball. And by really scary basketball, I mean a poisonous cloud of debris so scorching hot that it vaporizes your clothes and, more unfortunately, your skin. You’re dead in an instant.
At least that’s what happened to the folks who were hanging out in boathouses on the beach facing Herculaneum in A.D. 79. You’ve probably heard of the massive Mount Vesuvius volcanic eruption that avalanched the wealthy coastal towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii. But did you know that the surge was 932 degrees Fahrenheit and that it boiled beachgoers’ brain tissue?
Sarah and I started off “Who stole the Amber Room?” with a discussion of American Girl dolls, mainly because we talk about them much more often than you’d think two 20somethings would, but also because pioneer Kirsten had a lovely, much-coveted amber necklace. Now imagine an entire room paneled with the fossilized resin and backed in gold leaf, decorated with mosaics in semiprecious stones. When Hitler took a shine to the treasure, it disappeared.
Our next topic was Irish hero Brian Boru, a guerrilla warrior who drove the marauding Vikings out of Ireland and became high king before dying bloodily by Viking hands. But history is never as simple as that.
Journalists writing on matters of interest to China and Taiwan have had their Yahoo e-mail accounts compromised, according to a report from Lucy Hornby and Alexei Oreskovic at Reuters. This news follows reports of a similar incident at Google, which has led the company to cease censorship of its search results in China.
John Hennessey is a tuner whose tuning hobby turned into an incredible niche business. He takes fast cars and makes them much faster. Here he describes how the business got started. The video also shows an attempt at setting a new world record using a Hennessey-tuned 1,450 HP Viper: Now it looks like Hennessey is [...]
Several weeks ago, Chris and I recorded a podcast about the United States military purchasing PlayStation 3 consoles. The goal wasn’t to provide the men and women serving in the armed forces the chance to play a little Katamari Damacy between deployments. Instead, the goal was to link the consoles together to create a modular supercomputer.
The PS3′s processor is what makes this possible. Sony decided to experiment with the PS3 and incorporated a Cell processor. The Cell processor has two main components: a managing processor and several Synergistic Processing Elements.
Millions of people around the world suffer from forms of blindness caused by the failure of the retina’s rods and cones. However, the optic nerve is still intact. Therefore, if scientists could find a new way to pump electronic signals down the optic nerve, the brain would be able to see. In Australia, it appears [...]
You Asked: How does coin recognition in vending machines work? — Joey, San Dimas, Calif. Marshall Brain Answers: For human beings, recognizing if a coin is real is pretty easy. We can look at the coin, weigh it in our hand, feel the temperature, listen to it hit the floor, etc. If someone handed you [...]
The smell of rain is often linked with spring, and it’s been alluded to in poems, songs and stories for centuries. But what exactly causes this distinctive smell? Tune in and find out.
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
- Thank You and Best Wishes to Marshall Brain
- Contest – Design a $300 house and win $25,000
- How the Philtrum works – the place under your nose where your face comes together
The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
- Have a Coke and a Smile
- The Latest in Frugal Lodging: Camping in Somebody Else’s Backyard
- The Painted Beauties of Bucovina
Keep Asking
- Why can a 5 foot 8 inch man dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim while some people of taller stature can’t?
- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
- Who invented the Christmas card?
- How the Kinsey Report Fueled Whiskey Sales
- How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into The New York Times
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- Space Music: DJ Food and ‘The Search Engine’
- Stuff to Blow Your Mind: Hug it Out
- Space Music: Jay-Z and Beyoncé to Film Music Video in Orbit
Stuff You Should Know
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
- Amazing Medical Conditions: Maple Syrup Urine Disorder
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Why is NASA studying car safety?
- Tips for in-car Navigation Systems
- Tips for Using Bluetooth in the Car
How-to Stuff
- How to Swim with Dolphins (When Deep Water Terrifies You)
- How to Cure a Homemade Cookie Craving Without Turning on the Oven
- How to Know When It’s Time for a New Pet
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 36: Now Available in 3-D
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 35: Let’s do brunch!
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 34: Play it again, Sam
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
- Bill Gates Makes For A Pretty Decent Cartoon
Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
- Are we rooting for D.B. Cooper?
- Party Time: A Look at Unconventional Politics
