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Zephyr Solar Plane Lands After Over 2 Weeks (!!!) in the Air, Setting New World Record – “A week ago we wrote about the Zephyr “Eternal Aircraft”, an unmanned solar plane that had just broken many records by staying up in the air for 7 days. Well, the Zephyr has finally landed at the US [...]
Parasites compose some of the more fascinating and successful organisms on the planet, but it’s hard not to focus on the yuck factor when there’s a botfly larva squirming inside a dude’s head. So it’s pretty cool to see a short documentary with a different approach hitting festivals around the country: Sharon Shattuck‘s “Parasites: A User’s Guide.” Lets watch the extended trailer and interview the artist behind it all, shall we?
Probably because of all the history classes we all took in grades 1 through 12, many people have a impression of the railroads that comes from the 1800s. We imagine hundreds or thousands of men building railroad tracks using hand-carried wooden railroad ties and hammers.
The following video has made the rounds since it was released, with well over half a million views. It is fascinating in a “How It’s Made” sense, because it shows an amazing amount of automation now used in the process…
There’s a part in William Gibson’s cyberpunk classic “Neuromancer” where one character waxes poetic over the prospect of human beings falling in league with a pair of rogue artificial intelligences. “For thousands of years men dreamed of pacts with demons,” the character says. “Only now are such things possible.”
Advanced technology makes the mythic possible, and as Arthur C. Clarke so succinctly put it, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Which brings me to the most recent pair of Stuff From the Science Lab podcasts! You can find us on iTunes, download the MP3s from the RSS feed or click on the Stuff From the Science Lab icon in the right-hand column to access the embedded player.
Last night, when I was procrastinating working on something else, I ran across an article about how the government of India has announced that it’s releasing a $35 tablet. I don’t remember exactly which media outlet I saw it in, but it’s been covered in many places, such as this article in Bloomberg Businessweek by John Ribeiro.
IBM has announced a mainframe that can act like 100,000 virtual machines, each acting as a web server, database engine, even a Windows machine, or whatever you need to build out the data center for a major corporation. It does that using the fastest chips available…
Daft punk is a popular band – for example, over 2 million fans on their Facebook page. Part of their look is the helmets, as seen in this interview: What if you would like to create one of the helmets yourself? Not an easy task, but it has been done through an amazing and painstaking [...]
Really, the fact that I am able to write this and you are able to read it means that we are both very fortunate indeed….
What are electrolytes, and why do athletes and sick kids need them? Marshall Brain explains how ions and electrolytes work in your body in this episode.
Traditionally, cooking has been considered a female task. Yet in the professional realm, men predominate. Why? Do men and women cook food diffently? Molly and Cristen explore gender issues in the culinary world in this episode.
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
