Maddie Stone

Tech News

Beautiful Two-Stroke Engine Lets You Watch Its Inner Workings

Combustion of fuel—a process that you, me and everyone else we know very much relies on—is usually hidden from sight inside that big hunk of metal called an engine. But Huib Vissier saw something beautiful in this process, so he built a simple engine that showcases combustion rather than concealing it. Enter the two-stroke 1C, … Continued

Tech News

California’s Wealthiest Are Being Drought Shamed on Social Media

The hard data on Cali’s biggest water hogs may not be publicly available, but we all have eyes and a smartphone. So, as another season of “exceptional drought” descends on the West, people sick of witnessing egregious water waste in their backyard are taking to social media to vent. #droughtshaming is blowing up. And it’s … Continued

Tech News

These Photos Will Make You Want to Drop Everything and Explore the World

Nicholas Roemmelt’s photography is enough to make any person whose day job involves a computer and a desk question his or her life choices. In addition to shooting just plain stunning photos of nature, he sometimes makes us extra envious of his adventures by adding himself or his wife to a jaw-droppingly beautiful landscape. Selfies … Continued

Tech NewsDesign

Architects Design Wooden Bicycle Frame to Explore Structural Engineering

Wooden bikes may be beautiful, but they’re also a tad impractical. Nevertheless, there may be unexpected value in wooden bike frames, which architects can use to understand important structural challenges and prototype new designs. That, at least, is the rationale behind bike manufacturer AERO’s latest prototype. Architects Martino Hutz, Atanas Zhelev and Mariya Korolova built … Continued

Tech News

Watching This Frozen Apple Get Smashed to Bits is Oddly Satisfying

You don’t have to tell me you were wondering what happens when you dunk an apple in liquid nitrogen and smash it with an 83 pound weight. So were we. The YouTuber who’s answered many important life questions for us, including what happens when you light a Rubik’s cube on fire or drop a hot … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy and Security

Security Researcher Claims to Have Commandeered a Flight in Mid-Air

While United is busy offering free miles to researchers who can root out bugs in its website, there’s a much larger cybersecurity risk the airline still refuses to touch: The possibility of a hacker accessing critical avionics controls through an in-flight network. https://gizmodo.com/united-cant-even-be-bothered-to-pay-money-for-finding-s-1704639413 Which, it so happens, is exactly what cybersecurity researcher Chris Roberts has … Continued

EartherClimate Change

The Techno-Islands That May Replace the Maldives

If the 350 thousand-odd Maldivians want to stay put, they may have to rebuild everything, starting with the ground they walk on. Located roughly 370 miles off the southwest tip of India, the island nation of Maldives sounds like paradise—over a thousand tiny oases of white sand beach, lush tropical vegetation, and warm, aquamarine water. … Continued

Tech News

Ancient Asteroid Impacts Boiled the Oceans and Made Life on Earth Hell

Roughly 3.3 billion years ago, Earth’s early life forms were plunged into an unimaginable hell, when a series of massive asteroids smashed into the young planet, vaporizing the oceans and scorching the skies. Image: Johan Swanepoel/Shutterstock We’ve heard about one of these asteroids before—a 58 kilometer-across object that, upon impact 3.26 billion years ago, shook … Continued

Tech News

Smart and JBL Cram a Concert Hall Into a Fortwo

Smart is all about being compact and efficient, so when the company teamed up with audio provider JBL, it naturally wanted to see how much sound it could squeeze into one of its little hatchbacks. The resultant ‘smart forgigs,’ which boasts 5720 watts of amplification, is a mobile concert hall guaranteed to give any struggling … Continued

Tech News

The Backbone of the Internet is Maxing Out

Earlier this week, we heard reports that we’re on the verge of running out of internet, specifically, out of IPv4 addresses. Now, it seems, we may be hitting another, more serious internet wall: The cables. That’s right. The tubes themselves can’t spit out our data much faster. The fiber-optic cables that transmit the internet’s data … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

SpaceX Just Dropped These Amazing Retro Mars Travel Posters

Everybody wants to go to Mars these days, not least of all Elon Musk, who might very well be hoping to retire there after he turns into a cyborg. But for those of you who haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, SpaceX just dropped some travel posters of the Red Planet to entice you. For … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Earth’s Oceans May Have Crash-Landed via Ancient Asteroids

SimEarth was right about one thing. The best way to wet up a planet? Hurl a bunch of icy asteroids at it. That, at least, is one interpretation of a new study published in the Royal Astronomical Society, which supports the hypothesis that most of our planet’s water crash-landed via space rocks eons ago. And … Continued

Tech News

I Want to Live in this Magical Microscopic Ice World

The microscopic world loves to deceive us. This image, for instance, looks like an icy landscape on an alien planet, but it’s actually a thin film of wax, sandwiched between two glass microscope slides and illuminated using linearly polarized light. Image Copyright: Aongus McCarthy “Frozen Landscape” was created by Aongus McCarthy of Heriot-Watt University, an … Continued

Tech News

May’s Essential Apps for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone

April seems to have flown by, but a decent amount of stuff has happened. We saw more glimpses of plenty of upcoming films including Star Wars, Jurassic World, andMad Max: Fury Road. Super hero sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron came out, and it was awesome, LG announced the G4 smartphone at long last, we found … Continued

Tech News

Jilted Crowdfunders Are Demanding More Than Unfulfilled Pledges

Welcome to Reading List, a weekly collection of great tech reads from around the web. This week explores the rage of the jilted crowdfunder, the untold history of the Silk Road, one man’s unfortunate weekend using only the Apple Watch for communication, and more! Enjoy. When a crowdfunded project doesn’t deliver as promised, backers feel … Continued

Tech News

Here’s How Much Earth Gets Blasted Away to Extract a Hunk of Diamond

If you ever wondered how much land mass had to be moved to produce that diamond engagement ring, this series of photos should help put things in perspective. Dillon Marsh, a photographer and artist from Cape Town, describes his ongoing For What It’s Worth series as an attempt to quantify mining, “an industry that has … Continued

SciencePhysics & Chemistry

We’ve Just Developed a Portable Cloaking Device 

If you’re a non-magical being, you might think your chances of becoming invisible are slim to nil. But don’t jump to conclusions just yet: Researchers are now claiming to have developed a portable system that can make small objects, like your keys or pet lizard, disappear from sight. Top image: Conceptual model of an invisibility … Continued

Tech News

Tesla Battery Economics: On the Path to Disruption

Elon Musk announced Tesla’s home / business battery today. tl;dr: It’ll get enthusiastic early adopters to buy. The economics are almost there to make it cost effective for a wide market. And within just a few years, it almost certainly will be cheap enough to be cost effective for a broad market. Not a complete … Continued

Tech NewsGadgets

NASA’s Ten Engine Electric Drone Goes From Chopper to Airplane and Back

Space missions get all the hype, but NASA Aeronautics is doing some pretty rad stuff, too. Their ten engine, unmanned electric plane, for instance, has just successfully transitioned from hover mode to wing-borne flight and back again in mid-air. Top image: NASA Langley/David C. Bowman Dubbed the Greased Lightning (GL-10), the current prototype for this … Continued

Tech NewsGoogle

Free Apps May Be Tracking Your Phone Without Your Consent

Free Android apps are getting a bit promiscuous. That, at least, is the conclusion of a group of security researchers, who find that poorly vetted apps on Google Play are connecting to a massive number of ad and tracking sites—without users being any the wiser. While Apple rigorously vets everything that appears in its app … Continued