The Martian is a book by Andy Weir about how potatoes will become the first food crop on Mars. Alright, it’s about more than that, but anyone who has read Weir’s novel knows potatoes get plenty of mentions. Anyway, the point is: This week, in honor of Mark Watney’s space spuds, we’re featuring a puzzle about Martian…
Dearest Internet mammals: This is it. After years of faithful service, I’m leaving io9. If you’re reading this, you already know how special this place is, so I’ll do my best to keep this brief and spare you my gushing praise. But, if you’ll permit me just a tiny bit of gushing, I’d like to say a little about what…
Time, patience, time, dedication, and time are just a few of the things Peter Bellerby needed to found and subsequently operate Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, one of the only companies on Earth that still makes globes by hand.
Two of our favorite science writers, Robert Krulwich and Aatish Bhatia, just launched a new science blog about “noticing small things and exploring big ideas.” They call their project “Noticing.”
Inventor-engineer Alan Adler is the man behind the record-setting Aerobie Flying Ring and the widely beloved AeroPress coffee maker. In this profile by filmmaker David Friedman, Adler tells the stories behind his superior designs— and man, is he ever charming*. I defy you to watch this and not fall in love with the…
The health tip about drinking eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day has been roundly dismissed by scientists, doctors, and upstanding bloggers for years, but this baseless myth refuses to die. Meanwhile, exercise-associated hyponatremia, a consequence of overhydration, is being reported across a broader range of…
A study published in the journal Acta Psychologica claims to be the first to investigate lying behavior across all age groups. “Young adults – defined here as people aged 18 to 29 – are the most skilled liars,” writes Christian Jarrett at the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog, “while teens are the…
European languages often use the same word for “story” and “history,” but many English speakers regard these words as antonyms. But how different are they really? At The Last Word on Nothing, Ann Finkbeiner asked some practicing PhD historians for their opinions.
Conner Griffith combined images from Google Earth, Wikipedia, the Rhode Island School of Design’s Picture and Materials collections, and his own photography to create “Ripple,” a concise, top-down overview of the shapes we use to organize the world.
Cooper Tire wants to make tires out of guayule, a flowering shrub native to the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico. The NYT reports the company “is expected to demonstrate tires this week with components” made from guayule-derived rubber, and expects “to make a complete tire... by early 2017.” [NYT via PopSci]
Fossilized feces, aka “coprolites,” are an uncommon paleontological find. But fossilized poop inside a fossilized creature? That’s rarer, still, and why researchers are so excited about the pterosaur fossil pictured above.
A recent study found that extended bouts of eye contact could trigger “dissociative symptoms, dysmorphic face perceptions, and hallucination-like strange-face apparitions.” Sounds like a fun experiment to try at home, right? Maybe—if you can stomach ten minutes of direct eye contact.
Don’t answer this puzzle too quickly. Read the question closely, and consider your answer carefully (especially if you’ve seen this kind of puzzle before).
This week, the Cassini spacecraft made its fifth and final flyby of Dione, Saturn’s fourth-largest moon. This image, in which Saturn and its rings can be seen looming behind the moon, was captured in the leadup to the mission’s last close approach, on August 17, 2015.
A hexagon cake knife is a knife that can cut cake into hexagonal pieces. Matthias Wandel, who is an engineer by trade but moonlights as a woodworking wizard (see his eminently watchable YouTube channel), was in need of such a knife, so he designed and crafted one himself.
The apocalyptic “bemusement” park is Banksy’s newest, and biggest-ever, pop-up exhibition. Located in the British seaside town of Weston-superMare, it features the work of some 50 artists from around the world. Colossal’s Chris Jobson has great photos, and Juxtapoz has an exclusive interview with Banksy.
“Albert Einstein made mistakes, and like many physicists he sometimes published them. For most of us, the times when we go astray are happily forgettable. In Einstein’s case, even the mistakes are noteworthy.” Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss explores “what Einstein got wrong,” in the latest issue of SciAm.…
I know an animated short about an environmentally conscious shark maybe isn’t the kind of thing you’d normally watch but STAY WITH ME. DON’T GO INTO YOUR ZONE WHERE YOU DON’T WANNA HEAR, OKAY? This video is hilarious. It will make your day better, and you should watch it.
