Science

These Aren’t Flowers

These little things look exactly like flowers — and that’s because they’re meant to. But in real life you’d never be able to spot them, because they are in fact microscopic crystals grown on the surface of a razor blade.

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This Sculpture Would Result From 200 Arrows Hitting One Target

What would happen if 200 arrows somehow magically hit the same bullseye? Pfeilschaften, an installation by the Polish artist Karina Smigla-Bobinski and her German counterpart, Bodo Korsig, visualises just that.

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An Imprisoned Hacker Invented An ATM Attachment That Stops Skimmers

Valentin Boanta has a lot of free time on his hands — five years worth, to be exact. That’s because Boanta is currently serving a prison sentence for, according to Reuters, “supplying gadgets to an organised crime gang used to conceal ATM skimmers.” So with all that time to think about what he’s done, the apparently penitent prisoner spent six months developing an ATM add-on to prevent the exact crime that put him there in the first place.

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Commies, Nukes And Flying Cars: What Seniors Predicted For 2076

The 1970s was a tough decade for the United States. Widespread distrust in government, rising inflation, the oil crisis and disco were all wreaking havoc on the nation.

News

Google On Glass: You’ll Just Know When Someone’s Spying On You

Yesterday saw Google face a lot of questions over Google Glass privacy: not only was it grilled by developers at I/O, but the US Congress also sent it a list of eight questions it wants answered. It’s response? Don’t sweat it; you’ll know if someone is spying on you, silly.

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A Tour Through The US Army’s Largest Simulated Battlefield

How does the US Army train soldiers for guerrilla combat in cities and villages they’ve never visited? By building replicas of those villages, training a force of fake “insurgents” and hiring actors to populate the scenes. Welcome to Fort Irwin, a 2590km² US Army base where many soldiers train before deploying overseas.

Science

Why Your Brain Thinks These Dots Are A Dog

Look at the adorable GIF above. What you’re seeing is nothing more than a blob of disconnected, alternating smaller blobs. So why do our brains tell us that we’re looking at a trotting Dalmatian? It’s all because of a little trick our brains are playing on us known as the Law of Closure.

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How Much Would It Cost To Build The Starship Enterprise?

So you want to build the Enterprise. Don’t we all! Well good news: according to some quick, messy, napkin maths, it’s possible. Kind of. The bad news? It’s going to be stupid expensive. But not unfathomably so! Start scrounging up your space-pennies.

Science

Earth’s Atmosphere Is Slowly Escaping Into Space

Take a deep breath. You’re lucky to be able to. Without a handy blanket of atmosphere gases to swaddle us all, we’d be no more than a twinkle in evolution’s eye. But that wonderful blanket of gas is slowly escaping, molecule by molecule, and there’s not much we can do about it.

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Why 3D Printing Is Overhyped (I Should Know, I Do It For A Living)

Everyone’s now aware of 3D printing — they’ve read about it in the papers, on blogs or seen it on TV. The mentality now seems to be that, in the future, we’ll be able to download our products or make them ourselves with CAD programs, apps and 3D scanners, then just print them out, either at home, or in localised print shops. Which in turn will supposedly decentralise manufacturing, bringing it back to the West.

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