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Tech NewsNew Maps Show Forests Disappearing in Real Time
The world is vast and travel budgets finite, so looking for deforestation as it’s happening all over the world is nigh impossible. That is, of course, unless you have an all seeing eye in the sky—and, hey, you know what, there are satellites orbiting over all of our heads right now. Global Forest Watch is … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
An Artist and Her Bees Create Beautiful Honeycomb-Draped Sculptures
Aganetha Dyck has thousands, maybe millions, of collaborators for her art. Working with bees she rents from a keeper, she gives ordinary objects like shoes, footballs, helmets, and chipped thrift store knickknacks a second life—cloaked in honeycomb. For Dyck, this collaboration is a form of what she calls “interspecies communication,” where human and apian artists … Continued
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Tech News
Resurrecting Dinosaur-Age Proteins To Cure Human Disease
While dinosaurs have not yet been resurrected Jurassic Park-style, scientists fiddling with ancient DNA sequences have made a discovery that may turn out to be a tad more useful: a treatment for gout. That a 90 million-year-old protein could treat a modern disease is a fascinating window into evolutionary history. If you’ve heard of gout, … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Okay, So Vertical Videos Are Now Art?
Unperturbed by the scourge of vertical video shot on mobile phones, a bunch of Serious Artists have banded together for a film festival devoted exclusively to incorrectly oriented videos. Why subject our eyeballs to such unnatural composition? For art, duh. Vertical Cinema, made up of 10 specially commissioned works by experimental filmmakers, is a deliberate … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Cultural Stereotypes As Revealed By The Ultimate Collection Of Selfies
First came the Tumblrs, then the think pieces, then the distinction of being word of the year. What else could there possibly be for selfies? What about a huge data project analyzing how selfies around the world differ in everything from mood to mouthgape to head tilt? https://jezebel.com/a-passionate-defense-of-selfies-at-funerals-1455095190 Selfiecity—which compares photos from Bangkok, Berlin, Moscow, … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech NewsJunkmail for Cats Drives Them Crazy With Catnip
To appeal to cat owners, just target their cats. And what better way to do so than with an advertisement that is literally catnip? In this diabolically clever ad campaign for Bulk Cat Litter Warehouse, Rethink Canada came up with the idea of spraying paper with catnip concentrate. Direct mail ads were printed on the … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
ScienceBiology
Landmines Warmed By Chickens and Other Tales of Animal Warfare
During the Cold War, the British military proposed placing nuclear land mines throughout the North German Plain to ensnare Soviet troops if they invaded. But how could they keep the bombs at the right temperature underground? Enter the idea of live chickens, which, if supplied with feed, could warm mines for about a week at … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Sheep in Central Park, Archaeo-Bunnies, and Cockroach Pheromone Bots
There’s a veritable menagerie in this week’s landscape reads: domesticated sheep, archeologist rabbits, robot cockroaches, and acidified limpets. The Sheep Days of Central Park Today, the grassy slopes of Central Park’s Sheep Meadow are populated by sunbathers and picnickers. As its name implies, however, it was once home to a flock of sheep—a park attraction … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech NewsMapping an Invisible Border of Air Between Two Cities in China
Shenzhen and Hong Kong are two major economic powerhouses just twenty miles apart. Thousands of cars and people cross their borders every day. But their close relationship belies inequalities that still exist between the city of Shenzhen and the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. “One Country, Two Lungs” is a project by the MIT … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Scientists Built Fake Pub to Film Strangers Drinking Alcohol
At London South Bank University’s shiny new pub, the drinks are free but they, uhh, may or may not actually contain alcohol. And it’s not a real pub, actually. Oh, and there are little cameras all over the place tracking your every movement. If that doesn’t like quite the greatest night on the town, that’s … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Exploring Paris (And The New Jersey Turnpike) Through Smell
On a recent evening in San Francisco, a couple dozen well-dressed and hiply bespectacled young people leaned over glass cones and inhaled. The purpose? Time travel. At Urban Olfactory, an exhibition running at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) through March 31, you can breathe in the smells of Paris from 1738, … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Who Is Your Internet Doppelgänger?
For those of us narcissistic enough to regularly self-Google, there’s always that ever slightly more famous person who’s coming out on top. Do you have an internet doppelgänger/moral enemy? Or is your name so unique you can gloat about your Google search ranking? In light of this hilarious New York Observer piece about @sambiddle, a … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
An Unintended Effect of Energy-Efficient Buildings: Toxic Mold
Energy-efficient buildings can be wonderful at keeping out drafts and keeping down heating bills. But the same air-tightness, unfortunately, is also perfect for trapping humid air where toxic mold can go to party. The Alberta Court of Appeal in Canada has been a mold-filled ghost building since 2001, after renovations to the handsome, 87-year-old sandstone … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Using Subterranean Acoustics to Explore Ancient Cave Art
You don’t even need a flashlight to look for cave paintings in the dark: you just need the sound of your own voice. By listening to echoes as they walk through Spanish caves, acoustic archaeologists are unlocking the secrets of underground soundscapes. Prehistoric cave paintings, as it happens, aren’t scattered at random underground. Archaeologists at … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
ScienceHealth
Need a Fecal Transplant? There’s a Poop Bank For That
By now, you’ve probably heard of the miracle that is the fecal transplant. When antibiotics become useless against infections by the nasty bacterium Clostrium difficile, a slurry of human feces—full of “good” bacteria—piped into the gut can fix things up quick and cheap. The problem has always been a reliable source of poop. Enter OpenBiome, … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Sex-Changing Frogs, Corn Espionage, and a Time-Traveling Greenhouse
Rising and falling in this week’s landscape news: the rise of artificial snow and the fall of a Chinese agricultural spy, the rise of corn and the fall of male frogs. The End of Ski Resorts? All right, let’s get the laughs about snow and Sochi out first. While the Russian city can probably hoard … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
What Happens When Your Olympic Site Turns Into a War Zone
The second life of Olympic structures is a challenge to manage for any host city. But none, perhaps, offer as stark an image as Sarajevo’s battle-scarred Olympic buildings. Eight years after the 1984 winter games, the Bosnian War left the city with buildings full of bullet holes, ski slopes dotted with land mines, and a … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
The Army Built a Fake City in Virginia to Train Its Troops
A shiny new city recently opened in northern Virginia’s Caroline County. It has a school, a church, a mosque, a subway station, and even an embassy that, at five stories, may be the county’s tallest building. But nobody lives there. That’s because the 300-acre complex at Fort A.P. Hill is the U.S. military’s newest $90.1 … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
8 of the Most Fascinating Items From Carl Sagan’s Personal Archives
As America’s foremost ambassador to space, Carl Sagan has continued to inspire our fascination with exploring beyond Earth. The Library of Congress has digitized its Carl Sagan archives, and several items just collectedonline give us an amazing new look into the mind of the astronomer. Some items from the Seth MacFarlane Collection of the Carl … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
How the Drought Is Devastating California’s #1 Food Export: Almonds
California grows a mind-boggling amount of the nation’s produce: 99 percent of artichokes, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, and on and on. That’s why the record-breaking drought (yes, it’s finally raining—no, it won’t help much!) can affect your grocery bill, even if you live nowhere near California. But … Continued
By Sarah Zhang
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