Science

DIY science is the perfect way to use your creative skills and learn something new. With the right supplies, some determination, and a curious mind, you can create amazing experiments that open up a whole world of possibilities. At home-made laboratories or tech workshops, makers from all backgrounds can explore new ideas by finding ways to study their environment in novel ways – allowing them to make breathtaking discoveries!

LED traffic lights don’t melt snow

LED traffic lights don’t melt snow

Interesting story on MSNBC about how the newer energy-efficient LED traffic lights are causing accidents because, unlike conventional incandescent traffic lights, they do not generate enough heat to keep themselves clear of snow, and thus can easily become obscured by it. I don’t think anyone’s saying LED traffic lights are a bad idea in general, but it is an interesting parable about thinking all the way through a problem from a design perspective. [Thanks, Ron!]

Life-size Operation game tournament

Life-size Operation game tournament

On Saturday, December 19, The Franklin Institute and Body World 2 will be hosting an Operation® game tournament. Body World 2 teamed up with our pals at MakePhilly and Hive76 to create a life-size ‘Ben Franklin’ version of Hasbro’s popular game Operation. Quoth the PR: Competitors will play on regulation-size Operation boards during the preliminary […]

Happy holidays from the Universe

Happy holidays from the Universe

Happy holidays from the Universe… Just in time for the holidays: a Hubble Space Telescope picture postcard of hundreds of brilliant blue stars wreathed by warm, glowing clouds. The festive portrait is the most detailed view of the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood. The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only […]

158-lens camera

Built by Associate Professor Yojiro Ishino of the Nagoya Institute of Technology, this giant camera took six months to build and has reportedly been certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the camera with the record-holding highest number of lenses. It’s about 3 inches high and 18.5 inches across, and was built to study flames by capturing them simultaneously from as many angles as possible. [via Neatorama]

New VISTA photos…

New VISTA photos…

It’s not that OS that you’re not using… it’s VISTA, an amazing new telescope via Wired A new telescope — VISTA (the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) — has just started work at ESO’s Paranal Observatory and has made its first release of pictures. VISTA is a survey telescope working at infrared wavelengths […]