Education News
News: Man Shoots Lightning from Hands (Wearing Faraday Suit)
No kidding, watch below as 500,000 volts of electricity literally course over a man's body. Of course, he has a little protection: the faraday suit. The video was shot in Austin, Texas, for a German television documentary. Producer Johannes Wiebus is quoted as saying:
News: 10 Big Ideas from TED 2010
CNN has compiled a list of the best ten ideas presented at this year's TED conference.
News: 100 of YouTube's Coolest Science Experiments
The X-Ray Vision-aries Blog has compiled a list of YouTube's 100 Coolest Science Experiments. I particularly enjoy their introduction to the selection:
News: HD Tour of the Brand New International Space Station
Take a tour of the ISS (International Space Station), just posted on YouTube this week. The ISS is an international project, including the five participant space stations: American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and the European Space Agency (ESA).
News: Teenager Invents Technology for Deep "Cave-Texting"
16-year-old Alexander Kendrick has invented a low-frequency radio that allows for cave-texting, meaning deep underground cellular communication.
News: Artificial Organs Whipped Up With an Inkjet Printer
Dr. Anthony Atala landed a place in PopSci's Best of 2006 with his homegrown bladders. Now Atala returns to the spotlight at a recent TED talk, discussing his current project of "printing" organs.
News: Make Edible Lasers (Jell-O or Gin & Tonic Flavored)
Remember the glowing pickle? Well, here's another sci-fi food-oddity. Sounds entirely fictitious, but apparently you can make edible lasers.
News: 2009's Most Amazing Hubble Space Telescope Images
Mind blowing cosmos art, seen through the lens of the Hubble telescope. Click through to Discovery News for more information behind these beautiful images.
News: Man Spies Spacewalking Astronauts With Backyard Telescope
Apparently a little amateur astronomy can go a long way. On March 21, 2009, Ralf Vandebergh, sitting in his backyard, pointed his 10 inch telescope at the sky and "saw a few bright pixels appear precisely where the work was going on at exactly the moment it was being conducted." A few bright pixels = an astronaut!
News: 2009's Most Amazing Scientific Images
Popsci has posted 2009's most amazing scientific images, and there's quite a few great ones in there. A few of our favorites below, click through for all 62.
News: Ew. Livestream of Patient's Brain Being Sliced. Watch Now.
Neuroscience (live!) resumes its 50 hour slicing session 8:00 am PST this morning. According to Gizmodo,
News: Bomb-Proof Your Home With Wallpaper
Incredible. A company called Berry Plastics (in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) has developed a working bomb proof wallpaper. The technology has the ability to protect against both natural disasters and warfare.
News: Freaky Cornstarch Speakers Explained
The beautiful ectoplasmic dance of the cornstarch speaker monster is finally elucidated. In addition to being captivated by its eerily vibrant dance, you can now understand exactly why it happens, thanks to Collin Cunningham from MAKE. He gives a great explanation of cymatics - the study of visible sound and vibration. Check out this amazing hi-def sonic cornstarch sculpture from WonderHowTo's very own WonderDude Mike:
News: Bloodless Virtual Autopsies Nab Criminals
Virtual autopsies are the wave of the future in forensic medicine, using three-dimensional x-ray techniques instead of hacking through a mess of blood and guts. The Virtual Autopsy Table allows the cause of death to be determined quickly to aid in criminal investigations. Amazing - straight out of Bones or CSI.
News: Eyeballs Can Now Control a Cell Phone
Yep, just what the headline says. Believe it or not, NTT DoCoMo has showed off "a set of prototype in-ear headphones that can detect and measures changes in the body's electrical state when your eyes move." Forget voice activation, eye gesture recognition is the thing of the future. Image.
News: Vortex Cannon Belches Jumbo Smoke Rings
What makes vortex cannons so super cool? Is it that they're the perfect blend of weaponry and science?
News: LED Wand + RIFD Waves = Awesome Science Art
Using a combination of technology and animation techniques, two students at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design have created a visual model of RFID fields.
News: Electrocute an Innocent Pickle
MIT scientist explains OLEDs by electrocuting a pickle. From Gizmodo:
News: NASA to Bomb the Moon (For Real)
No joke. This is not an Onion headline. This coming Friday, October 9th, NASA is actually planning on bombing the moon in search for water. The missile, a Centaur rocket, will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aiming at the moon's South Pole. Scientists will then analyze the debris from the explosion for traces of water ice or vapor.
News: Solve Crimes With CSI Style Forensics
MAKE Magazine recently opened the Make: Science Room, a "DIY science classroom, virtual laboratory, and a place to share your projects, hacks, and laboratory tips with other amateur scientists."
News: Make a Battery Out of Money
Hunkin's Experiments offers over 200 science experiments freely available in comic strip form. The experiments are organized in 18 different categories, covering a wide range from simple trickery to more technical experiments. The author, Tim Hunkin, is a trained engineer turned cartoonist, and also responsible for TV series/site The Secret Life of Machines (worth a look).
News: Man Walks On Half a Million Volts of Electricity
Michael Faraday was an English chemist and physicist - a bona fide electromagnetism and electrochemistry genius. Without him, men couldn't walk on live electrical wires. Wait, what?
News: Vortex Cannon Demolishes House
Jem Stansfield from BBC's Bang Goes the Theory has "put scientific theory to the test" with his Vortex Cannon. Filmed at 1300-fps, you can see the cannon knock down three different houses made of straw, stick, and brick with an explosive vortex ring.
News: Rocket Power Your Lazy Boy
Since the days of Archytas, rocket propulsion has been the Holy Grail of aeronautics. Thanks to Galileo's inertia, Newton's laws of motion, and the "father of modern rocketry," Goddard, space is not a complete mystery anymore. Rocket-powered aircrafts have evolved from the first liquid fuel rocket in 1926, to the Soviet R-7 which launched Sputnik, to NASA's Saturn V that propelled Apollo 11 to the moon. Today, even billionaire tourists can enjoy space, like Microsoft's Charles Simonyi and Cir...
News: Home brew elephant toothpaste
But elephants don't need toothpaste, do they? Mr. Kent, a Long Island chemistry teacher, is at it again with his after hours experiments. We like to refer to him as Mr. Wizard 2.0.
News: Make poor man's liquid nitrogen
Bill Beaty's at it again! Our favorite crackpot physicist presents a backyard solution to that emergency need for cryogenic fluid. Sometimes you can't wait to freeze daisies.
News: Make an anti-gravity static powered floating orb
Think atomic theory is only for nerds? Think again. Make magical electrons dance right before your very eyes. This anti-gravity orb will move at your command.
News: Transform potatoes into plastic! (see teddy)
Hello, potato plastic -- goodbye, petroleum plastic! Watch carefully, treehuggers.
News: Cheat the clock by speed reading
Waiting for school to start? Have you been practicing reading in the meantime? Here's our most honest and effective "cheat" to help you out.
News: Grow rainbow salt crystals
Turn a used toilet paper roll into a fantastical garden of colorful salt crystals! Creator Jim, AKA HvySteel, is part artist, part scientist. His HowTo brings back great memories of our youth.
News: Hack a CRT into a lightning ball
NK5 is a genuine wizard with an old monitor. He's hacked together everything from an electric kitty fence to a Halloween hologram using the guts of an old CRT.
News: Make your money fireproof
Recession? What? We have money to burn. But don't worry. KentChemistry has a strategy to keep it in your pocket-- fireproof it!
News: Transform your watch into a compass
Honest. WonderHowTo was more than skeptical! But then we consulted the pros at Learn-Orienteering.org and got a lesson in navigation.
News: Smash the bottom out of a bottle bare handed
Bill Beaty is our favorite kind of science teacher. Here he gives us a lesson in cavitation. Sounds boring, right?
News: Ignite chaotic flashes of plasma in your microwave
Yes, plasma. The fourth state of matter. What's going on? The sparks result from an electrical discharge between the sides of the grape. If the flashes of light are not enough evidence, enjoy the 120Hz buzzing.
News: Make fireballs you can hold in your hands
Pyro or not, fireballs are intrinsically cool. Add in the handheld element and they're suddenly magical orbs.
News: Make magic milk
Trippy! Get the kids around the table for this one.
News: Make fire with potatoes, salt & toothpaste (FAUX-TO?)
Hotly contested video. The question remains, is the science behind the potato fire bonafide or bogus? We have yet to try it over here at WonderHowTo, and the comments thus far haven't indicated a solid verdict. Try it out and let us know! Is this a hoax? Or can you truly start a fire with a potato, salt and toothpaste?
News: Drown, and then, revive a fly
Lazarus, rise from the dead! This video intrigues me for its social implications. Frankly, I am not racing to personally replicate this tutorial.
News: Make hot ice
Why? Tricks the eye into thinking the impossible is as simple a single chemical reaction.