We aren’t sure why, but [Lev Chizhov] and some other researchers have found a way to make you smell things by hitting your head with ultrasound. Apparently, your sense of smell lives in your olfactory bulb, and no one, until now, has thought to try zapping it with ultrasound to see what happens. The bulb […]
In our modern world full of planned obsolescence helping to fuel cycles of consumerism, the thing that really lets companies dial this up to the max is locked-down electronics and software. We all know the key players in this game whether it’s an automotive manufacturer, video game console producer, smart phone developer, or fruit-based computer […]
An interesting trend over the last year or two has been the emergence of modern retrocomputer PCs, recreations of classic PC hardware from back in the day taking advantage of modern parts alongside the venerable processors. These machines are usually very well specified for a PC from the 1980s, and represent a credible way to […]
Remember the Key Bridge collapse? With as eventful a year as 2025 has been, we wouldn’t blame anyone for forgetting that in March of 2024, container ship MV Dali plowed into the bridge across Baltimore Harbor, turning it into 18,000 tons of scrap metal in about four seconds, while taking the lives of six very […]
The BBC wanted to show everyone how a computer might be used in schools. A program aired in 1979 asks, “Will Computers Revolutionise Education?” There’s vintage hardware and an appearance of PILOT, made for computer instructions. Using PILOT looks suspiciously like working with a modern chatbot without as much AI noise. The French teacher in […]
We’ve probably all had a few conversations with people who hold eccentric scientific ideas, and most of the time they yield nothing more than frustration and perhaps a headache. In [Bertrand Selva]’s case, however, a conversation with a flat-earth believer yielded a device that uses a pair of gyroscopes to detect earth’s rotation, demonstrating that […]
You know those old cliche that the younger generations have begun to cynically despise: “follow your dreams!” “You can be anything you put your mind to!” — well, perhaps they are true on occasion. For instance when [rctestflight] had PCBs that dreamed of becoming a hydrofoil, he found a way to make that dream come […]
Today’s pressurized water reactors (PWRs) are marvels of nuclear fission technology that enable gigawatt-scale power stations in a very compact space. Though they are extremely safe, with only the TMI-2 accident releasing a negligible amount of radioactive isotopes into the environment per the NRC, the company Deep Fission reckons that they can make PWRs even […]