In case you missed it, Wednesday was 'Back to the Future Day.' For those not familiar with the trilogy, in Back to the Future II, the film's protagonists Marty McFly and Doctor Brown travel 30 years in the future to the fictional city of Hill Valley, CA, to save McFly's yet-to-be born children. The date of their arrival, October 21st, 2015, has since been eagerly awaited by fans all over the world....
Read news articleProsthetics have come a long way since the first known artificial limb - A wood and leather toe was created for an Egyptian noblewoman nearly 3,000 years ago. However, though they have certainly become increasingly sophisticated and nimble they remain extremely expensive, not to mention very industrial looking....
Read news articleIn 1920, Johnson and Johnson employee Earle Dickson created the first bandage to cover the frequent burns and cuts his wife Josephine inflicted on herself while cooking. The hand-made prototype was instantly adopted by his employer and marketed as Band-Aid, a brand that has become synonymous with the word bandage. However, while the adhesive strips may now look different from Dickson's creation they still perform the same job - Prevent bacteria from entering wounds....
Read news articleTwo Belgian men have come up with a way to take fine dining to a whole new level - Literally! Diners at their pop-up and franchised restaurants enjoy gourmet meals perched upon floating platforms suspended 180-feet above ground with the help of a giant crane!...
Read news articleOn September 25th, US first lady Michelle Obama and China's first lady Peng Liyuan announced that the recently born giant panda at Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington D.C. would be called Bei Bei. The name which means 'precious treasure' in Mandarin Chinese, was selected from a list suggested by officials at the zoo and the Wolong Nature Reserve in China....
Read news articleThis morning, William Campbell, Satoshi Omura, and Youyou Tu, were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine for their work on parasitic diseases. Though the brilliant scientists certainly deserve the honor for their groundbreaking research, for most of us, reading about their and the achievements of other Nobel laureates can be overwhelming and perhaps even a little boring. However, the same cannot be said about the winners of the IG Nobel Prize that celebrates 'fun' scientific research....
Read news articleStonehenge, a prehistoric monument located in Wiltshire, England, is one of the world's most well-known ancient religious and burial sites. Situated amidst a dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments, the modest looking circle of stones that are visited by millions of tourists annually were declared a World Heritage Site in 1986. Now it appears that the ancient tombstones that are believed to date all the way back to 2,000 B.C. have some bigger competitors right in their own backyard....
Read news articleSome sculptors like to create clay masterpieces; others prefer metal. Then there is Theo Jansen. This Dutch artist uses PVC tubes to build giant Strandbeests (beach animals in Dutch). Part work of art, part fantastical creature, the multi-legged insect-like creations are both awe-inspiring and terrifying!...
Read news articleWhen the team of marine biologists led by David Gruber of the City University of New York headed to Solomon Islands in the South Pacific in late July, they were hoping to film some biofluorescent sharks and coral reefs. What they had never expected to find was the world's first-known biofluorescent reptile....
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