Build a Fish Tank Out of a Bottle

I grew up eating Korean, Japanese, and Chinese food, but it wasn't until college that I experienced Thai and Vietnamese cooking. Once I started, I couldn't get enough of these cuisines. The dishes had an incredible richness and savor that I couldn't identify, but whatever it w ...more

If you ever accidentally drop pieces of cork into your newly opened wine bottle, you can use a plastic drinking straw to fish them out. Simply place the straw over the cork piece and close the other end of the straw with your finger to create a suction that sucks the cork out ...more

Do not point this gun to other! Kids SHOULD NOT use the darts in this tutorial as the ammunition, you should only use soft things like the cotton head of the ear-cleaner stick! Step 1: Materials Preparing 1 empty dishwater bottle with the cap like this 1 empty glass cleaner ...more

In this video, I will show you how to perform the color-changing, blue bottle experiment with common household products. Video: . What You Need: Methylene blue (commonly sold as a fish treatment for fungal infections) Sodium hydroxide (drain cleaner) Your favorite table syrup ...more

If you've ever wished you could keep tabs on the fish in your aquarium, Justin of Antipasto Hardware Blog has just the mod for you! He created this DIY "shark detector" that sends out a tweet whenever Bruce the shark breaches a perimeter that he set up in the tank. Video: . He ...more

One booze hack that's been making the rounds for years is that inserting a spoon by the handle in a champagne bottle's neck will preserve its carbonation. This is one of those tips that I wish were true. Champagne is a great thing to have around on a special occasion, and it s ...more

Why, for the love of God, do people keep inventing ridiculous devices that make the simplest things more complicated in the name of convenience? This may be a rhetorical question that will forever go unanswered—because these crazy gadgets just keep rolling out, one after the o ...more

The next time a light bulb burns out in your house, don't throw it out. Believe it or not, burned out light bulbs aren't entirely useless. Besides creating an extra task on your to-do list, they can be hollowed out and used for a variety of different things from home decoratio ...more

It's that time of year where you need to break out the grill and cook food over red-hot coals, whether it's the beginning, middle, or end of summer. Even if you're not a grill master extraordinaire, you can use these hacks to fool your friends and family into thinking that you ...more

I am writing this quick post in response to the recent earthquakes and tsunamis that are affecting Japan. As soon as the news broke, and we began to hear of tsunami warning for our area, I immediately realized how under prepared I was for a natural disaster. The thing that dro ...more

From Boing Boing, a highly amusing photo gallery of illegal goods seized by airport customs officials in Australia. Some are fairly typical, but others really make you wonder... Yes, I'm most definitely talking about the tropical fish skirt lady. Mr. Potatohead filled with 293 ...more

CalTech's Kenneth Libbrecht reveals the sublime beauty of snow crystals when photographed with a specially designed snowflake photomicroscope. The physicist is author of the Field Guide to Snowflakes and The Secret Life of a Snowflake, and recently posted an instructional guid ...more

Etching your own circuit boards is tons of fun, but etching requires strong chemicals to dissolve the copper plating on blank circuit boards. The normal ferric chloride solution works well, but can be expensive and leaves permanent stains. Luckily, we can whip up our own etcha ...more

I have an absolutely wonderful time making projects and writing articles for all of you mad scientists! Today, I will bring you behind the scenes for a look at the workbench, tools, and software that make the Mad Science World possible. Above is my beautiful workbench! My who ...more

Planning the Trip Get lots of brochures Send for brochures of the places you will be visiting. Make a travel book with the brochures to get the grandchildren and their families excited. The best place to contact for these brochures are the Visitors Bureaus or the Chamber of ...more

I love making my own printed circuit boards. It really gives a professional look to a finished project, and having all the design files means I can whip up another batch whenever I need to. However, when I need to make, say, three thousand swarmbots or fill an order for a doze ...more

In our media-enriched world, past and present, SCRABBLE has made a name for itself, whether deliberately, subconsciously, or influentially. You may have a read a book that had the popular word game within a chapter, watched a movie that showed your favorite characters bringing ...more

Even if you're not a hipster with your own self-sufficient garden, making your own edibles at home can be pretty cool. And while it's obviously easier to pick up a bottle of 7-Up at the store, there's something undoubtedly fun about making your own. For those addicted to their ...more

My years in the restaurant business have taught me many things. Some of those things are best left unsaid and other things require a PhD in vulgarity, but the one thing I learned that I keep coming back to night after night is that you do not have to spend a lot of money to dr ...more

Just because a problem is small or superficial doesn't mean it can't annoy the living crap out of you. Others may think you're overreacting, or even have the audacity to roll their eyes, but you're in your own personal hell. First-world problems, white whines—call it whatever ...more

The following are 10 simple yet effective pranks you can set up around the house, school or the office on April Fools' Day. You'll won't need any special tools or materials to pull these off. Video: . Step 1: 10 Simple Household Pranks For this first prank, head over to the r ...more

Congratulations, you've made it deep into the middle of flu season! If you're reading this, you're either a very smart preemptive sick day prepper, or already in the throes of fighting off a cold or flu situation. Either way, welcome, keep sipping on that hot toddy, we've got ...more

Learning to make giant bubbles for this video has been the most fun I've had with a project in a long time. It's addicting to try to get them to grow bigger and bigger than the ones before. Since filming this video, my skill has improved tremendously and the bubbles you're abo ...more

Some bacteria can already do it—generate electric current, that is—and those microbes are called "electrogenic." Now, thanks to the work of a research group from the University of California, Santa Barbara, we know how to easily turn non-electrogenic bacteria into electricity ...more

You may have caught our prior list of excellent egg hacks. Well, we've rounded up 10 more awesome tips and tricks to perfect your egg game. Check 'em out below. 1. Make a Flawless Sunny Side Up Egg If you struggle with either an undercooked or overly-browned sunny side up eg ...more

At first glance, caviar doesn't seem overly appealing to the masses; not very many people would be willing to spend upwards of $1,000 on a tiny spoonful of salty sturgeon eggs from the Caspian Sea. Caviar truly is the ultimate symbol of luxury and fine dining. However, if you ...more

Besides the obvious, fingernail polish can be pretty useful around the house—for men and women. It can keep your buttons from falling off, sort your keys, prevent your shoelaces and hoodie strings from fraying, and even curb rust rings in the shower. Turns out, nail polish als ...more

So, here we are with the second part to whats going to happen to Minecraft in 1.7 (you can see the first part here). Let's start off with the new biomes. Biomes Roofed Forest: This biome is filled with short trees that are close together, forming a canopy. The trees have 2x2 ...more

Always downing a glass of red wine in the evening? Don't be ashamed. Red wine has some great health benefits when consumed in moderation, including improved memory, lower risk of heart disease, and even bone strengthening. Photo by Joe Shlabotnik Aside from improving your hea ...more

During my time living in dorm rooms and small apartments, I would find myself in need of many different appliances—a food processor for making hummus, a blender for vegetable smoothies, or even a mortar and pestle for muddling mojito-bound mint leaves. Luckily, there was one t ...more

In my opinion, spices are the key to a successful kitchen. With a healthy array of spices and spice mixes, you have the foundation for nearly any dish that you want to make; the culinary world is your oyster. With a depleted cupboard of spices, however, nearly every recipe loo ...more

Coffee beans are one of my favorite things in the entire world. They smell intoxicatingly perfect. And when ground up and steeped in hot (or cold) water, they somehow taste even better than they smell. Don't Miss: Make Perfect Java Every Time with These Pro Tips Yet when the ...more

I've cracked thousands of eggs in my life, yet I still usually mess up when I make my morning eggs. Sometimes I crack the egg to hard and end up leaving half of the white on the counter. Other times I don't crack the egg hard enough, and end up spending 20 seconds digging with ...more

One of the great joys of cooking is taking the most basic of foods and preparing them in new and exciting ways. About two years ago, my wife opened my eyes to a delicious staple of Indian and Moroccan cuisine that is made in a very elementary way, the preserved lemon. The lem ...more

There are so many cutesy pink, red, and heart-shaped desserts and drinks put out on Valentine's Day, but none of those really get you into a low-light mood. Instead, turn up the heat with one of these aphrodisiac cocktails for grown-ups. What all experts seem to agree on is t ...more

While most people build collections of things with intrinsic value such as coins, stamps, or rare post cards, I collect wine corks—the natural ones, not the plastic kind. Corks are a natural product harvested from the cork oak tree. It takes the better part of 10 to 12 years b ...more