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
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
You Want White Teeth Without Expensive Over-The-Counter Products? Here's An Inexpensive, Effective Solution. Everywhere you look there are products for whitening teeth. You could spend a fortune on products you have to use everyday. This tutorial will show you a natural, inex ...more
Just like your gastrointestinal tract, and the soil we walk on — a dust storm has a collection of bacteria, fungi, and viruses all its own called a "dust microbiome." Think of a microbiome as a community of microbes living and working in a shared environment. In your gut, the ...more
This week, Silk Road was shut down for good when the FBI seized the anonymous online marketplace after Ross Ulbricht, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, was arrested. This comes just two weeks after another illegal marketplace called Atlantis shutdown. However, there are plenty of othe ...more
Pokémon GO, the global augmented reality game that's brought fans out of their homes to catch Pokémon across the planet, has brought about plenty of real-world positives. Unfortunately, when players get power hungry and start taking game hacks too far, we all get a little scre ...more
I've never had a black eye, but I was in a car accident that turned my entire ear dark purple a few years ago. Believe me; it was enough to get more than a few funny looks. Walking around with bruises is never fun, and it's even worse when they're on your face or neck. A blac ...more
Some drivers give Tesla's Autopilot update released this week rave reviews, after version 8.1 has taken longer than expected to live up to Elon Musk's "smooth as silk" Tweet from earlier this year. With this update, drivers report noticeable improvements in Tesla models' driv ...more
In the race to outsmart "untreatable" antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, one of the three new treatments on the track is about to enter Phase 3 clinical trials. Hopefully, it'll be widely accessible sooner rather than later, for the 78 million people who are diagnosed with gonorr ...more
I have a theory that chocolate chip cookies are the gateway drug to cooking. The recipe is easy, no special equipment is required, and at the end, you get warm, fresh-from-the-oven cookies that are simply irresistible. It's how I got hooked on baking and cooking, and anecdotal ...more
Every year the fine folks at Row Three do a post-TIFF mega-wrap up, collecting the micro-blurbs of a bunch of attendees into a giant meta-analysis of what everyone liked, loved, hated, etc. etc.. We'll link to that post when it goes up on the weekend, but in the mean time, her ...more
Malaria is a massive worldwide health problem. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 212 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide in 2015 and 429,000 of the infected people died. Once infected, the parasite multiplies in human red blood cells until i ...more
Add breathing in your house as another possible danger to your health. If your home is sick, it's possible you could get sick too. The term "sick building syndrome" hit the airwaves years ago as a one size fits all reference to homes and buildings that are just too efficient ...more
It's about time people acknowledged that judging drug users would do nothing productive to help them. In the US this week, two new programs are launching that should help addicts be a little safer: Walgreens Healthcare Clinic will begin offering to test for HIV and hepatitis C ...more
Specialized cells in the lining of the gut may provide a key to preventing an infectious brain disease caused by misfolded proteins. Don't Miss: Syphilis: An Old Disease Returns with a New Drug Resistance We can easily imagine white blood cells attacking foreign germs in th ...more
Blowing dust and fungal spores are creating a public health problem that could be just a slice of what's to come with climate change. Spurring regional expansion of ticks, and mosquitoes, warming temperatures are also rising ocean temperatures that stir up atmospheric turbule ...more
There are lots of people who want to stay anonymous online, and lots of reasons they want to do this. Staying anonymous on the internet isn't easy, and it's probably possible to trace almost anyone with enough time and resources. A lot of people think that they're completely s ...more
With the release of the Pixel 2 XL and the iPhone X, smartphones have hit a new high not just in price, but also raw processing power. These new flagships not only cost more than twice as much as an Xbox One or PlayStation 4, they have also become almost as powerful as far as ...more
Food labeling is a tricky beast. For instance, when I read the words "cage-free" on an egg carton, I think it means that happy chickens frolic in a sunlit meadow all the livelong day until they're gently herded into a clean, sweet-smelling coop to lay a few dozen eggs—which I ...more
All fields of study have their own language. For people interested in learning about microbes, the language can sometimes be downright difficult — but it doesn't need to be. From antibiotics to xerophiles, we have you covered in an easy-to-understand glossary. Terms are liste ...more
The next big iOS version for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch was revealed by Apple at WWDC 2018 and dropped for everyone on Sept. 17, 2018, less than a week after Apple revealed the new iPhone lineup. We've rounded up all the big picture items and secret features and changes we c ...more