05.04.11 | The third annual Wired Business Conference on Tuesday included a philosophical Bill Gates, an infectiously enthusiastic Martha Stewart, talk of disruptive education, “smart nerd” jobs, predictions of the end of the DVD and freakin’ cool robots. (This is Wired, after all.) The day was both too short and, for those of us in the press [...] Read more Continue reading →
Kickstarter is three years old: 2 million backers, 22 thousands projects, $200 million. Continue reading →
Rare, Beautiful and Disturbing Objects From the National Library of Medicine Buried in the National Library of Medicine's collection of more than 17 million items are some pretty amazing, largely unseen objects from around the world. These rare and fascinating pieces range from historically significant texts to grotesque depictions of skin ailments to hilarious cartoon warnings about infectious diseases. The mesmerizing new book Hidden Treasure is filled with images of these objects that are beautiful, enlightening or disturbing, and sometimes all three. The highlights include Hitler's medical records, detailed graphic depictions of early-20th-century surgical techniques, a Russian book of clinical dermatology from 1887, and a report from the first medical responders to enter Hiroshima after the bomb. Here are some of our favorite items from ... Continue reading →
Baby Animal March Squee Madness! Posted: March 19, 2012 | Author: Jennifer | Filed under: Squee | Tags: baby animal, did I mention squee, madness, squee |12 Comments » After 4 days, 382 votes, and at least 15 arguments about how the hedgehog was robbed, I give you the 2012 March Squee Champion: PIGGEH! The little pink bit of adorableness beat Siku the polah bear by 34 votes (27%) and joins last year’s champion, Butterstick the panda, on my Wall of Squee. Congratulations, little guy! Thanks to everyone who voted, cheered, ridiculed, and of course SQUEEed through the last week – it was a blast. We’re already compiling competitors for next year! Posted March 22, Round 3 summary: Well folks, it’s come down to this: ... Continue reading →
10 Years of Gorgeous Images of Earth From Space Ten years ago on March 1, the European Space Agency launched an 8-ton satellite called Envisat that would deliver back to Earth some of the most beautiful images of our planet taken from space. Since then, Envisat has orbited Earth more than 50,000 times and has lived twice as long as planned. The satellite has more than seven instruments on board that can use radar to see through clouds, capture ocean color and land cover, monitor the ozone layer and atmospheric pollutants, measure thermal-infrared radiation, and register surface topography. To celebrate the satellite's 10th anniversary, we've selected a few of its most beautiful images for this gallery. Good luck deciding which one to use as wallpaper ... Continue reading →
Ever used the word “snowcrie”? I doubt it. In fact, “snowcrie” doesn’t even have a definition. As far as we know, according to the Oxford English Dictionary it was a typo of sorts. It occurred in 1402 when the following line was written in a poem: “Not in Goddis gospel, but in Sathanas pistile, wher of sorowe and of snowcrie noon is to seken.” This really doesn’t make sense and scholars think it is likely a scribal error and was meant to be “sorcerie.” But whatever its true nature, “snowcrie” is known as a hapax legomenon, a word that only occurs once in a given corpus. In this case, the corpus consists of everything in English from that time period. But the body of text ... Continue reading →
On the surface of things, a two-toed sloth doesn’t look much like its closest fossil kin. The tubby, pug-nosed mammal is not quite as imposing or majestic as Megalonyx – the “great claw” Thomas Jefferson discovered and mistakenly identified as an enormous lion over two centuries ago. But the two are relatively close relatives. In fact, today’s shaggy two-toed sloths are more closely related to Megalonyx than that other variety of upside-down mammal, the three-toed sloths. Together, the two- and three-toed flavors of sloth represent a remarkable case of convergent evolution. The distant relationship between the two modern sloth genera – species of two-toed sloth are grouped under Choloepus, and three-toed species under Bradypus – isn’t immediately obvious. Both suspend their bodies beneath tree limbs ... Continue reading →
