Nobody knows exactly when humans began to create fermented beverages. The earliest known evidence comes from 7,000 BCE in China, where residue in clay pots has revealed that people were making an alcoholic beverage from fermented rice, millet, grapes, and honey. So how did alcohol come to fuel global trade and exploration? Rod Phillips explores […]
From In a Nutshell: Nothing in the Universe is static. In the milky way, billions of stars orbit the galactic center. Some, like our sun, are pretty consistent, keeping a distance of around 30,000 light years from the galactic center, completing an orbit every 230 million years. This dance is not an orderly ballet – […]
From Bright Side: Hey guys! How about a quick 24-hour trip through the history of our planet? That’s right – 4.5 billion years in just 1 day! In real time, the magnetic poles switch places every 250,000 years. Yep, North becomes South, and South is the new North – magnetically, at least! But on this […]
Did you know that Magenta isn’t actually a color? [Via GG]
Here is a picture of N63A, also know as “The Firefox,” a supernova remnant of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of our galaxy’s close neighbor. Explanation: What has this supernova left behind? As little as 2,000 years ago, light from a massive stellar explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) first reached planet Earth. […]
The video above shows the top winner in the annual Illusion of the Year competition. It’s called the Dual Axis illusion by Frank Force. Is this shape spinning vertically or horizontally? You can’t tell, because it’s a 2D image, but your brain makes it seem one or the other, until visual cues help you change […]
Watch below as Youtuber NightHawkInLight demonstrates how a Tesla Valve works by using the combustion of propane as a visible medium. The Tesla Valve was invented by Nikola Tesla in the early 1900s to allow various fuilds or gasses to flow in one direction and not the other. [NightHawkInLight | Via BoingBoing]
Here we have a mathematical and scientific breakdown of Santa Claus’ trip around the world on Christmas Eve. It’s a good thing little kids don’t know all that much about math and physics. Yeah, it’s silly, but interesting- especially the part about the calories Santa ingests. Makes me feel as little less guilty about how […]
The Nikon Small World in Motion competition celebrates the art of microvideography, that is, bringing us the world of tiny unseen things as they move along, doing their everyday tiny things. The first place winner, shown above, was recorded by Dr. Philippe P. Laissue of the University of Essex School of Life Sciences. It shows […]
Every time an eel farts, a Christmas tree grows brighter. Well, not exactly. The sound is generated from the setup at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. Any time the aquarium’s Tweeting electric eel Miguel Wattson produces an electric current, the nearby Christmas tree gets a boost that brightens the Christmas lights. The aquarium named the […]