In a digital world, the recipe has transformed from a static set of instructions into a kind of open-source code which any cook and adjust or reformulate. Food Network’s Alton Brown proposes to embrace that trend to create a form of living recipe.

Many of you may already be familiar with Alton Brown, the host of Good Eats and other Food Network TV programs. I love him because like us, he’s a geek at heart, never missing a chance to explain the chemistry and … Read More → "Chef Alton Brown on adapting the recipe to the social media age"

NASA’s aging Voyager 1 probe, 35 years and 11 billion miles outbound from Earth, has crossed into an unexpected, exceedingly remote region of the solar system that may represent the spacecraft’s final step before leaving the sun’s influence and moving into the vast realm of interstellar space.

The region is believed to be a sort of “magnetic highway” allowing high-energy charged particles from ancient supernova explosions to move into the sun’s sphere … Read More → "11 billion miles out, Voyager 1 nears interstellar space"

Light reflected by the Amazon rainforest’s vegetation could help an orbiting satellite find the elusive fertile patches of soil known as terra preta — or ‘black earth’ — that mark archaeological sites where pre-Columbian populations settled.

Finding these rich patches of earth has been a challenge. They’re sprinkled throughout the enormous Amazon basin, hidden beneath an impenetrable forest, and embedded in a land with few roads.

So … Read More → "Satellite could find hidden archaeological sites by remote sensing"

The internet is awash with news that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has detected carbon compounds on Mars. Some people may have you believe that the news suggests there’s life on Mars—but don’t get too excited just yet.

Carbon compounds…

One of Curiosity’s main goals is to hunt out organics on Mars. These are carbon-based molecules that we take for granted on Earth, but which are the fundamental blocks from which carbon-based life forms are built. Finding them could suggest that life exits—or did … Read More → "Why NASA finding organics on Mars is nothing to get excited about"

Lighting giant Philips says it’ll start selling a newly designed LED bulb in the new year that actually looks like a normal light bulb. Philips’ current LED bulb that can replace a standard 60 watt incandescent bulb is bright yellow and has silver grooves lining it (see left). Philips will start selling its new white LED home bulb (that doesn’t have those grooves) starting in 2013 at Home Depot stores.
via GigaOM

Read More → "Home LEDs starting to look more normal"

In July of 2012 xRez Studio was contracted to shoot a unique “close up” gigapixel image of the Babbage Difference Engine  at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

The “Difference Engine No. 2″ was never realized or constructed in the lifetime of famed mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage. However it was funded over 150 years later by former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold. The device required 10 years to build the 8,000 hand-finished machined pieces. It was built, in part to answer the question of whether Babbage’s … Read More → "Babbage Difference Engine in gigapixel"

Check out this curious 25-second time-lapse/composite video that shows every airplane that landed at San Diego International Airport on Black Friday a week ago between 10:30am and 3pm. The giant planes whiz by overhead as if they’re part of a fighter jet squadron heading off to battle — not something you’d expect to see with commercial planes at an airport. It was created by photography and film professor Cy … Read More → "Five hours of airplane landings captured in thirty seconds"

1. Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab
Only available from 1951–1952, this science kit for CHILDREN included four types of uranium ore, a Geiger counter, a comic called Dagwood Spits the Atom, and a coupon for ordering MORE radioactive materials. One of the four uranium ores included was Po-210 (Polonium) which, by mass, is 250,000 times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide. “ … Read More → "8 banned children’s toys from yesteryear"

On December 3rd 1992, a 22-year-old Canadian test engineer sat down and typed out a very simple message, “Merry Christmas.” It flew over the Vodafone network to the phone of one Richard Jarvis, and since then, we just haven’t been able to stop texting.
via Gizmodo

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via xkcd