De Beers sells synthetic diamonds.
The Guardian reveals that De Beers, the monolithic diamond firm (which has made artificial scarcity its business model for the better part of a century […]
engineering
Science Art: Bearing Fault Detector, 1975
Click to embiggen NASA wants you to know they’re pretty handy here on Earth, too. This here shows a way to make trains and other […]
Wind and solar (and batteries) could supply all of America’s power: Carnegie Science study
The Guardian looks at the journal Energy and Environmental Science to find out just how well the U.S. could handle switching over power supplies right […]
Science Art: Chain Saw, US 1655856 A, Jan. 10, 1928.
Click to embiggen A patent for a device putting wood-cutting blades on a chain, so that people can cut down trees – or, in the […]
Science Art: The Triumph Lathe, from The Watchmaker & Jeweller, Silversmith & Optician, Nov. 1, 1887.
Click to embiggen It spins, you know. This jewelry-making tool was once available from Messrs. H.J. Cooper & Company, on Oxford Street West. I found […]
Science Art: Torpille Moderne/Torpille Ancienne from Dreadnought ou submersible by Olivier Guihéneuc, 1916
Click to embiggen Two torpedoes, modern (as of 1916) and ancient. That’s about the limit of my French. The book is about naval warfare, and […]
Plasma jet engines: Taking us to space without burning fuel
New Scientist is launching our hopes higher than ever with a report on a whole new electric engine that can carry a plane to space: […]
We’ll build skyscrapers out of wood. And do the planet some good….
Nature reveals the new growth of ambitious plans to cool the planet with wooden skyscrapers: Constructed almost entirely from timber in 2014, the 8-storey, 30-metre […]
Science Art: Head Frames, Figs. 3-6, from The Design of Mine Structures, 1912.
Types of head works for mines. These frames helped draw out the rocks that the miners were busy breaking up deep underground. At the time […]
Science Art: Longitudinal Section of “Star” Class Four-Cylinder 4-6-0, by AJ Creswell, 1963.
Click to embiggen A train! A big ol’ train! This image is one of many found in H.A.V. Bulleid’s Master Builders of Steam, a book […]
This origami microscope costs less than a dollar – and you can magnify stuff by 2,000 times.
Popular Science shows us how to make a cheap paper microscope that really works: In the Foldscope, invented by Stanford University engineers, creased paper creates […]
Science Art: Lancashire Boiler with Galloway Tubes, 1898
Click to embiggen slightly From The Colliery Manager’s Handbook … Fourth edition, revised and enlarged, an 1898 book in the British Library’s public domain collection. […]
This homemade toy saves lives.
Nature shows how one of the simplest toys out there – a loop of string with a spinning bit of paper in the middle – […]
You can now 3D-print a sonic tractor beam.
Science Daily brings us one step closer to a sci-fi tomorrow with researchers publishing open-source directions on making a tractor beam at home: Last year […]
World Power: How Africa can leapfrog the world with renewable energy.
Nature looks into the future of Africa and sees a sunny outlook – at least as far as solar and wind power generation go: Africa’s […]