Science Art: Apparatus Arranged for Taking a Radiograph, 1894.
This illustration is from an article in Science Gossip on how to set up your own “X-Ray Outfit.” As the author, James Quick, explains: “The […]
electrical engineering
Science Art: The Turney Vario Variable Condenser, 1913.
This is from a photographically illustrated advertisement in Hugo Gernsback’s magazine The Electrical Experimenter. The description of this item is as follows: For extreme measurements […]
SONG: “Communications” (a penitential Slim Gaillard cover)
SONG: “Communications” (a penitential Slim Gaillard cover) [Download] . (available as .ogg here) ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: This isn’t based on any research. It’s a cover […]
Science Art: Two-Step Multi-Audi-Fone ad, 1916.
This is an ad from, as Thomas Dolby put it, the Golden Age of wireless. More literally, it’s from the October, 1916, issue of The […]
Uruguay gets 98% of its power from renewable sources.
NPR had a piece on the little South American nation that’s leading the way to a less polluted future, getting nearly all of its electricity […]
Making a pain-free battery: “Nickel doesn’t have child-labor issues.”
Scientific Frontline looks at a new way to create rechargeable lithium-ion batteries – the power behind electric cars, iPhones, and most of the rest of […]
Texas expects record-setting power usage this week.
Reuters reports on a hot, hot summer that is pulling more electricity from the Texas state grid than ever before: AccuWeather forecast high temperatures in […]
Solar panels increase crop yields, insulate reservoirs, and can help farmers.
PNAS reports on some unanticipated consequences of solar farming – but things that banks of solar panels that are unexpectedly good, not bad: To generate […]
Science Art: Experimental Electricity Course, 1916.
This is how you advertise a science book. At least, it was how Hugo Gernsback did in the pages of The Electrical Experimenter in September […]
India has built an all-solar village.
Reuters reports on Modhera, Gujarat, the first 24/7, all-solar village built in India for ordinary folks to live without a local power plant: The project […]
Science Art: Reducing Apparatus, in “Phoney Patent Offizz,” The Electrical Experimenter, April 1917.
This is nerd humor from the dawn of the electric age. The “Phoney Patent Offizz” was apparently a regular column in Hugo Gernsback’s The Electrical […]
Science Art: Woodhouse & Rawson Electrical Lighting & Apparatus ad, 1890
Advertisements from the 1800s are usually visually striking, but this one is really something else – from the loopy lettering to the drama of the […]
These recycled lithium-ion batteries are outperforming new ones.
IEEE Spectrum reports on a research team that has created a new method for recycling the environmentally risky chemicals used in lithium-ion batteries – the […]
Science Art: Phone Tester for Electric Circuits, Patent No. 1,187,500; issued to G. B. Raymond.
These are not headphones, exactly. This is a thing made of telephone parts designed to help electrical tinkerers do better tinkering. It’s from a page […]
Wooden flooring that generates electricity.
The Guardian reports on Swiss scientists who have taken ordinary wood floor planks, coated them with silicon and embedded nanocrystals, and then stepped on them […]