A Crookes radiometer, despite what many explanations claim, does not work because of radiation pressure. When light strikes the vanes inside the near-vacuum chamber, it heats the vanes, which then …

Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) is one of those things that sounds like it must be woo when you first hear of it. “A trickle of current that can deal with chronic pain bett…

We think of radios as audio devices, but for people who are visually impaired, it can be difficult to tell which channel you are listening to at any given time. [Sncarter] has a family member with …

There’s just something about an analog synthesizer. You’d think that for electronic music, digital sampling would have totally taken over by now, but that’s really not true. The w…

One of the hardest things about owning a classic car is finding replacement parts. Especially if the car is particularly old or rare, or if the parent company is now out of business, sometimes this…

Today’s pressurized water reactors (PWRs) are marvels of nuclear fission technology that enable gigawatt-scale power stations in a very compact space. Though they are extremely safe, with onl…

You know those old cliche that the younger generations have begun to cynically despise: “follow your dreams!” “You can be anything you put your mind to!” — well, perha…

We’ve probably all had a few conversations with people who hold eccentric scientific ideas, and most of the time they yield nothing more than frustration and perhaps a headache. In [Bertrand Selva]…

The BBC wanted to show everyone how a computer might be used in schools. A program aired in 1979 asks, “Will Computers Revolutionise Education?” There’s vintage hardware and an ap…

Remember the Key Bridge collapse? With as eventful a year as 2025 has been, we wouldn’t blame anyone for forgetting that in March of 2024, container ship MV Dali plowed into the bridge across…

An interesting trend over the last year or two has been the emergence of modern retrocomputer PCs, recreations of classic PC hardware from back in the day taking advantage of modern parts alongside…

In our modern world full of planned obsolescence helping to fuel cycles of consumerism, the thing that really lets companies dial this up to the max is locked-down electronics and software. We all …

We aren’t sure why, but [Lev Chizhov] and some other researchers have found a way to make you smell things by hitting your head with ultrasound. Apparently, your sense of smell lives in your …

The Bomem DA3 is a type of Fourier transform spectrometer used for measuring various spectral data and [Usagi Electric] has one. On his quest to understand it he runs down a number of rabbit holes,…

In the closing hours of JawnCon 0x2, I was making a final pass of the “Free Stuff for Nerds” table when I noticed a forlorn Kindle that had a piece of paper taped to it. The hand-writte…

Medium format cameras have always been a step up from those built in the 35 mm format. By virtue of using a much larger film, they offer improved resolution and performance. If you want a medium fo…

Some people are not merely satisfied with functionality, or even just good looks. These persnickety snoots (I am one of them) seek something elegant, a true marriage of form and function. Should su…

The cool part about science is that you can ask questions like what happens if you stick some moss spores on the outside of the International Space Station, and then get funding for answering said …

When you think of ultrasonics,  you probably think of a cleaner or maybe a toothbrush. If you are a Star Trek fan, maybe you think of knocking out crew members or showers. But there is another prac…

We’ve all owned something where one tiny detail drives us nuts: a blinding power LED, buttons in the wrong order, or a beep that could wake the dead. This beautifully documented project fixes exact…

We were as excited as anyone when MARSIS (the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) experiment announced there was possibly liquid water under the southern polar ice cap. If t…