July 24, 2015 Patrick Speaks Patrick Otema, 15 was born profoundly deaf. In the remote area of Uganda where he lives there are no schools for deaf children, and he has never had a conversation. Raymond Okkelo, a sign language teacher, hopes to change all this and offer Patrick a way out of the fearful silence he has known his whole life.
July 23, 2015 This Crazy Tree Grows 40 Kinds of Fruit Sam Van Aken, an artist and professor at Syracuse University, uses "chip grafting" to create trees that each bear 40 different varieties of stone fruits, or fruits with pits. The grafting process involves slicing a bit of a branch with a bud from a tree of one of the varieties and inserting it into a slit in a branch on the "working tree," then wrapping the wound with tape until it heals and the bud starts to grow into a new branch. Over several years he adds slices of branches from other varieties to the working tree.
July 20, 2015 Top 10 Most Misunderstood Lines in Literary History There’s no better way to sound smart than by dropping a perfectly timed quote from some well-respected literature. It shows that you’re both well-read and possess the stunning intellect to memorize whole chunks of books in the off chance that you might need it at some point (and barely anyone ever considers the implication that you just have way too much free time).
July 17, 2015 Chuck Jones - The Evolution of an Artist If you grew up watching Looney Tunes, then you know Chuck Jones, one of all-time masters of visual comedy. Normally I would talk about his ingenious framing and timing, but not today. Instead, I’d like to explore the evolution of his sensibilities as an artist. To see the names of the films, press the CC button and select “Movie Titles.”
July 16, 2015 How Your Feet Help You Sleep In the first episode of our animated "Science of Us" explainer series, we take a look at one of the easiest life-hacks you can make to fall asleep — and it involves your feet.
July 14, 2015 Herman Miller: The Picnic Posters of Steve Frykholm In 1970, a young Steve Frykholm arrived at the legendary Herman Miller Furniture Company, where Charles and Ray Eames, Alexander Girard and George Nelson built their reputations and created the canon of modern furniture design. It wasn’t long before Steve began making waves of his own with a series of screen printed posters for the annual company picnic. Considered modern design classics, Steve's Picnic Posters are in the permanent collections of museums all over the world, including the Museum of Modern Art.
July 13, 2015 Fast and Light to Pluto On July 14, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft will zip past Pluto and its five known moons. Nobody really knows what it will find.
July 10, 2015 Freaky Flowers: Echinopsis Cacti in Bloom A montage of a dozen types of Echinopsis cactus flowers blooming. And wilting. And just generally showing off their mind-blowing colors. Echinopsis cactus flowers bloom overnight and the flowers last for only a day. Actually, the flowers are at their peak beauty for an hour or two at the most.
July 9, 2015 Ronald More men have walked on the moon than been Ronald McDonald. Joe Maggard was McDonald's mascot from 1995 to 2007. He was eighth of nine men to have done the job. But what happens after you step out of the big red shoes? Maggard says you never truly retire from being the fast-food chain's Chief Happiness Officer. At a carnival in Las Vegas as he dons the costume again, and offers advice on healthy eating and the importance of being Ronald.
July 8, 2015 This Artist Fights ISIS With A 3D Printer When Morehshin Allahyari saw a video of ISIS fighters destroying ancient artifacts in the Mosul Museum, she was inspired to start a new project. “Material Speculation: ISIS” is a 3D-printing project that re-creates some of the most important artifacts destroyed by the group.
July 7, 2015
From Breaking Bad Meth To Superman’s Suit When James Comisar first started collecting costumes and props from tv shows and films, they were pretty much worthless. Now, these items have shot up in value and his collection is worth an estimated $100 million.
July 2, 2015 The Homosexuals: Mike Wallace's 1967 CBS Report "The Homosexuals" is a 1967 episode of the documentary television series CBS Reports. The hour-long broadcast featured a discussion of a number of topics related to homosexuality and homosexuals. Mike Wallace anchored the episode, which aired on March 7, 1967. Although this was the first network documentary dealing with the topic of homosexuality, it was not the first televised in the United States. That was The Rejected, produced and aired in 1961 on KQED, a public television station out of San Francisco.Three years in the making, "The Homosexuals" went through two producers and multiple revisions. The episode included interviews with several gay men, psychiatrists, legal experts and cultural critics, interspersed with footage of a gay bar and a police sex sting. "The Homosexuals" garnered mixed critical response. The network received praise from some quarters and criticism from others for even airing the program.
July 1, 2015 Why Leap Seconds Cause Glitches There's a leap second tonight! And while there's not the Y2K-scale of disaster being predicted for it, there are probably going to be a few problems. Here's why computers have trouble with something that should, in theory, be pretty simple.
