After Stuart Anderson quit his job at Twitter last year, he needed a project to occupy himself. For years, he and sculptor Shaun Slifer, his roommate, had talked about creating a penny crusher—Slifer has collected souvenir pennies since childhood. Anderson decided it was finally time. READ MORE This article was originally published in the December…

Engineers Ryan Sipes and Joshua Montgomery wanted their makerspace in Lawrence, Kansas, to be more intuitive. So they borrowed an artificial intelligence system from other makers and used it to do simple tasks, such as controlling the lights or playing music. Then they realized they could create a better one—and sell it. READ MORE This…

Twenty-five years ago, artist Theo Jansen built a new life-form. Made of PVC pipes and zip ties, his strandbeest (Dutch for “beach beast”) walked along a beach under wind propulsion. Since then, Jansen has created many more beests and inspired a small army of imitators. “The perfect strandbeest is a specimen that lives on its…

In 1953, people had yet to see a close-up image of Mars. But that didn’t dim the prospect of one day living there. In March of that year, Popular Sciencefeatured a plan—developed by a graduate student with the input of government scientists—outlining how 33 earthlings might one day live on the Red Planet. READ MORE…

WHAT IT IS…AND HOW TO USE IT TO SCARE TRICK-OR-TREATERS

Thanks to the growing popularity of apps like Tinder, one in five relationships now begins online. But users might find more than romance when they swipe right. In 2014, sexually transmitted disease rates in Rhode Island reached a 10-year high. Cases of gonorrhea alone rose 30 percent (in the state’s relatively small population), mirroring a…

Shooting aerial footage from a drone is tricky. Pilots have to worry about throttle, pitch, yaw, and roll of the drone. When filming, they also need to consider camera focus and gimbal axis. The 3DR Solo Drone automates those chores, leaving you free to take killer shots of any scene. With more than a dozen…

Seattle artist Peregrine Church uses rain as his medium. By stenciling images and words on the sidewalk in water-repellent spray, he creates Rainworks—art pieces that appear only when it’s wet outside. Instead of shelling out $45 for the paint Church uses, you can follow the lead of DIYer Dan Rojas to make your own. Rojas…

A clear, sparkling diamond is rare. That’s part of its appeal. Those mined today formed billions of years ago. But a new method can grow gem-quality diamonds on demand in just three months.

Measuring biodiversity on the ground takes a lot of time and a lot of money. If you’ve ever tried counting how many types of trees are in a forest or the number of animals that live there, you would find that it’s an almost insurmountable task. But satellites could make the grunt work go away.…