So what’s so special about Dyson vacuums? Why do so many people think they make the best vacuum cleaners? The British brand was founded in 1978 by James Dyson and pioneered bagless technology. The inventor was inspired to create something different after the bags on his regular vacuum kept clogging up. Ahead of its time in many ways—Dyson fans were doing without disposable bags, long before the current concerns about the damage that the single-use lifestyle can wreak on the environment—Dyson has continued to innovate to stay ahead of the competition, and the result has been an almost bewildering array of models....

If you’re someone whose extremities suffer in the cold, think about investing in hand warmers. They’re a great way to keep you comfortable for hours at a time so you can get on with your life and stop desperately puffing warm air into cupped palms. They’re discreet, effective, and super portable, making them suitable for use on the go. They’re also great for camping, hiking, ice skating, and hockey, as well as non-sporting events like watching holiday parades, tailgating, waiting in line for the newest iPhone, you name it....

Furniture for kids can be confusing, with the need to purchase the right size for your ever-growing child. We are going to help explain and suggest some great options to create a productive workspace for your kids whether it’s for toddler crafts, or for slightly older kids’ homework and studying. The best kids’ desks will provide the right amount of space for their projects, offer storage to help keep your child organized, and be stylish, sturdy, and durable....

Perhaps until now you’ve shoved them underneath the bed, created a Leaning Tower of Shoeboxes in your closet, or peppered your entire home with shoes, making it virtually impossible to find a matching set when you need it. (What a fun game!) The best shoe rack can spiff you right up, putting all your organized pairs within arm’s reach. Best small: Honey-Can-Do SHO-01600 Bamboo 2-Tier Shoe ShelfBest hanging: ZOBER 10-Shelf Hanging Shoe OrganizerBest over-the-door: SimpleHouseware Crystal Clear Over The Door Hanging Shoe OrganizerBest storage cabinet: Baxton Studio Warren Shoe-Storage CabinetBest closet organizer: Seville Classics 3-Tier Expandable 24-Pair Shoe RackBest budget: Fiducial Home 8 Tiers Shoe Rack...

A wider skateboard deck gives you more control over your movement, but can make tricks more difficult. With a 7.88 inch width, this stylish board offers a little more stability than the average width of 7.5 inches. Choose one of five patterns from arrows to lightning for the underside of the Canadian maple deck, and then work to get yourself in the air so your friend can see your choice of design....

Ski helmets are essential pieces of ski gear that come in all shapes and sizes, and all of their designs are generally made to offer ample protection while weighing as little as possible to avoid encumbering the wearer. Multi-impact protection system designs—commonly known as MIPS helmet designs—are a particularly common variety in this category, and are set apart from traditional designs by their ability to reduce the rotational force upon the brain during angled impacts....

Best overall: Hawaiian Shaved-Ice Snow-Cone MachineBest commercial grade: ZENY Ice Crushers Machine Best old-school: Nostalgia Snow-Cone Cart Best shaved ice machine: Great Northern Premium Shaved-Ice Machine Best budget: MANBA Ice Shaver What to consider when shopping for the best snow-cone machine There are a few major considerations and decisions to make before adding a snow-cone machine to your home-appliance collection. Think about who you’ll want to serve these sweet treats to—do you need something you can take on the go to the park or beach?...

Fact: The tech that powers E-ZPass comes from Soviet-era spy gadgets. By Purbita Saha I live in a New Jersey suburb right next to the Garden State Parkway. I flash my E-ZPass way more than I pump my own gas. So to me, and probably the millions of other drivers in the Eastern US who use this electronic toll system, E-ZPass is a daily essential. And while the technology itself isn’t cool enough for a Weirdest Thing yarn, the story behind it is surprisingly juicy....

A drone swarm capable of delivering blood was part of Autonomous Advance Force 4.0, an exercise by the United Kingdom’s armed forces in which Royal Marines Commandos trained with modern technology for future war. The early July exercise took place in Cumbria and Dorset, with a release announced July 17. The swarm consisted of six medium-heavy lift drones, Malloy Aeronautics TRV-150s. The TRV-150 can carry up to 140 lbs, at a range of up to 43 miles, with a maximum flight time of 36 minutes....

STEP 1 Design your rocket, drawing it on paper. A simple cylinder, nose cone, and a pair of fins will suffice. It should stand around 6 inches (15 cm) tall and be approximately 1½ inches (3.75 cm) in diameter. STEP 2 Cut out your rocket components (cylinder, nose cone, and fins) and glue them together. STEP 3 Open the film canister and drop one-half of an Alka-Seltzer tablet into it....

A new paper in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution offers some steps that ecologists, in particular, can take to begin unraveling the colonial systems and perspectives that pervade academia. “Ecology, like most scientific disciplines that exist in the world today, comes out of the history of universities that were founded in colonization,” says coauthor Jess Auerbach, an anthropologist at North-West University in South Africa. “And so our whole knowledge structure, as a kind of global research community, is based really in these processes of unequal power and violence....

Times are changing, though. Electrification is the future of motoring, and Porsche knows that. Still, it’s committed to keeping the visceral attachment to its cars that fans have had for decades by being committed to both performance and luxury—and what better way to do that than with a true fully-electric GT racing car? Last week at the IAA Mobility Auto Show in Munich, Porsche revealed a secret project that it has been working on for some time: the Mission R....

Last Thursday, a crowd of science aficionados dressed up in silly costumes and had, just, the best time. The occasion? The 29th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. The objective? To honor “research that makes people laugh, and then think.” “People get to suddenly see things they would never dream of caring about,” says Marc Abrahams, originator and emcee of the ceremony. People become “so surprised that they laugh. And then they become really, really curious....

This glassy hardened substance hasn’t just resisted all cleanup efforts—it’s made itself difficult to study at all. But researchers have now successfully tested a technique that might help glean more details from that nearly impenetrable shell. First, scientists had to create their own materials to emulate what you’d find at Chernobyl. Now, by putting tiny samples of that material under some of the world’s most powerful X-rays, the researchers have found a way to reconstruct that substance’s history....

“Every model has different problems,” says one postgraduate researcher at UC Davis. She and other researchers who spoke to Popular Science asked not to be named for fear of reprisal. They say that just like it’s too soon to measure the human cost of this epidemic, it’s also too early to measure the cost to lab animals. But it’s clear the disruption of this epidemic has interrupted research, which may take months or even longer to get back on track....

The coronavirus pandemic has claimed over 5.7 million lives worldwide. Funeral homes, mass burial grounds, and crematoriums remain overwhelmed and pushed beyond capacity. Last April, gravediggers in São Paulo had to exhume old graves in a cemetery and relocate corpses’ remains in a desperate attempt to bury thousands of daily COVID. Researchers argue that cemeteries are one of the most neglected and insidious sources of metal contamination in the soil....

Anyone? Any fact? If the ubiquity of immersion-style language programs, emergency test prep classes, bleary-eyed college kids and caffeine-fueled energy potions is any indication, cramming is a wildly popular study strategy. Professors frown upon it yet collude by squashing vast topics like “Evolution” or “World history 1914 to present” into the last week of a course. So is cramming effective or not? A new study by UC–San Diego psychologists confirms what you may suspect deep down: The answer is no....

Hard and heat resistant, the diamond films could have several commercial applications, such as for cutting tools and optical electronic devices. At the moment, the team is looking into creating diamonds with impurities for potential use as a new kind of semiconductor. The scientists have bigger plans in sight, too: They intend to turn their work into an industrial-scale venture by 2011 and hope to find a tequila distiller to provide them with the supplies....

Crisis Text Line purports to provide free, round-the-clock, and confidential messaging. The service utilizes machine learning to identify keywords and sort messages based on their perceived urgency. But in order to speak with a Crisis Text Line counselor, Politico found that users previously had to give consent for their anonymized data to be shared with Loris, a customer service software company that launched in 2021. TechCrunch previously described Loris as a training platform to help companies prepare for and handle difficult conversations, like heated customer service confrontations, using “the learnings of Crisis Text Line....

The jetpacks, and other such mobility devices, are being pursued under the Portable Personal Air Mobility System (PPAMS). A DARPA spokesperson told Task & Purpose that DARPA has selected several companies for phase II funding, noting that “DARPA is currently working with the small companies to finalize contracting details and award contracts, so at this time we can’t discuss the specifics.” This news follows previous developments. In March 2021, DARPA posted a notice stating its intent to develop and demonstrate “novel or unique approaches to personal battlefield mobility for operators in a man portable low-cost package....