The Wonderful Cosplay of WonderCon 2016 [Picture Gallery]

Kylo Ren - Wondercon 2016 - Photography by Pat Loika

Once again this year geeks from all around the U.S. (and the world) flocked to Downtown Los Angeles to partake in the joys of Wondercon instead of celebrating Easter. I scoured Flickr for some CC-licensed photography of the event, and as usual, there was plenty to choose from. Many thanks to Pat Loika, David Ngo, and Nathan Rupert for the awesome photos! You guys rock!

[Picture Sources: Pat Loika | David Ngo | Nathan Rupert]


Making a Bow and Arrow Without Modern Tools is a Painstaking Job [Video]

From Primitive Technology:

I made this bow and arrow using only primitive tools and materials.The bow is 1.25 m (55 inches) long and shoots 60 cm (2 feet) long arrows. I don’t know the draw weight – safe to say greater than 15 kg (35 pounds) perhaps? The stave was made from a tree that was cut with a stone axe and split in half with a stone chisel. I don’t know it’s name but it’s common here and is the same wood I use for axe handles. One half was used for the bow and was cut to a length of 1.25 m (50 inches). The limbs of the bow were carved with various stone blades so that the limbs tapered in width, and to a lesser extent depth, towards the tips. The middle of the bow was narrowed in width to form a handle about 12.5 cm (5 inches) long.

The string was made from the inner bark of a fibrous tree. It was separated into thin strips and left to dry. Then it was twisted into cordage.

Arrows were made of the same wood as the bow and were 60 cm (2 feet) long. A notch was carved into the back to accept the bow string. They were fletched with bush turkey feathers picked up from the ground (no turkeys were harmed in the making of this video). A feather was split in half and cut into 3 lengths then resin and bark fiber attached the fletching on to the arrows. The tip of the arrow was fire hardened and sharpened to a point. The fletching was trimmed using a hot coal. Each arrow took about an hour to make. A quiver was made of bark to hold the arrows.

[Primitive Technology]

Free eBook: Wine Hack: Wine Education that Starts with Your Mouth Not with Your Head (a $12.99 value)

wine

For today’s free eBook, we’re offering you Wine Hack: Wine Education that Starts with Your Mouth Not with Your Head, a $12.99 value, for free!

Wine expert Jeffery Schiller offers an insider perspective of the wine industry, and takes a new approach to wine education that involves a little less reading and a lot more tasting. In his new book, Schiller helps simplify things by boiling down every drink to four factors that can describe every wine on the planet. From there, Wine Hack is an interactive guide that teaches readers how to differentiate the subtle undertones in wines, how to describe them like a pro, and even how to properly pair them with different foods.

Even inexperienced wine drinkers can become well-versed in the different attributes of wine, ensuring that they always pick a wine they’ll love, and even impress their friends while they’re at it. Finding a great Sauvignon Blanc doesn’t have to be hard. Learn wine the fun way, with Wine Hack.

[Free eBook: Wine Hack: Wine Education that Starts with Your Mouth Not with Your Head (a $12.99 value)]

NASA: A Year in the Life of Earth’s CO2

An ultra-high-resolution NASA computer model has given scientists a stunning new look at how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere travels around the globe.

Plumes of carbon dioxide in the simulation swirl and shift as winds disperse the greenhouse gas away from its sources. The simulation also illustrates differences in carbon dioxide levels in the northern and southern hemispheres and distinct swings in global carbon dioxide concentrations as the growth cycle of plants and trees changes with the seasons.

The carbon dioxide visualization was produced by a computer model called GEOS-5, created by scientists at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office.

Please note that the levels of carbon dioxide represented in this video date back to 2006. Now, CO2 levels are at above 400 ppm, while they were at around 380 in 2006.

graphco2

[NASA Goddard | Via LS | Graph Source: climate.nasa.gov]

Science Is Awesome: A Compilation of Amazing Science Experiments [Video]

From Break:

Science videos can be boring, but these are some of the most epic science videos on the internet. We’ve got chemistry, physics, technology, destruction, it’s just all the reasons why science is awesome. We’ve got drones, flamethrower drones aka killer drones, thermal cutting, laser cutting pizza, some sweet macrophotography showing off some soap bubbles freezing. And then the biggest mystery of all, magnets. How do they work? Magnet + copper = magic.

[Break]