MIT has long offered thousands of undergrad and graduate level course materials for free online. This month, they announced plans to significantly update and expand that effort, creating an open-source education system called MITx that will basically allow anyone to virtually take an MIT class, participate in laboratories, and get individual assessment on whether or not they've learned the material. The school even has plans—not fully worked out yet—to offer some kind of certificate of completion to people who take classes this way and can show that they've mastered the subject. MITx will open in spring of 2012. I'm looking forward to checking out this great resource! (Thanks to Chris Hayden!)
MIT and the future of open-source education
Scientists develop the whitest paint ever
Ultra-white is the new Vantablack. Purdue University researchers developed the whitest white paint ever. It reflects 98.1% of sunlight. (The blackest black paint, Vantablack, absorbs 99.9% of visible light.) According to lead researcher Xiulin Ruan, "f you were to use this paint to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet, we estimate that… READ THE REST
How to fly a helicopter on Mars
On Sunday, Ingenuity—the small helicopter delivered to the surface of Mars by the Perseverance rover—will, hopefully, take its first flight. The distance between Earth and Mars means that lagtime precludes real-time remote control. The helicopter flies autonomously, but the helicopter's digital twin had a lot of practice in simulations back on Earth. At IEEE Spectrum,… READ THE REST
Can you slap a chicken until it's cooked?
Turns out, you can — if you can get the slapping machine to stay alive long enough for the 135,000 slaps required to get it to a minimum safe temperature to eat. Science! Image: Screengrab READ THE REST
This hyper-cool, minimalist floor lamp is guaranteed to spark a conversation
We're all looking for home furnishings that come with extra gear. Of course, we want basic functionality or a certain decorative flair for that coffee table or piece of wall art or those window coverings that we bring into our home. But every once in a while, we run across a home furnishing item that… READ THE REST
These 20 air purifiers can help combat allergy season — and they're all on sale now
While the last year has been preoccupied with COVID, let's not forget there were plenty of good reasons to be concerned about the air you were breathing before 2020. With springtime rolling back on the calendar, one of those reasons has returned with its usual seasonal vigor — allergies. Seasonal allergies affect up to 30… READ THE REST
Get up to 65% off on 12 gardening tools, planters, and other yard accessories
Now that everyone is starting to emerge back out into the world again, this might be the first time you're really checking out the current state of your home gardening and landscaping in a while. If your snap reaction is… not so great, this might be a good time to roll up your sleeves, tool… READ THE REST