Dianna Cowern, aka YouTube's Physics Girl, recruited skateboarding legend Rodney Mullen and a couple of friends with a high-speed camera for this look at the physics of skateboarding. Read the rest

Intel and Chinese tech firm Ehang UAV have been locked in a battle over the world record for largest drone lightshow, and Ehang recently took the lead with 1,374 drones as voxels.

Here's a behind-the-scenes of Intel's worthy entry at PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics:

• EHang Egret’s 1374 drones dancing over the City Wall of Xi’an, achieving the Guinness World Records” (YouTube / EHANG) Read the rest

Artist Salavat Fidai creates all sorts of cool art, but his work sculpting the tips of pencils really stands out as an impressive achievement. Read the rest

In Lattice, artist Maria Constanza Ferreira filmed microscopic crystals growing in a lab, then animated them into a mesmerizing work of art. Read the rest

The small but bright fissure at the left edge of Kilauea's lava field can already be seen from space via infrared imaging, but it's dwarfed by the magnitude of previously existing flows. Read the rest

Since everyone's doing posts about their favorite cover of Toto's "Africa," here's my frontrunner, because it's very Norwegian: metal and ironic and funny all at once. Read the rest

This summer, San Francisco's Exploratorium is hosting an exhibit called Inflatable, featuring air-filled works by several artists. Read the rest

PancakeBot 3D prints (somewhat) edible griddlecakes from your own design, or from a library of present options like the Eiffel Tower or a T. rex. Read the rest

Just in time for Father's Day, here's a sweet animated film Tend, about a father who becomes too focused on tending a fire, at the expense of his young daughter. Read the rest

Česko Slovensko Má Talent is the Czech-Slovak version of the popular talent show franchise, and they had a family of mirror-clad dancers compete. Note: their dancing is really more like gingerly swaying about, for understandable reasons. Read the rest

YouTuber nigahiga took a fan request and made this impressive clip of dancing without moving over the course of a week. Read the rest

The blog Homophones, Weakly helps young learners and iffy spellers master English homophones with fun and simple graphic mnemonics. Now, it's coming out as a book. Read the rest

Nerikomi is a classical form of pottery where different colored clays are rolled into cylinders, then cross-sectioned to reveal a pattern. So soothing to watch the string cut through!

Faith Rahill has a great step-by-step demonstration here:

Nerikomi (often referred to as “neriage”) is a decorative process established in Japan that involves stacking colored clay and then slicing through the cross section to reveal a pattern, which can then be used as an applied decoration. Nerikomi designs provide a wonderful way to work three dimensionally with patterns and images. The results reflect a combination of both careful planning and accidental surprise, plus it’s exciting work for those who love patterns and are drawn to the wet-clay stage of pottery making.

Here are a couple more examples with far less annoying music. The agate pottery revealed after firing the glaze is especially nice:

• Centuries old pottery gets new layer (YouTube / NHK WORLD-JAPAN) Read the rest

Anthony Rubio dressed up his chihuahuas Bogie and Kimba in costumes inspired by this year's Met Gala theme: Heavenly Bodies. The result is, well, heavenly. Now he's compiling a book and needs your help. Read the rest

Anyone who was a hippie or who grew up knowing a hippie or two probably saw these intricate carved candles here and there. They eventually went mainstream in the 1970s, like macramé. Read the rest

Last Monday, UC Berkeley woman's basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb and her fiance Patrick Martin tried to board a Southwest flight with their one year old, biracial son; they presented the check-in clerk with their son's passport, but the clerk refused to let them fly until she showed the clerk Facebook posts or a birth certificate to prove that she was her son's mother. Read the rest

It took nearly a thousand drones carefully programmed and deployed to create the imagery used for the new TIME magazine cover. Read the rest