Highest risk of part of tongue being torn off is with temps between -5° and -15° C (23° to 5 °F). We all remember that infamous scene in the 1983 classic, A Christmas Story, where a boy licks a cold metal post on the playground and ends up getting…
A complex structure with multiple electrons is within reach of today’s hardware. Last week, IBM trumpeted its contributions to a rather unusual paper: the production of a molecule with a half-Möbius topology, assisted by an algorithm run in part on a quantum computer. There was, to put it mildly,…
Marc Abraham: “During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country.” Every year, we have a blast covering a fresh crop of winners of the Ig Nobel prizes. After 35 years in Boston, the annual prize ceremony will take place in Zurich, Switzerland,…
Clever polymer science and a little robotic precision created the Hakkapeliitta 01. Nokian provided flights from Austin, Texas, to Ivalo, Finland, and accommodation so Ars could visit its test facility. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. IVALO, Finland—In 1987, fictional superspy James Bond careened around a frozen lake…
8GB of RAM is a bummer, but this $599 laptop cuts most of the right corners. Buying a cheap laptop is easy. You just go to Best Buy or Newegg or Amazon or Walmart or somewhere, you pick the cheapest one (or the most expensive one that fits whatever…
M5 Pro Max’s “performance” CPU cores definitely aren’t just rebranded E-cores. Apple’s M5 Pro and M5 Max make deceptively large changes to how Apple’s high-end laptop and desktop chips are built. We’ve already covered those changes in some depth, but in essence: The M5 Pro and M5 Max are…
Shang Dynasty oracle bones and modern weather models feature in the same study. Warmer waters in the Pacific Ocean may have brought devastating floods to the cradle of ancient Chinese civilization, according to a recent study in which its authors link three wildly different lines of evidence to tell…
Falling cats in the study also seemed to show a marked preference for turning to the right. Why do falling cats always seem to land on their feet? Scientists have been arguing about the precise mechanism for a very long time—since at least 1700, in fact—conducting all manner of…
What part of “this year,” exactly, is still anyone’s guess. Valve quickly reconfirmed that it plans to ship the Steam Machine and other recently announced hardware products “this year,” after an official blog post late last week set off some worried speculation about possible delays. While Steam’s 2025 Year…
The key is understanding how to conserve energy across a lap. Oh, and be reliable. Formula 1’s 2026 season got underway this past weekend in Melbourne, Australia. Formula 1 has undergone a radical transformation during the short offseason, with new technical rules that have created cars that are smaller…
