Most of your exposure to silk probably comes in the form of uncomfortably sensual linens or cobwebs in a dusty old closet. In reality, though, silk is an incredible and overlooked material. While it may have roots in the ancient past, it could also form the building blocks of the future. Read More >>

There's something on the internet that you desperately want to keep everyone from seeing. Something you're deeply embarrassed of. That would show all your friends how you're not actually as smart and fashionable and ironically self-aware as you pretend to be. And you really ought to get over it. Read More >>

It's no secret that late Apple CEO Steve Jobs was keen on bringing the company's technology to the automotive world. In fact, according to longtime Apple board member Mickey Drexler, "Steve's dream before he died was to design an iCar." Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Phil Shiller, echoed those sentiments during the company's copyright infringement trial against Samsung, saying there had been discussion of Apple making a vehicle. Read More >>

Gin just happens to be one of our favourite beverages. It's a versatile spirit with tons of variation between brands. And we were fortunate enough to see how two of the great gin producers of the ages—Beefeater and Plymouth—create it from scratch. Read More >>

The second suspect in the brutal Boston Marathon bombings has been apprehended, after five days of uncertainty and fear. And while all credit for Dzhokar Tsarnaev's capture goes to the men and women of the many, many agencies that spent the last week tracking him down, technology played as prominent a role as it ever has in a time of national crisis. Read More >>

That pet rock of yours lose a bit of its luster over the years? Not to worry, NASA plans to put one big enough for the whole world to share in orbit around the moon by the start of the next decade. Here's how. Read More >>

Bitcoin! It's everywhere right now. Its value is dropping, spiking, dropping again. More and more new converts are hopping in, buying a few coins and trying their hands at the market, looking to make a quick buck with a profitable exchange. But all the while, there's an ever-dwindling army of specialists working in the shadows, painstakingly extracting more and more digital doubloons from the cryptographic static. Read More >>

Lacking claws, armor, or stabbing teeth, humans are easy targets for predation. But thanks to our big, beautiful brains, we figured out early on how to co-opt the killing tools of nature's top hunters for our own defense—and offense. Here are some of the best examples of technology mimicking nature. Or just straight up stealing from it. Read More >>

Drinking influences our personalities in a variety of ways. Some people get happy. Others turn combative or impulsive. At one time or another, though, we've all been the emotional drunk, a condition typically marked by ill-timed espousals of affection (or reprisal), acute introspection, and an uncontrollable urge to cry in the middle of a crowded bar. Read More >>

At the height of the Cold War, if you wanted a peek behind the Iron Curtain, it had to be a birds's eye view from 63,000 feet—above the reach of Soviet SAM batteries. And to fly that high, America's elite SR-71 pilots had to wear the most advanced flight suits this side of the Apollo program. Read More >>

You probably haven't regularly used smileys since your middle school days, when modems screeched and President Clinton rained ordnance against Bosnian war criminals. You've grown up since then, but the ;) has remained inert, a relic of type. In our new modern age, is it ever okay to drop a smiley? Read More >>

Maybe you've heard of Bitcoin—it wants to shake the entire global economy, and has become the financial bubble du jour with a skyrocketing value. It's online money—an alternative to pounds and euros. Well what's that mean? It's complicated, but we break it down. Read More >>

Comparing books to ebooks is like comparing mechanical watches to digital watches, or manual cars to automatic cars. No one doubts the convenience, reach, and flexibility of the ebook format, but it will never convincingly replicate the experience of a paper book—nor does it need to. Ebooks are a fundamentally new medium, stuck in an awkward growing stage. Read More >>

After its third nuclear test in February drew a harsh rebuke from the international community and further tightened economic sanctions against the Hermit Kingdom, North Korea has once again doubled down on its nuclear rhetoric. The country also announced that it will soon restart the Yongbyon reactor, Pyongyang's primary plutonium processing plant. Read More >>

Give basically any piece of tech you carry around the time machine test. Jump ahead 50 years, and show off whatever anachronism of a gadget you brought along to a native. They'd laugh, obviously. But within the confines of our traditional tech specs, you know what they'd probably find most egregious? The battery. Read More >>