Like an ice cube on a warm day, most materials melt — that is, change from a solid to a liquid state — as they get warmer. But a few oddball materials do the reverse: They melt as they get cooler. Now a team of researchers at MIT has found that silicon, the most widely … Read more

Anyone remember Color cycling from the 90s? This was a technology often used in 8-bit video games of the era, to achieve interesting visual effects by cycling (shifting) the color palette. Back then video cards could only render 256 colors at a time, so a palette of selected colors was used. But the programmer could … Read more

John Holloway, author of Change the World Without Taking Power, argues that our response to the global economic crisis should be to create spaces outside of capitalism, not demand that it exploits us better. We are the crisis of capital and proud of it. Enough of saying that the capitalists are to blame for the … Read more

Scientists are to monitor the vital signs of tourists in Florence after they see works of art – to test if Stendhal syndrome exists. There’s only one problem with an attempt by Italian scientists to test the reality of Stendhal syndrome, the condition of being so overcome by beautiful works of art that you actually … Read more