odd look at news on the web
Design without restraint: 2025's most ambitious architecture
29 December 2025 @ 12:03 am
The past 12 months have produced a remarkable number of buildings that push architecture to new heights. From a megatall skyscraper to the world's longest suspension bridge, here's our pick of the 10 most ambitious projects this year.Continue ReadingCategory: Architecture, TechnologyTags: Best of 2025, Buell starts deliveries for its Super Cruiser ... finally!
28 December 2025 @ 11:09 pm
The time is finally here. Nearly 3 years after Buell’s most ambitious motorcycle was first revealed, deliveries for the Super Cruiser have begun in America. You know what they say: better late than never. Right?Continue ReadingCategory: Motorcycles, TransportTags: Buell, EBR (Erik Buell RaciChina's weaponized cargo ship: What we don't know
28 December 2025 @ 8:17 pm
The Christmas photos of the Chinese civilian-looking cargo ship that appears to be weaponized are real. It's sitting exactly where analysts say it is – the Hudong–Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai. And yes, it absolutely looks like it's been fitted with containerized missile launchers, sensors, and point-defense hardware.Continue ReadingCategory: Military, TechnologyTags: Bio-mimicry? Try 'beaver-mimicry' dams to offset climate chaos
28 December 2025 @ 6:00 pm
The descendants of black-bear-sized giants who could haul massive rocks with their mouths, modern Castor canadensis once numbered as many as 400 million in North America. Felling mighty trees with their orange, iron-infused, nearly invincible incisors, they created their terraforming, hydro-engineering, half-submerged eco-homes based on blueprints stored in their DNA. Now, thanks to merciless fur-hunting by humans, their population has plummeted by 97.5%.In the 100-ft 'Dragon Hole' in the middle of the sea, life not as we know it exists
28 December 2025 @ 4:03 pm
In the South China Sea, near the Paracel Islands, the aqua-colored waters of an expansive shallow reef platform suddenly gives way to a near vertical shaft of vast darkness – an ocean sinkhole almost entirely devoid of oxygen and, in turn, marine life as we know it.Continue ReadingCategory: Marine, TransportTags: Ocean, Microbes,Compact, transforming, spacious, and solar: Top 10 tiny houses of 2025
28 December 2025 @ 12:03 pm
As the year nears its end, it's high time to take a look back at the best tiny houses of 2025. From high-end spacious models suitable for a family, to those that are modest in both size and cost, here's a look at the most interesting examples of small living we've seen over the last 12 months.Continue ReadingCategory: Tiny Houses, OutdoorsTags: Ancient coffins clinging to cliffs are no longer a mystery
28 December 2025 @ 6:03 am
High on the sheer limestone cliffs in southwest China, ancient wooden coffins remain wedged into rock faces hundreds of feet above the ground. Long treated as archaeological curiosities, these dramatic burials are now being re-examined using ancient DNA, and they point to a broader practice where separate cultures across Asia all paid their respects to the dead at similar "sky graveyards."Continue ReadingCategory: Cyclone streetfighter is an outright Ducati Diavel incarnate
28 December 2025 @ 12:28 am
Four years ago, when the RA9 concept was first introduced by the Chinese-origin Cyclone, a part of the bigger Zongshen group, it became one of the most advanced bikes to come out of China. That’s because in 2021, the idea of a liter-class Chinese bike was still fairly unexplored.Continue ReadingCategory: Motorcycles, TransportTags: Superbike, China's 435-mph maglev test reveals what caution is costing the West
28 December 2025 @ 12:01 am
Researchers at China's National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) have accelerated a one-ton vehicle from a dead stop to 435 mph (700 km/h) in under two seconds – then back to zero mph on about a 1/4 mile (1,312 ft / 400 meter) magnetic levitation test track. It's not just fast – it's absurd. That makes it the quickest superconducting maglev acceleration ever demonstrated.Continue ReadingCategory: TransportTags: Mosquitoes' stabby suckers may find use in high-res 3D printers
27 December 2025 @ 10:30 pm
In order to 3D-print really intricate items, you need a really fine print nozzle. Scientists have discovered that instead of going to the time and trouble of building one, you can simply repurpose a mosquito's existing blood-sucking proboscis.Continue ReadingCategory: 3D Printing, Manufacturing, TechnologyTags: