Take a trip back with this fun PopSci archive gallery of ways to reuse household items and see if you can’t find a way to spruce up your boring old house, or an idea for a fun christmas gift made from your leftover stuff. The kid in the drawing sure looks happy with his abacus made from thread spools, so this article may bring happiness into your life!

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It’s hard to believe that people once thought we’d all be living in domes by the year 2000, but this delightful retro article from Popular Science confirms that the future is a lot squarer than people in the 60s and 70s thought it would be. The geodesic dome was the brainchild of R. Buckminster Fuller, who felt that the simplicity of design and ease with which it could be built would catch on like wildfire across the country, and claimed rather ambitiously that it could replace all manner of traditional housing. However, Fuller hadn’t taken the cost of repairs into consideration, nor the problems that would be encountered bringing the dome up to code, and the awkward shape of the panels made replacing them a real pain, so the geodesic dome fad fell along the wayside, becoming nothing more than a vision of the future that was never meant to be. If you want to read more about the “dome of the future”, follow the link to PopSci, where you’ll find lots more info, and pages from past Popular Science articles detailing the rise and fall of the housing dome fad.

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If you want white tiled floors and cleanrooms, these are not the labs you’re looking for. PopSci has ranked their choices for the 25 most awesome college labs, and the diversity and locations might surprise you. From the experimental mine for demolitions students (who learn to “blow things up extremely well”) at the Missouri University of Science and Technology to the geophysics program at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory–where students wake up before dawn to hike to the top of one of the world’s most active volcanoes–these awesome hands-on programs put your five credit hours of making Punnet squares to shame. Featured careers include game design, rainforest biology, oceanography, brewery and alien-hunting. Link

Image: U.S. Geological Survey/Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

Ramming the atoms together at 99.999 percent the speed of light—the top speed of particles in the Large Hadron Collider, at the CERN particlephysics lab near Geneva—might fuse a few nuclei, but it won’t make that cool Frankenstein element. More likely, they would meld into a quark-gluon plasma, the theoretical matter that existed right after the universe formed. “But they would last for a fraction of a second before degrading,” Tuckerman says. “Plus, you’d need 118 LHCs—one to accelerate each element—to get it done.”

The other approach, as explained by John Stanton, the director of the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Texas, would be to toss a pulverized chunk of each element or a puff of each gas into a sealed container and see what happens. No one has ever tried this experiment either, but here’s how Stanton thinks things would play out: “The oxygen gas would react with lithium or sodium and ignite, raising the temperature in the container to the point that all hell would break loose. Powdered graphite carbon would ignite, too. There are roughly 25 radioactive elements, and they would make your flaming stew a little dangerous. Flaming plutonium is a very bad thing. Inhaling airborne radioactive material can cause rapid death.”

Once things calmed down, Stanton says, the result would be as boring as the atoms-only scenario. Carbon and oxygen would yield carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Nitrogen gas is very stable, and would remain as is. The noble gases wouldn’t react, nor would a few of the metals, like gold and platinum, which are mostly found in their pure forms. The things that do react will form rust and salts. “Thermodynamics wins again,” he says. “Things will always achieve equilibrium, and in this case that’s a mix of common, stable compounds.”

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Every year, the editors of Popular Science compile a list of what they believe to be the 100 greatest technological innovations of the past year. This time, the #1 slot went to the Groasis Waterboxx. It’s a plant incubator that reduces the need for irrigation:

The Waterboxx, shaped more like a doughnut than a box, helps plants survive long enough to make it through that layer of dry soil. Place the tub around a freshly planted seedling, and fill the evaporation-proof basin—just once—with four gallons of water.

The Waterboxx does the rest. At night, its top cools faster than the air, collecting condensation to supplement those initial gallons. The tub drips about three tablespoons of water a day into the soil, sustaining the plant while encouraging its roots to grow deeper in search of more water. Once the plant reaches the moist soil layer, usually after a year, the farmer lifts the box off the plant and reuses it on the next sapling. Each Waterboxx is expected to last 10 years, and, for about a buck or two per tree grown, is cheap enough to use in poor nations.

At the link, you can view the complete list of 100 innovations divided into 11 categories.

Link via First Things | Photo: Popular Science

(More scans at Woot!)

Yes, the glorious days of publishing were characterized by whatever could grab your attention on the cover.  Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and Modern Mechanix led the way in eye-popping art that seemed all the more plausible because of who was publishing it.  Scientists and mechanics know what they’re talking about, and what would make more sense than those commies developing a scary skiing weapon?  Woot! blog reviews and ponders this and other covers.

Holy crap. How did this get past Quality Control? First off, is this actually supposed to have military applications? I know this was back when Russia was pretty scary to everyone Stateside, but a fire engine red propeller on skis with an infantryman strapped to the front isn’t very stealthy. Imagine a squad of 10 or 20 guys motor-skiing around the Siberian plains wondering why the enemy is always gone at least a half hour before they show up. Suppose they find some bad guys. Do they just park that thing and hop off? It’s a pretty easy marker for a sniper down range. And what the hell happens if a guy lets go of the handles accidentally while he’s moving? I have to assume he turns into an Army guy smoothie.

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Peter Todd, a behavioral psychologist at Indiana University, suspects the difference between the sexes boils down to the basic risk-versus-reward systems that have been part of our biological wiring for thousands of years. For women, Todd explains, the priorities are to protect one’s reproductive role and to care for offspring, which outweighs any inclination to attract potential mates by exhibiting bold behavior.

But for men, Todd says, the risk of getting struck by lightning could be outweighed by the reward of proving to other men—and potential female mates—that they’re not afraid of getting struck by lightning. This is particularly true for young men, who have the most to gain by impressing others, thereby raising their status as attractive, daring, healthy mates in the dating pool. And then, zap!

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Image: flickr user Kevin Miller, used under Creative Commons license.

This is fantastic: Google Book Search has full copies of Popular Science magazine, dating back to 1872, available for you to read online.

The very first issue, May to October 1872, covers such topics as The Study of Sociology (by Herbert Spencer, no less – he coined the term "survival of the fittest"), The Recent Eclipse of the Sun, Science and Immortality, and so on.

Link – Thanks Philipp Lenssen!