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Survivers: A Post-Apocalyptic Sci-fi Short Film

Survivers: A Post-Apocalyptic Sci-fi Short Film

In Carlos Gómez-Trigo’s short film, three survivors of an apocalyptic disaster debate how soon it will be safe to remove their helmets. After multiple signs point to an end to the threat, one of them becomes impatient and jumps the gun. What happens next might make you flinch. Be sure to turn on subtitles.

Cutting Wood with a Glass Saw Blade

Cutting Wood with a Glass Saw Blade

It’s possible to make circular saw blades out of paper, wood, or plastic, but the glass saw blade the Waterjet Channel made could be the worst idea yet. Sure, glass is harder than those other materials, but it’s also more fragile, and the flying shards of glass coming off a spinning disc could cause serious injury. But hey, it’s the internet, so here you go.

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The Weird History of Monster Cereals

The Weird History of Monster Cereals

Any day is a good day to enjoy a bowl of Count Chocula or Franken Berry cereal. It’s part of a complete breakfast! Dan Larson of Toy Galaxy looks at the strange and sometimes controversial history of General Mills’ spooky and sugary Monster Cereals, including the elusive Yummy Mummy. Since this video was released, Carmella Creeper was added to the mix.

How Matches Are Made

How Matches Are Made

How It’s Made presents a brief look at the process of making safety matches. The chemical process isn’t all that interesting, but the machine that magically grabs and stands up over 2 million loose matchsticks per hour is truly amazing.

TCL 40 XE 5G Smartphone

TCL 40 XE 5G Smartphone
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After dropping iPhones into toilets and oceans, I’ve come to appreciate phones that don’t bankrupt me. The pre-paid TCL 40 XE 5G looks like a pricey smartphone and does a good job behaving like one too, but holey moley, the Android 13 phone is priced at $120, making it TCL’s most affordable 5G smartphone yet.

The Nightmare: A Bike Survival Race

The Nightmare: A Bike Survival Race

In this intense animation by MIKAN, a group of bicyclists find themselves in a race for survival. Which of the 25 colorful riders will make it to the end, and which will perish in some nightmarish fashion? It’s kind of like Squid Game but on bikes. Craving more bike survival action? MIKAN has got you covered.

Crashing Two Bullets Into Each Other in Slow-Motion

Crashing Two Bullets Into Each Other in Slow-Motion

Inspired by a pair of Civil War-era bullets that collided and fused together, Destin from Smarter Every Day wanted to see if he could replicate the unlikely situation on camera. It took an impressive amount of planning and engineering to set up the shot and perform the experiment in a safe and precise way.

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Restoring a Vintage Popcorn Maker

Restoring a Vintage Popcorn Maker

It’s easy to make popcorn in your microwave these days, but there’s something about how popcorn emerges from a classic popcorn maker that makes it more festive. Dr. Restoration got their hands on a 1950s popper called a Corn Pop-O-Mat, stripped off years of rust and grease, and brought the electric appliance back to like-new condition.

Sound-Deadening Room vs. Echo Chamber

Sound-Deadening Room vs. Echo Chamber

During a visit to 3M’s Innovation Center, James from The Action Lab checked out two very different rooms they use to test sound waves. The first is an anechoic chamber that deadens sound reflections, while the reverberation chamber is designed to reflect sounds. Then, he tested various sounds to see how differently they behave in each space.

Improving the Alphabet

Improving the Alphabet

The English alphabet works perfectly well for what it is, but it also is pretty inefficient at times. Cunning linguist RobWords sharpens his pencil to come up with some improvements to the alphabet that would eliminate redundancies and wasted letters, making spelling, reading, and writing more efficient.

Firing a Bowling Ball Cannon

Firing a Bowling Ball Cannon

Cannons are generally designed to fire iron cannonballs. Ballistic High-Speed shows us there’s no good reason they can’t fire bowling balls too. In this satisfying slow-motion video, you’ll see what happens when a bowling ball meets various objects at speeds over 300 feet per second. You definitely would not want to be on the business end of this thing.

The Truth About Food Expiration Dates

The Truth About Food Expiration Dates

Do you immediately toss out food the second it hits its expiration date? TED-Ed is here to explain how you’re probably wasting food if you do that. It turns out that the dates stamped on food are often quite arbitrary. In most cases, your best bet is to use your senses of touch, sight, and smell to suss out when food is no longer suitable to eat.

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Making an Aluminum Banana

Making an Aluminum Banana

Answering the question, “Is that an aluminum banana in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?,” Brigid walks us through the steps of casting a perfect replica of the yellow fruit out of aluminum. The process involves placing a real banana in sand, delicately removing it, pouring in molten metal, trimming off the excess, then polishing it to a shine.

Learning How Explosions Work

Learning How Explosions Work

There’s data out there that helps scientists simulate what happens after an explosion gets going, but they still don’t fully understand how to simulate the genesis of a blast. Tom Scott visited a team at the UK’s University of Sheffield working on solving this problem, which could improve the safety of handling explosives and bomb disposal.

The Carnival of the Ages: An AI-Generated Short Film

The Carnival of the Ages: An AI-Generated Short Film

The early days of AI filmmaking are here, and the results are just as strange as you might imagine. Justin Hackney’s short film takes us to a carnival filled with freaky characters and retro-futuristic tech. He used DALL_E and Midjourney to generate style references, then entered modified prompts into Runway Gen-2 to create the footage. (Thanks, Gregory!)

The Wonderful World of Vacuum Fluorescent Displays

The Wonderful World of Vacuum Fluorescent Displays

If you owned audio equipment, a car, or a clock radio made in the 1980s or 1990s, you’ve probably owned a vacuum fluorescent display (VFD). After illuminating us to the wonders of segmented displays, Posy is back to school us on VFDs, why they’re so cool, and how their colors can be manipulated with filters.

Estate ‘98 Ultra-Concentrated Coffee

Estate ‘98 Ultra-Concentrated Coffee

Create delicious coffee drinks with just a tablespoon of Estate ‘98’s ultra-concentrated coffee. The 10x concentrate is extracted from beans harvested in the mountains of El Salvador. It’s perfect for lattes, smoothies, martinis, and Americanos. Each 8.5 oz. bottle makes 8 to 16 cups of coffee, depending on how strong you like it. The price shown is for two bottles.

Inside the Sydney Opera House

Inside the Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House is one of the most recognizable buildings on the planet, but most of us have only ever seen its outside. 3D illustrator Jared Owen shows off a precise digital model of Jørn Utzon’s architectural masterpiece, then takes us underneath its sail-shaped exterior to look at its structural engineering, concert hall, and other performance spaces.

To Scale: TIME

To Scale: TIME

After building a scale model of the Solar System, filmmakers Alex Gorosh and Wylie Overstreet headed to the Mojave desert to create a physical model that illustrates time over 13.8 billion years. They dotted the dry lakebed with lights and combined those with video footage to show the passage of time. Download a printable version of their time scale here.

Hamans Titanium Carabiner Keychain Multitool

Hamans Titanium Carabiner Keychain Multitool
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This carabiner-style keychain not only keeps your keys accessible but has several useful tools built in. On its body, you’ll find a slotted and Phillips screwdrivers, a bicycle spoke wrench, a metric multi-wrench, a bit holder, and a bottle opener. Made from durable, lightweight titanium.

Frozen Pizza Factory

Frozen Pizza Factory

While we prefer fresh-made pizza, a frozen pizza can satisfy hunger in a pinch. Wondastic Tech takes us inside a factory that mass-produces frozen pizzas. First, huge quantities of dough are flattened and cut. One machine squirts out tomato sauce, while others shred mozzarella and drop on toppings. Stick around for a look at a factory that makes honey candies.

The Amazing Microscopic World

The Amazing Microscopic World

Go deep inside of numerous microscopic worlds with this fascinating video from Sci-Inspi. It compiles through-the-lens footage of tiny living things from a paramecium to a fruit fly’s eye to a tardigrade, accompanied by a soothing guitar soundtrack. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to check out part two.

How Mechanical Scales Work

How Mechanical Scales Work

3D illustrator Jared Owen loves to take things apart to show how they work. In this video, he looks at the mechanisms inside of two old-school mechanical scales to see how they use springs, gears, and plates to measure how much something weighs. It’s all about something called Hooke’s Law.

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