Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
How incubators mimic the womb
When babies arrive aggressively early, they cannot regulate their own body heat. Incubators act as transparent, highly engineered artificial wombs. They…
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Why bananas arrive green—and turn yellow all at once
Bananas are shipped completely green and rock-hard so they survive transit. Once they arrive, they are shoved into massive, airtight industrial chambers and…
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Evaporative humidifiers blow dry air over wet filters
To fix the incredibly dry air in your bedroom, you literally just need a wet sponge and a fan. Evaporative humidifiers aggressively soak a highly porous paper…
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Endoscopes use fiber optics to light up human insides
Looking inside a stomach is impossible without light, and you cannot exactly swallow a flashlight. Endoscopes solve this by shoving a flexible bundle of…
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How freeze-drying turns ice straight into vapor
Turning a strawberry into astronaut food requires horrific pressure manipulation. The fruit is flash-frozen solid, then thrown into a high-grade vacuum…
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The hidden trick that lets cars turn smoothly
If cars had perfectly solid axles, taking a corner would mercilessly rip your tires to shreds. Because the outside wheel travels a longer distance than the…
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Fluorescent tubes light up by electrifying mercury vapor
The flickering, soul-crushing light of an office building is a terrifying chemical reaction. Fluorescent tubes are filled with highly toxic mercury vapor and…
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Washing machines use centrifugal force to extract water
At the end of a laundry cycle, your washing machine attempts to reach the rotational speed of a helicopter. This extremely aggressive spinning uses…
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What happens to knocked-over bowling pins
Nobody actually sets up your bowling pins by hand anymore. The massive, terrifying pinsetter machine hiding in the back uses an aggressive mechanical sweep…
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Your garbage disposal has no spinning blades
Everyone assumes there is a spinning wheel of razor-sharp knives waiting to chop up fingers inside their sink drain. Completely false. Garbage disposals use…
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Laser eye surgery vaporizes part of your cornea
Fixing bad eyesight sounds pleasant until you realize it involves a localized facial laser strike. The machine slices open a microscopic flap on the surface…
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Medical autoclaves use pressurized steam to kill bacteria
Merely boiling surgical tools does not kill all the terrifying superbugs clinging to them. Autoclaves trap water and heat it under immense physical pressure,…
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Why movie projectors keep the picture from flickering
Watching a film reel is just staring at thousands of still photographs aggressively jerked past a light bulb. If you just pulled the film continuously, you…
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Pasteurization boils liquids just enough to kill most bugs
Raw milk is effectively a bacterial roulette wheel. To fix this, dairy processors violently heat the milk to around 161 degrees Fahrenheit for exactly fifteen…
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Canning preserves food by creating an airtight vacuum seal
Stuffing food in a metal tin does not stop it from rotting unless you manipulate the atmosphere. During canning, the open cans are blasted with extreme heat,…
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Water softeners replace calcium ions with liquid sodium
Hard water leaves disgusting mineral crusts everywhere, so basements employ an aggressive chemical hostage exchange. Water softeners force the hard water…
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Centrifuges separate human blood components by density
If you want to pull plasma out of whole blood, you cannot just filter it. Instead, laboratories strap vials of blood to a wheel and spin them at nauseating…
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How cereal becomes stars and rings
Breakfast cereal does not naturally grow in the shape of miniature stars or tiny rings. Factories take a thick, aggressively unappetizing sludge of grain and…
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How an electric kettle knows to switch off
An electric kettle does not possess a brain to know when water is boiling. Instead, it relies on a purely mechanical bimetallic strip hiding in the handle.…
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How rockets keep their nozzles from melting
The fiery exhaust of a rocket launch is so aggressively hot it should instantly melt the metal nozzle holding it. To stop this catastrophic failure, the…
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Your refrigerator cools food by boiling liquid
Your fridge does not magically generate cold air; it forcefully steals heat. A compressor violently squeezes a chemical refrigerant into a hot, high-pressure…
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How seed drills plant crops without plowing
Throwing seeds on the ground and hoping for the best is a terrible farming strategy. Modern seed drills are highly complex terrestrial injection machines.…
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Why milk doesn't separate into cream and water
Left alone, milk aggressively separates into a watery blue liquid with a thick, unappetizing layer of fat floating on top. To prevent you from having to chew…
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Why diesel engines need no spark plugs
Unlike standard engines that use cute little electrical sparks to light fuel, diesel engines rely on pure, unadulterated brute force. They compress the air…
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