The Ninth Annual Year in Ideas - Magazine - NYTimes.com

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Wow!
  In April, the world was introduced to Ruppy, the first known fluorescent dog. In natural light, Ruppy seems to be an almost-normal beagle — though his paws look as if he has stepped in pink ink. Under ultraviolet light, the effect is …

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<span style="text-decoration:line-through">99</span> 10 Red Balloons

Earlier this week DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, moored ten, 8 ft red, weather balloons in undisclosed locations across the United States. The DARPA Network Challenge offered a prize of $40,000 to the person or group who first identified all the …

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Flexing of the Manhattan Bridge

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Ummm... I know it's supposed to do this, but wow.
Watch as one of Manhattan's main arteries pulses with the entering and exiting subway trains.

Tags: NYC   video

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SpaceShipTwo by Virgin Galactic

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Back in my previous life, when working on a project with Scaled Composites, I got to see a test flight of SpaceShipOne and had dinner with one of the test pilots. It was definitely an event I'll never forget... although going to space would be …

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Brilliant frequent flyer miles scheme

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Arbitrage! Sneaky... people are hilarious
At least with the cheese and pudding, you were actually buying perishable non-returnable products. But hundreds of travelers recently discovered the mother of all frequent flyer schemes: buying …

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How to sell a dollar for more than a dollar

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Wow. This is great. Thanks Josh!
In this time of cutbacks and furloughs professors need a quick source of extra cash.  David Zetland explains how to sell a dollar for more than a dollar (and teach some game theory and something about political …

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Spinal Tap Amps

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But it adds a click of granularity!

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How Bad Could Obama Screw Up and Still Beat Sarah Palin?

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I still love this statistical political stuff. Forgot how fun Nate Silver is to read.
Although I'm fairly bullish on Sarah Palin's prospects of winning the Republican nomination, I also subscribe to the conventional wisdom that, were she to be the …

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"He is a second Dirac, only this time human."

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Like most nerds, and probably lots of others, I think Richard Feynman is about the coolest dude around. If you haven't read his books (or his book of letters, which is also fascinating and hilarious), it's definitely worth the time. He's …

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Experiment

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