Scientific American: Swedish Spruce Is World's Oldest Tree

What's sixteen feet tall and 9,550 years old? It’s the world's oldest tree. The worn and weathered spruce grows in Sweden's windswept tundra. But, until recently, well, recent to the tree at least, it barely resembled a tree at all. Before this last warm century, the spruce grew more like a shrub to survive the harsh conditions of its cold landscape. But rising temperatures convinced the tree to give up its shabby lifestyle, shed the majority of its needles and go with the single-trunk look.
Scientific American: Swedish Spruce Is World's Oldest Tree

Google Earth: Now in your browser!

Google just released a new browser plugin that lets users experience Google Earth from directly inside a webpage. The new plugin is accompanied by an API that web developers can use to easily incorporate Google Earth into their applications, just like what they did with Google Maps a long time ago.
Google Earth: Now in your browser!

20 Funniest Newspaper Headlines ever

20 Funniest Newspaper Headlines ever

Word Clock (Mac)

Word Clock is a typographic screensaver for Mac OS X. It displays a fixed list of all numbers and words sufficient to express any possible date and time as a sentence. Word Clock displays time by highlighting appropriate words as each second passes.
Word Clock

Protect Your Stolen Mobile Phone

You've synced your email, address book, and calendar to your fancy smartphone, which has internet access, photos, and videos on it, too—but how do you keep a thief from ringing up your bill, or worse, stealing your identity using your phone?
Protect Your Stolen Mobile Phone

RestyleMe Answers the Question: “How Do I Look?”

How do I look? It’s the classic question friends ask before they walk out the door. Most of us would say “fine,” but what if you had the chance to really point out the flaws in someone without feeling bad about it? RestyleMe is a social network for girls (and boys) who seek constructive criticism on how to fix their appearances. In other words, they want to be told how to look better. RestyleMe describes itself as “the ultimate style advice community website that features a novel way to get style advice.”
RestyleMe Answers the Question: “How Do I Look?”

Old filmstrip: "Bicycle Safety"

Once again, Derrick Bostrom of Bostworld provided an invaluable service to the world by scanning a vintage educational filmstrip and uploading it to YouTube.
Old filmstrip: "Bicycle Safety"

A Runner's Primer

Everything your ever wanted to know about running but were too lazy to google yourself.
A Runner's Primer

10 things you can do when Windows XP won’t boot

When your computer hardware appears to power up okay, but the Windows XP operating system won’t boot properly, you have to begin a troubleshooting expedition that includes getting into the operating system, determining the problem, and then fixing it. To help you get started on this expedition, here are 10 things you can do when Windows XP won’t boot.
10 things you can do when Windows XP won’t boot

The Essential Bookshelf: The Only Eight Books I’ve Kept

Over the last two years, I’ve reviewed in detail more than a hundred (actually approaching two hundred) personal finance and personal productivity books on The Simple Dollar - for more than a year, I reviewed two a week.

The Essential Bookshelf: The Only Eight Books I’ve Kept

Arts and Culture in Australia: A Statistical Overview

Provides a statistical overview of culture in Australia. Contains information on a range of topics including employment in culture, time spent on cultural activities, attendances at cultural venues and events, expenditure on culture, and imports and exports of cultural goods and services. Also provides profiles of the cultural sectors, grouped according to the Australian Culture and Leisure Industry Classification.
Arts and Culture in Australia: A Statistical Overview

Fix a stripped screw hole with a golf tee

Don't you just hate it when a hinge on a door or cabinet just won't stay put because the screw hole is stripped out? Sure, you can use a bigger or longer screw, but then it won't match.
Fix a stripped screw hole with a golf tee

Subliminal Advertising: KFC Wants You To Think There's Money In Your Sandwich

Subliminal messages in advertising has been a controversial topic for years. Is it underhanded? Does it even work?
Subliminal Advertising: KFC Wants You To Think There's Money In Your Sandwich

Does a Site Have Malware? Google Provides Diagnosis

Google put up a new* malware diagnosis service; just append any domain – your domain or another site you want to check on – to the end of the URL “google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=".
Does a Site Have Malware? Google Provides Diagnosis

Email Etiquette Pages Explain So You Don't Have To

Why waste time schooling clueless email senders one by one when you can build a web site to do it for you? A recent trend among email-overloaded web developers who don't want to explain the basics of email etiquette to frequent senders is to set up a web page that does it instead—then reply to senders with a link to the page, or just include it in their signature.
Email Etiquette Pages Explain So You Don't Have To

Six 'uniquely' human traits now found in animals

So you think humans are unique? Six articles from the New Scientist archive that tell a similar story and six videos of animals displaying 'human' abilities.
Six 'uniquely' human traits now found in animals

Starving yourself may fend off jet lag

Starving yourself before a long flight may help prevent jet lag, according to US researchers.
Starving yourself may fend off jet lag

Web banking: It's time to write down your password

Banks should stop forcing customers to create long, alphanumeric passwords because they can't protect against today's threats, according to AT&T computing researcher William Cheswick.
Web banking: It's time to write down your password

Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit

“The Offer.” Zappos, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit!
Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit

How to Make a Color Image Look Like a Sketch in Photoshop

A sketch is a free hand drawing. In Adobe Photoshop, you can add a sketch effect to any color image or photograph and give it an artistic feel, or perhaps trick your friends into thinking you've suddenly become an amazing sketcher.
How to Make a Color Image Look Like a Sketch in Photoshop

HomeCamera Turns Your Webcam into a Surveillance Camera

Web site and software HomeCamera turns your desktop webcam into a web-enabled surveillance camera. Just sign up and download their desktop software to get started. In just a few minutes, you can check an image or video from your webcam in real-time from any browser. Even better, you can set up motion-detecting alerts that will email you with a shot or short clip of what triggered the alert.
HomeCamera Turns Your Webcam into a Surveillance Camera

11 tips for sticking to a schedule of regular exercise

Exercise is a KEY to happiness. Research shows that people who exercise are healthier, more energetic, think more clearly, sleep better, and have delayed onset of dementia. They get relief from anxiety and mild depression, comparable to medication and therapy. They perform better at work.
11 tips for sticking to a schedule of regular exercise

Cool Tool: Knot Tying Cards

These cards are handy for those who already know how to tie proper knots, but don't do so every day and need a quick reminder.
Cool Tool: Knot Tying Cards

Why We Humans Behave So Strangely

MIT's Dan Ariely discusses his research in behavioral economics and explains how to deal with our brain's flawed decision-making process.
The Science of Irrationality: Why We Humans Behave So Strangely

Privacy: Best Free Ways to Protect Your Private Files

When you're saving sensitive files on your computer meant for your eyes only, make sure you've got the right tools on hand to keep them private. Whether you want to shield your brilliant startup business plan from the Pointy Haired Boss, or hide your stash of Gillian Anderson photos from the kids, there are several free tools that can encrypt, password-protect, or obscure files and folders from others who might use your computer. Let's take a look at various methods, tools, and levels of privacy and security you can use to lock up your sensitive data.
Privacy: Best Free Ways to Protect Your Private Files

Do Infants See Colors Differently

Infants, unlike adults, store color categories in the brain's right hemisphere. This new finding reveals the surprising power of language over perception.
Do Infants See Colors Differently

17 Tips to Help You Get Leaner and Fitter

We don’t want to lose weight, although that’s often stated as the goal — we want to get leaner. We want to shed the fat and leave just the lean muscle (some of us want to increase the muscle, others just want to lose the fat). We want to be healthy and in good shape and able to be physically active.
17 Tips to Help You Get Leaner and Fitter

5 Tips to Help You Live a Well-Balanced Life

With the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives, we often find ourselves yearning for a quieter, more balanced life. If your life has come to resemble an endless race to the finish line, take a look at the suggestions below to bring a greater sense of peace, calm, and even simplicity back into your life.
5 Tips to Help You Live a Well-Balanced Life

10 Healthy Foods Under 1 Dollar

Even with rising food prices, it's possible to shop for healthy foods without spending a fortune.
10 Healthy Foods Under 1 Dollar

Punctuality: More Than Showing Up on Time

When you think of what values you seek from co-workers, colleagues, and clients, punctuality is probably one that wouldn’t immediately come to mind. Being web workers, parents, co-workers, spouses and just about every other role you can imagine, we have many demands for our attention and sometimes these time frames overlap.
Punctuality: More Than Showing Up on Time

Secure Passwords Keep You Safer

There's been a lot written on this topic over the years -- both serious and humorous -- but most of it seems to be based on anecdotal suggestions rather than actual analytic evidence. What follows is some serious advice.
Secure Passwords Keep You Safer

The Traveling Web Worker: What You Should Know About Your Destination

With the mobility that comes with web working, we can now afford to travel for leisure while taking our work with us. However, the nature of our work gives us very specific needs. We can’t just expect to open our laptops in the mountains of Nepal and start working.
The Traveling Web Worker: What You Should Know About Your Destination

4 Free Digital Photography and Image Editing Resources

Many web workers are involved with digital photography, graphics and image editing. There are a number of excellent, free resources available online for staying abreast of the latest news on these topics, and improving your skills.
4 Free Digital Photography and Image Editing Resources

Air Hostesses of Yesteryear

Miniskirts, hairspray and polyester, the official look of the 1960s air hostess.
Air Hostesses of Yesteryear

Taking your laptop into the US?

Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country. They can take your computer and download its entire contents, or keep it for several days. Customs and Border Patrol has not published any rules regarding this practice, and I and others have written a letter to Congress urging it to investigate and regulate this practice.
But the US is not alone. British customs agents search laptops for pornography. And there are reports on the internet of this sort of thing happening at other borders, too. You might not like it, but it's a fact. So how do you protect yourself?
Taking your laptop into the US?

Laptops: How to Thief-Proof Your Laptop

PC World magazine rounds up eight tips to stop thieves from stealing your laptop, the most obvious-yet-effective of which is simply locking it up. Apart from their suggestion that you encrypt your hard drive (we'd recommend the cross-platform TrueCrypt for that), all of their suggestions require you to throw down a bit of cash. If you're not up to spending any money but you still want to beef up your laptop security, hit the jump for a look at a few no-cost solutions for guarding your laptop against thieves.
Laptops: How to Thief-Proof Your Laptop

13 Must-See Google Maps Mashups

There are plenty of obvious ones (Frappr, Zooomr, Trulia) but we’ve made some quirkier picks for our must-see mashups. Enjoy!
13 Must-See Google Maps Mashups

Airplane Air Not So Germy

Admit it. When that guy four rows ahead of you starts hacking, you can almost see the viruses wafting your way.
Airplane Air Not So Germy

Moving Tips

Relocation advice.
Moving Tips

Google Started Blurring Street View Faces

Google updated the panorama photo imagery of Manhattan as part of Google Maps, and for this update also blurred the faces of persons shown in the pictures.
Google Started Blurring Street View Faces

More Than an Exercise in Vanity

“I’ve been lifting weights since I was 12 years old and look at me,” he said. Dr. Thompson is small and wiry with not a bulging muscle on him. He speculated that he must have a genetic inability to build muscles, no matter how hard he works at it.
But are his muscles healthy?
More Than an Exercise in Vanity

Packing Clothes :: One Bag

Although perhaps more relevant to business than vacation travel, most of us do not want to spend our days looking like a wrinkled mess. Thus a natural concern is how to arrive at our destination(s) with our packed clothing in a fairly pristine state. By pristine, I mean that garments will have creases where we want them to be, and not have creases where we don't want them.
Packing Clothes :: One Bag

How to Enjoy Your Job

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
How to Enjoy Your Job

Estimated World Population to Pass 6,666,666,666 Today

The estimated population of the world will pass 6,666,666,666 today.
Estimated World Population to Pass 6,666,666,666 Today

Bruce Lee’s Top 7 Fundamentals for Getting Your Life in Shape

If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last 30 years I’m pretty sure you know who Bruce Lee was. If you have, then you may be interested to know that Lee was a very famous martial artist and actor who sparked the first big interest of Chinese martial arts in the West in the 60’s and 70’s. But besides being an awesome fighter and iconic figure Lee also had some very useful things to say about life.
Bruce Lee’s Top 7 Fundamentals for Getting Your Life in Shape

Mothers' day facts and figures

Mothers' day facts and figures from the ABS.
Mothers' day facts and figures

Stuff-onomics: Hidden Side of What You Own

“How little we actually need in order to be happy.“
This isn’t news. You knew that, and I did too. But why was it that I couldn’t part with those DVDs I will never watch again? Or, books I’ll never read? Or, clothing that I’ll never wear?
It is the stuff in our lives which we become attached to, because they give us a sense of self, a sense of identity. And by removing them, despite the clutter they cause in our inner space, it will feel as if someone is taking away our identity. It hurts the ego on a subconscious level.
Stuff-onomics: Hidden Side of What You Own

Myanmar Cyclone: Before and After

This weekend, Cyclone Nargis pounded the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar (aka Burma), killing an estimated 60,000 people thus far.
Myanmar Cyclone: Before and After

10 Essential Tools for Practical Travelers

Especially on a tight budget, you learn to be “self-contained” — you need to carry everything you might need, but you also need to keep it light and manageable.
10 Essential Tools for Practical Travelers

Six tips for getting yourself to do something you don't want to do

How many times each day do you try to work yourself up to tackle some undesirable task? If you’re like me – several.
Six tips for getting yourself to do something you don't want to do

What to Do When Windows Gets Really Messed Up

Even when Windows routinely gives you the Blue Screen of Death, all may not be lost. We'll show you how to restore both your data and your sanity.
What to Do When Windows Gets Really Messed Up

Why are Broken Bones Lethal to Horses?

After a four-race winning streak, Eight Belles galloped past the Kentucky Derby's finish line to snag second place. The glory was shattered as the racehorse collapsed on the track. She had broken bones in both front ankles — a lethal injury for a horse.
Why are Broken Bones Lethal to Horses?

13 More Things Your Auto Mechanic Won't Tell You

Real mechanics reveal more tips to help you avoid an auto-repair scam.
13 More Things Your Auto Mechanic Won't Tell You

Hey, Air Travelers: You Are Extremely Disgusting People

The Wall Street Journal has an article that we could barely finish about absolutely disgusting behavior that air travelers are exhibiting on airplanes. The article details the foul, rude and unsanitary things that you all are doing out of some sort of misguided aggression towards the airline.
Hey, Air Travelers: You Are Extremely Disgusting People

The Eternal Fascination of OK

All those who pose as experts in etymology tend to receive questions about certain popular words, with exotic slang and obscenities attracting the greatest attention. (The F-word is at the top of the list. Is it an acronym? No, it is not.) Beginning with my old post on copasetic, I tried to anticipate some such questions, and for a long time I have been wondering how to tell the story of OK, an object of undying interest. The excitement of this oft-repeated story has long since worn off, and only the thought that perhaps I can add nuance (as highbrows say) to the OK epic and thus partly avoid the otherwise inevitable triviality allows me to continue.
The Eternal Fascination of OK

Natural ways to take care of your teeth

Tea, vegetables and even cheese and chocolate (woo hoo!) can help
Most of us would go to the doctor if we had a silver-dollar-size infection on our foot. Now picture that infection in your mouth. That's gum disease.
Natural ways to take care of your teeth

Webby Nominees & 2008 Winners

With nearly 70 categories, Website entries make up the majority of Webby Awards Winners, Nominees and Honorees. Some are beautiful to look at and interact with. Others are a testament to usability and functionality. And a handful excel across the board. To be selected among the best is an incredible achievement worthy of praise -- and perhaps a little bragging.
Webby Nominees

Amazing Geological Oddities

From Death Valley to Southwest China....
Amazing Geological Oddities

Make Windows More Productive Without Installing a Thing

The most common complaint we get from Lifehacker readers in Windows IT lockdown is that the majority of our tips require installing third-party applications—which you can't do if you don't have the right permissions on your PC. If you don't have the rights to install software on your company-issued computer, there are still lots of ways you can make Windows a more productive place to work. Let's take a look at how you can maximize your computer productivity with keyboard shortcuts, desktop tweaks, search tricks and more—without installing a thing.
Make Windows More Productive Without Installing a Thing

50 Ways to Beat Walking Exercise Boredom

Even the most committed walkers will admit that, sometimes, putting one foot in front of the other can get a little boring, especially if you're covering the same old route or the same old piece of treadmill rubber day after day. Never fear -- boredom relief is here.
50 Ways to Beat Walking Exercise Boredom

Resurrect Images from My Web Browser Cache?

How to do that exactly depends on your browser.
Resurrect Images from My Web Browser Cache?

20 Things You Can Use Twice Before Tossing

From TipNut...
20 Things You Can Use Twice Before Tossing

How your computer keyboard is FIVE TIMES dirtier than your toilet seat

Computer keyboards can harbour more harmful bacteria than a lavatory seat, it has been claimed. Many users are at risk of becoming ill with stomach bugs, according to the consumer group Which?
How your computer keyboard is FIVE TIMES dirtier than your toilet seat

Boomerangs in space

On a recent visit to the International Space Station, Japanese astronaut Takao Doi brought paper boomerangs with him. They were given to him by world boomerang champion Yashuhiro Togai, who wondered whether the flying objects would work in low gravity. Turns out they worked perfectly. The Japan Aereospace Exploration Agency just posted the video.
Boomerangs in space

Eight psychological terms to help you strengthen your friendships.

Ancient philosophers and modern scientists agree: the most essential key to happiness is strong relationships with other people.
We all have many kind of relationships that contribute to our happiness, and one of the most important is our friendships. My happiness-project resolutions aimed at friendship include “Cut people slack,” “Show up,” “Make three friends,” “Bring people together,” “Remember birthdays,” “No gossip,” and “Say hello.”
Here are eight psychological terms and principles.
Eight psychological terms to help you strengthen your friendships.