Softpedia News - How to

How to Build an Ancient Pyramid

Softpedia News (Smaranda Biliuti) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 11:03:00 GMT

An architect and researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) says he has discovered how ancient Egyptians made the pyramids.

Ever wondered 'how on Earth did the Egyptians built the pyramids thousands of years ago' when you saw a documentary about Egypt?

The same question has been in scientists' minds for thousands... (read more)

How to Survive a Zombie Attack

Softpedia News (Tudor Vieru) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:49:00 GMT

As unbelievable as it may seem, some scientists actually took time of their busy schedules to model with mathematical rigor the possibility of a zombie attack occurring, and also discovering possible ways to survive it. The authors of a new study on this issue, which was published in a book on infectious diseases, say that highly aggressive tactics need to be empl... (read more)

How to Recover from Stroke-Induced Hand Paralysis

Softpedia News (Tudor Vieru) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:51:00 GMT

One of the most often met consequences of strokes is paralysis, either of a limb, or of an entire half of the body. In the most severe cases, the entire body could be rendered immobile, though these occurrences are a bit rarer. Now, researchers from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, suppo... (read more)

How to Make the Planet Sustain Life for Longer

Softpedia News (Tudor Vieru) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:01:00 GMT

Astronomers have known for a long time that the Sun is currently at the middle of its life cycle, having already burnt for more than 4.6 billion years. As a yellow main sequence star, it is expected to live a full life of about 10 billion years, but naturally, during this time, it will evolve. Sadly for Earth, this implies it expanding as it turns ... (read more)

How to Build a Child's Social Skills

Softpedia News (Tudor Vieru) — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:20:00 GMT

Children whose mothers talk to them about other people's feelings and desires from an early age are more likely to develop excellent inter-personal relationships and social skills than their peers, whose mothers do not include “mental state talk” in their education. Social understanding is essential to developin... (read more)

How to Spot Religion Disguised as Science

Softpedia News (Tudor Vieru) — Mon, 2 Mar 2009 15:08:00 GMT

Over the past few years, more and more courts in the US and elsewhere have begun telling creationists that the idea that God formed the world is not a scientific theory, and, as such, it cannot be thought in publicly-funded schools. And while the move sparked intense waves of criticism from some, evolutionists saluted it, ... (read more)

How 3D Glasses Work

Softpedia News (Tudor Vieru) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:24:00 GMT

The idea of breaking an image up into its components so that the brain perceives it as three-dimensional is not a new one, as evidenced by the fact that Batman comics have been featuring various types of such goggles for close to five decades. Still, most people don't know how they work, or why images seem to come out of the movie theater scree... (read more)

How to Make Beer at Home

Softpedia News (Tudor Vieru) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 10:58:00 GMT

Maybe you got tired of the same brands of beer and you want to try something new, or maybe those small bottles in which they serve it are simply not enough. Whatever your reasons, you should know that making beer at home is fairly easy, and requires no prior experience. In fact, because you would be the owner of your own brewery, you will be able to fine tune the produc... (read more)

How to Fake Your Own Death

Softpedia News (Tudor Vieru) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:48:00 GMT

Faking your own death is no easy task, and while no one has any fail-safe methods of doing it, there are a few pieces of advice a person could follow, so as not to be found by the police in Mexico, six months later, peacefully sipping tequila. Over the years, many have tried to use this extreme measure to escape various faults, to elude justice or responsibility for t... (read more)

How to Recycle Large Technologies

Softpedia News (Tudor Vieru) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:14:00 GMT

We all know that recycling paper bags or bottles is relatively easy; one phone call to a collecting company and it's all taken care of. But, besides homeowners, giant corporations also have to dispose of complicated pieces of technology, such as server and surveillance room equipment, large heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, cooling tower... (read more)

A Few Tips to Reduce Holiday Shopping Stress

Softpedia News (Tudor Vieru) — Sat, 6 Dec 2008 09:15:00 GMT

Shopping during the Christmas season can be a very difficult and even deadly task, so before you set out make sure that you are armed with a few basic tips on how to minimize the time you spend in the store, or standing in line.

The first time-saving thing you can do is to go out and buy the gifts you want as soon as... (read more)

5 Tips to Make Your Cell Phone Battery Last Longer

Softpedia News (Tudor Vieru) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:49:00 GMT

Modern mobile phones have numerous applications installed, as well as a bunch of other features, including photo cameras, blitzes, Bluetooth devices and others. All these accessories take up large amounts of electricity from the battery, prompting users to recharge them more often. This consumes a lot of electric energy, placing unnecessary ... (read more)

Inexperienced Surgeons Increase Lung Cancer Mortality Rates

Softpedia News (Tudor Vieru) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 06:54:00 GMT

Routinely removing cancerous tumors from the lungs helps some surgeons obtain very good results with the procedure over time. They manage to anticipate most of what could go wrong and learn from past mistakes, so as to get better at what they do. On the other hand, surgeons who do not perform that many operations per year are very l... (read more)

Practical Guide for Making Hot Ice at Home

Softpedia News (Dan Talpalariu) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:21:00 GMT

Sodium acetate trihydrate crystals dissolved in hot water and cooled off stay liquid until the solidification process is triggered with one's finger. The exothermic ice thus obtained emanates heat.

I bet that when winter comes and you go ice skating, upon warming up your frozen finge... (read more)

How Spot Welding Works

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Sat, 2 Aug 2008 10:26:00 GMT

Spot welding is a technique generally used to bond metals shaped into sheets no thicker than 3 millimeters. Unlike other welding techniques, spot welding can create precise bonds without generating excessive heating that can affect the properties of the rest of the sheet. This is achieved by delivering a large amount of energy in a short time in order to create controlled... (read more)

How Dynamos Work

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Fri, 1 Aug 2008 12:49:00 GMT

Although the name dynamo was originally associated with all types of electrical generators, currently it is only used to describe mechanisms capable of producing direct current and small devices used to generate the power running the lights of bicycles (see featured image). A dynamo is basically a device able to convert mechanical rotation into electric current via Faraday... (read more)

How Water Jet Cutters Work

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:13:00 GMT

A water jet cutter is a tool able to slice into various solid materials with the help of a high speed jet containing a mixture of water and an abrasive material. Basically, water jet cutters rely on the same process that shaped most of the surface of the planet over the course of the past several billion years, water erosion, only that the process is greatly accelerat... (read more)

How Halogen Lamps Work

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:09:00 GMT

Halogen light bulbs are incandescent lamps with construction and operation roughly similar to the classical light bulbs. They are generally much smaller than their 'cousins', have increased lifetimes and are able to produce high light outputs with elevated color temperatures, as opposed to all other types of incandescent lamps.

A halogen lamp is basically made o... (read more)

What Ferrite Chokes Are

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:43:00 GMT

I'm certain that most of the people reading this article have noticed at some point in time that some of the cables connecting the peripherals to a personal computer have some strange looking 'bumps' (see lower image). If you did, then you might have also asked yourselves what those things are and what role they have. These 'bumps' are also called chokes, or inductors wi... (read more)

How LCD Backlights Work

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:53:00 GMT

Unlike typical cathode ray displays that produce images on a screen by bombarding electrons into a layer of phosphorous, liquid crystal displays can't actually produce their light while functioning. This is because the pixels on an LCD are basically like little shutters that vary their opacity accordingly to the amount of electric current they receive.

This disa... (read more)

Where Helium Comes from

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:50:00 GMT

Although being the second most abundant element in the universe, making for up to 23 percent of all ordinary matter, helium is one of the most scarce elements on Earth, having a concentration averaging about 5.2 parts per million in Earth's atmosphere. Some studies even suggested that within a few years, the helium reserves on the planet will be completely depleted, ... (read more)

How 3-D Glasses Work

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:01:00 GMT

Most of you might not know this, but 3-D glasses have actually been around ever since the 1920s, reaching their peak of popularity throughout the 1950s. They are still in use even today, although not as much as they used to be. 3-D glasses rely on a technique known as stereoscopic imaging, in which 2-dimensional images are combined in order to give the illusion of depth. Fo... (read more)

How Galileo Thermometers Work

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:51:00 GMT

The Galileo thermometer, or thermoscope, is a device named after the Italian physicist Galileo Galilei and designed to measure temperatures with a relatively good accuracy, although today it is mostly used as a decoration item. Unlike most classical thermometers, the Galileo thermoscope relies on the buoyancy principle, and on the fact that the buoyancy of objects ... (read more)

What Ricin Is

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:53:00 GMT

You might have heard on the television more than once about the assassination of the Bulgarian dissident Gerogi Markov with the help of a device hidden inside an umbrella, which fired a small pellet containing ricin into his leg. But what is ricin and why is it so deadly? It is a potent protein toxin extracted from the castor bean (Ricinus communis), which in quantities equal or h... (read more)

What Dynamite Is

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:30:00 GMT

Similar to most of the chemical explosives available today, dynamite is a mix of compounds that burns rapidly when ignited. It is based on a chemical substance known as nitroglycerin, a powerful liquid explosive, extremely unstable to physical shock. To harness the potential of nitroglycerin without the downside of its well known instability, it is usually mixed with certain absorbent materials and is given the name dynamite, although currently it is rarely used for any applications at all.read more)

How Crookes' Radiometer Works

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 11:08:00 GMT

The Crookes radiometer is a light mill consisting of a set of fins placed on a spindle that rotates inside a partially vacuumed glass bulb when exposed to light. The rotation speed is directly related with the intensity of the electromagnetic radiation, while the rotation direction depends on the temperature of the environment in which the device is placed. The ... (read more)

How Rocket Propelled Grenades Work

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:58:00 GMT

Rocket propelled grenades are explosive projectiles currently used in modern warfare to attack or destroy enemy targets from a distance. RPGs have their origins in mortars, which have been used as weapons of siege ever since the 1500s. Basically, a mortar is a metal tube aiming into the air, inside which mortar shells are dropped. As the shell falls towards th... (read more)

How Mercury Arc Valve Rectifiers Work

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:01:00 GMT

An electrical rectifier is a device used to convert alternating current into direct current. Most of the rectifiers currently available on the market are based on solid state devices, regardless of application, although before the 1960s and prior to the development of high voltage solid state devices mercury arc valves were preferred for use in the producti... (read more)

What a USB Port Hub Is

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:59:00 GMT

Most of the peripherals currently available on the market connect to the personal computer through USB ports. Up to 14 or more types of electronic devices, each with different functions, can be bought today from just about anywhere, while a typical computer only has two to four standard USB sockets. Thus, if you want to use more than four peripherals at the same time, yo... (read more)

How Bullet-Resistant Glass Works

Softpedia News (Gabriel Gache) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:57:00 GMT

Some people, even today, call this type of material bulletproof glass. The fact is that it is anything but bulletproof. By definition, this special type of glass is able to resist one or more rounds shot from a firearm before losing the properties that allow it to stop bullets. Its primary objective is not even to stop the projectiles, but to protect a certain t... (read more)