Mar 27
Anyone can build a castle with sand, but can you build a castle on sand? Artist and photographer Vik Muniz collaborated with MIT researcher Marcelo Coelho to engrave a castle onto a single granule of sand.
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Mar 24
Armed with a shovel and a camera with a super-high shutter speed, photographer Claire Droppert made her way around a series of Dutch beaches and created these crazy Sand Creatures. The airborne formations look like the Sandman‘s brethren caught in the act of transformation.
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Jan 30
Gijs van Bon’s Skryf machine is far from the world’s first
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Jan 13
Six years ago, a patch of land in the Inner Mongolian desert became unnaturally flat. Researchers, for the sake of science, had razed 40 acres—or the equivalent of eight city blocks—of desert. Then, for three and half years, they set up cameras and watched as small piles of sand grew and grew into full-fledged sand dunes.
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Dec 09
Fables tell us that it’s really stupid to build a house on sand. In reality, you can build your house on sand—as long as you live in a tectonically stable part of the world. If you don’t, an earthquake will turn the sand into quicksand, and as a consequence, it will turn your house into history.
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Nov 18
Photographer Romain Veillon recently traveled to the deserts of Namibia, where he photographed the abandoned village of Kolmanskop, an extraordinarily evocative collection of old wooden houses now filled with waves of sand.
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Sep 16
If you’ve ever struggled to keep your drinks in their receptacle at the beach, this concept will have your pretty excited: Screw Cup is a mug that can be driven into the ground to help it stay upright.
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Aug 07
The scenes of Pandora in Avatar are still some of the most impressive naturalistic CGI worlds to ever grace the screen. Between the floating islands, the greenery, the waterfalls, and the exotic flora and fauna, it was really a visual spectacle. So when I saw that somebody had attempted to create the lush world of Pandora in their aquarium, I didn’t know if it could be done.
What you’re looking at here is an incredible recreation of the world of Pandora – inside a fish tank. It was created by a DIYer in China, and it replicates the lush green feel of the planet, albeit underwater.
Yeah, the plants look a little like floating broccoli, but the most impressive part of the tiny world is the waterfall effect – which I had no idea you could do underwater. Basically, it’s done with very fine sand being pumped into a trough and recirculated back to the top after it falls. Neat. Here’s a diagram which gives you an idea of how it works:
You can see more info on how to build underwater waterfalls here, but the site is in Chinese, so you’ll want to enable translation. Personally, I’d like it translated into Na’vi.
Jul 23
The real-life Tatooine may not have two suns—but it has unlocked the secrets of a geomorphic mystery.
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Jul 17
Everything’s bottled or canned these days. Even unusual stuff like air, unicorn meat, inflatable beach balls, and sand. Yep, you read that right: sand.
It seems pretty crazy at first, but it makes sense, if you think about it. I mean, the beach is usually so far away and it’s always no fun, with the huge crowds and all. So if you can’t go to the beach, then why not take a part of it with you?
Brookstone has come to the rescue with their version of sand. It looks and even feels like the real thing, but it behaves like Silly Putty. Just push, mold, and pat to form it into your desired shape. Making sandcastles and sand sculptures has never been easier. The best part? You can do so in the comfort of your own home or even in your office!
Sand is available for at Brookstone for $25(USD).
[via Werd via The Awesomer]
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