Vasa: A 17th Century Warship That Sank, Was Recovered and Now Sits in a Museum

In 1628, the Swedish warship Vasa set off on its maiden voyage from Stockholm harbor towards Poland, where a war was raging in the Baltic. Built by 400 craftsmen at the royal shipyard at Stockholm, the ship was richly decorated as a symbol of the king’s ambitions for Sweden and himself.

10 Maps That Will Change How You View The World

Maps are one of those things you can lose yourself in for hours. Since their humble origins as scribbles in the sand thousands of millennia ago, maps have been useful companions during the development of human culture and society. Now, in an age of seemingly endless information, maps are more abundant, advanced and fascinating than ever before.

How to Start a Vertical Garden?

Choose a Wall

For vertical garden-building advice, we talked to Philip Yates

of the Singer Hill Café in Oregon City,
Ore., founder of website The Vertical Garden Institute.Yates says he learned through a lot of trial
and error, and also used the book The Vertical Garden by
Patrick Blanc, a botanist considered the inventor of vertical gardens, as a guide.

Start by choosing a wall. “If you’ve got a wall that’s ugly, that’s the one you’re going to want to do,” Yates says. The good news is that almost any wall will do, and unless you want to build a very large vertical garden or plant trees, you don’t need to worry about weight load.

BioLogic, A Shape-Changing Fabric That Vents When You Sweat

Teams from MIT Media Lab and the Royal College of Art have used bacteria to design a “bio-skin” fabric that peels back in reaction to sweat and humidity

Clothes created from the BioLogic fabric have vents that open in response to sweat

Innovator: Hiroshi Ishii
Age: 60
Title: Professor and associate director of MIT Media Lab, an interdisciplinary research group