Early schematics by Jane Richardson lay the foundation for her ubiquitous ribbon diagrams -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

Babel Tower is the work of Gugo Torelli, a designer from Florence, Italy, and Shirin Abedinirad, an artist from Iran. The post Watch a Pyramid of Mirrors Morph Based on Desert Weather appeared first on WIRED.

Because you're not getting enough horserace coverage from the media as it is.Google has made the Great American Horserace a little more interactive. Read Full Story

Feeling small and insecure?

Large, hollow nasal crests were comparable to those of hadrosaurs, researchers say -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

John Perry Barlow stands by his Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, the libertarian idea that lit up the Internet on this day in 1996. The post It’s Been 20 Years Since This Man Declared Cyberspace Independence appeared first on WIRED.

How do they do it?

After debuting the Quesalupa in a Super Bowl ad, Taco Bell is continuing its quest to become fast food's most-craveable company.On a recent evening, Taco Bell CEO Brian Niccol was hanging out at his Newport Beach, California, home when an idea popped into his head—a menu item designed to appeal to young, ravenously hungry customers on their way home after a night of partying. Niccol, 42, was thinking about his days as an engineering student at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he had a favorite lunch spot with a simple gimmick. "We went to this place called Bagel & Deli that had all these great names for their sandwiches," he says, sitting on a sofa in his large, comfortable corner office at Taco Bell's Irvine, California, headquarters. "I was like, 'Why haven't we thought of having great names for our burritos?' " (Taco Bell's current offerings tend to have monikers like "Shredded Chicken Burrito" or "Beefy 5-Layer Burrito.") He fired off a text to Taco Bell's chief food innovation officer, Liz Matthews, that included a name borrowed from Bagel & Deli: "the After Burner." Niccol didn't give many further instructions. Whatever those two words might conjure in the minds of Matthews and her crew of chefs and food scientists would be the starting point. "What's in the burrito?" he says in his office a few days later. "I don't know! Make it up."Read Full Story