If you live in North America, you've probably never given the cost of water a second thought. In fact, you've probably taken its value for granted probably because it costs very little or because it's vastly abundant. 

In places like Saudi Arabia, however, a liter of water costs five times as much as a liter of gasoline. This is because much of the water in Saudi Arabia is seawater that is purified in desalinization plants (Al Jubail desalination plant shown above). This price relative to fuel is quite different in the United States. For example, a liter of water (from a tap) is virtually free, while a liter of gasoline is around $0.75 (about $3.00 per gallon). 

As a result of this significant difference in cost, it plays a major effect on hu [ ... ]

Imagine blending modified palm oil, skim milk powder, cocoa, hazelnuts, and whole lot of sugar – that's how Nutella is technically made.

In fact, Nutella contains 10.4 percent of saturated fat and 58% of processed sugar by weight. A two-tablespoon (37-gram) serving of Nutella contains 200 calories, including 99 calories from 11 grams of fat (3.5 g of which are saturated) and 80 calories from 21 grams of sugar. The spread also contains 15 mg of sodium and 2 g of protein per serving.

You're probably thinking, what if I gather up these ingredients and do it myself, will I have homemade chocolate spread?

Not quite.

Nutella uses modified palm oil rather than regular vegetable oil because it remains solid at room temperature. This modified oil i [ ... ]

Anyone who used a PC in the 1990's most likely used one with the most popular operating system of its time, Windows 95. Although it reached EOL (end-of-life) status in 2003, Windows 95 doesn't appear to want to die. It has made appearances on smartphones, handheld devices, and tablets for quite some time now, and people don't seem to be getting enough of it. Thanks to a young programmer, we can now have Windows 95 running in almost any web browser using emscripten, an emulator that converts C++ code to JavaScript in real-time. It requires no downloads, plugins, or any special software.

The emulator takes a minute to load up, but once you’re inside it, it’s surprisingly snappy. It provides you with a full Windows 95 operating system and e [ ... ]

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but what’s influencing our eye? Scientists reveal that it’s not genetics but life experiences that lead us to find one face more attractive than another. This finding furthers the on-going debate of nature versus nurture.

Here's how the study went down: Researchers asked 547 pairs of identical twins and 214 pairs of same-gender fraternal twins to view 200 faces and rate them on a scale of one to seven, with one being the least attractive and seven the most attractive. A group of 660 non-twins then completed the same survey. If genes were more involved in facial preference, identical twins would have had similar ratings; if the influence of a familial environment carried more weight, fraternal twins w [ ... ]