Bringing the 1972 Pong classic Atari game back to life in a beautiful new form, the Table Pong Project will suddenly look a lot more like beer pong (or air hockey or table tennis perhaps). The real key (fast forward a few minutes to see it) is the reflective trickery that makes the entire thing look physical and three-dimensional, from the paddles to the bouncing box/ball.

The creators behind the project had little technical skill when they set out and learned what they needed to from YouTube channels, Google searches and by asking questions on web forums. Against that background, the results are nothing short of amazing, from the game physics to the graphic renderings on the smooth surface of the table.

Each player controls their paddle with knobs, much like arcade controls, and the angle of impact changes the path of the ball. Single-player mode works as well as two-player in their initial prototype. Whether or not they will deploy their retro wonder commercially remains to be seen. The video above details the construction process and shows the game in action

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This 1,000-year-old golden statue has left China for the very first time, and already it’s having a grand global adventure. It made its way to Meander Medical Center in the Netherlands where some hospital employees decided to take a look inside with a CT scan – and what they found was seriously amazing.

Instead of more metal or even a hollow framework, the hospital staff found a mummified human being within the statue. They believe the remains are those of the Buddhist master Liuquan who died around 1100 C.E. That in itself would be a pretty noteworthy find, but the researchers also discovered that the body most likely underwent self-mummification.

After taking samples of the thoracic and abdominal cavities, doctors discovered all kinds of rotten material (as in, not the regular stuff you’d find in a dead person) and scraps of paper bearing ancient Chinese writing that has yet to be deciphered. In other known examples of self-mummification, however, the organs were not removed – making Liuquan an enigma wrapped in a shiny golden shell.

Although the self-mummification theory hasn’t yet been proven in regards to this particular statue, the process has been observed among other Buddhist monks. They prepare their bodies and organs to defy decay after death by ingesting certain herbs and other substances that actually lead to their eventual death. As this is the first Buddhist mummy to ever be studied in the West, Liuquan has a lot of secrets to tell.

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Traversing the vast and varied landscapes of Siberia has always been a challenge. From the deep snow to the naked ice to the expanses of water and marshes, no one vehicle could cover them all until the A-3 Aerosledge. The A-3 was created to navigate all of these environments with ease. Designed in the post-WWII USSR by famed aeronautics engineer Andrei Tupolev, the vehicle was a propellor-driven amphibious sled that allowed access to even the most hostile, otherwise-unreachable areas.

Tupolev’s main directive was to design a vehicle that would be able to deliver mail and medical supplies to remote communities or to transport passengers to the nearest medical facility. The craft was small and light enough that it could be transported via helicopter to wherever it was needed.

The A-3 looked like a futuristic speedboat complete with gullwing doors. Its body was incredibly lightweight and watertight, featuring three separate watertight compartments that allowed the craft to stay afloat even if one of the chambers became flooded. A slightly upturned bow and clever design meant that as the A-3’s speed increased, it would slightly hover above snow or water. This was a particularly helpful feature when it came to zipping around on light, fluffy snow that would have slowed down any other power sled.

Inside, the passenger compartment could carry up to a maximum of 1,443 pounds over ice and 661 pounds traveling over water. There was enough room for a driver and plenty of cargo, or a driver and four passengers when additional seating was installed.

Only around 800 A-3 Powersledges were ever manufactured, with production ceasing in the early 1980s. Only one – a 1978 model – was known to have made it to the US, after the new owner found it in Russia and had it restored to pristine working condition with the help of experts from around the world. It was sold at auction in 2007 for $187,000 and again in January 2015 for $220,000.

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Music has always had the power to transcend social and political borders, and eager listeners have always found creative ways to satisfy their need for melodic escape. But few methods were as ingenious as the one used by people in the Soviet Union who were denied the privilege of listening to Western music like jazz and rock.

Clever bootleggers began pressing their own records as early as the 1930s. The practice seemed to explode in popularity in the 1950s. However, due to material shortages and the covert nature of the pressings, bootleggers had to look for creative materials on which to store the forbidden sounds. They turned to a surprising source that was both free and readily available: discarded X-ray films fished from hospital dumpsters.

Using a special device to replicate the scarce few contraband records that made it into the USSR, records were pressed directly onto the X-rays. The music-playing grooves could only be pressed into one side of the X-rays and the sound quality was quite low – but the “bone music,” as the records came to be known, fulfilled a need for culture from other parts of the world.

The finished records were cut into crude circles with scissors, a label was affixed, and a cigarette made the central hole that would allow the records to play on a standard turntable. The results were oddly compelling. Here were two types of completely different media laid one atop the other: a picture of a broken bone, or a mass in a lung, or a cracked rib, would play the music that was so sought after in the isolated reaches of the USSR. The industry grew quickly, and the X-ray Press, or roentgenizdat, was producing millions of bone music records.

Authorities were alerted to the underground bone music industry and by 1958 the bootleg records were made illegal. They remain an important part of history, however, and some of the actual records can be found today in the sound archives of the Hungarian Radio. Photographer József Hajdú added a third layer of media to the already-complex bone records by photographing them to share the story of illegal bone music with the rest of the modern world.

The post How Used X-Rays Brought Banned US Music to the USSR first appeared on Gajitz.

If you open up a calculator, cell phone, or any other piece of modern technology, you’ll see a lot of circuits and high-tech stuff, but not much that can be considered attractive or even interesting.

Old mechanical devices were just so much more fascinating. Their endless moving parts and huge metal guts were beautiful and complex in a way that no modern technology can match.

Photographer Kevin Twomey sees the strangely lovely mechanical hearts of antique calculators. These aged adding machines come from the collection of Mark Glusker, a mechanical engineer who collects the old machines.

Glusker asked Twomey to photograph his collection, and the photographer was struck with inspiration when his friend removed the cover of one to show him the inner workings. Although they had planned to photograph the calculators dressed and in full working order, the direction of the project quickly changed.

The series, simply entitled “Calculators,” showcases the complex internal technology of machines that predate the sleek, high-tech pocket computers we know and love today. For those of us who have grown up without the joy of taking apart and reassembling real household machines, these 1960s calculators and their hundreds of moving parts are a rare visual treat.

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