The World’s Biggest + Deepest Pool, Blue Abyss

Measuring 50m by 40m, with a 16-meter-wide shaft plunging to a depth of 50m, the research pool within Cornwall, England’s Blue Abyss aquatic center will be the biggest and deepest in the world. When it is completed in 2023, it will contain more than 42,000 cubic meters of water—and its salinity and temperature will be able to be controlled. Designed by British architect Robin Partington, …

Nintendo Museum to Open in Former Playing Card Factory

Kyoto’s defunct Nintendo Uji Ogura Plant will host the Japanese video game company’s forthcoming museum, tentatively named Nintendo Gallery. The site, constructed in 1969, used to produce playing cards and Hanafuda (a traditional card game, referred to as “the battle of the flowers”). The company—whose hardware includes Game Boy, Wii and Switch, and whose games range from Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong and Legend of Zelda to …

Science Behind the Brightest Auroras

Though scientists have long understood the basic mechanism behind auroras (aka the northern lights or southern lights), a new paper published by Nature Communications offers “definitive evidence” on the spectacular physical process behind the brightest auroras. These colorful, undulating displays typically occur when particles charged by the Sun enter into Earth’s magnetosphere, collide with molecules and generate energy. However, physicists from the University of Iowa; …