The Architecture + Color Palette of North Korea

Pyongyang, North Korea “stretches out beneath you as a pastel-colored panorama,” Guardian architecture critic Oliver Wainwright observed from the 70th floor of the 500-foot-high Tower of the Juche Idea. This, and many other surprising discoveries are revealed in Wainwright’s new book, “Inside North Korea,” published by Taschen. In addition to his analytical text, the book includes photography taken by Wainwright. It all helps to build …

How “Now That’s What I Call Music” Became a Juggernaut

Launching 28 November 1983 in the UK (and 27 October 1998 in the US), “Now That’s What I Call Music” has become a bastion of record sales in an ever-changing industry. In its origin nation, the compilation series has now reached its 100th edition. Not to mention more than 120 million records have been sold (and the albums have spent 654 weeks at number one). …

How the Parker Space Probe Will Avoid Melting When It Reaches the Sun

As Popular Mechanics points out, there is a difference between temperature and heat—though they’re often seen as interchangeable on Earth. In the sun’s corona, its outer layer, temperatures hover in the millions of degrees in temperature, but “the loose organization of plasma in the corona makes the heat manageable.” NASA’s Parker Space Probe will enter the corona with a heat shield composed of a unique …