Afghanistan

From Boston.com's The Big Picture, what a real-life version of the Green Hornet's gas gun might look like. Taken in Afghanistan in February of this year, an Afghan army recruit is pictured shrouded in a cloud of shocking green smoke as he participates in a graduation parade af ...more

Photographer Noah Abrams traveled to Afghanistan in the summer of 2009 to document the emerging skateboarding scene there. The results are (frankly) incredible:

Skateistan is a nongovernmental organization providing lessons in skateboarding, environmental health, information technology, art and language in a coed setting to hundreds of urban kids in Kabul, Afghanistan. Below, a short documentary on the movement, directed by Orlando vo ...more

The augmented reality team at USA Today closed out a prolific year of immersive storytelling with a hard-hitting companion piece exploring the controversial conflict in Afghanistan. This week, the publication ran an investigative story by reporter Brett Murphy that uncovered ...more

Shot on the 5D by Specialist Tyler Ginter: 55th Combat Camera Company and owner of the coolest job in the military.

In what many Americans hope would not happen, thousands of people took to the streets in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday to protest the killing of 16 civilians by a U.S. soldier, burning an effigy of Barack Obama and calling for the killer to be tried in Afghanistan. Demonstra ...more

President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed an agreement that provides a framework for a lasting U.S. commitment to Afghanistan after the long and unpopular war comes to an end. Standing in front of Afghan and U.S. flags, Obama and Karzai signed the Strate ...more

Afghanistan's president on Thursday called for U.S. and other foreign forces in Afghanistan to leave villages in the country and move to larger bases instead, according to Hamid Karzai's office. Click here for the article.

It’s called Urophagia—the art of consuming urine. There could be any number of reasons for having the desire to drink your own urine (or somebody else’s). There’s the so-called term “urine therapy,” which uses human urine as an alternative medicine. In urine therapy, or uropat ...more

Fire.  It’s everywhere— always has been.  From the Ordovician Period where the first fossil record of fire appears to the present day everyday uses of the Holocene.  Today, we abundantly create flames (intentionally or unintentionally) in power plants, extractive metallurgy, i ...more

In recent years, Hollywood has taken a shine to hackers, with hackers appearing in almost every heist or mystery movie now. This can be both good and bad for our profession. As we know, whichever way Hollywood decides to depict our profession is how most people will perceive i ...more

There's no doubt about it—the most elite military force in the United States is hands down, the Navy SEALs. They can operate at sea, in the air and on land, and their ability to conduct missions underwater separates them from most other military units in the world. They've fou ...more

The last few months of WikiLeaks controversy has surely peaked your interest, but when viewing the WikiLeaks site, finding what you want is quite a hard task. Despite rumors of easy access via the Kindle and iTunes App Store, there currently is no way to view the leaked docum ...more

Giveaway Tuesdays has officially ended! But don't sweat it, WonderHowTo has another World that's taken its place. Every Tuesday, Phone Snap! invites you to show off your cell phone photography skills. Submit your best shot to our weekly competition for a chance to win an awes ...more

There’s a good chance that you’ll be alone in life one day, and no... I’m not talking about a couch-bound, dateless loser with a pocket pussy and a bag of potato chips. I’m talking about alone. In the wilderness. Hungry. Cold. Lost. You can’t stay in one place too long, so it ...more

Dactyloscopy isn’t going anywhere. Forensic science has much relied on fingerprinting as a means of identification, largely because of the massive amount of fingerprints stored in the FBI’s biometric database (IAFIS), which houses over 150,000 million prints. And thanks to the ...more

Incredible. A company called Berry Plastics (in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) has developed a working bomb proof wallpaper. The technology has the ability to protect against both natural disasters and warfare. From Popsci: "X-Flex...is designed for use a ...more

Devastating and deadly, land mines are a persistent threat in many areas of the world. Funding to clear regions of land mines has been decreasing, but new research may offer a less dangerous method of locating hidden, underground explosives by using glowing bacteria. There ar ...more

Uh oh. Somebody screwed up big this time. It has recently been reported that Iraqi insurgents have used $26 software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. drones located in Middle East conflict zones. The drone (a remotely piloted aircraft) is considered one of the U.S. mil ...more

In most countries, there is one single emergency telephone number that allows you to contact local emergency services when in need of assistance. In the United States, that number is 911, which most of us know by the time we're able to speak, unless you're Buckwheat and Porky. ...more

In a world increasingly regulated by computers, bugs are like real-life cheat codes. They give you the power to break the rules and do good or bad without ever leaving your seat. And government agencies around the world are discovering and stockpiling unreported bugs as cyberw ...more

After jumping to the head of the class of augmented reality journalism in 2019, USA Today is continuing to push the medium forward in 2020. The latest AR story from the media company explores one of the biggest stories of 2019 in the Boeing 737 Max aircraft, which the Federal ...more

Augmented reality's status as a new storytelling medium has already led to the reinvention of filmmaking and journalism. Now, AR is helping non-profits draw attention to their respective causes. Don't Miss: USA Today Deepens Story on Afghanistan War with AR Experience On Mo ...more

We may not fully appreciate all the important roles wheat plays in our lives until it's gone—or at least, when it's in very short supply. What would a world be like without bread, cakes, cereal, pasta, or wheat beer? If the dire warnings about an impending stem rust fungus com ...more

I write this post as an afterthought on the recent mass burnings of the Quran by U.S troops. Let me lay down the facts first to clear any misunderstandings: After finding out that prisoners in Afghanistan were using the Quran to pass on information among each other - troops h ...more

By Ethical Traveler As the world becomes ever more interconnected, being an ethical traveler becomes both easier and more urgent. Travelers today have access to far more information than we did even 10 years ago. We can observe–almost in real time–the impact that smart or sel ...more

"The suspect is based out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. He has been identified as a staff sergeant in the Stryker brigade who was taking part in a village stability operation in Afghanistan. He is a 38-year-old married father of two on his first deployment t ...more

» Homeland Security Report Lists ‘Liberty Lovers’ As Terrorists. A new study funded by the Department of Homeland Security characterizes Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority,” and “reverent of individual liberty” as “extreme right-wing” terrorists. » ...more

Tyler Ginter, creator of Why We Fight - the beautiful collection of never before seen footage of the Afghanistan Special Forces shot on the Canon 5D, put together this comprehensive and helpful lineup of sensor sizes.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lashed out against Russia and China after a meeting in Tunis. The meeting aimed to increase pressure on Syria to stop its bloodshed. Hillary represents the US as an ally for the rebels. Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolu ...more

Assuming everyone knows of the recent "String of attacks" passed between Obama and Romney, I just want to talk about how useless this entire thing is. I'll try to be as un-biased as possible. Election year is a major phenomenon in any country. The masses pick their candidate ...more

The Afghan Taliban vowed Monday to exact revenge for the killing of 16 civilians, allegedly by an American soldier who went on a house-to-house shooting rampage Sunday in two villages near his base. Afghanistan's parliament, meanwhile, demanded a public trial for the suspect, ...more

A U.S. soldier's shooting of more than a dozen Afghan civilians deepened questions on Sunday about what the United States can accomplish in Afghanistan before it withdraws, as Washington rushed to contain the damage from the startling rogue attack. President Barack Obama and ...more

The Unites States paid close to $50,000 in compensation for each Afghan killed in the shooting spree attributed to a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan, a U.S. official told NBC News on Sunday. The official, who asked not to be named, would not say exactly how much was paid ...more

Afghan officials and witnesses say a U.S. service member walked off his base and shot and killed at least 16 Afghan civilians in Kandahar province Sunday. The shooting is the latest in a string of incidents to further strain Washington and Kabul’s already tense relationship. A ...more