
A homemade pulse jet engine now powers a winter machine that redefines what is possible on frozen lakes. Zach of Build N Pulsejets had a simple idea, and that was to attach his new 180-pound-thrust propane pulse jet to a child’s kick scooter for high-speed fun on dirt roads. Winter arrived in Michigan far earlier than expected, and before you knew it, he was knee-deep in snow and ice. Zach decided to adjust his plans, and now he has a pulse-jet bike that he enjoys riding across snowy surfaces, turning cabin fever into high-speed thrills.

Logitech’s ERGO M575S, priced at $39.99 (was $50), provides a compelling argument to abandon the traditional action of a mouse in favor of a trackball. People who swear by trackballs are typically individuals who have been turned off by years of wrist strain, and this model delivers on exactly what keeps them coming back, as in no more constant arm flailing.

Justin Flom’s Las Vegas home is a true one-of-a-kind masterpiece, a real breathing reflection of his career in magic, with something unexpected around every corner. He created the entire building himself, transforming a typical house into a seriously off-the-wall playground of secret passages and faulty mechanics, and guests can see right away that nothing behaves as you’d normally expect.

Few people ever get to see a place deep within London. Even journalists will rarely have the opportunity to observe the gigantic network of gold bars reaching out in seemingly endless rows and stacked high in massive underground chambers. Each bar weighs approximately 12 kilograms and sparkles like a miniature sun beneath the gentle glow of the low-level lights. This is the Bank of England’s gold vaults, a hidden world beneath our feet containing an astounding 400,000 bars. The Bank’s vaults make it the world’s second-largest gold custodian, following the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Photo credit: China News Service
Wushan County residents in Chongqing, China can now easily enter and exit neighborhoods that used to require an hour of navigating steep slopes and tight roads. The Wushan Goddess Escalator finally opened its doors on February 17, 2026, just in the midst of Chinese New Year festivities.

JerryRigEverything disassembled one of LEGO’s newest products, the Smart Brick, to determine what makes it tick. From the exterior, this component appears to be a typical 2×4 LEGO brick, but it has some fairly complex electronics on the inside. Builders familiar with previous sets will smile because you still have your classic studs on top and tubes underneath, as well as your 80s brick compatibility. Putting the Smart Brick through its paces reveals that it works well with bricks made around 1985. The connecting system remains unchanged from what we have come to expect.

On January 5, a seemingly regular afternoon in Glendale, Arizona, became extremely stressful for the local cops. A Flock Safety camera at a local car wash saw a stolen GMC Sierra pickup truck traveling by and alerted the police, who were on the spot. That single alert prompted them to rush over to find the thief, John Graff, who was cleaning the truck’s interior as if he owned the place.

The Soundcore Q20i headphones, priced at $39.99 (was $70), give impressive performance at a reasonable price. This over-ear model from Anker’s Soundcore brand combines hybrid active noise cancellation, a long battery life, and configurable sound profiles into a product that constantly receives high praise for being one of the best value-for-money options available.

Half-Baked Research created a handheld tool that takes the concept of a 3D pen and supercharges it into a gadget designed to do more than simply slap some molten plastic in the air, resulting in a real plastic welder for the makers. Standard 3D pens just draw a line of melted filament, which is ideal for casual drawings or simple repairs.

Phone Repair Guru examines packages from AliExpress, each holding the components that will hopefully be utilized to make a seventh-generation iPad. Sounds like a simple challenge: build a fully functional iPad with these components, primarily acquired online, and evaluate how the final cost compares to a reconditioned tablet that costs roughly $200 Canadian. However, there is a catch: the screen is purchased from eBay because the AliExpress selections were inadequate, and the housing is a bit of a mess, having arrived broken but salvageable.