What’s nearly as strong as concrete, but floats on water? Pykrete! Pykrete is made up of 86% frozen water and 14% wood pulp (such as sawdust or paper). It’s easy to make, durable and strong. That’s ...

Winter is upon us. And though you may find yourself whiling away these cold months with nothing more than hot cocoa and stories around the fire, it may be that you are called to battle. Perhaps you ...

Project Habakkuk was a wartime proposal to build an enormous aircraft carrier from “pykrete,” an ice-and-wood-pulp composite ...

Winston Churchill had a project to produce a 2.2 million ton pykrete (ice and wood pulp) aircraft carrier that would have been 1200 meters long and 180 meters wide. This would have made it 3.5 times ...

Steel was in short supply during the height of World War II, and there was nothing to be done but invent a replacement. One proposal was called Pykrete, a mixture of ice and sawdust that melted ...

Stories of Nazi super weapons have persisted since World War II, and although these are mostly fiction, they can make it seem like only the Axis had wild ideas. Not so! Winston Churchill once gave the ...

How do you top building the world's largest ice dome? Well, if you're the Eindhoven University of Technology, you build a 40-meter (131-ft)-high model of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia basilica ... and ...

It’s winter, and in some places that means the beginning of snowball-fight season. If you’re going to win a snow battle, you’ve got to have a snow fort. Here’s how to make the best one. It will ...

Jem has set himself another challenge - and this time it requires your help. Difficulty: low Find a suitable material and make your pykrete bars. Time/effort: The bars should be frozen for at least ...

At some point during World War II, loony solutions to practical problems really started to shine. There were pigeon-guided missiles, shark repellent, and giant aircraft carriers made of ice. Well, ...