While most scotch whiskey terminology veers towards the religious, the so-called “water of life” has been subjected to more scientific scrutiny than one might expect. But it's still a work in progress. Earlier this week at the New York Academy of Sciences, Simon Brooking, Master Ambassador for Ardmore and Laphroaig distilleries, appeared in his traditional clan tartan to walk a crowd through the chemistry behind the whiskey.

Yes, there are some great robot fight scenes, nefarious villains, a few human interest plotlines, even characters that seem like genuine people, but the new movie Iron Man is really about the lab, and its ridiculously cool toys.

Post-its are great to jot down quick notes and messages; and important phone numbers; and meeting locations; and the zillions of passwords. Great that is, until they lose their stick and end up buried in piles of work or behind the desk. Now, researchers at MIT have solved that pressing problem with the demoed “Quickies,” a new application to digitize handwritten sticky notes and allow you not only to browse through an archive of notes, but set up to-do lists, send reminders, and even find that sticky note you lost in the middle of a textbook.

Tomorrow is a special day for spam—it’s turning 30. Even those despised emails about enlarging certain body parts, discounts on health products, Rolex watches, enhancing your love life have to have an origin.

In fact, spam began inoffensively enough with an email sent May 3, 1978 to about 400 users of Arpanet, (the government-run network that later became in the Internet) from a marketer at the (now defunct) computer company Digital Equipment Company. The first one wasn’t the scam- and virus-filled message familiar to today’s Internet users—just a friendly email inviting all to a showing of a new computer system.