The whole world is watching Hong Kong, where a battle is playing out in the streets between authorities and citizens protesting China’s encroachment on their independence. It started in June in response to a proposed amendment of an extradition bill that would make it easier for Hong Kong citizens to be sent to mainland China, and has escalated as authorities refuse to make concessions. Now, police in riot gear are marching into crowds of masked protestors with tear gas and water cannons.

Protesters escaping PolyU by rope from a footbridge to nearby volunteer motorcyclists
by inHongKong

In an effort to retain control of Hong Kong Polytechnic University (and the rest of the city), the protesters began crafting gear of their own: improvised catapults, slingshots and barricades. They’re also using encrypted messaging apps to coordinate daring escapes from police, like descending by rope from a footbridge to be picked up by riders on motorcycles below.

On r/HongKong, Redditors are posting some of these inventions alongside updates from within the semi-autonomous city. Many of them are incredibly simple yet effective, like gluing bricks to the streets or driving nails through sections of garden hose.

Students from the University of Hong Kong building brick walls to defend themselves from the police.
byu/DustineTetris inHongKong

Who will win?
byu/sadandwant2die inHongKong

In some cases, bamboo poles are zip-tied to the bricks to create barriers that could damage the undersides of vehicles that attempt to drive over them. It would appear that the police used armored trucks to break through the barricades, clearing the path for other vehicles, but it seems like it could be an effective way to shut down traffic in other protest scenarios.

A Hong Kong style barricade set up in Central today.
byu/EDoric inHongKong

Using little more than bamboo poles and helmets, some protesters set up homemade catapults:

The students of the Chinese University of Hong Kong successfully created a giant slingshot using only bamboo sticks and helmets. The campus has been under siege by the police for 3 days by now.
byu/DustineTetris inHongKong

Citizens in the streets are also demonstrating novel ways to fight tear gas with thermoses and leaf blowers.

The new way of Hong Kong protesters deal with the tear gas
byu/OWStep inHongKong

Man used a blower to deal with tear gas in Mongkok tonight
byu/Orhac inHongKong

Observers are also reporting the use of drones to deliver supplies to those trapped inside Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Thus far, thousands of people have been arrested, some being transported by train to unknown destinations (which some fear to be mainland China.)

The protesters are also leaving messages to each other and the world using graffiti:

We are not rioters. We are gamblers, gambling our futures for a better Hong Kong.
byu/thpkht524 inHongKong

Don’t know if this has already been posted here but this shows the extremity of things.
byu/ThatisWild inHongKong

Check out more of the Hong Kong protesters’ creations at Interesting Engineering.

Top image via u/VaelinAISo

Towers gonna tower, at least for a while. Just like rust, however, gravity never sleeps and these ten tipsy towers will sooner or later have a rude awakening.

We see your Leaning Tower of Pisa and raise you San Michele degli Scalzi, the Leaning Church of Pisa. No doubt the builders of San Michele degli Scalzi weren’t out to compete with the infamously tilted icon but given enough time (the church dates from the 11th century) and considering the Pisa region’s notoriously waterlogged soil, deviation from the straight and narrow was pretty much inevitable. Kudos to Flickr members Charlie Handsome and Fabio Di Lupo for the above images of the church snapped in 2013 and 2007, respectively.

Oberkirche of Bad Frankenhausen, Germany

The church of Our Dear Lady at the Mountain (known as the Oberkirche or “Upper Church”) in Bad Frankenhausen, Germany, was built in 1382. By the 17th century the spire had already begun to lean, a consequence of sinkholes in the area caused by centuries of salt mining.

The spire continues to lean by about 2.4 inches annually, a tilt greater than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. With that said, it’s still not the leaning-est church in Germany – the Suurhusen Church holds that dubious honor. Credit Flickr members Groundgopping Merseburg (fchmksfkc) and michimaya for capturing this outstanding (if not entirely upstanding) leaning tower.

Campanile of Santo Stefano, Venice, Italy

The campanile (“tower”) of the Church of Santo Stefano in Venice was built in 1544 and like so many historic Venetian construction projects, soon ran into difficulties related to the city’s watery substrate – a problem that’s grown more, er, problematic as time goes by.

Flickr member KE1TH (etowahboy) visited Venice and snapped the leaning tower from various angles in the summer of 2008. Good on him for not posing with an upraised hand.

Leaning Tower of Torun, Poland

The Polish city of Torun is partially surrounded by brick walls and watchtowers dating back to the 14th century. This leaning tower was intended to be a strong point of the fortress wall but began leaning shortly after it was built due to loamy ground underfoot.

Many parts of the city walls were demolished in the 19th century yet this oddly tilted tower was left unscathed – good news for modern-day Torun’s tourist industry. Flickr members Monika Kostera and Flitshans snapped the tower from opposite sides of the wall in 2012.

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Dire Straights 10 More Tilted Leaning Towers

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics rarely get more delicious than this, illustrated and replicated in the form of solid chocolate, sugar crystals, fondant icing, pancakes and even bagels. Wouldn’t you want to take a bite out of an anatomically correct life-sized human skull, a 3D representation of kinetic movement, a Rubik’s cube, a Hubble Telescope photo or gory veterinary surgery in cake form?

Kinetic Tarts & Geometric Cakes

3D-printed molds allow pastry chef Dinara Kasko to make pies, tarts, cakes and other treats with shapes unlike anything you’ve ever seen in a dessert case before. Her latest is a collaboration with artist Jose Margulis, a series of delicious-looking cakes inspired by kinetic waves. They’re made of ingredients like almond sponge cake, yogurt mousse, mascarpone and streusel. Older works include ‘Triangulation,’ a lime-basil cake for SoGood magazine, and ‘The Bubbles,’ which take their inspiration from cells. For the latter, she explains, “I used such geometric constructing principles as triangulation, the Voronoi diagram and biomimicry.” Intrigued? You can buy silicone cake molds from her website and try to recreate these desserts at home.

Geometric Patterns Inside a Cylinder of Chocolate

Geometric patterns hidden within a solid cylinder of chocolate are slowly revealed by a blade on a mill. Studio Wieki Somers teamed up with chocolatier Rafael Mutter to create this installation for Vitra Design Museum, displayed at Art Basel in 2012 for a retrospective of dutch furniture designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld. The patterns continuously change the deeper into the cylinder you go, more complex at times and simpler at others, but always mathematical in nature.

Gory Veterinary Anatomy Cakes

This one’s for the veterinarians out there. One student at the Nottingham Veterinary School created this semi-realistic model of a canine’s superficial head muscles in cake form as part of a fundraiser; another rendered a dog testicle, while a third portrayed a leg amputation in edible form. There’s also equine surgery, and an ‘ascarid impaction colic,’ a procedure to get rid of a severe worm infestation in horses. Looks tasty, huh?

Rubik’s Cube Pastries

French pastry chef Cedric Grolet offers a unique edible spin on the Rubik’s cube in the form of 27 individual pastries. Though he’s spurned the handheld puzzle’s usual primary colors for muted pastels, the object remains recognizable in form. You can purchase one of these cakes at Le Dali, a restaurant inside the Le Meurice Hotel in Paris.

Galaxy Eclairs

Looking like something straight out of NASA’s stunning satellite imagery of space, these cosmic eclairs by Musse Confectionery in Ukraine are truly out of this world. The glaze swirls together hues of blue, purple, pink and white for results so beautiful they’d almost be hard to eat (except that they look delicious.) The chef took inspiration from Hubble Space Telescope photos, offering the eclairs in flavors like raspberry, vanilla, pistachio, salted caramel and chocolate. They’re available in the confectionery’s shop in Kiev.

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For The Love Of Stem 20 Edible Creations Inspired By Math Science

Abstract geometric paper-based sculpture may seem like an unlikely medium for the expression of scientific principles, but when the artist is also an engineer, there’s an underlying layer of meaning lost on the casual observer. It’s okay if you don’t get what these pieces represent: Matthew Shlian’s tessellations are beautiful to look at, impressive for both their intricate forms and their precision.

Shlian has a new show called Telemetry currently up at Florida Gulf Coast University as part of the FGCU Art Galleries’ third year of Crossroads: Art and Science Residency and Exhibition. Founder of the Initiative Artist Studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the artist creates large-scale installations as well as drawings, and frequently collaborates with scientists at the University of Michigan.

“As a paper engineer, my work is rooted in print media, book arts and commercial design,” says Shlian. “Beginning with an initial fold, a single action causes a transfer of energy to subsequent folds, which ultimately manifest in drawing and three dimensional forms. I use my engineering skills to create kinetic sculpture which have led to collaborations with scientists at University of Michigan.”

“We work on the nanoscale, translating paper structures to micro folds. Our investigations extend to visualizing cellular division and solar cell development. Researchers see paper engineering as a metaphor for scientific principles; I see their inquiry as a basis for artistic inspiration. In my studio I am a collaborator, explorer and inventor. I begin with a system of folding and at a particular moment the material takes over. Guided by wonder, my work is made because I cannot visualize its final realization; in this way I come to understanding through curiosity.”

In an unprecedented feat of engineering, the world’s most infamous nuclear disaster site has been covered by a huge prefabricated steel arch designed to shield the world from its fallout. Made to fit over the so-called sarcophagus, a crumbling concrete and lead shelter initially erected at the site, the New Safe Confinement structure spans nearly 1,000 feet horizontally.

The original protective shell over the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s reactor was a hurried affair and never meant to be permanent — 4,000 people in the region were still killed in the initial catastrophic meltdown but many more were saved thanks to this hasty intervention.

In the days, weeks and months following the disaster, hundreds of thousands of evacuees and emergency workers were exposed to dangerous radiation.

At the cost of 1.5 billion dollars the new lid is also not a solution to last forever, but it is designed to last for 100 years. Weighing 36,000 tons and taller than the statue of liberty (354 feet) the monstrous structure is only partially complete — it still needs to be rendered airtight and radiation equipment is yet to be installed. The entire thing has been constructed offsite on nearby land before being moved into place.