Bismuth crystals have an otherworldly beauty, shimmering with iridescent colours that seem to dance across their stair-step surfaces when light hits them. Mistaking them for some kind of high-tech creation is easy, but they’re actually 100% natural. Their unique geometry – a real maze of spiraling edges and colors – has people wondering: what is it about these crystals, made from molten metal as they are, that gives them their otherworldly looks?
Photo credit: Bartłomiej Bargiel/Red Bull Content Pool
Red Bull athlete Andrzej Bargiel stood at the top of the world’s highest point, 8,849 meters (29,032 feet), where the air is appallingly thin. On September 22, 2025, he took to his skis from the top of Everest all the way down to base camp, depending on the mountain for every breath of air.
Water is everywhere, but this simple molecule, two hydrogens clinging to an oxygen, still surprises scientists. A team from the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) and the European XFEL in Germany have found a new form of ice, called ice XXI, that forms at room temperature under extreme pressure.
The PicoRing, designed by University of Tokyo researchers, is a ring that’s a full-fledged computer mouse when worn on your finger. Just put it on and your hand becomes the interface. Early testing shows it can do accurate scrolling and clicking with your thumb against your index finger and uses so little power that one charge lasts weeks.
Fred Rogers is known for his calmness in the face of adversity. Now with OpenAI’s Sora 2 bringing history’s lost corners to life, the same calm narration takes us across the Atlantic to 1620. Last Saturday a developer named Gorm the Old fired up the tool and imagined a scenario where Mr. Rogers stepped aboard the Mayflower, sweater and all, to narrate the Pilgrims’ journey.
Aviation has always been about scale, from the barnstormers who flew biplanes in the 1920s to the Cold War giants that redefined heavy lifting. Radia, a Colorado-based startup, has entered the fray with the WindRunner, a cargo plane that takes scale to new heights. This monster, 109 meters from nose to tail (longer than a football field) will carry loads no other aircraft can. Radia engineers started drawing it out in 2016 with a simple question: how do you move enormous wind turbine blades to remote locations without breaking up highways or rivers? The answer is in their hangar-sized drawings, a four-engine jet designed for one big job, with a few extras along the way.
Photo credit: Fabio Piva / Marcelo Maragni | Red Bull Content Pool
On September 25, Sandro Dias stood on top of a 22 story government building in Porto Alegre, Brazil, looking down a ramp that would make even the most fearless skater hesitate. At 50 years old, the Brazilian skateboarding legend was still attempting to make history. Dias turned an urban legend into reality with the Red Bull Building Drop, breaking two Guinness World Records: the highest drop into a quarter pipe and the fastest speed ever recorded.
