They are the practical skills that were once ingrained in every child by the time they reached their early teens – simple tasks like how to tie a reef knot, read a map or mend a bicycle puncture. But ...

The day wouldn't be complete without the reveal of another sweet life hack, and this one's pretty neat: It turns out we've been tying our shoelaces wrong this whole time. Using a reef knot — as ...

MIT researchers develop a mathematical model to predict a knot’s stability with the help of color-changing fibers. Photo by Joseph Sandt Knots are some of the oldest and most-used technologies that ...

ENGINEERING brings great benefit to humanity, from aircraft to bicycles and from bridges to computer chips. It has, though, had difficulty creating a shoelace that does not accidentally come loose. At ...

Five thousand years ago, the Egyptians used reef knots to fasten their belts. In the first century, Greek physicians employed both reef knots and clove hitches to tie surgical nooses. Today, these ...

The difference between shoes tied with a balanced, neat, and self-tightening knot versus those tied with an unbalanced, sloppy, and loose knot, is all in how you make your first loop. Over at Runner's ...

Scientists are studying how some knots perform better than others, like this figure-eight knot tied using a special fiber that changes color under strain. Regions of high strain (green, yellow) can be ...