- Tech News
Graphene Might Be Way Worse For the Environment Than We Thought
Is there anything graphene can’t do? The miracle material can save aging buildings, generate electricity, fight blood clots, and give you Predator-vision, among many other magical things. But a new study has revealed that graphene could have some negative environmental impacts as well. A lab at University of California, Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering is … Continued
- io9
The Ender Quintet, Kindle Paperwhite, 50 Film Blu-ray Collection
Put everything Ender on your Kindle for just $17 today, re-read over and over until you forget the movie happened, then listen to the Dashboard Confessional song. The Ender Quintet | $17 The Best of Warner Bros. 50 Film Blu-ray Collection is one of our most popular media items ever. It features 50 award winning … Continued
- io9
This Dark Short Film Reveals Peter Pan’s Depressing Origin Story
Régis Loisel’s Peter Pan is a graphic novel origin story that envisions Peter escaping a Dickensian childhood to become champion of Neverland. This striking short fantasy film adapts part of Loisel’s comic. Nicolas Duval wrote and directed this version of Peter Pan. It’s a lovely film, but it feels like it ends just as it … Continued
By Lauren Davis - Tech NewsGoogle
Photoshop Contest: Robert Scoble’s Google Glass Shower Photo Turns One
One year ago today, the gods smiled upon us and bestowed man with the greatest, most seductive gift since Prometheus first brought fire down from Mt. Olympus. And to celebrate a full year of having a wet, naked Robert Scoble seared into our memory, we thought we’d mark the occasion with a Photoshop contest. Thankfully, … Continued
- Tech NewsSploid
This 3D illusion animation of the old game Snake is pretty damn cool
Chris Carlson does great 3D illusion paintings. This stop motion, forced perspective, chalk painting version of the classic game Snake—present in every single dumbphone and available as a BASIC game for every computer of yore—is pretty damn cool too. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
By Jesus Diaz - io9
Diving in Shark-Infested Waters — for Science!
Sharks are rapidly dying out, and scientists desperately need more data to estimate the extinction risks for these threatened species. Now, marine researchers in Australia say that dive guides and amateurs can help fill some significant gaps in their knowledge. All the researchers really need are people who can count the sharks that they see. … Continued
By Mark Strauss - Tech NewsApple
Why Smartphones Are About to Get Tacky as Hell
If you haven’t seen Samsung’s new teaser for its Galaxy S5 “Crystal Collection,” shield your eyes now—this thing has enough reflective power to blind the sun. And judging by the shape of the smartphone market, phones dripping with crystals will soon be the status quo. Get ready for an army of handsets that shine so … Continued
- Tech News
10 Amazing Photos From the Museum of Natural History’s Online Archive
Today, the American Museum of Natural History put online their entire catalog of archival images. The Digital Special Collection consists of over 7,000 photos, slides, and illustration spanning the world over. We sifted through the pile and picked out a few favorites. × Shell and Coral Hall looking west, 4th floor, main building Mountain goat, … Continued
- io9Television
First Exclusive Look At The Showdown In Tomorrow’s From Dusk Till Dawn!
Tomorrow night is when all the shit hits the fan at the Titty Twister, in a special extra-long episode of From Dusk Till Dawn directed by Robert Rodriguez himself. And we’ve got an exclusive clip showing a taste of the mayhem to come. Fans of the movie won’t want to miss this episode, and the … Continued
- Tech NewsSploid
A happy wild seal gets a belly rub, poses with diver for selfie
It’s Monday and we already got a winner for the coolest selfie of the week: Scuba diver Jason Neilus and a friendly seal in the Ferne Islands, UK. What about some belly rubs? Belly rubs are amazing, right seal? RIGHT? Right! × SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
By Jesus Diaz - io9
Why The Bus is Always Late and You Live in a Strangely Atypical World
Ever heard of the Inspection Paradox? In some contexts it just explains why you have to wait a long time for the bus. But if we started working with it, we could make the world a more extraordinary place – at least, on paper. When you first hear about the Inspection Paradox, you might confuse … Continued
- io9
How We Discovered the Life Cycles of Stars, on Cosmos
The theme for this week’s episode of Cosmos was the life cycle of stars, beginning with the famous Pleiades star cluster. But this episode truly belongs to a cluster of stars from the world of science: astronomer Annie Jump Cannon and her colleagues, who developed Harvard’s stellar classification scheme. Image via NASA, ESA, AURA/Caltech, Palomar … Continued
- Tech News
Teach An Old Car New Tricks, Toothbrushing 2.0, E-Ink Kindles $20 Off
Whether you just want to save on gas money, or actually learn better driving habits, you should take a good, hard look at Automatic. This Bluetooth dongle plugs into your car’s OBD-II port (found on almost any car made since 1996) and communicates with your iPhone or Android device phone to track driving habits, mileage, … Continued
- Tech News
Chernobyl’s Steel Radiation Shield Is the Biggest Moving Structure Ever
In the normal world, it’s what you’d call a bad investment: Spending $2 billion to build the largest moveable structure ever—and knowing that it won’t work for longer than 100 years. But in Chernobyl, it’s the best available option for protecting a whole continent from the worst nuclear disaster in history. Today is the 28th … Continued
- io9Television
This Accidental Game Of Thrones Spoiler Just. Changed. Everything.
Did you watch Game of Thrones on HBO Go last night? Then you may have gotten a surprise bit of information that is so monumentally huge, it’s not just a spoiler for the show but it’s possibly a spoiler for the A Song of Ice and Fire books as well. CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK. … Continued
By Rob Bricken - io9
An Illustrated Guide To Surviving A Lightning Strike
Each year, roughly 240,000 are struck by lightning and survive. How do you increase your odds? This illustration can help. Illustrator Ted Slampyak created this image for The Art of Manliness. It’s a handy visual reminder of what to do in case you get caught out in a storm without your Faraday suit. Slampyak has … Continued
By Lauren Davis - io9
When A Self-Driving Car Meets An Indecisive Cyclist
Self-driving cars are getting closer and closer to our own driveways. But before they make it there, they still have to figure out how to navigate through some tricky city driving situations like this one, when a self-driving car meets an indecisive cyclist on the road. In this new video, Google explains how they’ve been … Continued
By Ria Misra - Tech News
Scientists Have Reconnected Severed Nerves with Liquid Metal
Get y0ur T-1000 jokes ready, because we’re one step closer to liquid metal-powered people. As a team of Chinese biomedical engineers recently used an alloy to close the gap between severed sciatic nerves in frogs. In effect, it made electronic circuits out of nerves—and it worked. Shockingly, this sci-fi solution is as simple as it … Continued
- Tech NewsSploid
This rotating flying saucer could be a pretty fun place for a party
It looks like a flying saucer, but it’s actually a cool vehicle to admire the landscape while enjoying a drink and sitting comfortably on a sofa: The Air Leben, an aerial tramway with a slowly rotating lounge cabin that allows everyone to enjoy the view from all angles as they slowly move over the mountains. … Continued
By Jesus Diaz - io9Movies
Brick Mansions Is A Bad Copy Of A Great Action Flick
As Paul Walker’s final finished film before his untimely death last year in a car crash, it would be nice to say that Brick Mansions is a fitting epitaph to his film career. It would be nice, but it wouldn’t be true. As a remake of the Luc Besson-written and -produced 2004 action flick District … Continued
By Rob Bricken