A beautifully preserved fossil of a 150-million-year-old megalosaurus called Sciurumimus albersdoerferi has once again transformed our notions of what dinosaurs must have looked like. This newly discovered species shows that the early ancestors of all dinosaurs were feathered — and that’s a strong indication that feathers were a common characteristic of all dinosaurs that followed, … Continued

Check out the first image from Item 47, a 12-minute short film that’ll be on the Avengers DVDs… and premiering next week at San Diego Comic Con. Just as the Thor and Captain America DVDs featured ultra-short episodes, starring Clark Gregg as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Coulson, this will be a short stand-alone adventure. And we’ll get … Continued

With so many of Detroit’s buildings abandoned, plans are underway to gradually move residents out of some neighborhoods entirely. But what is going to happen to all those neglected buildings? One group thinks it has the answer in the form of the ultimate zombie theme park. Z World Detroit, a “broad-based effort composed of like-minded, … Continued

Because July 4th falls on a Wedneday, a lot of Americans will spend a five-day weekend traveling and drinking. It’s pretty common to misplace a wallet or a purse on that kind of vacation. And getting on a return flight without a valid ID, as you might imagine, is not easy. But it can be … Continued

Beasts of the Southern Wild isn’t like other movies you’ve seen lately. It’s a really wild and beautiful movie that manages to combine magical realism with an apocalyptic sense of doom, all seen through the eyes of a six-year-old girl. But how did something this strikingly beautiful and different emerge? How did a group of … Continued

Nothing on Earth brings out the imagination better than Nerf. I mean, it’s one thing to build something amazing in a game or use those crazy little bricks, but with Nerf you actually get to play it out. Like… outside. In a field. Or abandoned factory. And with this Sword and Shield from Nerf, now … Continued

The Fourth of July is tomorrow. And as usual, we’ll celebrate our nation’s independence (sorry international readers) by blowing up a small chunk of it. So get out your cameras and document the beautiful idiocy. The Challenge Capture a photo of fireworks. The Technique So, you have a TOUGH act to follow. Here’s what you … Continued

At first glance, these brilliant photos might appear to be shaky images of a distant nebula, but that’s just a clever illusion. Photographer Fabian Oefner actually created these images using fiberglass lamps, Photoshop, and a bit of ingenuity. Just last week, we featured Oefner’s trippy photos of ferrofluids, portraying a scientific phenomenon as abstract art. … Continued

Yesterday we briefly examined the strange history of contemporary bear wrestling. But in the 1950s, Kyokushinkai Karate pioneer — and trainer of such luminaries as actor Sonny Chiba — Masutatsu Oyama took his training to insane man-versus-wild levels. How absurd did it get? Two words: bare-knuckle bullfights. When he wasn’t training by living as a … Continued

Google unveiled its media-streaming glowing orb to many oohs and ahhs, followed by head-scratches. The thing looks cool. And it sounds good, both in concept and fidelity. But two major questions remain: Who is it for, and how well does it work? Why It Matters It matters because this is the first product like this … Continued

What if we all disappeared tomorrow, leaving behind nothing but our stuff? That’s what we asked in this week’s Shooting Challenge. The results? Funny, clever, serene and often eery. WINNER: Busiest Pool In NYC I wish I had a private pool this large. This image is a combination of 20 or so images taken over … Continued

From Acersecomic (a person whose hair has never been cut) to Zugzwang (a position in which any decision or move will result in problems), Project Twins’ A-Z of Unusual Words illustrates the English language’s forgotten vocabulary. These words probably won’t show up on the SAT, but they’re fun to learn nonetheless. You can buy a … Continued

If any product ever truly deserved the title of ‘jack of all trades but master of none’ it’s Thanko’s new iTable desk accessory. It preys on those who hate chaos on their desk, but at the cost of gobbling up a good chunk of your workspace. The iTable connects to your desktop or laptop and … Continued

Android devices may, at last, get the kind of sound performance that makes music and audio apps satisfying to use. We’ve suffered through generations of the OS and hardware that were quite the opposite. But material, measurable changes to software, combined with more rigorous standards for hardware makers, could change all of that soon. And … Continued

What first issues are in stores on the Fourth of July? Another Before Watchmen miniseries — Ozymandias, this time by Len Wein and Jae Lee. Other debuts tomorrow include DC Comics’ new He-Man series, Zak Penn’s superhero book Hero Worship, Joe Hill’s The Cape: 1969, and Steve Gerber’s final Man-Thing story in the Infernal Man-Thing … Continued

Yes, The makers of probiotic yogurts have convinced people to love eating germs, for the health benefits. But what about cheese? Most cheeses are a bacteria ranch that keeps growing and evolving, right until the moment it dissolves in your stomach. How disgusting is cheese-making? Very. People always say that you don’t want to see … Continued

Like last year’s update, the 2012 MacBook Air is entirely in the guts. The 2011 bump into present-day usability was enough to make it your Most Important Gadget of the Year. This year’s update is more of the same—which is a actually good thing. What Is It? A super-thin, super-fast laptop with the guts to … Continued

Great news for all you hopeful amateur metal detectorists: Two men, who’d been searching the same field for nearly 30 years, have stumbled upon the largest hoard of Iron Age coins ever discovered in northern Europe. Inspired by legends that a local farmer once discovered silver coins on his land, the men unearthed the congealed … Continued

Marvel is paving the way for some big Iron Man 3 announcements at Comic-Con — starting with this piece of concept art, which seems to hint at the popular Extremis storyline from the comics (which has been rumored for some time now). Take a look at this new art, posted over at the Avengers Facebook … Continued

Bendable electronics are nothing new. But if you’re after an electronic party trick, you’re going to want to get your hands on a new breed of stretchable circuitry. Elastic electronics are something engineers have been lusting over for a long ol’ time. It’s not hard to understand why: current constraints mean that most circuits are … Continued