BREATHLESS | You might think it’s hot here on Earth — but here’s an exoplanet that’s so close to its sun that solar flares have blasted away its atmosphere. Picture via Hubble Space Telescope.
Upcoming Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies That Aren’t Remakes, Sequels or Prequels
They’re rebooting Spider-Man. They’re remaking Total Recall. Sometimes, when you’re in the middle of summer movie craziness, it can seem like every movie is based on an already-existing movie. More »
How to Give People the Feeling of Déjà Vu
You’ve probably experienced the sensation of déjà vu – that eerie sense that you get when you know you have seen or done something before, even if you couldn’t have. More »
Christian fundamentalist textbooks touting the Loch Ness Monster as proof of Creationism
For the 2012-2013 school year, thousands of Louisiana students will receive state-funded vouchers to attend private schools, many of which hold religious affiliations. More »
You can accidentally get an STD from a koala
Yes. You can. Now try to sleep tonight. Apparently, the koala population is threatened by a terrible and widespread outbreak of chlamydia. And it can be spread to humans. More »
10 Rules of Blockbuster Movies that Hollywood Forgot
It’s halfway through the summer movie season, and there’s a lot of hand-wringing about the state of the Tentpole Film – yes, in spite of Avengers. More »
How to Kill a Parasitic Worm Living Inside of You
Parasitic worms are the stuff of nightmares – worms as big as twelve feet long can rummage through your intestines, and then leave in the middle of the night. More »
A New Record for the Highest Temperature We’ve Ever Created: A Whopping 4 Trillion Degrees Celsius
Guinness World Records has recognized Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider as the device which has set a new standard for achieving the “Highest Man-Made Temperature”: a mind boggingly extreme 4 trillion degrees Celsius -– which is 250,000 times hotter than the center of the Sun. More »
Keep track of the Stephen King universe with this handy flowchart
Stephen King’s characters have a habit of popping up across multiple stories, sometimes just as a quick reference, sometimes in a larger role. To help keep track of the various denizens of Derry, Castle Rock, and beyond, graphic designer Gillian James has created a handy flowchart. More »
A low-carb diet may not be the best for you after all
If you’re looking to lose weight, there are two major divided schools of thought. The first is that all calories are created equal, and as long as you use more energy than you take in, you’ll do fine. More »
Glamour shots of carnival “freaks” of the 1800s were oddly touching
Throughout his career, Charles Eisenmann photographed thousands of sideshow performers seeking portraits for their résumés to send to carnival and circus publicists. More »
Jim Henson improvising on the set of The Muppet Movie was pure magic
As much as we love The Muppet Movie, some of the film’s best material didn’t even make the final cut. Behold some 1979 screen tests conducted by director Jim Frawley, which starred Kermit The Frog (Jim Henson) and Fozzie Bear (the legendary Frank Oz) waxing existential about their lives at puppets. More »
NASA finds a galactic arc in deep space that has no business being there
NASA scientists working with the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered an arc of light behind an extremely massive cluster of galaxies about 10 billion light-years away. More »
Is SETI at risk of downloading a malicious virus from outer space?
We take it for granted that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a safe endeavor. Seriously, what could possibly go wrong with passively searching for interstellar radio signals? More »
High-speed photographs capture water balloons the moment after they pop
With summer upon us, the minds of some pranksters and water battlers will inevitably turn to water balloons and the havoc they can wreak. Photographer Edward Horsford’s series of high-speed photos, however, invite us to see these water weapons in a different light. More »
Researchers create a new male contraceptive that you apply like lotion
It’s been a half-century since the advent of a reliable birth control option for women, and we’ve developed virtually nothing similar for men. But now, owing to research done at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, an innovative new treatment holds promise as a reversible birth control option for men -– a combination of gels that get applied through the skin. More »
