Marvel Dice Masters Is Like Magic: The Gathering, But With Superheroes

Marvel Dice Masters is like a deckbuilding game with Magic: The Gathering style creature attacks, but using dice. Unfortunately, the parts don’t add up to a very compelling game. Marvel Dice Masters is based on Wizkids earlier dice game, Quarriors. When it first came out, Marvel Dice Masters was so popular there were serious supply…

This A.I. Can Tell Which Neighborhood Is Safe Better Than You Can

Imagine you’re dropped in the middle of an unknown city and you need to find a restaurant in a safe area using only the visual cues around you. Sounds hard, right? Well, researchers at MIT have developed an algorithm that can do it — and it consistently outperforms humans. Looking at the image above, can…

How Comic Book The Fuse Moves The American Cop Drama To A Space Station

In the future world of The Fuse, half a million people live inside a space station orbiting the Earth. It’s a place with its own government, its own crime, and its own detectives. We spoke with The Fuse creator and writer Antony Johnston about why he decided set his police procedural in space. In knew…

The Case for Staying Home from Work

We’ve all been there. We head to work even though we’re under the weather. It’s such a big problem that it’s gotten a name — “presenteeism” — and it’s costing companies billions of dollars. Here’s why you should just stay home when you’re ill, and why it’s in your boss’s best interest. Illustration by Tara…

io9 Newsstand: Best Stories of the Week for September 22 – 27

There’s a vast trove of excellent fiction published in years or decades past that would be inaccessible to most readers, if it weren’t for reprint anthologies and magazine editors. Luckily, a lot of anthologies are available as ebooks (like the fairy tale anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling!) Plus online magazines are doing…

Watch This Leopard Dive Bomb An Impala From An Impossible Height

Leopards often pounce on their unsuspecting prey from trees. But as a group of tourists visiting Botswana recently found out, these brazen felines are capable of launching their attacks from remarkable heights. Either that, or this leopard is completely nuts. Here’s the complete video via Africa Geographic: Yasmin Tajik saw the whole thing unfold before…

Shadow of Mordor, Breaking Bad Barrel, Guardians of the Galaxy [Deals]

The Breaking Bad Complete Series Barrel is back for 2014, with new Better Call Saul inclusions. It’s one of the cooler special editions for a TV series we’ve ever brought your way, and we’re glad to see it come back. Currently heavily discounted. [Breaking Bad] Watching Guardians Of The Galaxy is like getting back part…

15 Other Ridiculous Ways We Could Meet New Batman Characters On Gotham

Poison Ivy as a plant-toting tot? The Riddler as a medical examiner? Gotham’s taken some weird liberties with the Batman mythos in its new TV series, but there are plenty more villains as well as heroes Gotham has yet to give us! Here are our surmises for how Gotham will reimagine these 15 prominent Bat-characters.…

After Two Years Of Driving, Curiosity Found The Dirt It Was Looking For

It’s been a long, strange, and really very enjoyable roadtrip for Curiosity, our robot rover to the stars (and planets). But more than two years after it landed on Mars, and commenced rolling towards Mount Sharp, it has finally arrived — and it’s started drilling. Curiosity drilled this hole, just under 2-centimeters wide, into the…

Astronaut Alex Gerst recently captured this glorious photo from the International Space Station. It shows a series of towering thunderstorms rising up from a Saharan dust storm. The ISS was over Libya at the time as Gerst watched the anvil-like structures protrude above the dusty layer. (Credit: NASA/JSC/Gerst)

Short Film About A Quantum Experiment Gone Awry Will Keep You Guessing

Orphan Black writer Tony Elliott spins a different sort of scifi thriller with the short film Entangled. A woman tries to figure out why her lover has gone mad following a quantum experiment—by testing his invention on herself. Hat tip to Robbie!

Half Of Our Planet’s Water May Be Older Than The Sun

The next time you reach for a glass of water you might want to think about its primordial origins. A new study suggests that upwards of 50% of the Earth’s water may be older thank the solar system itself. A recent experiment conducted by Ilse Cleeves at the University of Michigan may finally settle a…

Boxtrolls Is A Movie For Uncivilized People Of All Kinds

All of the best comedies are subversive. And by that token, the new animated movie The Boxtrolls is a tremendous success — it takes the fabric of society and gleefully shreds it, showing how silly and easily manipulated most “decent” people are. Along the way, though, the film gets kind of heavy-handed, and a little…

You Won’t Believe How Much Work Went Into This Back To The Future Shot

Whether you’re a fan of film in general or BttF in specific, hearing special effects supervisor Kevin Pike explain how the movie’s lengthy, one-take opening shot was made — and how many people were needed behind the scenes to make it — is fascinating. The work required for the dog food alone… The interview was…

And This Is Why Baking Powder Can’t Be Used As Baking Soda

They’re both white powders. They’re both used in baking. Both substances are leavening agents, substances that release gas bubbles and puff up dough so it’s fluffy instead of flat. Both have the same look and texture, but they are used differently. What’s the chemistry behind that? Baking Soda and Powder As everyone knows from early…

Attention All GIFs! You Are Cordially Invited To Party

Leave your brooding at the door, friends, because this day belongs to the GIF Party! You know how it works: Your news. Your updates. Your GIFs. Our party. Let’s do this.

A Compilation Of The Walking Dead‘s Greatest, Grossest Zombie Kills

I fully approve of this supercut of The Walking Dead’s zombie-slaying, although it may occasionally focus on quantity over quality. I do, however, begrudge its use of the “Can-Can” music when it could have used “Yakety Sax” to infinitely greater effect. Everything is better with “Yakety Sax,” people. When will you learn? [Via Warming Glow]

Turns out that Interstellar looks just as amazing made out of Lego

Interstellar’s first big story trailer blew our minds with its grand, intense look at space exploration – and it seems that, thanks to CBL Animation, it’s just as awesome crafted out of tiny little Lego bricks. https://gizmodo.com/holy-crap-trailer-for-christopher-nolans-interstellar-1577480224 Blending a mix of practical setbuilding and animation using Lego and Lego Minifigures with CG for the space…

Are the Stormtroopers Getting A Big Makeover in Star Wars: Episode VII?

Alex Winter shares more details about Bill and Ted 3. Tons of info from the season premiere of The Walking Dead, including what’s up at Terminus. Simon Kinberg talks the “darkness” of Star Wars Rebels. Plus Frankenstein, Patient Zero, Outlander, Agents of SHIELD and Doctor Who. Spoilers now! Top image: Star Wars Rebels concept art…

A New X-Men: Days of Future Past Cut Will Give Us Rogue Back

Okay, so maybe their bizarre viral marketing campaign didn’t make you want to buy the DVD or Blu-Ray, but this is much better marketing: There will be over ten minutes of footage added back into the film, including all of Anna Paquin’s scenes as Rogue. https://gizmodo.com/anti-mutant-propaganda-video-is-shilling-x-men-dofp-dv-1639017976 According to Variety, the aptly-named “Rogue Cut” of Days…