Our Ancestors Wore Babies Into Battle

According to MIT graduate student Tomer Ullman, humanity’s early ancestors harnessed the “natural adrenaline boost” brought on by the sound of wailing babies by strapping infants to their bodies and wearing them into battle. Photo Credit: Gerry Thomasen | CC BY 2.0 Ullman’s hilarious presentation on the competitive advantage of “extreme infant distress vocalization” (aka…

That Time Stargate: Universe Hid Cryptographic Messages In Plain Sight

“Human” is a Stargate: Universe episode that revolves around mathematician Dr. Rush trying to crack a code. “I loved Rush’s crazy scribbles of nonsense and the light code imagery,” Meredith wrote in io9’s original recap. Only it wasn’t nonsense – it was real cryptography with consistent, breakable codes.

This Rube Goldberg Machine Runs On Light

Mirrors, lenses and reflective surfaces are combined to arresting effect in this commercial for au Hikari, a Japanese high-speed optical ISP. The machine’s optics work as one to reflect, focus, and diverge a single beam of light through a series of tasks, causing it to singe, melt and illuminate as it goes. This commercial, which…

Here’s the Hallucination You (and Everyone Else) Have Experienced

Think you’ve never hallucinated? You’re wrong. Almost every modern person in a developed country has had this hallucination – some populations have it so predictably that within a few months, ninety-five percent experience it. Hallucinations are far more common than most people suppose. People suppose they happen very rarely because we associate the word “hallucination”…

How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?

The amount of sleep adults need has once again come under the spotlight, with a recent Wall Street Journal article suggesting seven hours sleep is better than eight hours and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine drawing up guidelines surrounding sleep need. So, what should the guidelines say? Unfortunately, when it comes to the amount…

There’s Not Much Point In Arguing About Moffat’s Doctor Who Any More

I’m still kind of dazed by tonight’s episode of Doctor Who. I can’t decide if it’s a fantastic work of genius or a shaggy-dog story. Maybe both. But it’s clearly Steven Moffat turning all of his favorite tropes up to 11. And I came away feeling, more than ever, as though there’s not much point…

These Batman V. Superman custom figures are as good as the real thing

We’ve not seen much of DC’s upcoming superhero blockbuster outside of a few teasing pictures, but that’s not stopped fans crafting custom figures of the heroes yet – and FigureRealm user STjuggernaut’s take on Batman and Wonder Woman are pretty fantastic. Although he’s not got round to making a Superman variant – the Man of…

Star Wars‘ Final Scene Is Ridiculously Awkward Without Music

Take out the triumphant score from John Williams, throw in a little foley work, and the throne room scene from A New Hope becomes a steaming pile of uncomfortable silence. This is way funnier than it has any right to be. For comparison, here’s the scene with score intact: Auralnauts, we salute you – but…

Edge of Tomorrow Deserves Serious Respect For Its Practical Effects

We lovedEdge of Tomorrow. We love it even more after watching this behind the scenes footage, which reveals the film’s extensive use of practical effects. Plenty of live action missiles and explosions to be had here, with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt performing a ton of their own wire stunts – and in their bulky…

These Wasps Built Their Colony On A Window – And The View Is Incredible

Here’s something you don’t see every day: A glimpse at the internal structure of a rather large (and rather occupied) wasp nest. Put down the flamethrower and check it out. Trust us on this one, you’ll want to see this. YouTuber Vang Tsal captured the footage when a colony of wasps opted to construct its…

The Twelfth Doctor Describes A Beloved Movie He’s Never Seen

Fine, so it’s not the Twelfth Doctor as such (it’s Peter Capaldi in his turn as the delightfully foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker), and it’s not just any beloved movie. But mercy, is it ever fun to imagine everyone’s favorite Gallifreyan swearing his way through movie reviews of movies he’s never seen. I’d watch the hell out…

Why Coincidences Aren’t All That Surprising

Hey look. There’s an object on Mars that, from a certain vantage point, looks just like a squirrel. Must be a space-squirrel, right? Wrong. Obviously wrong. There is a rock on Mars that, coincidentally, looks rather squirrel-like. Conspiracy theorists love coincidences like these because they come across as highly improbable, or even impossible, suggesting that…

It Might Not Happen Quite the Way You Expect

You think you know everything about launching a space vehicle, but the future is going to be a lot weirder than you might think. This is a sculpture by the famous designer Edward Tufte, taken from an image on his website. You can see more of his work there.

The best way to cope with traffic is actually to make multi-lane highways smaller, not bigger. Several long-term studies have shown that “road diets” that shrink 4-line highways to 3-lane highways significantly decrease traffic jams and accidents. Atlantic’s CityLab has the story.

Good News: The English-Language Remake Of Real Humans Could Air On AMC

Among fans of thought-provoking storytelling about artificial intelligence, the Swedish program Äkta Människor (Real Humans) has become legendary. And now it looks like the English-language remake could be appearing on our screens next year. The Real Humans remake was being produced by the U.K.’s Channel 4, in cooperation with Microsoft’s Xbox production studio, and it…

Your Friday Evening Dose Of Swords, Dragons And Scenery-Chewing!

Just imagine if Game of Thrones was made for pocket change, instead of having its lavish budget. Actually, you don’t have to imagine it — we’ve got a clip from Merlin and the War of the Dragons, to show you what that would look like. Merlin and the War of the Dragons is the work…

Should Television Shows Be Less Concerned With Continuity?

Ideally, a great television show should be both satisfying in terms of the overall story that unspools over the series and in terms of the smaller story that is told in a single episode. But what happens when the story needs of the series and the episode find themselves in conflict? In response to this…

In Mourning for Lost Technologies

Amidst the clamor over Apple’s new devices, Mat Honan’s personal essay on the quiet death of the iPod classic is a surprisingly affecting paean to individuality, freedom of information, and the single-use digital device as a window to one’s soul. Photo Credit: Freimut via flickr | CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 For ten years my iPod—in various…

First Ever Trailer For Daniel H. Wilson’s The Nostalgist Looks Good

Before Robopocalypse was published we were already fanning over Daniel H. Wilson’s fiction work, specifically his short storyThe Nostalgist.And now that story has been turned into a short film, and it looks good. It looks really good. Watch. Directed by Giacomo Cimini the story is set in the futuristic city of Vanille. Here’s the summary…

Must Watch: John Brunner Breaks Down The Silliness Of Genre Categories

Back in (I’m guessing) the early 1970s, Hugo Award-winning John Brunner already understood that the division between “science fiction” and “mainstream fiction” was largely meaningless. In this must-watch video, the eloquent writer explains why science fiction is the mainstream literature of our technological world. In the above video, Brunner breaks it down as to why…