These Are The Longest Words In The English Language, And They’re Insane

What is wrong with the English language? I know it’s one of the most difficult languages to learn because it’s made entirely out of exceptions and we refuse to acknowledge the rest of the planet’s agreed-upon vowel usage. But as Tom Scott shows in his new “Things You Might Not Know” video, this is just…

Concept Art Writing Prompt: Revenge Upon The Closet Monster

This little girl is ready for the monster who haunts her bedtime—or at least that’s what she thinks. What story can you come up with about the child-monster encounter? Digital photography artist Laure Fauvel came up with an entire series of these Terreurs, images of children fighting back against the monsters who try to terrorize…

This Creepy Invasive Plant Is Wreaking Havoc In North America

The Giant hogweed, a long-stemmed plant originally from Central Asia, is currently spreading like wildfire around certain parts of the United States and Canada. Not only is it drowning out the local flora, it’s also a noxious weed that, when touched, can cause blisters, long-lasting scars — and even blindness. Southern Ontario is being hit…

How Batman Manages To Keep His Secret Identity Secret

Yes, the costumes superheroes use to hide their alter egos are sometimes so transparent as to border on the absurd. But would it really so easy to connect the masked vigilante swinging through the streets with billionaire Bruce Wayne? This real life story has us convinced it may be a bit trickier than we think.…

Check Out This Incredible Collection of Science Art from OMNI

Washington D.C.’s Museum of Science Fiction has published its first online gallery of scientific and science fictional art, originally featured in OMNI, in its partnership with the OMNI Reboot. Above: Staring into the glowing blue exhaust of a mercury-ion thruster, February 1980 | James L. Long and Associates (photo) Via MoSF: Combining our voices and…

First Screening Of The New Twin Peaks Blu-ray Left Everybody Mystified

Some 90 minutes of deleted scenes and outtakes from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me have been compiled into a new Blu-ray release called Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery. Apparently this previously unseen footage helps to answer some of the lingering questions left after that movie. But the first screening left people none the wiser.…

Why So Many Domesticated Mammals Have Floppy Ears

Take a look at several domesticated mammal species and you might spot a number of similarities between them, including those cute floppy ears. Domesticated mammals, including dogs, share a number of characteristic features. Klearchos Kapoutsis/Flickr, CC BY 2.0 The famous naturalist and evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin even observed in the first chapter of his On…

Which Great TV Show Had The Worst First Season?

Some things really do get better with time. Especially TV shows. Sometimes a show stumbles out of the gate so badly, you can’t believe it’ll ever become watchable. And then you check back a year or two later and boom — it’s become the best show ever. Which show had the worst first season, before…

The Freaky Doll From The Conjuring Now Has A Trailer For Her Own Movie

Ever wonder how Annabelle, that creepy doll from The Conjuring, got evilized? Me neither, but too bad. This is your nightmare, starring a chorus line of creepy dolls and Annabelle. Basically, the trailer shows how Annabelle was made, so I guess this isn’t really an origin story—more of a “this is all the terrible shit…

Sneaking Into This Movie Theater Is Like Escaping The Temple Of Doom

In the animated short Chainsaw Richard, all Ramses and his best pal Tiny Ghost want to do is sneak into a movie theater so they can watch the watch a burly man wield a chainsaw. That’s easy to do if you’re a ghost, but not so easy if you’re a little boy. Watch out for…

Journey To 1898, When Analgesics Were Advertised With Images of Death

Via the Wash U. School of Medicine’s Bernard Becker Medical Library comes a series of whimsically macabre calendar illustrations, created by physician and artist Louis Crusius at the turn of the 20th Century to advertise “Antikamnia,” a patent painkiller once used to treat everything from “nervousness” to “sightseers’ headache.” From the Library’s tumblr: The Antikamnia…

Star Wars: Rebels Gets Its Big Bad And Ep. VII Casts A Doctor Who Alum

While both Doctor Who’s Matt Smith and showrunner Steven Moffat have occasionally been rumored to be climbing aboard the Star Wars franchise, Who guest star Christina Chong gets the first role. Meanwhile, perennial villain Jason Issacs will voice Rebels’ Inquistor! Chong — who played Lorna Bucket in the episode “A Good Man Goes to War”…

This Man Wants to Genetically Engineer Trees to Save the World

Carbon fiber is one of the strongest and most resilient materials on the market, used in everything from car frames to body armor. It’s also incredibly expensive to make. But one plant biologist says that in fifty years, we’ll be growing it on trees. https://jalopnik.com/the-koenigsegg-one-1-is-swedens-280-mph-carbon-fiber-h-1532088783 This may sound like a weird assertion, but consider that…

Star-Lord Is All Kinds Of Funny In Latest Guardians Of The Galaxy Clip

We’ve had no doubt that Chris Pratt will be bringing the funny as Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy, but this clip cements it. Here’s what happens when Star-Lord gets caught mid-theft. Seriously, we’re hoping this movie is as good as all these clips and trailers have suggested, because this looks like so much…

Exclusive Horror Story From The Absolutely Chilling Through The Woods

Oh holy hell—Emily Carroll’s horror comic collection Through The Woods is so freaking spooky. We absolutely inhaled this book when we got it in our hands. Each little horror comic is so creepy and absolutely gorgeous. It’s Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark kinds of fun. And we have an exclusive scary story excerpt…

Non-Comic Book Characters Who Survived Being Killed Off “For Good”

Everybody knows that death is a revolving door. Especially in the comics, where everybody dies and comes back. But even in other media, death is seldom final. Here are a dozen characters whose creators did everything in their power to kill them once and for all — and they still came back, by popular demand.…

Watch The Curiosity Rover Shoot A Martian Rock With A Laser!

Besides beaming us back rare astronomy photos, one of the visually cooler duties the Curiosity rover has up on Mars is firing its lasers at rocks it encounters in its path. Here’s the first footage it’s ever sent back of just how that process works. After Curiosity fires its laser, the resulting flash of plasma…

So Apparently Extant Is Really About Creating A Superior Human Species

Last night’s Extant slowly and clunkily peeled back some of the layers of its mystery, offering some hints as to why Molly Woods went into space alone in the first place. But the biggest clue to the show’s purpose came from a character who has little idea what’s going on. First off, I just want…

Is This First TMNT Clip Funny Or The Worst Thing Ever?

I’m genuinely asking. Fast-forward to about 3:23 in the above video of Whoopi Goldberg’s interview on The Tonight Show, and watch this first clip from the new live-action TMNT movie, which contains Megan Fox and Whoopi Goldberg, but no turtles. And then watch this dilemma unfold. Knowing that there’s going to be any moment in…

Can we predict the future of evolution? One physicist believes that we can.Especially because many life forms have evolved in similar ways over the past couple of billion years.