Our Drones Are Crashing At An Alarming Rate

A yearlong investigation by the Washington Post reveals that more than 400 large U.S. military drones have crashed around the world since 2001, due to mechanical breakdowns, human error and bad weather. The report is certain to raise concerns about allowing drones to fly in U.S. airspace. https://gizmodo.com/the-u-s-has-designated-six-sites-for-testing-commercia-1491722114 The Post’s investigation is based on records…

A Clinic In San Antonio Gave Women Fake Birth Control

Just when you think you’ve uncovered all the possible types of unethical human experimentation ever done, history throws a new wrinkle at you. In the early 1970s, a birth control clinic in San Antonio gave indigent women fake birth control as part of a medical study. There are probably about ten people walking around today…

Are High Energy Neutrinos from Outer Space Really a Big Deal?

It may seem as though every new day brings an announcement of a scientific breakthrough of the highest order. Should you freak out about every new record-breaking neutrino? In this week’s “Ask a Physicist,” we’ll find out. Image: The IceCube detector under Aurora Australis. Courtesy of the IceCube Collaboration. If you’re a regular reader of…

Rare 1980s UFO Abductee Interview Is a Slice of Fringe Science History

UFO abductions were all the rage in the 1970s, and by the 1980s there were dedicated UFOlogists and even some scientists who were studying the phenomenon. And now you can take a peek at that era, when alien abductions were a new idea, in this rare interview with UFOlogist Budd Hopkins and an alien abductee.…

The Craziest Scientific Theory About What Causes Flu Pandemics

For centuries, influenza presented a deadly puzzle—it was a disease without any apparent cause that could kill millions almost instantly. Desperate for an explanation, some scientists concluded that flu viruses came from outer space. They even had evidence. Although influenza has afflicted humans for thousands of years, medical historians believe the first true pandemic occurred…

Harrison Ford’s Injury May Have Completely Screwed Up Episode VII

Uh-oh. Please take out your official Star Wars: Episode VII Salt Lick, but now that it’s been officially revealed that Harrison Ford’s leg is broken, the rumor is he’ll be sidelined for six full months — which means the movie’s either getting delayed or massively rewritten. The potential news comes from the UK-based site Jedi…

A Map Showing Lightning Strikes Around The World In Real Time

A small German group called Blitzortung has developed a crowd-sourced map that shows real-time lightning strikes around the world. The maps are driven by a network of volunteers who have set up a $275 detection kit consisting of an antenna system, amplifier, and controller. Each station can detect radio signals from a lightning strike and…

Here’s What Yesterday’s Successful Missile Defense Test Really Means

On Sunday, a ground-based interceptor fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base destroyed a mock enemy warhead launched from the Marshall Islands. The Pentagon hailed it as a major success for the troubled national missile defense system, which has cost $40 billion since 2004. But, in truth, it changes little. As I previously wrote, the U.S.…

31 Essential Science Fiction Terms And Where They Came From

There are so many words and phrases that we use in science fiction—and even science—without giving it much thought. But where did we get terms like “death ray,” “terraforming,” “hive mind,” “telepathy,” and “parallel universe”? Top image from Philip Barshofsky’s One Prehistoric Night as published in Wonder Stories, an early science fiction example of using…

io9 Book Club Reminder: Meeting 7/7 to Discuss The Memory Garden

This month, the io9 Book Club is reading The Memory Garden by Mary Rickert. We’ll meet on July 7 to discuss it. Join us! We’re hoping Rickert will join us later that week to talk about the book. What is this io9 Book Club all about? We meet once a month to discuss a book…

Here’s A Survey To Determine How Much People Lie In Surveys

What percentage of your income do you give to charity? If you saw an injured bunny rabbit, would you try to help it? These are questions with a “right” answer. And there’s another survey to determine whether the person answering is likely to give that “right” answer, no matter what they’d actually do. People lie…

This Week’s TV: A Girl Gets Mind Control Powers. What Could Go Wrong?

Change is coming to The Legend of Korra when Book 3 premieres this week. A new TV movie gives a teenage girl a boy-controlling smartphone app. Teen Wolf heads to Mexico in its fourth season premiere, and Fionna and Cake return to Adventure Time! See the latest details and clips from this week’s TV! Tonight…

Watch The 1988 Video WB Made To Prove Tim Burton’s Batman Wouldn’t Suck

Holy crap. Has it really been 25 years since Tim Burton’s first Batman film came out and proved superhero movies could be serious? People forget this seemed impossible at the time, which is why WB made this fascinating behind-the-scenes promo video in 1988. According to the special’s director, Andrew Gillman, the video was made to…

NASA’s 70-metric-ton Space Launch System (SLS) is poised to be the rocket that will take us to Mars and beyond. An aerodynamics team at the Langley Research Center recently tested a model of the SLS in the Transonic Dynamics Tunnel to measure the tremendous static and dynamic forces that will be exerted on the vehicle…

One Chart Showing Who Trades With Who In The World

Global trade flows can seem complicated, but this visualization breaks down global trade flow into one chart showing just which countries engage in trade with each other. The chart was put together by Virgilijus Narusevicius for Euromonitor, using their data on global trade flows. As Narusevicius points out, a lot of who trades with who…

A Mysterious “Magic Island” Has Appeared On Titan

Saturn’s largest moon has truly strange geography. Astronomers working on the Cassini mission recently observed the sudden appearance of a bright, mysterious object in one of Titan’s northern seas — only to watch it disappear again. Uncertain as to what it is, the researchers offered four explanations. Last year during a routine flyby, the Cassini…

How New Yorkers Handle A Possession Problem In Deliver Us From Evil

Deliver Us From Evil, the supernatural crime thriller shows us how the people of New York City handle the devil. Apparently it’s with a lot of sass and street savvy quips like, “Where’s your collar, Padre?” Because this movie is based off of the totally factual story from a REAL New York. That really, really…

Not Every Familiar Word In A Foreign Language Is Your Friend

Asking people to pass you the jam in France will get you raucous laughter. Writing to a host family in Spain can get you uninvited to the house. Why? Due to “false friends” — sneaky words that don’t mean what we think they mean. A Spanish teacher I once studied under told me about her…

Watch As The U.S. Population Goes West Over The Last 220 Years

A lot has changed in the U.S. over the course of the last 220 years, but one thing has remained the same: The steady migration of the population more and more westwards with each passing decade. The visualization was put together by the U.S. Census and tracks the Mean Center of Population, which the Census…

This Young Impressionist Is A One-Person Game Of Thrones Cast

If someone ever decided to make a Game of Thrones animation, they can save a lot of money by hiring this kid as the sole voice actor. This newest assortment of season 4 voices proves his impressions are still uncanny — close your eyes, and I bet you’ll recognize almost all of them. DrSteveLove, as…