This Sleek Toy Blaster Gun Is a Wonder of Science

Three years in the making, Mattel’s new BOOMco series of blaster guns are aiming at the nerf gun juggernaut. Maybe they’ll even take it down. Apparently these blasters don’t just look pretty — they aim straight. Plus they come with a cutting-edge new kind of toy ammunition. FastCo Design writer Mark Wilson got a chance…

NASA suspended cooperation with the Russian Federal Space Agency on Wednesday, this following weeks of concern that political tensions here on Earth could extend into orbit. But analysts say the policy, while unprecedented, may be largely symbolic; and most agree that humanity’s orbital outpost will weather this political storm.

This Is How The Private Sector Will Put A Lander On The Moon

In an effort to win the $20 million Google Lunar X-Prize, Astrobotic and Masten have been busy at work developing a free-flying moon lander. Watch this video of the XOMBIE rocket as it uses an onboard hazard avoidance system to execute a perfect landing. Indeed, NASA’s free-flying Morpheus lander is not the only game in…

Harley Quinn Parodies Frozen With “Do You Wanna Kill The Batman” Song

Even the Clown Princess of Crime loves herself some Frozen, as this fiendishly clever adaptation of “Do You Wanna Build a Snowman” so cleverly proves. And hey, if you’re sick and tired of hearing Frozen covers, shouldn’t the last one be about Harley searching for someone to help her murder the Caped Crusader? [Via The…

Hong Kong’s PleXus Tower Looks Like Something Right Out Of Tron

Check out these conceptual designs for Hong Kong’s proposed PleXus Tower — a segmented structure that will integrate directly with the city’s transportation infrastructure. Given its undeniable Tron-like aesthetic, we’ll be sure to bring our lightcycles. The tower is designed to fit into the banks of West Hong Kong Harbor where its distributed pods will…

Another Fine Feathered Friend from the Cretaceous

We can’t ever resist the urge to post a beautiful new dinosaur image from paleoartist Emily Willoughby. This is a Utahraptor, who lived during the Cretaceous period in (you guessed it) regions that are now part of the western United States. The feathers look amazing. This image is based on new research about the anatomy…

12 Monkeys Gets 12-Episode Pick Up From Syfy

We’re getting a full season of the new 12 Monkeys TV series from Syfy, which will help push the channel’s slate of original scripted series forward (especially since we’re losing Warehouse 13 and Being Human this year). The series will be based on the French film La Jetee (which the Terry Gilliam movie was also…

What Does Superman Tell Us About Captain America?

Superman and Captain America share a lot: a reputation as the respective boy scouts of their universes, a sense of style, apparently a shared curiosity over whatever it is that’s happening just over your shoulder. But what do all those similarities mean? After reading the review of Captain America 2, commenter Cartagia suggests that those…

The First-Ever Cyborg Games Are Set For 2016

The Paralympic Games are great, but what the technology-assisted athletes of the future really need is an event to call their own. Introducing Cybathlon 2016 — a championship for robot-assisted parathletes. The competition, which is being organized on behalf of the Swiss National Competence Center of Research in Robotics (NCCR Robotics), will be held at…

This Adventure Time Promo Is The Perfect Surrealism/Folk Rock Blend

Finn the Human is going looking for his dad on Adventure Time, and apparently the half-hour episode is going to involve a lot of surreal characters, plus the return of Prismo, the wish-granting guy. And this promo, featuring Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s Cradle,” will hit you right in the feels. Adventure Time starts its sixth season…

Your Afternoon Catharsis: Liquid Droplets Coalescing in Slow Motion

You’ve probably seen two beads of liquid coalesce hundreds of times in your life. Maybe thousands. But we’re willing to bet you’ve never seen them do it in slow motion. This high-speed video, which was filmed at 16,000 frames per second and is played back here at 20, shows two beads of silicone oil becoming…

Game Of Thrones Has Killed Over 5,000 Characters, And Here’s The Proof

Even ignoring the Red Wedding, I can’t think of a deadlier TV show than Game of Thrones. Digg assembled this montage of every single death in the series so far, and the count comes to an unbelievable 5,179 — or over 172 deaths per episode. You don’t have to have read George R.R. Martin’s books…

How Soviet Artists Imagined Communist Life in Space

Artists from the Soviet Union didn’t just imagine a worker’s Utopia on Earth. They also thought that the great communist experiment would eventually reach other worlds, too. Here are some incredible works of art and conceptual design that put the Soviet Union in space. Station Moon, a Soviet children’s book by Pavel Klushantsev, 1965 and…

Which Superhuman Should Quit Angsting And Just Enjoy Their Powers?

Most of us would probably kill to be able to shrug off a gunshot wound, or jump over a skyscraper, or read people’s minds. You know who doesn’t enjoy superpowers? Most people who have them, these days. Who’s the superhuman character who’s most in need of lightening up and counting their super-blessings? Please include a…

Pete’s Dragon Reboot Gets A Director. Here’s A Video From The Meeting

David Loweryhas been tapped to direct Disney’s reboot of Pete’s Dragon. Which is a odd choice, if you’ve seen his previous movie, Ain’t them Bodies Saints. The Wrap is reporting that Lowery will not only be writing the screenplay for this update to Pete’s Dragon — the Disney movie with a song about child abuse…

Indiana Jones and the Great Deal, LEGO: The Hobbit, Humble [Deals]

Pick up the whole Indiana Jones saga for just $30 on blu-ray today only, but hurry up, there’s a boulder rolling toward you. [Amazon] This has been a bit of an adventure. Yesterday we posted the rarely-discounted Harry Potter Hogwarts Collection for $163, its lowest price ever. Later that night and probably in error, the…

Darkscorch Canticles Is a Gamer’s Musical Fever Dream, With Wizards

What is Darkscorch? Is it an album of 70s metal songs about pagan rites, wizards, and Sauron? A board game about being a band battling for a record deal? Elaborate maps sketched on graph paper in 10th grade study hall? Yes. Darkscorch is all of these things. Darkscorch offers what its creators call “little-known 70s…

Koala Selfies Threaten Humanity With Overdose Of Cuteness

Seriously? Koalas weren’t cute enough? Now they’re starting to take selfies. As the Telegraph newspaper in Australia reports, three koalas at the Wild Life Sydney Zoo at Darling Harbour—aka, Bruce, Aaron and Bill—have become adept at posing for a Sony QX100 camera that has been installed in their enclosure. The camera, mounted on movable tripod…

This 3D Model Reconstructs A 110 Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Chase

We may not actually be able see the harrowing chase that pitted a theropod against a sauropod over 110 million years ago. But — thanks to this 3D model reconstructing what happened — we can at least get a pretty good view of the aftermath. Though the real action happened millions of years ago, the…

Under The Skin‘s Alien Seduction Will Get You Where It Hurts

There are few movies as creepy as Under The Skin, the movie featuring Scarlett Johansson as an alien who drives a van around Scotland picking up men. The whole thing is skin-crawling: her patter as she tries to coax men to come with her, her blank stare in the face of horrors, the dispassionate camerawork.…