Which is Worse: A Game of Thrones Spoiler, or Detention?

A French mathematics teacher is said to have devised a powerful technique for keeping classroom chatter to a minimum: Whenever his class gets too noisy, he simply writes a spoiler from Game of Thrones on the board. As in: “Oh, you haven’t finished reading A Storm of Swords? LET ME TELL YOU EVERYONE WHO DIES.”…

A Cheeky Animation About The Size Of The Universe

Royal Observatory Greenwich astronomer Liz explains the size of the universe, using animation and analogies to make sense of the incredible distances that we deal with when we talk about the cosmos. https://gizmodo.com/how-to-comprehend-incomprehensibly-large-numbers-1531604757 The combination of Liz’s clever wit and lucid explanations with the whimsical animations makes this surprisingly watchable. Some great execution on the…

A South American sea nettle floats ethereally in this captivating image by photographer Randy Wilder. It is one of the many species featured in the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s ongoing “Jellies Experience” exhibit. “We grew [the sea nettles] behind the scenes from tiny ephyrae (babies),” writes the aquarium on its tumblr, “and are the first aquarium…

Watch Gandalf Battle The Balrog In This Found Lord of the Rings Footage

More than 35 years after the film’s original release, two clips of lost footage that were cut from Ralph Bakshi’s animated Lord of the Rings have been restored “from the cutting room floor,” thanks to the work of Bakshi’s son, Eddie Bakshi. https://gizmodo.com/absolutely-stunning-concept-art-from-ralph-bakshis-anim-5841811 Over on BoingBoing, Ethan Gilsdorf has served up a wonderful little retrospective…

Here’s The Full D&D Map From This Week’s Community

This week’s Community was a sequel of sorts to one of our favorite episodes in the series. And while “Advanced Advanced Dungeons and Dragons” wasn’t as good as “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,” the showrunners at least had the good sense to release the full map from the episode. https://gizmodo.com/did-community-just-make-d-d-cool-5752137 Glad to see that Brutalitops the…

​The Circus Is Confusing And Upsetting On Grimm, Just Like In Real Life

Oh, boy! A circus episode. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for Grimm to do one of these, because I never have, and thus it’s an imaginary number. At least the episode was more baffling than disturbing… I guess? The whole premise is that there’s a circus which uses Wesen as its…

What Happens When A Walrus Falls Asleep On A Surfacing Submarine?

Adorableness, that’s what. Turns out it’s a Russian sub, too; paint the hull yellow and you’ve got a visual pastiche of at least three Beatles hits. https://observationdeck.kinja.com/blockquote-lang-en-p-such-sleepy-rt-a-href-https-1549207124

IBM Will Use Watson To Battle Brain Cancer

No longer content with dominating at Jeopardy and serving up gourmet fusion dishes from food trucks, IBM’s Watson will soon commit its supercomputer powers to fighting cancer. The goal: See whether Watson can use patient’s genomic data to recommend treatments for glioblastoma, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer. Image Credit: IBM Research IBM will…

NASA Has Recovered 7 “Precious” Particles From The Solar System’s Birth

It’s been years since researchers overseeing NASA’s sample-return Stardust mission first reported that the spacecraft had retrieved traces of cosmic dust – the tiny, interstellar particles that make up stars and planets. This week, they announced the net haul of their cosmic catch: Seven particles. SEVEN. https://gizmodo.com/stardust-probe-sifts-through-the-remains-of-a-collision-5762349 Together the particles weigh just 3.1-trillionths of a…

Stop What You’re Doing and Watch Rick and Morty

This week in the world of cartoons we take a look at the season finale of Adventure Time which aired earlier in the week, another epic Rick and Morty, along with a Thor-centric episode of Avengers Assemble. https://gizmodo.com/rick-and-mortys-justin-roiland-is-here-to-answer-your-1543851149 As always – minor spoilers ahead! Rick and Morty – “Rixty Minutes” Rick and Morty might be…

The Tree That Was a Storm

Pineville, Illinois was an ordinary town right up until that day in 1932 when the storm came to stay. Though it began as a regular tornado, the thing quickly put down roots and bloomed all over with flowers indistinguishable from clouds. I love the way this illustration is reminiscent of social realist paintings of landscapes…

This Great Horned Owl Is Either Really Stoned Or Defending Its Young

(Yeah, it’s the latter.) “She was ‘staring me down’ because she had eggs to protect,” said Dennis Demcheck, the USGS employee who snapped the photo of a female Great Horned Owl nesting in a Live Oak tree in southwest Louisiana. Via The U.S. Department of the Interior: @USGS was in the area to study the…

Male Superheroes And Villains Copy Female Characters’ Sexy Poses

When Captain America tries to pose like Catwoman, it becomes painfully clear how unnatural that position is. The latest installment of Comics Should Be Good’s endlessly entertaining illustration challenge The Line It Is Drawn asks its artists to draw male comic book characters in the same poses that their female counterparts have had to endure—much…

Wall-E Remade With Kittens Will Literally Kill You With Cuteness

Okay, maybe not literally. And sure, maybe remarking an already adorable movie with hyper-adorable kittens is something of a gimme in terms of viral videos. Still, you can’t deny it’s a remake of Wall-E starring kittens. You must watch. [Via Laughing Squid]

Will An Artificial Intelligence Ever Deliver A TED Talk?

Move over Turing Test, it’s time to make room for the A.I. XPRIZE. The recently announced competition will award a team who can create a machine intelligence that can deliver a TED Talk so outstanding that it would receive a standing ovation. The contest was announced yesterday at the TED Conference in Vancouver by TED’s…

The Best Dim Sum Is In The Chinatown On Level 87

But Holly preferred to visit the Sunrise Scroll, the neighborhood’s literary arts curator. The aged proprietress always recommended books Holly hated, but the woman was also always up for a debate. Concept art by Libiao. China Town [molybdenumgp03 on deviantART via r/ImaginaryCityscapes]

Is The Originals finally better than The Vampire Diaries?

When The Originals launched, the Vampire Diaries spin-off felt very, very spin-offy. The show seemed to assume we already adored the trinity of former villains: Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah. And it didn’t offer us much reason to invest in the new batch of characters. But now at last, The Originals seems to be better than…

Why Don’t 3D Glasses Work Backwards?

It’s a question that has occurred to anyone who has ever sat in a theater fiddling with their theater-provided 3D shades waiting for the promos to finish rolling up: Why don’t these work if I flip them around? Here’s the physics behind the persnicketiness of 3D glasses. In this thread, commenter (and physicist) FlowerGirlPhysicist explained…

Now Police Can Reconstruct Your Face From DNA Evidence

Criminals who inadvertently leave traces of their DNA at the crime scene now have something more to worry about. By isolating 24 genetic variants, researchers have developed a computer program that can construct surprisingly accurate 3D models of facial features. Forensic science is progressing quickly these days owing to a number of breakthroughs. Investigators can…

These Weapons Are the Largest Ever Made

These weapons might not do the most damage, but they are the biggest ever made in history. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a tank the size of a small house. The largest tank ever made: the French Char 2C (also known as FCM 2C), developed during WWI, used between 1921 and 1940. Only 10…