Ohio’s Supreme Court backs the firing of a creationist science teacher

In a case that’s lasted five years, the Supreme Court of Ohio upheld the termination of John Freshwater, an eighth-grade science teacher who refused to remove religious content from his class. But the decision was reached for a different reason than you may think. This story started in 2008, when a local family sued Freshwater…

Record-setting rocket launch puts on a show for America’s East Coast

Last night, the U.S. Air Force launched 29 satellites into orbit from Virginia’s eastern shore. The record-setting payload achieved liftoff atop a Minotaur-1 rocket at 8:15 p.m. ET, and was visible from the entire length of America’s Eastern Seaboard, and as far west as Kentucky. https://gizmodo.com/record-setting-launch-visible-from-u-s-east-coast-toni-1467703051 Top Photo Credit: NASA/Allison Stancil. Did you capture a…

New “comedy” video shows Einstein sexually assaulting Marie Curie

Apparently It’s Okay To Be Smart thinks it’s okay to be sexist. The science-themed YouTube show is taking a ton of flak after releasing a video portraying Albert Einstein as a lecherous old man who can’t keep his hands off Marie Curie during Thanksgiving dinner. The video, which was produced by Joe Hanson of IOTBS…

Even More Casting Rumors for Batman Vs. Superman and Star Wars: Rebels

The next season of Doctor Who’s taking its cues from the greatest era of the classic series. A loose end from Amazing Spider-Man is tied up. And Chris Pratt went to a lot of trouble to be cast in Guardians of the Galaxy. Plus new hints about Warcraft, Agents of SHIELD and more. Spoilers now!…

LG’s TVs Could Be Collecting Your Data Even When You Tell Them Not To

If you consider your TV a private safe haven, it might be time to think again. A UK blogger has discovered that LG’s smart TVs seem to collect personal data even when such functionality is explicitly forbidden by its user. Doctor Beet noticed that his LG set was sending his private data, regardless of whether…

San Francisco’s flying car, circa 1920

This 1920 photo was taken at the corner of Hoffman and 23rd St., in San Francisco’s Noe Valley, on what looks like a rather foggy day. Clearly, geeks in San Fran have been trying to build flying cars for a pretty long time. You can see this photo, along with many other historical photos of…

Comment of the Day: Best Science Song Ever

Today, we marveled at the bizarre history of the unicorn, tried our very hardest not to stare directly at the sun, and explained advanced scientific concepts in the way they were always meant to be understood: through song. In this post, we looked at the brave new world of self-healing batteries and — wait, wait,…

Modern humans are still carrying Neanderthal viruses

Neanderthals and Denisovans may be long gone, but their viruses continue to live on inside our bodies. The geneticists who discovered these ancient viruses aren’t sure if they’re bad for us, but they could make us more susceptible to certain cancers. Retroviruses are a special class of viruses that are comprised of RNA rather than…

Guillermo del Toro’s Vampire Book The Strain Gets a TV Series

This is SUCH great news! The FX channel has just announced that they’re ordering 13 episodes of Guillermo del Toro’s vampire mystery book trilogy The Strain. We’ve got a look at the first logo for The Strain along with a bit of news about Chuck Hogan and GDT’s TV adaptation. This vampire outbreak book will…

Fly Coast-to-Coast in 40 Minutes via Rocket Plane

In 1949, Qian Xuesen, Goddard professor at the California Institute of Technology, proposed a boost-glide hypersonic aircraft with a 3,107-mile range. It would take passengers from New York to San Francisco in a little under 45 minutes. The transcontinental passenger carrier would have been 78.9 feet long, 16.5 feet in diameter, with a wingspan of…

Wynona Ryder returning to Beetlejuice 2 — OMG think of the hats!

Winona Ryder just spilled the beans that she probably going to return as the great Lydia Deetz for Beetlejuice 2. Okay, she didn’t outright SAY that, but the implication is there, and it is awesome. Three important questions remain: What is Lydia Deetz up to now? What is she wearing? And where can I buy…

How do you deal with your anti-science family during the holidays?

For the next few weeks it will be holiday season, and lots of us will be visiting with family. There will be good times, but a lot of us will have awkward moments with families who distrust or reject science. How do you deal with it when that happens? Image is of a famous XKCD…

Record-Setting Launch Visible from U.S. East Coast Tonight

Tonight, the U.S. Air Force will catapult 29 satellites into Earth orbit from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Weather permitting, the record-setting launch of the ORS-3 mission will be visible from much of America’s Eastern Seaboard. The 105-minute launch window will open at 7:30 p.m. ET. Writes SPACE.com’s Mike Wall: The Minotaur 1 will…

Come and get your Zygon! After you’ve finished watching the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special on Saturday, come watch the classic Tom Baker story “Terror of the Zygons” in San Francisco. We’ll give a free DVD to the person with the best kilt!

This Screenwriting App Generates Wonderfully Awful Animated Movies

Have you ever walked out of a movie theater utterly convinced you could have made a far better film? Now you can put your money where your mouth is with a new screenwriting tool called Plotagon. To make it easier for the imaginationally-challenged to visualize a scene or dialogue they’ve just written, the software actually…

​A young girl tries to keep herself from killing in This Week’s Comics

Do you like Dexter? Then you’ll probably like Larime Taylor’s A Voice in the Dark much, much more. It’s the tale of a young college student named Zoey, whose desire to kill keeps getting stronger — but can hosting a radio show for people to share their darkest secrets keep her urges at bay? It’s…

New, self-healing batteries can last for ages

High-capacity batteries could have a huge impact on products ranging from smart phones to electric cars, if only they weren’t so prone to fractures and cracks. Now researchers at Stanford have developed a self-healing battery that mends itself on every charge cycle, dramatically extending its life. Above: Images acquired with a scanning electron microscope show…

Sleepy Hollow Goes Wide With Their “Necromancer”

Wait, what? With the Headless Horseman in their clutches this week, Ichabod and Abbie interrogate him as the show takes a major hard right into way more backstory than even their mythology supports, gathering subplots until mapping this episode looks like the time somebody gave LSD to a spider. Amid the wild pace and vast…

Okay, a Machete Kills Again in Space movie needs to happen

Here’s the trailer that ran in front of Machete Kills when it premiered last month. Now, director Robert Rodriguez has already signed on to direct a third Machete movie, but whether it would actually be “In Space!” or something slightly more reasonable remains to be seen. I sincerely hope it’s this, though. To be honest,…

World’s Tallest Water Slide Looks Like It will Burn Your Butt Right Off

It’s no Action Park — but this 17-story water slide is so freaking dangerous-looking it makes our asses hurt just glancing at it. Behold the majesty that is The Verrückt Meg-A-Blaster. https://gizmodo.com/behold-the-water-slide-so-dangerous-it-was-shut-down-im-5904307 It’s allegedly the tallest water slide in the world, and the Kansas City water park Schlitterbahn is hoping to open this monstrosity on…