How the Bible Is Helping Crack Your Passwords

The Bible might not be quite the good book it claims to be. According to an Ars Technica report on the future of password cracking, the holy book is being employed to help crack passwords to great effect. The article explains how security researchers Kevin Young and John Dustin have been using books acquired from…

These moronic hunters actually shot and killed a rare albino moose

My, don’t they look proud. But after shooting this rare albino moose near Belle Cote in Nova Scotia last week — and posting the pics to social media — the trio has sparked considerable outrage, particularly among the region’s Mi’kmaq indigenous community. This moose was known to the local Mi’kmaq people for years, but they…

How close are we to infinite Time Lord regenerations?

Has Steven Moffat already solved the problem of Doctor Who’s limited regenerations? Could Matt Smith guest star on Arrow? Plus the showrunner explains how The Walking Dead will incorporate events from the comics. Syfy’s Helix adds a familiar face to its cast and, on Person of Interest, the Machine has a plan. Spoilers ahead! Thor:…

OMFG! This Lego “Pacific Rim” Kaiju Attack is Amazing!

This incredible Lego diorama depicts the Hong Kong battle from Pacific Rim, the coolest kaiju versus jaeger fight in the film. During the battle, Gipsy Danger takes down Otachi, a Category 4 kaiju, with a giant ship. The level of detail here is astounding. Lego builder Olive Seon is a master of monster builds! We’ve…

Reuters: Panasonic Is Going to Kill Off Its Plasma TVs by March 2014

According to Reuters, Panasonic is going to stop production of its fantastic plasma TV sets by March 2014. That sucks. But also not surprising since previous reports had hinted at Panasonic planning to cut its TV production and that the TV market has been overtaken by seemingly every other technology not named plasma. Hundreds of…

An Interactive Map of San Francisco’s Many Literary Landmarks

In the lead-up to Litquake, the annual city-wide literary festival that kicks off this Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle just launched a seriously impressive online map marking some of the Bay Area’s most iconic moments in print. The extensive resource is organized by tabs, each of which has its own dedicated collection of site-specific pins…

Comment of the Day: Fear of Flying Edition

In today’s comments, we delved deep into Gotham City’s legal system, shared some tips for cooking chicken (with or without salmonella), and tried to scare each other right out of the friendly skies. In response to this post, on the awesome power of airplane turbulence, commenter Dake alerts us to the phenomenon (and strength!) of…

What if superpowers were a sexually transmitted disease… and fatal?

The characters of Titan’s new comic Death Sentence are not heroes. They’re normal people who had unprotected sex, received superpowers, and will die in six months — and that’s the fantastic premise of Death Sentence #1, which you need to check out. Plus zombies attack Riverdale, The Walking Dead goes to war and more in…

Ancient Archeological Sites That Were Destroyed By Stupid Humans

Humans love to hear about ancient history, but they aren’t always that great at preserving it. Here are some of the worst, most thoughtless, and just plain dumbest ways that humans have wrecked their own heritage. The discoverer and destroyer of Troy, Heinrich Schliemann in the 1870s Schliemann found Troy in 1871, but there were…

Toothpicks have been around for 1.8 million years

A recent analysis of well-preserved jaws shows that hominids have been using toothpicks for a long time. A really long time. The jaws, or mandibles, were discovered in the Dmanisi Republic of Georgia, and they belong to the earliest proto-humans to ever venture outside of Africa. They’re now referred to as Homo erectus georgicus, and…

The world’s first malaria vaccine is on track to be approved by 2015, paving the way for its use by 2016. “It’s on that trajectory, and the plan is to file with the European Medicines Agency in 2014,” says David Kaslow, VP of product development at the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which supported development of…

The Great Library at Alexandria was destroyed by budget cuts, not fire

One of the great tragedies of ancient history, memorialized in myths and Hollywood film, is the burning of the great library at Alexandria. But the reality of the Library’s end was actually a lot less pyrotechnic than that. A major cause of the Library’s ruin was government budget cuts. Alexandria was a Hellenistic city founded…

Gravity’s ending holds a deeper meaning, says Alfonso Cuaron

The rebirth metaphors were strong in Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity. But did you catch all of the little hints the director slipped into the end? We spoke with the director about the deeper meaning behind his space movie’s powerful ending. Here are his thoughts. Big time spoilers ahead: This movie is full of rebirth metaphors and…

The directors of Zero Charisma explain the war between nerds

When a classic, obsessed, socially-dysfunctional nerd named Scott meets a new wave hipster nerd named Miles, there a clash as epic as any Dungeons & Dragons battle. This conflict is examined by directors Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews in Zero Charisma, out on video-on-demand today. Both directors were kind enough to give us their joint…

The October Science Fiction and Fantasy Books You Can’t Afford to Miss!

This month, a major fantasy series comes to its long-awaited conclusion. Anne Rice turns her attention to werewolves. Dan Simmons and Dave Eggers meet the Abominable Snowman and Facebook, respectively. Here are all the science fiction and fantasy books you must check out in October! The Wolves of Midwinter: The Wolf Gift Chronicles by Anne…

Pimp2-D2 is the newest, greatest action figure in the galaxy

This is real. This is happening. Somehow, some way, Manly Art is producing this amazing Pimp2-D2 figure as an exclusive at this weekend’s New York Comic-Con. It’s $50 (AND YOU BETTER HAVE HIS MONEY) but I wouldn’t worry about it because this droid is going to sell out almost instantly. [Via Geek Sexy]

What would Batman do if Gotham City passed the death penalty?

Batman doesn’t kill his enemies — that’s like the bedrock of his heroism. Instead, he hands his foes over to the authorities, who lock them up in Arkham and Blackgate… until they escape again. But what would Batman do if Gotham City passed the death penalty and started executing his rogues gallery? Especially, what if…

The secret formula to winning a Nobel Prize

Be a married, 61-year-old American man with impeccable eyesight and a degree from Harvard University. You should also shave regularly*, as this chart from BBC Future clearly shows. More analysis, along with the data used to create this infographic, at BBC Future. *Unless you’re a physicist. German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen, whose discovery of X-radiation garnered…

Read a chapter from Mira Grant’s intense new novel Parasite

Mira Grant, author of the Newsflesh series that began with Feed, is back with a new biotech horror series. Parasite, the first novel, comes out this month — and it’s an incredible, disturbingly plausible tale of what happens to a world where medical treatments have minds of their own. Here’s the blurb: A decade in…

We were getting Star Wars sequels even before Lucas sold it to Disney

Apparently Star Wars: Episode VII was not Disney’s idea. According to his son Jett, George Lucas was outlining future installments to the Star Wars saga a full year before Lucasfilm was sold to Disney — and Jett had more sequel secrets to reveal, too. Jett talked a lot about his father’s involvement with the sequels…