The most delicious severed hands and feet you’ll ever eat

Sorry, aspiring cannibals — these hands and feet are actually made out of chocolate, not the dead. They’re entrants in Miss Cakehead’s annual Eat Your Heart Out Halloween event, but they are full of the event’s sponsor, Kraken rum. It’s like eating pieces of the world’s sweetest deceased alcoholic! [Via Laughing Squid]

The Union Jack on the Moon

In January-July 1939 the British Interplanetary Society concluded a 2-year engineering study of a manned moon landing. Its spaceship was a radically new design, completely different than anything previously suggested. In fact, this was the first time in history a group of engineers and scientists had ever sat down and designed a realistic, scientifically feasible…

Meet io9’s first community editor, Ria Misra!

Please welcome Ria Misra, io9’s first community editor. She’ll be fighting for the users, which means if you have questions or problems with comments, you can ask her. Plus, she’ll be working on posts designed to showcase the brilliance and awesomeness of io9’s commenter community. Ria has written about farmers hacking agricultural equipment to deal…

Last night’s Breaking Bad was the best—and most grueling—episode ever

Yesterday’s episode of Breaking Bad was a gruelling squirm-a-thon from start to finish, featuring a number of major developments — and it proved to be one of the best of the entire series. Serious spoilers incoming. The episode, titled “Ozymandias,” opens with a flashback from season one showing Walt and Jesse conducting their first cook…

This may be the strangest human brain known to science

Remarkably, this is a photograph of what was once an actual adult human brain — but without the characteristic ridges and folds. But because the patient’s medical records were lost, we may never know what life was like for this person. Image credit: Adam Voorhes. Here’s what we do know. The person to whom this…

Did Jamie Foxx reveal some fairly major Amazing Spider-Man 2 secrets?

Keanu Reeves cryptically discusses the darkness that has engulfed Bill & Ted 3. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has a plan for Agent Coulson, that goes far beyond the little matter of his un-death. Check out behind-the-scenes videos for Carrie and The Walking Dead. Plus another actor joins Game of Thrones. Spoilers ahead! Top image from Amazing…

Gilded airships float from their towering docks

Unfortunately for the people still on the ground, they’ve missed the aerial boat. Concept artist Min Nguen fills the skies with these elegant airships. Airships [Min Nguen via reddit]

A boy strikes a bargain with a dying wolf in this animated fable

Lost in a cold and dark wood, a young boy encounters a dying wolf, who asks him for a favor. But will the boy be able to fulfill his promise in the end? The stylized darkness of Jeff Le Bars’ Carn is wonderful, as if its characters stepped out of a truly Grimm fairytale. And…

These rules helped make the Bill Nye the Science Guy show great

It’s always wonderful to see children’s television staffers pay care and attention to the important details of their shows. And this short list of Bill Nye the Science Guy’s “Rules of the Road” lays out the basics of creating an engaging show that gets people excited about learning. You can read a transcript of this…

This dazzlingly bright star is a cosmic lighthouse

This star is RS Puppis, and it isn’t just the stellar equivalent of a pretty face; it’s absolutely crucial to our understanding of the universe. This is a Cepheid variable star, which in part means its brightness increases and decreases on an exact, predictable schedule. And because it’s surrounded by a giant nebula that reflects…

Please don’t try to turn the Star Trek movies into Deep Space 9

One of the things that surprised many viewers of Star Trek Into Darkness is that the film portrayed a less than virtuous Starfleet, something some folks have likened to the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But Deep Space Nine’s portrayal of Starfleet reflects that series’ role in the larger Star Trek universe and doesn’t…

Crowdfund a map of the science fictional history of the US

Want to take a scifi roadtrip across the continental United States? You may want to consult the screenprinted poster currently up for crowdfunding. You can also back a prime number generating sculpture or a comic book by the writer of Gotham by Gaslight. Primer: A Kinetic Sculpture That Generates Prime Numbers Need a prime number?…

Three mighty rivers once flowed through the Sahara

The world’s most famous desert isn’t always quite so dry as it is now—thanks to the Earth shifting on its axis, the Sahara’s climate gets gradually greener over tens of thousands of years. But you’d have to go back a long ways to find real, perennial rivers flowing through the Sahara outside of the Nile.…

A spooky reunion? Jack Black is in negotiations to star in the feature film adaptation of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series. This would reunite him with Gulliver’s Travels and Shark Tale director Rob Letterman.

Sailor Moon gets retro-cool with these space pulp redesigns

Abigail L. Dela Cruz gives Sailor Moon and the Sailor Scouts a set of outfits befitting a crew of planetary princesses. Now we want to watch them fight the forces of Queen Beryl with their color-coordinated ray guns. Retro Scouts [hyamei via ComicsAlliance]

Amazonian butterflies and bees drink the tears of turtles

It sounds poetic, but it’s apparently true: in the Amazon, bees and, more often, butterflies, flap around the heads of turtles to drink their salty, salty tears. It’s truly a sight to behold. Really, I would recommend heading over to LiveScience to see some of the photographs of butterflies crowding the faces of turtles. The…

Why do human beings seek out terrifying experiences?

Why do we scare the hell out of ourselves? Why do we pay for the privilege? Is it pure thrill-seeking, or is it what’s known as counterphobic behavior? Some people back away from what they fear. Some people seek it out. That looks good scrawled across a poster for an action movie, but it’s also…

Read Richard Feynman’s physics lectures for free online

Physicist Richard Feynman was particularly famous for his lectures, which were known for being an engaging and accessible introduction to a number of scientific topics. Now Volume One of The Feynman Lectures is available in its entirety online. Videos of several of Feynman’s lectures are already online, but now Caltech and The Feynman Lectures Website…

Calvin & Hobbes and Dune is a surprisingly great combination

What happens when you blend the reflective comics of Bill Watterson with the philosophy of the Dune books? Calvin & Muad’Dib, two great tastes that are wonderfully odd together. Calvin & Muad’Dib [via Daily Dune]

This video of powder moving on a vibrating surface is mesmerizing

This one-minute film manages to be visually engrossing with an extremely limited medium. Cymatics consists simply of lycopodium powder dancing on a surface vibrating at 50 Hz. The video was directed and produced by Susi Sie, with music and sound design by CypherAudio. We’ve also seen vibrating plates used to move sand into various patterns.…