Burn a message into a piece of paper like a total badass

Remember the burning bat signal in The Dark Knight Rises? Wasn’t it cool? Now you can do a miniature version of it, only on a piece of paper instead of a bridge. Paper is far more portable, anyway. You can scratch a message into a piece of paper with this invisible ink, and then take…

This tiny hummingbird’s nest is almost too precious to believe

Catching a glimpse of a hummingbird in flight is rare enough as it is — but imagine stumbling upon one of its nests! “Here is a hummingbird nest my wife found,” wrote the Redditor who posted the photo online yesterday. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before.” Hummingbirds construct their nests out of seeds,…

Damn, this periodic table is beautiful

Say hello to your new desktop background. In May 1949, LIFE Magazine published a stunning series of images to accompany an issue dedicated largely to The Atom. You can check out the feature in its entirety here, but the reimagination of the periodic table of elements as a colorful spiral is easily one of the…

It’s the first look at Captain America 2‘s Winter Soldier!

Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier is currently filming in Cleveland, and apparently the Cleveland Plain Dealer cares not for Marvel Studios’ polite “no pictures” request. The first unofficial look at Sebastian Stan as Bucky-turned-bad guy is here! Note for anyone worried about spoilers: Not only does Winter Solider look almost exactly like he did…

The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Villain Rumor That Was Too Good to Be True

Man of Steel screenwriter David S. Goyer reveals the Earthly inspirations for the movie’s take on Krypton. Check out a ton of brilliant new Pacific Rim images. Rila Fukishima explains her assassin character’s relationship with Logan in The Wolverine. And an awesome S.H.I.E.L.D. casting rumor gets debunked. Spoilers! Top image from Man of Steel. Man…

This simple space story is the most beautiful thing you’ll watch today

This is Spacetime Fabric Softener, an expertly animated interstellar adventure by A/V eyecandy-peddler Professor Soap. Everything works here. The original score, the uncomplicated color palette, the simple storytelling, the whimsical animation – it all adds up to a damn fine viewing experience. It’s almost therapeutic. At just under 4 minutes, this one’s definitely worth the…

Unusual binary asteroid zooms past Earth tomorrow

An asteroid called 1998 QE2 is set to whiz past Earth tomorrow afternoon, at a safe distance that’s about 3.6 million miles away from a collision with our homeworld. As it got closer to us, though, astronomers made a cool discovery: 1998 QE2 has its own orbiting moon. According to NASA JPL: The radar imagery…

Does the summer’s biggest young adult novel live up to the hype?

The 5th Wave may be the summer’s most buzzed about YA book — but it really does deserve a lot of praise. Rick Yancey’s alien invasion novel plays around with more than a few tropes of the genre, elevating them with dashes of lyrical prose and a plot that just doesn’t stop. Spoilers ahead… Cassie,…

This Is How Iron Man 3 Should Have Ended

Like, duh. If you have a lot of Iron Man suits, you use those Iron Man suits to blow things up. Especially bad guys. If you don’t enjoy doing that, then don’t be Iron Man! Go be Peace Corp Man instead. Of course, if Tony Stark did pull this stunt off, we’d have no Iron…

The National Association of Theater Owners is calling for shorter movie trailers that include fewer spoilers.

What’s the Most Gratuitous Comic Book Death of All Time?

This week, we found out about a completely gratuitous death for a major DC Comics character. Yup, as usual. No doubt it’ll be retconned, or there’ll be a bizarre resurrection. Superheroes tend to do that. But meanwhile, we’re wondering: What’s the most bonkers or pointless death in comics? https://gizmodo.com/uh-dc-just-randomly-killed-the-hell-out-of-a-major-cha-510341170 https://gizmodo.com/10-incredibly-stupid-ways-that-superheroes-and-villains-5971716 https://gizmodo.com/the-15-dumbest-superhero-retcons-of-all-time-5405696 https://gizmodo.com/7-bad-storytelling-habits-that-we-all-learned-from-supe-510497734 https://gizmodo.com/10-reasons-not-to-bring-someone-back-from-the-dead-5916491 https://gizmodo.com/back-from-the-dead-eleven-scifi-resurrections-5209135 Please…

Phone Booths Are Terrible Places to Be in Movies (And Real Life)

When was the last time you stepped inside a phone booth? Like an actual walled-up, door closing, clear porta-potty type booth to make telephone calls? Those fake stalls don’t count! I really can’t remember. Slacktory culled up various phone booth scenes in movies and reveals what we’ve always kind of known (and smelled) about phone…

That time The Fonz partied with Marvel superheroes

Gotta admit, this would have been one hell of a bash. The January 1978 cover of Pizazz is a winner on so many levels. Click through to see the whole thing, including other 1970s television icons. Most of these characters are familiar to me seeing as I, ahem, grew up in the 70s. But why…

Gorgeous Vintage Advertisements for Heroin, Cannabis and Cocaine

Drugs such as cocaine and heroin aren’t just glamorous because they’re illegal. Even when you could buy them at any pharmacy or grocery store, they still had a certain cool factor. Just look at these fantastic vintage advertisements for opium, coca-laced wine and “medicinal tonics.” Mrs Winslow’s soothing syrup This stuff was compounded by Mrs.…

In the future, we’ll all have intelligent drones as pets

Brooklyn-based Falkor Systems is building intelligent drones that will be able to follow you around, take pictures of you and tweet those pictures for all the world to see. In a sense, the flying robots will be like your very own robotic stalkers pets. The Pet AR.Drone prototype uses artificial intelligence algorithms to automatically track…

NASA totally found a squirrel on Mars and didn’t tell anybody

And then – get this – THEN they accidentally posted a picture of it online. And then some people spotted it and called a spade a spade squirrel a squirrel. Hey everybody! Look! It’s a squirrel on Mars! The proof, via UFO Sightings Daily: Or maybe, just maybe, it’s a rock. And a case of…

Bruce Timm is back, and teaming up with Zack Snyder for more Superman

It’s A Bird… It’s A Plane… It’s Bruce Timm! Legendary animation legend and executive producer to many of DC’s cartoons and animated movies is teaming up with Man of Steel director Zack Snyder to bring you a Superman short. Guess he’s not leaving after all, thank goodnes. https://gizmodo.com/oh-bruce-timm-is-leaving-dc-animation-463103579 THR broke the news about the Snyder…

Futurama‘s John DiMaggio explains why Adventure Time baffled him

John DiMaggio might be the greatest voice actor of our generation. He’s Bender on Futurama, Jake on Adventure Time, Aquaman on Batman: Brave and the Bold, and many others. We were lucky enough to have an exclusive interview with him today, and he told us that if you don’t like cartoons, “there’s something wrong with…

Want to hear a neanderthal say the letter “E”?

Other neanderthals would probably also like to hear that — but one researcher thinks that the average neanderthal would have a problem with that vowel. A reconstructed vocal tract indicates that there are some vowel sounds that neanderthals just couldn’t say. Robert McCarthy, an anthropology professor at Florida Atlantic University, wanted to hear a neanderthal’s…

The Purge clips show the downside to legalizing crime. Who knew?

These clips from The Purge take you inside the one night of the year that humanity is allowed to wear masks and kill each other. Here’s the gimmick behind strange alternate reality movie The Purge — for one special night, all crime is legal. So humans get a chance to purge their terrible needs. Apparently…