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Are we running out of time to kill Hitler via time travel?

Most people here have heard about the Grandfather Paradox. Most people here have also read at least one time-travel story in which people either take out or attempt to take out Hitler. But if we have one, can we possibly do the other? The Grandfather Paradox is as old as the concept of time travel.…

Ukraine Officials Shut Down Demonoid to Impress the US Government

Just before an official state visit with the US, Ukraine’s Interior ministry seized all of Demonoid’s servers, rendering the torrent site non-functional. Serving the most popular torrent destination following the neutering of The Pirate Bay, TorrentFreak believes the site was a target because Ukraine wanted to prove to the US that they take copyright infringement…

Artwork from scrapped Nightwing cartoon shows off DC heroes, Legend of Korra style

Several years back, Legend of Korra director and artist Ki Hyun Ryu created character designs for an animated series starring Batman’s sidekick Dick Grayson, who usually goes by the crime-fighting moniker Nightwing. Even though this series never went anywhere — and Cartoon Network went with Young Justice instead — Ryu recently posted his concept art…

Towering PC Heat Sinks Call for Ridiculous Amounts of Space

Sure, you can go with a fan to cool your PC if you’re boring and concerned about things like space. If you’re more towards the insane side, you might drool over these ludicrous custom heat sinks. Given that each sink stands about 16 inches tall, and the whole rig weighs about 11 pounds, it’s probably…

The Beautiful Video Game That Drives NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover

So MSL Curiosity has landed. It survived the seven minutes of terror and safely touched down on the surface of Mars. A miracle in its own right. Now that it’s there, it needs a way to move around. Anyone who played Lunar Lander and Moon Patrol already knows how they’re going to do this: Video…

The Perfect Hoodie for Your Next Attempt to Take the Iron Throne

Chadwick Dillon created this incredible Grey Knight hoodie a couple of months ago for his Etsy shop, but was flooded with so many requests that he couldn’t keep up with demand. Now all we can do is hope he’ll open up shop again and give us the armor we have so long desired. Or perhaps…

New Hobbit trailer shows off a bit more Gandalf

The latest trailer for Peter Jackson’s Hobbit is similar to the first, but this one has a much more serious temperament, along with more footage of Gandalf and the forest of Mirkwood. This makes sense, as we’ve picked apart the earlier trailer and interviews and both Gandalf and the elves of Mirkwood have two character…

This is easily the best lunar photograph of the 1800s

The landing of the Curiosity rover represents another inspiring jaunt humanity’s taken into the nearby reaches of our Solar System. But in the late 1800s, such fantastical expeditions were sequestered to Jules Verne novels, and starry-eyed spacefarers were forced to reconstruct our cosmic neighbors on Earth (and furnish them with bored, mustachioed security guards). http://io9.com/5931905/mars-curiosity-roundup…

Is It Possible to Make a New Tablet Look Exciting?

As Apple and Samsung continue to battle over product design, a possible new HP tablet has popped up in their marketing fluff with an intriguing look (see those tapered edges?! SEE?!). But considering that a successful tablet design is one with as little weight and volume around the screen as possible, is there still room…

Wikipedia’s main page is down and other entries are loading slowly. Bad news if you’re writing a term paper. [The Verge]

NASA’s Official Mars Landing Video Got Taken Off YouTube Over Bogus Copyright Claims

The Curiosity Rover may have landed safely on the surface of Mars, but like all good things, it’s not invulnerable to completely bogus takedown requests. Shortly after the rover’s momentous touchdown, NASA posted a choice clip from the control room to its official YouTube channel for any interested viewers who hadn’t bothered to stay up…

Major casting updates for Doctor Who‘s Christmas Special, Robocop, and Once Upon a Time!

The Thor sequel is headed to Iceland. J.K. Simmons is up for a Spider-Man return. The star of another much-acclaimed HBO show turned down a role in Game of Thrones… but which one? Plus Supernatural, Grimm, and Vampire Diaries updates! Spoilers from here on out! Top image from Looper. Thor: The Dark World Director Alan…

Chemotherapy Can Make Cancer Growth Worse

Chemotherapy is an extremely aggressive way to treat cancer, because it’s indiscriminate about which cells it kills, cancerous or healthy. But while aggressive, it is at least thought to be effective—which is why a new study suggesting chemotherapy can sometimes encourage cancer growth is shocking doctors. The study, which is published in Nature Medicine, suggests…

Nuance Wants Voice Recognition To Take Over Your Entire Phone

Nuance’s voice recognition software already crops up in plenty of places—most famously to power Siri, but also in standalone app Dragon Go!, some smart TVs, and even cars. Now, though, Nuance is planning to have its software power each and every app you use. https://gizmodo.com/this-cadillac-is-powered-by-linux-5913252 That’s made possible by a new software development kit that…

Staff of China’s Biggest Search Engine Delete User Content For Cash

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Baidu, China’s biggest search company, is sacking staff because they’ve been deleting users’ posts for cash. The “professional post-deleting”, as it’s come to be called, is a way of removing negative press and reviews from websites. The deletion is a major problem in China, but cross referencing a…

An Enormous Galaxy Note For Stylus-Wielding Arty Types

If you were a fan of the original stylus-packing Galaxy Note, but always thought that 5.3-inches was just too small: good news. Samsung’s finally released the long-awaited quad-core 10.1-inch version of the Note, and you should be able to get your hands on it by the end of this month. Samsung’s not messing around with…

Bloomberg: Nokia to Announce Windows Phone 8 Handsets Early September

Bloomberg is reporting that Nokia will announce its new range of Windows Phone 8-powered devices at the start of September—with the intention of shipping them in time for the holidays. The report cites “a person with knowledge of the matter”, who explains that the company plans to announce the new devices—perhaps unsurprisingly—during a new roadshow-style…

Mars Curiosity Is Your Excuse for Anything Today

You overslept, burnt your breakfast, spilt coffee down your shirt, and stumbled into work looking a wreck—a bit like every other Monday morning, just ten times worse. But that’s OK, because you have an excuse: last night, you were watching history being made. You were up all night waiting for Curiosity to land, then you…

This Machine Melts Diamonds For Fun

Pressure that can melt diamond, an electromagnetic pulse that can kill, and enough current to light 100 million light bulbs. Such are the extremes within the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In this image, artificial lightning spread like a wave through Z’s 33-metre-wide interior. Designed to research nuclear fusion, Z…

First Photos of Mars from Curiosity

Within seconds of landing, Mars rover Curiosity was sending images of one of Curiosity’s wheels on the Martian surface. Basically, the rover worked perfectly — exactly the way Mission Control had hoped. These photos show the two ultra-small image files that Curiosity sent to Earth as soon as it landed — one from the back…