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The Heatstick Boils Water Without Needing Any Pesky Fire

Heatgear, a Danish company, equips backpackers to boil water in a cool way that doesn’t require lugging a heavy camping stove. The Heatstick is a small, cylindrical tool that you screw on the lid of a container in order to warm liquids to whatever temperature you choose. At just about a pound, it won’t weigh…

Tech News Leslie Horn

Have we learned how to use taxes to keep people from getting drunk?

The British Government is about to push through a law that requires a minimum price of 40p per unit of alcohol to try and stop binge drinking — but one expert argues that taxing sin has done little to curb it in the past. Top image: Ewan M. on Flickr. Cambridge University’s Dr Philip Withington…

io9 Tim Barribeau

All Furniture Should Double as Optical Illusions

Who doesn’t love things with a twist? Mystery novels. Sweetbreads. Soylent Green. All very great. Charles Kalpakian’s Cinétisme wall shelves are no exception, which, at first glance, appear to be nothing more than wall panels with an isometric 3D design. But these shelves aren’t just pretending to be 3D. They are fully-functioning objects which might…

Tech News Adrian Covert

io9 Show: The Science of The Avengers!

This week on the io9 show We Come From The Future, it’s all about The Avengers! We discuss the hotly anticipated team-up movie, check in with a genetic biologist, and see if we already have the science to create a real life-team of superheroes. Plus, we share our picks for superheroes that should get their…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Even Babies Are a Little Racist

While there are no shortage of studies that suggest adults are less able to recognise individuals of different races to themselves, the latest is actually interesting: babies as young as nine months old are better able to recognize faces and emotional expressions of people who belong to their race. But babies don’t start out that…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

10 Scientists Who Spent Time Behind Bars

Science is a dangerous business, full of risky propositions and strange experiments. And sometimes, scientists wind up going to jail for their pains. Some of them for the integrity of science, and some for far more sordid reasons. Here are 10 scientists who spent some time in the slammer. Caged specific heat! Top image: Sin…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Lightning Strikes Man’s Scrotum

A lightning struck a 53-year-old man’s scrotum and then exited his body through one of his feet in Madrid, Spain. The good news: he survived. The bad news: his testicles were burned. A lucky man. Or maybe not. The man was walking on Avenida de La Ilustración—a street in Madrid’s suburb Tres Cantos—when the lightning…

Tech News Jesus Diaz

Silk scaffolding could help rebuild your bones

We’ve already learned recently that spider silk could help your computers stay cool — but now it looks like it could help you heal from broken bones as well. Newly published research explores the idea of using silk proteins as a nanoscaffold, to help bones knit and repair. They created a biodegradable silk scaffold that…

io9 Tim Barribeau

Reminder: Your Wiki Clicks Can Reveal Way Too Much About You

A search history? Sure, that can unearth some embarrassing moments. But don’t forget that if you leave your browser history unchecked for long enough, every Wikipedia rabbit hole you go down will be hyperlinked for posterity. And man, have you clicked on some weirdness. [xkcd]

Tech News Brian Barrett

Megan Fox Loves Sharper Image and Wants to Have Sex with You

You thought Sharper Image died a horrid bankruptcy death and faded away into the overpriced ether, right? So wrong. Not only is the brand somehow still alive, Megan “Transformers” Fox is the new pantsless spokesperson. The idea here, you see, is that you’ll walk into a Sharper Image store, which doesn’t exist anymore, so wait.…

Tech News Sam Biddle

Several Reasons Why Avengers Kicks Ass (That You Haven’t Already Heard)

You’ve already seen the rave reviews of The Avengers. If you live outside the U.S., you might already have seen it. But you still might not have heard the best things about it. Here are a bunch of reasons why The Avengers is more than just a well-made comic book movie. They’re as spoiler-free as…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Feds Seized Hip-Hop Site for a Year, Waiting for Proof of Infringement

Federal authorities who seized a popular hip-hop music site based on assertions from the Recording Industry Association of America that it was linking to four “pre-release” music tracks gave it back more than a year later without filing civil or criminal charges because of apparent recording industry delays in confirming infringement, according to court records…

Tech News David Kravitz - Wired

Play the Prometheus Mini-Game and Unlock Exclusive Content

You know Prometheus? Yeah, that one. Well, Verizon has teamed with Twentieth Century Fox to bring you an online Prometheus mini-game in which you navigate through various levels (powering the ship, unlocking surveillance cameras, etc.) using the extremely cool Verizon Home Monitoring and Control features. Home Monitoring and Control brings the future to life. You…

io9 Sponsored post

Tantalum is the most important element you’ve never heard of

You have likely never paid much attention to tantalum when you’ve gazed at the periodic table. It sits there, in the middle of a sea of transition metals, kind of out of the way and in the corner. And yet, tantalum is increasingly important in the 21st Century, because it plays a large role in…

io9 Keith Veronese

Cities of the Future Will Make a Place For Wilderness

All around the world, cities are spreading out into the surrounding land — but nature is unexpectedly asserting itself in the heart of the metropolises, as well. A number of carnivores are not just adapting to cities around the globe, but actually thriving. And meanwhile some urban trees can grow as much as eight times…

io9 Charles Choi

Judge rules that you can be fired for “Liking” the wrong thing on Facebook

You thought things were tense at the office when you hit ‘Like’ on the Team Edward Facebook page when your boss was overwhelmingly Team Jacob. This case involving a sheriff’s election might just make your office politics seem benign by comparison. Top image: Detail from “Handsome Hands” by Photo Extremist on Flickr.

io9 DrRubidium

Over 13 Million US Facebook Users Don’t Use Any Privacy Controls

Over 13 million Facebook users don’t use—or don’t even know about—any of Facebook’s privacy settings, according to a new study by independent, non-profit Consumer Reports. That is a lot of users freely sharing information with people they don’t know. [Consumer Reports] Image by west.m under Creative Commons license

Social Media Jamie Condliffe

The Munker Illusion destroys your faith in color

It’s no secret that putting various colors together makes them look different. Put off-white next to black, and it looks completely bright. But did you know that, with the Munker Illusion, you can make something change color completely, right in front of your eyes? Top image: April Griffus/Flickr. The Munker Illusion is one of those…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Friendly dolphins help Brazilian fishermen to catch fish

We think of dolphins as playful — but they may also be more cunning than we ever realized. A subset of the dolphin population in Laguna, Brazil has started cooperating with human fishing expeditions. The dolphins will help people get better catches, in return for whatever the fisherman discard. They’ll drive schools of mullet towards…

io9 Tim Barribeau

Researcher Killed By Deadly Bacteria He Was Working With

A young researcher from San Francisco has died after being infected by a highly virulent strain of meningococcal disease he was studying—and there are fears that it could spread. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that it suspects Richard Din, 25, became fatally infected with an agent from his own laboratory.…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe

The Heatstick Boils Water Without Needing Any Pesky Fire

Have we learned how to use taxes to keep people from getting drunk?

All Furniture Should Double as Optical Illusions

io9 Show: The Science of The Avengers!

Even Babies Are a Little Racist

10 Scientists Who Spent Time Behind Bars

Lightning Strikes Man’s Scrotum

Silk scaffolding could help rebuild your bones

Reminder: Your Wiki Clicks Can Reveal Way Too Much About You

Megan Fox Loves Sharper Image and Wants to Have Sex with You

Several Reasons Why Avengers Kicks Ass (That You Haven’t Already Heard)

Feds Seized Hip-Hop Site for a Year, Waiting for Proof of Infringement

Play the Prometheus Mini-Game and Unlock Exclusive Content

Tantalum is the most important element you’ve never heard of

Cities of the Future Will Make a Place For Wilderness

Judge rules that you can be fired for “Liking” the wrong thing on Facebook

Over 13 Million US Facebook Users Don’t Use Any Privacy Controls

The Munker Illusion destroys your faith in color

Friendly dolphins help Brazilian fishermen to catch fish

Researcher Killed By Deadly Bacteria He Was Working With

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