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Avengers Vs. X-Men is the best stupid comic of the year so far

You may be nominally aware that Marvel Comics is currently publishing a Big Comic Book Event (BCBE) wherein the Avengers (think Captain America, Iron Man) assiduously trade punches with the X-Men (Cyclops, Storm) with the clockwork regularity of a daily fiber supplemental. And like most BCBEs, the plot of this 12-part miniseries — which is…

The Monument to Electricity That Never Was

In 1922, eccentric magazine publisher Hugo Gernsback decided that the world needed a 1,000-foot tall concrete monument to electricity. Gernsback imagined that this monument might last for thousands of years, and rather than some static behemoth stuck in time, the interior of his monument would be constantly changed to reflect the technological advances of each…

Very Little Jogging Can Make Your Life Much, Much Longer

You probably go jogging because it makes you less fat and it is less humiliating than being yelled at through a 60-minute spinning class. But according to a new examination of the Copenhagen City Heart study, jogging less than two hours per week can add years to your life. The Copenhagen City Heart study started…

A Truck-Mounted Claw Pulls Up Trees By the 15,000-Pound Root Balls

Generally, wherever a tree starts its life is where it stays. But then how does a large, mature tree get from a nursery to a local garden center? It’s plucked from the ground by a post-hole digger on steroids, that’s how. Tree Spades come in a variety of sizes and blade styles depending on the…

There Are Two F-16s Hiding in This Picture

I hope you’re not as easily fooled as I am because I totally missed the two F-16s in this picture. I have an excuse! I was totally looking at the left hand side of the picture. And the picture I saw was really small! Like thumbnail-sized! You try stepping back from your computer screen and…

A Math-Free Guide to the Math of Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland got its start as a simple story, told by a mathematics professor to a colleague’s daughter. It’s a strange story that seems to be the result of a drug trip, but is actually a scathing satire of the new-fangled math that the professor was seeing invade his area of study. Most of…

Doggie Treat Maze Ball Is the Perfect Way To Make Your Pet Resent You

As much as you’d like to, you can’t spend every waking minute playing with your dog. So this Mazee ball will fill in as the perfect petsitter, challenging your dog to free a delicious treat by solving the simple maze inside. In fact the $17 Mazee is exactly like those spherical Perplexus puzzles designed for…

The First Assassinated Man In History Was Killed By an Arrow 5300 Years Ago

A new report published in The Journal of Royal Society’s Interface has confirmed that the first assassinated man in history was killed by an arrow, shot into his back, 5,300 years ago. According to the paper’s lead author Albert Zink: The fact that we found some of the fibrin [a protein that is part of…

Parasites wage war against zombie-ant fungus

Back in March of last year scientists reported finding a “zombie fungus” that was affecting ant colonies in Brazil, the details of which sounded something straight out of a George A. Romero film. Nicknamed the “zombie-ant fungus”, it invades an ant’s brain and takes control, forcing the ant march to its death at a mass…

Ten Things You Probably Didn’t Know About DNA

It may be the basis of all life on Earth, but we’re betting there’s still a lot you don’t know about deoxyribonucleic acid. Who discovered it? What makes it “right-handed”? And what does it have to do with LSD? Find out after the jump. 10. James Watson and Francis Crick did not discover DNA Neither…

Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 Benchmarks: Twice the Face-Melting in Half the Space

We knew this day would come, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting. After all, we’ve been waiting since Saturday. Today Nvidia launches the just-announced GeForce GTX 690, which packs two full GK104 Kepler GPUs onto one video card-and what a card it is. (For an in-depth look at the GTX 680, the GK104…

Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 Gallery

The Best AirPlay Speakers

AirPlay is the way digital music should be. If you have WiFi, you have music. But you also have a tough choice. More and more speakers come equipped with AirPlay, ready out of the box to blast music wirelessly from your preferred Apple gizmo. In a test of four speakers, the one that sounded sweetest…

iLounge Says This Is What the Next iPhone Looks Like

Do you have your heart set on a 3.5-inch iPhone? Too bad, says iLounge, which claims Apple’s next handset will sport a 4-inch display and a metallic body. Let’s snort some rumor lines! As you can see in iLounge’s mockup, the purported design will look much like current iMacs—silver aluminum framed by black glass. It…

Judge Rules You Can’t Be (Definitively) Identified by Your IP Address

Common sense dictates that an IP address is just a number associated with a connection, and not a human being. Copyright crusaders aren’t exactly known for loads of common sense and rationality. Thankfully, a New York judge has ruled that an IP address alone is not enough to pin illegal downloads on a specific person.…

Lost Pet Parakeet Found Its Way Home By Telling the Police Its Home Address

Squawk! Birdie’s lost! Squawk! Take me home! In an amazing story of animal ingenuity, a lost pet parakeet found its way back to its owner by telling the police its full home address. The owner had trained the parakeet to squawk her address just in case the parakeet ever got lost. The bird, called Piko-chan,…

Mesmerizing video depicts the rise of human transport in just 3 minutes

For more than 250 years, humanity has been weaving a tangled web of transportation around the world. This global network is one of the defining features of what scientists have informally dubbed “the Anthropocene,” a new geological era characterized by the global impact of human activity. For as far reaching as that impact is, an…

A Harley That Washed Up In Canada Will Be Returned To Japanese Tsunami Survivor

Here’s some news that will brighten your day. While strolling the sands of British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii Islands, a beachcomber named Peter Mark recently found a Harley Davidson swept away in the Japan tsunami last March. He had no idea what had happened to the person it belonged to. But the story has a happy…

BMX Quad Racer Is Another Fun Way To Break Your Neck

Designed for those seeking a more eco-friendly alternative to a gas-powered ATV, or grownups who simply never learned to ride a two-wheeled bike, the Athos is a pedal-powered quad racer that looks a lot safer to ride than the sum of its parts. With four wheel independent suspension the Athos should be able to tackle…

Spoilery new Spider-Man images finally show The Lizard in his lab coat

We’ve been waiting and waiting for the infamous Lizard-in-the-lab-coat shot from Marc Webb’s Amazing Spider-Man. Behold the angry face and claws of The Lizard — formerly Dr. Curt Connors — and check out the spoileriffic things he’s doing to an innocent bystander. Looks like the man in The Lizard’s clutches is turning green and getting…