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We’ve discovered a new species of dolphin, and it’s probably already endangered

Characterizing a new animal species can be a tricky process, but in dolphins it can be especially difficult. Now, scientists in Melbourne, Australia have managed to formally classify what will be just the fourth formal description of a new dolphin species in over 100 years. The new species, classified as Tursiops australis (pictured up top),…

15 Years of Cutting-Edge Thinking on Understanding the Mind

What do mirror neurons have to do with Abu Ghraib, the science of religion, and how happiness flourishes? For the past 15 years, literary-agent-turned-crusader-of-human-progress John Brockman has been a remarkable curator of curiosity, long before either “curator” or “curiosity” was a frivolously tossed around buzzword. His Edge.org has become an epicenter of bleeding-edge insight across…

VideoSurf for iPhone and Android: Like Shazam for TV

Sometimes you’re watching a random TV show on a random channel and you wonder, who was she again? What show was she in? And then you forget about it and those questions are left unanswered, your brain untapped. With VideoSurf, the app can identify the show you’re watching and give you info about everybody in…

Dinosaur Feathers Discovered in Canadian Amber

Today a group of paleontologists announced the results of an extensive study of several well-preserved dinosaur feathers encased in amber. Their work, which included samples from many stages in the evolution of feathers, bolstered the findings of other scientists who’ve suggested that dinosaurs (winged and otherwise) had multicolored and transparent feathers of the sort you…

Transformers Cupcakes, Penile Eels, and Other Stories We Didn’t Post

So much news passes before our collective eyes every day that we couldn’t possibly cover it all. Mostly because much of it isn’t worth covering! But here are a some borderline tidbits we passed on, just in case. Transformers-Themed Cupcakes: Exactly What Meets the Eye Not a gadget. Barely food. But the puns, my god,…

How long will it take before Stefan makes Klaus his bitch on The Vampire Diaries?

Now that Klaus has managed to unleash the evil version of Stefan on The Vampire Diaries, is he going to wind up regretting it? Can he handle the full power of Evil Stefan? We caught up with Klaus actor Joseph Morgan during San Diego Comic Con, and asked him. We also heard from producer Julie…

Watch and Smile As Thirteen Dogs Jump Rope At The Same Time

Uchida Geinousha and his 13 dogs now hold the world record for the dog handler with the most dogs skipping on a rope. Geinousha runs the Super Wan Wan Circus and discovered the dog’s ability to jump rope when a curious poodle started to jump along with Geinousha and handler Kaoru. The pair trained the…

A 5-Year-Old Girl Dug Up a 160 Million Year Old Fossil

Emily Baldry, an adorable 5-year-old girl from the UK, was doing what a normal kid her age would be doing: Hanging out at with her family and digging. Unlike other normal kids though, she found a 160 million year old fossil. She called it Spike. It’s an absolutely amazing and rare discovery that happened by…

VideoSurf App Gallery

Why Are Some Celebrities Still Using AOL Email?

Despite the stigma, there are many people still using AOL email. Some are stuck in a technology timewarp; but not everyone is that backwards. Some notable and presumably intelligent celebrities are reportedly still using their AOL email addresses. The short list supposedly includes Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, David Arquette and Sarah Silverman. With…

The Complete History of Time Paradoxes

Nowadays, we take for granted the idea that if you go travel back in time and interact with your own past, you can create a huge crazy time paradox. But who first came up with this idea? Who created the first time paradox? And can we go back and prevent him or her from doing…

Bose Tells AirPlay to Eat It with Its SoundLink Mobile Bluetooth Speaker

The tiny Bose bluetooth speaker system we caught a whiff of last week went official today with a considerably less goofy name than “Chihuahua.” The Soundlink Mobile, as it’s actually called, is a portable Bluetooth speaker in an AirPlay world, but it looks like it might be pretty good anyway. https://gizmodo.com/the-bose-chihuahua-is-supposed-to-be-a-super-small-spea-5838695 It’s also got an…

Debating Human Enhancement

Where do you stand on the subject of human enhancement? If recent cultural trends in things like music, movies, and video games are any indication, it’s a subject that’s been picking at society’s collective conscience quite a bit as of late. https://gizmodo.com/janelle-monae-turns-rhythm-and-blues-into-science-ficti-5592174 http://io9.com/5827937/rise-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-asks-whether-humanitys-best-hope-lies-in-building-a-better-species https://kotaku.com/a-deeper-look-at-deus-ex-human-revolution-5555342 In the interest of exploring the difficult questions that the subject…

This Is the Binary Star Planet We Were Looking For

have confirmed what it seemed inevitable: a planet orbiting a binary star. It’s no Tatooine but a Saturn-sized gas planet twisting around two stars about 1.5 and 4.5 smaller than our Sun. The stars orbit around each other every 41 days, while the planet—boringly called Kepler-16b—completes one orbit every 229 Earth days. According to the…

How RIM Could Save Itself

RIM just reported earnings that were even more miserable than expected. We’ve already said why the company is cooked. But is there any way it can be salvaged? Well, just maybe there is. https://gizmodo.com/ten-reasons-why-blackberry-is-screwed-5812832 You ready, RIM? It’s time we had a talk. Stop Leaning on Enterprise You know who made BlackBerry popular? Companies, who…

The Milky Way’s supermassive black hole went ballistic during the Renaissance

We didn’t yet have the technology to notice, but Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, threw one hell of a tantrum a few hundred years ago. It’s the only explanation for mysterious x-ray anomalies. The center of the Milky Way is full of X-ray sources, many of which seem…

A Caveman’s Swiss Army Knife

I love everything about this. I just like to pretend that George the Neanderthal carried a Stone Aged Swiss Army Knife everywhere with him. It was so convenient! Of course, there was no Swiss or Army or Knives back then but, um, you get the idea! They should make Swiss Army Knives for every era,…

How Star Wars Saved Marvel and the Comic Book Industry

The late 1970s were a bad time for comics – declining sales and new forms of media were coming into the limelight, and the local comic book shops were suffering. But then Marvel adapted Star Wars and everything changed. This is the story of a comic book industry without hope, saved by guerrilla marketing, a…

Who created these huge, mysterious wheel patterns in the Mideast thousands of years ago?

Called geoglyphs, these strange circular patterns etched into the rocky sands from Saudi Arabia to Syria have no known meaning or origin. Though archaeologists say they likely date back over 2,000 years, there are no records of who made them, nor why they would make such elaborate patterns that can only be appreciated from the…

These Daredevil Bridge Climbers Are Out of Their Bloody Minds

These kids think that climbing the cables of the Moscow Bridge in Kiev is a lot of fun. And they are probably right. I’m freaking out by just looking at the video. [Thanks Karl!]