Earthlings had scored moon rocks before 1970. NASA’s Apollo 11 and 12 missions successfully hauled them back to study—immense scientific accomplishments, of course. One problem. It cost $142 billion in today’s dollars. Russia’s solution? Send a robot instead. The Soviets were the first to realize that sending a human to pick up dust is incredibly…
Who’s the greatest mad scientist of all? Here’s your chance to vote, in the io9 Mad Scientist Smackdown! A battle of wits, weird inventions and pure crazy. First up: who’d win in a battle between Walter Bishop and Reed Richards? io9 Mad Scientist Smackdown day one: Walter Bishop vs. Reed Richards!online survey The winner of…
One reason why medical professionals have lobbied tirelessly to legalize medical marijuana is that the drug can be a powerful painkiller. Now researchers have invented a drug that acts just like marijuana, but never goes to your head. And I mean that literally. The drug, glamorously named URB937 acts on your nervous system’s cannabinoid receptors…
Parasitic worm colonies are known to invade and castrate a tiny California horn snail, spawning thousands of tiny soldiers that take up 25% of the snail’s body weight. These tiny warriors could actually revolutionize how we fight infections in humans. As much as these colonies are bad news for the snail – at least if…
It’s one lucky pooch whose gets to live in this 2.5-meter tall replica of Matsumoto Castle, with one impressively handy owner. Won’t you please join me on a guided tour? The video, unfortunately for this monoglot, is in Japanese, but I can give you a few details. The house took six months and about $600…
No, it’s not CGI, and it’s not a picture from the surface of Venus. This photograph of the Fly Geyser, by Stephen Oachs, was taken near Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. Black Rock is also home to the annual Burning Man festival. via National Geographic (Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!)
Apple thought they were so smart when they started making computers that came in different colors. Now, inspired by the noble gecko, scientists may have found a way to print electronics on leather. Count down to the iWhip. Geckos have been often admired by the scientific community, for their ability to cling securely to almost…
So you’ve got your decks, your MacBook and a few CDJs, but they’re sat on a couple of beer crates—or a desk from IKEA, if you’re lucky. $1,300 is a sound investment for your DJ skillz, surely? And let’s face it, the smooth high-gloss lacquer finish is a chick magnet of the highest order. If…
Zune’s been going in this direction for a while, but Microsoft has finally gone all MP3 with their Zune Marketplace music. All 11 million tracks in the US, and 8 million tracks in UK, France Italy, Spain and Germany. Yes, Europe! In addition to not having any more WMA files in the marketplace (save for…
Doctor Who: The Adventure Games was a big enough success that a second batch will arrive next year, and producers want to outdo the current series. The fourth game, coming this year, features an original world created by Stephen Moffat. Says BBC Wales Interactive executive producer Arwen Aspen: The audience reaction to the first series…
This collapsible solar cooker from 1970 is just one piece from the Museum of Modern Art‘s new exhibit, Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen, a whirlwind trip through the evolution of the modern kitchen. Thank you, WWII and electricity. A miraculous little history captured in a single room, it features everything from propaganda posters…
Nacho Vigalondo blew our minds with his low-budget time travel film Timecrimes. And now he’s back, with a science fiction romcom called Extraterrestrial. If it’s as clever as the first two posters, then we can’t wait to see it. [via Cineblog]
Remember when the iPad first came out there were all those Etch-A-Sketch jokes? Now you can own the punchline for only $40. Sadly, the knobs do nothing. Even more sadly, the official Etch-A-Sketch app has iffy reviews. [GetAHeadCase.com]
Things are getting freaky over at Photokina, where Leaf’s showing off their new Aptus-II 12 and Aptus-II12R digital camera backs. The price: $32,000. The pixels: 80 million, the most of any camera back to date. Good stocking stuffers. [PopPhoto]
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Tonight is the pilot of NBC TV series The Event, which is this season’s most promising new science fiction show. We’ve watched the pilot, and here are four spoiler-free reasons you should watch too. 1. You want to see The X-Files crossed with The West Wing. To be fair, The Event leans more toward the…
When people list the best science fiction movies of all time, they usually include mostly English-language films. But what about the great films in other languages? Thorin Klosowski lists his ten favorite non-English-language science fiction films. What are your favorites? It’s not difficult to dig up a list of the “best science fiction movies” on…
Normally, we couldn’t think of anything more thrilling than a song dedicated to you by Stevie Wonder. Unless you’re the World Intellectual Property Organization, and your policies are making it harder for the disabled to access and appreciate information. Current laws make it difficult, expensive, or just plain illegal to make disability-friendly audiobook copies of…
Good news, soundtrack aficionados! Pi and Moon composer Clint Mansell will be scoring The Source Code, Duncan Jones’ upcoming flick about a soldier (Jake Gyllenhaal) whose consciousness is transferred into the body of a commuter who’s witnessed a train bombing. Jones said on his Twitter account today: Have a bloody fantastic bit of Source Code…
I woke up from a nap in a fit of terror, realizing mid-dream that I left the stove on for 5 hours. A public utility waste of that degree is a rare occurrence in my home, but I do tend to leave shit on: Lights in closets, electric kettles, lamps in the kitchen, towel warmers,…
