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The Latest Ice Age Short Shoots Scrat Into Space

After it premiered with the Peanuts movie, Fox has put the short “Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe” up online. I have literally no feelings about any Ice Age character except Scrat, whose life is a reminder of the constant misery that is the pursuit of the simplest needs. Contact the author at [email protected].

Can We Turn Stem Cells Into Eggs?  

Northeastern University biologist Jonathan Tilly is certain he’s found egg-making stem cells in adult mice. If he’s right, it would refute decades-old work that showed female mammals finish making all their eggs before or shortly after birth. This might make it possible to grow new eggs inside the ovaries of older women. In a feature…

Are These Ice Volcanoes on Pluto?

Pluto is home to a pair of spiky mountains with holes on the top. That sounds an awful lot like we just found a pair of cryovolcanoes on the distant frozen world! The informally-named Wright Mons and Piccard Mons look like cryovolcanoes we’ve found on icy moons around the gas giants, volcanoes driven by the…

Oh Crap, Some Dudes Invented a Flame-Throwing Drone

The world has already seen a drone that shoots paintballs and a drone that shoots bullets. Now, thanks to a research team from Nebraska, there is a drone that shoots fire balls. But don’t freak out—it’s for a good cause. The newly patented fire-starting quadcopter looks like any other drone. Developed by engineers from the…

The Lego Batman Movie Just Cast a Very Unexpected Pop Superstar [UPDATED]

Update: The Hollywood Reporter says, while the initial reports were Mariah Carey was playing Commissioner Gordon, she’s in fact playing the mayor of Gotham City, which is much less exciting. Original story follows, with some minor edits to take this into consideration When news of The Lego Batman Movie was announced, obviously it was going…

The official selection for the Sploid Short Film Festival 2015: Vote now with your YouTube likes

We’ve laughed and cried and seen crazy visions of the future. Robots fell in love, assassins from the future came back, and one minute time machines were used. Here are all the official selections for the Sploid Short Film Festival 2015. Tell us which ones you loved, which ones you watched over and over again…

Waiting for new episodes of DC’s TV shows to hit your favourite streaming service? You might be waiting a while. The AP are reporting that the current year-long wait for new episodes of Flash, Arrow, iZombie and more on Netflix or Hulu could be extended, in order to make Cable TV look more enticing to…

There’s a Demonic New Theory About What Caused the Mass Disappearance on The Leftovers 

“Lens” turns its focus on The Leftovers’ mothers, chiefly Nora and Erika, who find they have things in common other than the children they’ve lost. But just because they understand each other doesn’t mean they’re going to become best friends. Oh yeah, and one of them might be a demon? Spoilers! Both Nora and Erika…

So This Is What a $1500 Android Wear Watch Looks Like

With rumors stretching back over a year, Tag Heuer finally showed off its $1,500 Tag Heuer Connected smartwatch, Android Wear’s answer to the high-end, gold-plated Apple Watch. It’s luxe. It’s Swiss. And it’s actually not a crazy idea. Let’s talk a bit about the watch for a second. Tag Heuer Connected ticks off a bunch…

This Was One of the Largest Landslides Ever—So How Did No One See It for Months?

How big is this landslide in China’s Tonzang valley? Big. So big that it created many (many!) new lakes. So big that, at just one of its three major points of origin, it shifted 395 million (million!) tons of earth. But it didn’t just happen—it actually occurred back in July. So why are we only…

The Most Mind-Blowing and Astonishing Cosplay From BlizzCon 2015!

Nobody cosplays better than gamers. Don’t believe us? Check out this incredible gallery of beautiful cosplay images from this past weekend’s BlizzCon. The attention to detail and the playfulness are just unbelievable. Here it is—our ultimate BlizzCon cosplay gallery! All of these images are the work of cosplay photographer extraordinaire Davann Srey, whose work we’ve…

A Real-Life Hacker Car Hijacking Inspired This Week’s CSI: Cyber 

“Someone out there is playing Grand Theft Auto—only this is no video game.” As the Cyber gang investigates a drag race turned fatal, Patricia Arquette delivers that line with a straight face. I’m starting to think someone slipped a cursed amulet into her Oscar swag bag, trapping her in this role. The team discovers that…

Watch How Designers Re-engineered an Island to Make a Park in New York City

Parks aren’t always built just so we can enjoy the trees. On Governor’s Island in New York City, a truly unique public space will bring nature back to a former military base–and it’s engineered to withstand the catastrophic storms that climate change will bring. It’s called The Hills, and in this documentary, we talk to…

So I Guess the Holy Grail Is a Thing On Once Upon a Time Now? Okay, Sure.

Yeah. Why not? At it’s very heart, Once Upon a Time is an almost offensive melange of every story that’s ever existed. Why not have Merlin casually toting the Holy Grail around? Spoilers. . . It’s all Merlin all the time this week, Which means we open 2000 years ago, with Merlin wandering a desert,…

For the First Time, Physicists Have Measured the “Strong Force” of Antimatter

The nuclear strong force binds the smallest bits of matter together to form atoms, thereby making our material world possible. Physicists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have made the first-ever measurement of a similar strong force for antimatter — the mirror image of regular matter that lies at the heart of one of our biggest cosmological…

J.J. Abrams Promises Star Wars: The Force Awakens Is “Delightful” and Explains How He’s Passing the Torch

If you were given only one word to describe your feeling after watching the original Star Wars trilogy, “Delightful” is a good one. That’s also the word J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan focused on when writing Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which seems like a good sign. “I tried to focus on things that I…

I Have a Few Questions About This New “Tinder for Fighting” App [Update]

I’ve never been in a fight. I’ve been on the receiving end of a number of punches, but engaging in physical violence has never been my thing. That’s just one of many reasons I’m puzzled by Rumblr, a matchmaking app for face pounding that launches today. (Update: It’s fake! See details at the bottom of…

Crushing and breaking open a slag pot skull basically unleashes hell fire

The deskulling of a slag pot is pretty damn epic because once you crack that thing open, the hot molten hell material burns and glows so bright it’s like staring straight at the Sun. The slag is the crap leftover from metals during the smelting or refining of ore. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow…

John Joseph Adams Has Cloned Himself And Is Now Editing Twice As Much Stuff

John Joseph Adams already edits Lightspeed Magazine (which runs a story once a month at io9), Nightmare Magazine and a huge number of anthologies. Now he’s launching his own book line, with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, called John Joseph Adams Books/HMH. [Full disclosure: I have been featured in some of Adams’ anthologies.] Adams already worked with…

See How Rising Sea Levels Will Ruin the World’s Great Landmarks

Rising sea levels caused by unchecked carbon emissions are threatening coastal regions around the world. A new series of paired images projects two very different future scenarios—one in which we manage to hit our carbon pollution targets, the other showing the dire consequences of staying on our current course. The following images—which shows the impacts…