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Many Abandoned Boats Wrecked By Hurricane Sandy Are Still Clogging NYC Rivers

Hurricane Sandy petered out over the East Coast almost exactly three years ago. The storm left chaos in its wake—and in some cases, that chaos is still floating in its waterways, says the New York Times. The Times’ report details how some 600 abandoned boats are clogging waterways around NYC, many left over from Sandy.…

Be Mesmerized by the Shifting Complexity of our Sun

Sit back, relax, and look straight at the sun just this once. The Solar Dynamics Observatory keeps a close watch on our sun, tracking sunspots, coronal mass ejections, and everything in between to learn more about our nearest star. Now you can bask in the beauty of our weird and wonderful Sun, twisting gas warped…

Spot the Pop Culture References in This Delivery Guy’s Race Against Time

You think you had a rough night on the job? Not compared to the hapless hero of Arthur Metcalf’s short, Filthy but Fine, whose “deliver it or else!” ticking-clock quest is complicated by car trouble … a certain Caped Crusader … a spooky elevator … and more. Don’t miss the post-credits sequence. [Via Geek Art…

How champagne is made

Champagne is really hard to make. There are rules and regulations and specific grapes and soil requirements and is completely region specific and more that goes into each bottle that it’s impressive that even one bottle gets popped. In this video from the Science Channel, we get to see how Bollinger makes its champagne. It…

Mimicking Insect Mating Calls Could Combat Citrus Greening

Citrus greening is a disease that turns oranges sour and half-green, and it’s been ravaging orange groves in Florida for years. A novel strategy for controlling its spread may be found by mimicking the mating call of a tiny aphid-like brown insect called the Asian citrus psyllid. Richard Mankin, an entomologist at the USDA’s Center…

Twin Peaks Reboot Won’t Air Until 2017. Please Send Pie.

Bad (or at least frustrating) news today for Twin Peaks fans: CBS Corp. chief Leslie Moonves said that the new, limited-run series—which has already been held up by David Lynch vs. Showtime pre-production issues—won’t be airing until 2017. If the show had returned in 2016, it would have marked 25 years since that fateful 1991…

Sometimes Toes Spontaneously Fall Off and Nobody Knows Why

The word of the day is “autoamputation.” It means a limb—usually a toe—has decided to slowly amputate itself. The other word of the day is “idiopathic.” It means no one knows why it happens. Today this condition is called dactylolysis spontanea. When it first made official medical journals it was called ainhum. Brazilian doctor Silva…

A microscopic view of bubbles gets totally trippy

The existence of bubbles is the world telling people that life is silly and fun is worth having and moments, no matter how short they may be, are worth remembering (until they pop and the sadness settles in). I never knew the existence of bubbles also encouraged us to trip the hell out too. Because…

LIGHTSPEED Presents: “Here is My Thinking on a Situation That Affects Us All” by Rahul Kanakia

io9 is proud to present fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we’ll be featuring a story from LIGHTSPEED’s current issue. This month’s selection is “Here is My Thinking on a Situation That Affects Us All” by Rahul Kanakia. You can read the story below or you can listen to the podcast. Enjoy! Image ©…

Oh No, There’s Going To Be More Of Those Horrifying Thomas The Tank Engine/DC Comics Mashup Toys

Earlier this year at San Diego Comic Con, Mattel and DC came together to share with the world a nightmarish vision: a set of Thomas the Tank Engine toy trains that were actually train versions of DC superheroes. We thought they were safely confined to convention exclusives, but you can’t keep monsters contained for too…

Astronomers Spy Massive Galaxy Cluster 8.5 Billion Light Years From Earth

Peering into the distant reaches of space is like turning back time. The bright red orbs at the center of this image are galaxies, as they existed 8.5 billion years ago in a faraway corner of the universe. Together, they form a cluster that grew to mind-boggling proportions long before the birth of our Solar…

Bird Eggs Need Extra Sperm To Make Chicks

You know the story of mammalian fertilization: millions of sperm enter the vagina, only one fertilizes the egg, more than one messes up the embryo, yadda yadda yadda. Turns out that’s not the only way it can work. Birds, for example, always have multiple sperm penetrating each egg. Only one of those sperm actually fertilizes…

This Visualization Shows the Astonishing Diversity of Alien Worlds

Slovak graphic designer Martin Vargic has pieced together a rather meticulous visualization showing over 500 exoplanets discovered by astronomers as of October 2015. Like snowflakes, it shows that no two planets are the same. Astronomers are still getting their heads around the fact that exoplanets come in all manner of sizes, orientations, and physical architectures.…

All the Science Fiction and Fantasy Books You Can’t Afford To Miss in November!

The holidays are coming up, and there’s no better gift than piles of books. And luckily, there are tons of fantastic science fiction and fantasy books coming this month. Including Stephen King! Ethan Hawke! Plus time travel, space colonies, and tons more! Here are the books you can’t afford to miss in November. The Bazaar…

All the awesome spaceships and vehicles of Star Wars in one cool graphic

Artist Scott Park managed to do the incredible: he drew nearly all the identifiable spaceships and vehicles and animals used in the original Star Wars trilogy and laid them out in one awesome poster you can buy. There’s basically everything you love and know here: the Millennium Falcon, both Death Stars, TIE Fighters, AT-AT, and…

You’ll be able to watch the first episode of The Expanse online well before its actual premiere on TV. Deadline are reporting that Syfy will put the pilot episode—which we loved when it was shown at SDCC this year— online through a whole host of streaming services on November 23rd, three weeks before it airs…

Smashing a Lego AT-ST With Logs Like the Ewoks Did Is So Satisfying

The best scene in Return of the Jedi isn’t when Vader kills the Emperor, or when the Death Star explodes, or even when Han Solo thaws out of carbonite. It’s when the Ewoks take down an AT-ST walker using a couple of giant swinging logs, and it’s just as satisfying when recreated with Lego. The…

Don’t have Starz? Good news, as you can still watch the excellent season premiere of Ash vs. Evil Dead for free. The channel is allowing people who don’t currently subscribe—which is a lot of people—to check out the show here on its streaming online media service, Starz Play. Warning: You will very much consider paying…

Send Maps from Your Desktop to Your Mobile Device

Many of us go through the process of looking up a route on a desktop or laptop and then switching to a phone for the actual journey. Apple and Google are wise to this process because sending directions from one platform to another is way easier than you think.. Here’s how to do it. Google…

The Dumbest Thing The Star Wars Expanded Universe Did To Princess Leia

Star Wars’ old Expanded Universe is no more. Under the Disney regime, it has been relegated to the “Legends” banner, and the new official canon includes just the movies and TV shows, along with a whole new set of books, comics, etc. But somehow, one of the absolute worst EU books still has an enduring…