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What You Can Buy for $9 Million (If You’re Not Buying This Island)

It must feel thrilling to be rich, free to fling millions of dollars at whatever your heart desires. Right now, you can buy a private island and former sea fort off the coast of Denmark for a little under $9 million. That includes a restaurant and a hotel. What a bargain! Nothing screams luxury like…

The Preacher TV Show’s Cassidy and Arseface Look Great (Relatively Speaking)

Okay, perhaps “great” isn’t the best adjective for a character who tried to commit suicide by shooting himself in the face with a shotgun, but failed. Perhaps “comics-accurate” is better. Either way, seeing the first characters of the long-awaited TV adaptation of Preacher look is exciting, and makes us optimistic. The Old Lamy Mission Movie…

What It’s Like To Hunt Big Game After #CecilTheLion

I’m a hunter. Not because I hate animals or nature, but because I love them. Two weeks ago, I flew to Washington to shoot a bear with a bow, that was a couple weeks after the whole #CecilTheLion business. And hunting was different, but maybe not for the reasons you’re thinking. Back in February, I…

The Summer Movies Of 2015: What Worked and What Didn’t

Summer movie season is based on the premise that filmmakers know what the public wants. Big production budgets feed into big marketing campaigns feed into blockbuster success—unless they don’t, through some failure of hit-movie theory or practice. The 2015 season produced some notable surprises (Mad Max) along with some huge letdowns (Terminator, Fantastic Four). What…

This Robot Reads WikiHow Guides to Learn How to Make Breakfast

As robots become more common in offices and homes, more humans will need to communicate with them. Sadly, bots still can’t converse or read or write well—yet. A European research project is looking to fix this limitation with a WikiHow-skimming kitchen robot that uses text and voice commands to throw together grub. The European research…

Are Stories and Histories the Same Thing?

European languages often use the same word for “story” and “history,” but many English speakers regard these words as antonyms. But how different are they really? At The Last Word on Nothing, Ann Finkbeiner asked some practicing PhD historians for their opinions. Philadelphia-based writer, editor, and historian Audra Wolfe opens the conversation with this response:…

Meanwhile in the Future: Everybody Has a Personal Drone Now

There are a million ways people might use drones in the future, from deliveries and police work to journalism. But in this episode, we’re going to talk about consumer drones — something that you or I might use for ourselves. What does the world look like when everybody with a smart phone also has a…

This is NOT Albert Einstein With His Therapist

We’ve debunked it before, but this photo just won’t go away. The 1948 picture above doesn’t show Albert Einstein with his therapist. The guy Einstein’s meeting with is Cord Meyer, Jr., president of the United World Federalists. Meyer, a CIA operative, was merely discussing world politics with the famed scientist. If you follow history accounts…

What is mayonnaise? One way to answer that question is “pretty gross,” but the answer is also, at least according to the FDA, something with “egg yolk-containing ingredients” and it’s that second definition that’s causing a legal and culinary battle for what is and isn’t really mayo, both historically and in the future.

Fall Comics Preview: A Guide to the Awesome New Comics to Add to Your Pull List

Who needs movies and TV this fall when you’ve got so many comics to read? The next few months are shaping up to be a monumental time for comics—at both publishers big and small. Want to see what’s coming to your pile of must-reads in the next three months? Read on for a sneak peek…

No, Da Vinci Wasn’t The First Inventor to Dream About Human Flight

Leonardo DaVinci’s wing and glider designs have inspired literature, art, and cinema over the centuries. But plenty of other people have schemed to take to the air, long before the Wright Brothers. Here are just some of the inventors who devised methods of unpowered human flight…with mixed success. The most famous mythic fliers in the…

What Can Make a Piece of Gold Turn Blue?

Believe it or not, when you suspend gold in water, it can turn a lilac-blue color. You just need the right amount of salt. And plasmons. See samples of this blue-gold liquid, and learn how a famously warm material can turn cool. Gold is frequently used as a way to add color. It’s used in…

Man Charged In Cold-Case Killing After Body of Wife Found Buried in Backyard

In 1993, a 23-year-old woman went missing, leaving her young son behind. The only clues to Jacksonville, Fla. resident Bonnie Haim’s disappearance were her purse, found tossed in a dumpster, and her car, which was abandoned at the Jacksonville airport. For two decades, the mystery persisted. This week, the cold case notched a grim if…

This Surprisingly Empowering Retelling of Sleeping Beauty Stars a Hamster Princess

How on Earth do you tell a story about a princess under a Sleeping Beauty-type curse and make her truly heroic? You put her in the hands of Hugo and Nebula Award-winning writer and cartoonist Ursula Vernon, whose new book Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible finds the silver lining of the soporific curse. Vernon has…

You Can Pile 400 Pounds of Toys Into This Over-Sized Plastic Dump Truck

Challenging Tonka’s super-tough construction toys, this giant plastic dump truck (with reinforced steel axles) is engineered to be strong enough to withstand up to 400 pounds of pressure. Which means you can fill it with a mountain of toys without having to worry about it breaking. A plastic pin and a pair of rotating hooks…

Video: How to sharpen your knives

If you have a really nice set of chef knives, you’d know (or should know!) that the blades need to be maintained and sharpened to make life easier for you in the kitchen. Chef knives are meant for chopping food stuff but they’re basically bad ass mini-swords. How To You shows us—in very instructive detail—how…

It’s Easier To Tell Time Than do Math on This Slide Rule Watch

We now live in a time where kids think of calculators as just another app. But before they were even standalone electronic devices, mathematicians and engineers had to suffice with a confusing mechanical device called the slide rule. But don’t worry, this watch is much easier to use. In the right hands a Slide Rule…

The ISS Crew Collects Russian Pee for Its Water Supply

Did you know that the US and Russian sections of the International Space Station have long used separate water purification systems? It’s due to a dispute reaching back to the 80s over best water filtration practices. But, Bloomberg reports that a more pressing difference in the two sections’ processes centers around a less fun fact:…

Crash-Proof File System Saves Your Work When Your Computer Dies

We all know that gut-wrenching feeling of reloading a program after a crash, only to learn that hours of precious work have vanished into the ether. But if MIT computer scientists have anything to say about it, a glorious new era of crash-tolerant file systems may soon be upon us. The file system is the…

Pepsi Made a Blimp That Helps Friends Find Each Other at a Music Festival

When you’re truly enjoying yourself at a music festival, it’s all but guaranteed that at some point you’ll get separated from your friends. So to make it easier to find them again, Pepsi made an app-connected blimp that helps guide lost and lonely revelers back to their pals. Created by UK ad agency AMV BBDO,…