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Russia Bullies Reddit Into Removing Thread on Shrooms

It took a bloody revolution at Reddit to come up with some (messy, confusing) guidelines on what constitutes bannable content, but in countries where censorship is already rampant, Reddit’s policy is apparently much more straightforward: Cave to political pressure. Case in point: Russia, which recently ordered Reddit to remove a two-year-old thread describing how to…

Toy Story 4, The Rock and More Highlights From Disney’s D23 Animation Panel

When the toy army men rappelled from the ceiling to mark the end of Disney’s D23 Expo Animation and Pixar panel, it looked like an invasion. It sort of had been. An invasion of clips, stars and news from the upcoming slate of the company’s bread and butter genre. Zootopia, Gigantic, Moana, Inside Out, The…

In the Andes Mountains, A Long-Quiet Volcano Blasts Ash and Vapor

Today, 30 miles south of Quito, Cotopaxi—a volcano that first erupted in 1534, but has been quiet since the early 1940s until a few recent months of unrest—spewed plumes of ash and vapor. Though the blasts spread gray powder across the area, scientists in Ecuador do not believe a major eruption is imminent. AP Photo…

Watch a jawbreaker get carved into a shot glass on a lathe

The craftsmanship of candy. The art of an edible cup. The carving of a jawbreaker into a shot glass. It’s a thing that you never thought would make any sense but once the jawbreaker starts spinning on the lathe and getting shaved down to expose the different layers of its colors, you realize that all…

This Tiny Princess Leia Rides a Rocking Speeder Bike

It’s been a long week. Enjoy a baby Princess Leia on her handmade rocking speeder bike. The bike is the creation of hero dad Tez_Gelmir, who documents the whole process on the maker site Instructables.

Finally, A Convincing 3D Display That Doesn’t Require Glasses

Viewing 3D content without glasses or goggles has proved to be one of the toughest things for interface designers to achieve—it never really looks right. At this year’s SIGGRAPH, a group of researchers presented a display that creates a 3D human in stunning detail using a cluster of 216 projectors. A team from USC’s Institute…

Moon burials now cheaper than ever. “This week, the company Elysium Space announced they can send a portion of your cremated remains to the moon for prices starting at $11,950,” Popular Science reports. “By comparison, Celestis, a rival space burial company, will make the moon your final resting place for $12,500 for one gram of…

Tough as nails Nokia cell phone fights valiantly against red hot nickel ball

There are few materials in the world stronger or more resilient or tougher than that indestructible Nokia cell phone that everyone had at one point in their life. You could run it over with a tank or drop it off the Empire State building or chuck it across a parking lot into a burning building…

Disney To Make Gigantic, the “Definitive” Jack and the Beanstalk Movie

When Disney takes on a fairy tale, its version tends to become the definitive version: Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, etc. At the D23 Expo, the company announced it is now working on what it hopes will be the definitive version of Jack and the Beanstalk, called Gigantic. Directed by Nathan Greno and…

Scientists Want to Transplant Genetically Modified Pig Organs Into Humans

In news that sounds straight out of a dystopian Margaret Atwood novel, surgeons managed to keep a genetically modified pig heart alive inside a baboon for 945 days before it failed last month. “Xenotransplantation” experiments like this may one day lead to doctors raising pigs for organ transplants. The recent GM-pig-heart-in-a-baboon transplant bests the previous…

Let’s Talk About Whatever You Want Right Now

Gizmodo citizens, take the wheel. The weekend is once more upon us. What’re you looking forward to? What pissed you off this week? What’re you looking forward to? My day has been immeasurably brightened by the ongoing Iliad Online livestream event and Twitter account. It’s a reminder of how much I love Greek myths—I spent…

How the Hell Did I Not Know About the Burrowing Owl?

It goes out during the day. It runs to catch its prey. And, as its name suggests, the burrowing owl lives in holes in the ground. And more and more of them are coming to America. The burrowing owl looks like your typical owl—maybe a bit longer in the leg than most. But while most…

Here’s a Chemistry Set You’ll Actually Want to Experiment With

Chemistry sets used to be awesome. Today, a lot of them suck. But the kit pictured here (which, with 49 days left in its campaign, has already been successfully funded on Kickstarter) comes fully stocked with chemicals, equipment, and experiments. It’s the kind of thing your kid (or—screw it—you, yourself) would actually want to experiment…

Here’s The Most Unintentionally Hilarious Scene From Last Night’s Under The Dome

So people often ask me, “Dome, what do you STAND for?” Like, they want to know what my core principle is. What are the foundations on which this Dome rests? And after last night’s Under the Dome, I have an answer: I’m all about polygamy, apparently. Or specifically, polygyny. Check out the hilarious clip above…

The Navy Built an Algorithm That Predicts Pirates’ Behavior Before an Attack

The Navy is a veritable patent machine—it regularly beats all other government bodies when it comes to sheer volume, with 364 filed last year alone. One recent filing: Patent #US8838515, a “Method for predicting pirate attack risk.” It’s no surprise that the Navy wants to use artificial intelligence to predict what a team of engineers…

io9 Newsstand: What Would You Do If The Government Was Monitoring Your Thoughts?

This week’s stories are about the things people will and won’t do for love, the monsters embedded in our skin and under the crust of the Earth, and the even worse horror waiting out there in the void. Duller’s Peace by Jason Sanford | Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine September 2015 Serija knows what happens when…

Why Isn’t Google Launching Its Modular Ara Smartphone in Puerto Rico?

In January Google announced that Ara, its highly anticipated modular smartphone, would debut first in Puerto Rico as part of a pilot project. Today, Google says it’s not launching Ara there after all, and that it’s “re-routing” its plans. What gives? Some are wondering if the Google-Alphabet announcement is the reason for the shakeup, and…

How To Move Through The Woods Silently

While hunting this week, I managed to stalk to within 30 yards of a bear and snuck up on an Army Ranger undetected. Here’s how to be vewy, vewy quiet outdoors. It’s a skill anyone can use. The Benefits Of Being Quiet You don’t have to be hunting to benefit from going undetected outdoors. Moving…

Robot Simulations Show Mass Extinctions May Accelerate Evolution

By simulating a mass extinction on a population of virtual robots, researchers have shown that these cataclysmic events are an important contributor to an organism’s ability to evolve, a finding that has implications to evolutionary biology, the business sector—and even artificial intelligence. It’s no surprise that mass extinctions exert a tremendous influence on evolution. If…

Why the Cervix Is More Amazing Than You Realized

Technically, the cervix is the bottom chunk of the uterus, a circular plug-like mass of tissue dividing the uterine space from the vagina. But where most of the uterine wall is made of smooth muscle, up to 90% of the cervix is built of stiff and unyielding connective tissue. At least, it’s stiff most of…