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A Scientist Responds… to The Fly

In our series, A Scientist Responds, we’re dredging up the great and terrible science fiction flicks of days past—and we’re making scientists watch them. Today’s movie: David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of the B-movie screamer, The Fly. The scientist: Throb editor and resident biologist, Diane Kelly. The Movie: The Fly The Fly is a story about…

How the Hell Is This Still Happening

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Pornhub Wants Us to Pay for Porn Now?

Finding free porn on the internet is not hard. Literally type “porn” intothe search engineof your choice and bada bing, bada boobs—you’ll get yourself some T&A&whatever other genitalia your freaky heart desires. Which is why Pornhub’s latest service—paid porn—is a bold move. Pornhub is launching a “Netflix-style” premium streaming service called Pornhub Premium for its…

Our First Look At Neil Gaiman’s Remastered Miracleman

Many comics legends have worked on Miracleman, but no run on the series is as fondly remembered as Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham’s, cut short before its time. But now Marvel isn’t just remastering Gaiman and Buckingham’s original comics, but letting them finish the story they began 25 years ago. We’ve known about Gaiman and…

You Can Adjust This Car Seat Using Gestures Instead of Awkward Levers

If it were just slightly more convenient to perfectly adjust a chair, we’d all embrace ergonomics with open arms. So that’s what researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute are hoping to achieve with a newly developed car seat that trades random knobs and levers for the simple swipe gestures you already use on your phone. Developed…

This Mathematical Riddle Explains All We Know of the Father of Algebra

Diophantes was a Hellenistic Greek mathematician who lived around 200 AD. His claim to fame comes from substituting symbols for numbers and operations in equations, thus creating algebra, but everything else we know about his life comes from a single algebraic riddle. Here it is: “Here lies Diophantus. God gave him his boyhood one-sixth of…

“Yolk and Shell” Nanoparticles Could Make  Batteries Last Longer

As batteries go through repeated charge-and-discharge cycles, their electrodes expand and contract—and the physical damage that causes leads to gradual battery degradation. Now, a team of researchers from MIT has a new kind of nanoparticle that may ease the problem. The new advance is a nanoparticle, with a solid shell and a kind of “yolk”…

Ask a Forensics Expert All Your Questions About Working on a Body Farm

How do forensics experts know what they know? A lot of it is due to research done on body farms, research facilities that examine how bodies decompose. Today, forensic anthropologist Dawnie Steadman, the director of the nation’s oldest body farm, is here to answer all your questions. Besides decomposition, the University of Tennessee’s Forensic Anthropology…

The Craziest Cosplay from Gen Con 2015!

The biggest tabletop gaming convention in North America keeps setting attendance records, and cosplayers show up in full force. This year, hundreds of gamers put on their fantastic finery to show off favorite characters and original creations, and we’ve got the greatest and weirdest for your perusal. The custom Cthulhu costume above was made for…

This Guy’s Laptop-and-Music Stand Commute Set-Up Is Absurdly Wonderful

Falling foul of a deadline because your commute to work takes too long? Well, you’re just not doing it right. Meet “Techno Dad” (as I’ve just christened him). Nothing, be it the trials of parenting or public scrutiny, will keep him from his laptop. He is a new Giz office hero. Snapped on a London…

Scientists Have Grown Human Serotonin Neurons in the Lab

This flurry of neon color above may look like a blurry photography of a particularly wild party, but in fact it’s the first ever sample of human serotonin neurons to be grown in the bottom of a Petri dish. Scientists have long known about serotonin neurons — which release and take up the neurotransmitter, which…

There’s now an Outlook app for Apple Watch that lets you see full emails and reply to messages directly from your wrist.

Congress Had a Crazy Plan for Nation-Wide On-Demand Rainstorms

You have to love the optimism of the 1800s. There was nothing people thought they couldn’t do, including irrigating the entire United States by strategically setting fire to parts of it. For three decades in the 1800s, the United States government tried to plant trees. They wanted to plant them in a wide swath, stretching…

Mapping the Rising Poverty of the U.S.

Poverty is increasing in the U.S. A new series of detailed maps created by Justin Palmerplots its rise across the country. As Palmer points out, the City Observatory reports that the number of high-poverty neighborhoods in urban areas across the U.S. has tripled since the 1970s. In the same time period, the number of poor…

For a good long look at how 2015 could very well be the climate change turning point: Eric Holthaus’ “The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here” at Rolling Stone is well worth your time.

We May Already Know Who’s Guest-Starring in The Deadpool Sequel!

Yet another version of the Flash is joining The Flash. Elizabeth Henstridge discusses Simmons’ fate in Agents of SHIELD. Plus, teasers for Doctor Strange’s costume, crazy casting news for Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, and a Doctor-Doom-filled clip from Fantastic Four. Spoilers now! Doctor Strange During a presentation in Africa, Disney showed concept…

A New Wastewater Treatment Captures CO2 and Produces Energy Too

A team of engineers has developed a new kind of wastewater treatment that manages to capture CO2 and produce energy at the same time as cleaning water. The new system has been built by researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder. Called Microbial Electrolytic Carbon Capture (MECC), it exploits an electrochemical reaction to clean water…

Even Simple Convection Can Look Beautiful

This looks like it could be a fabric print, but in fact you’re looking at magnified view of a phenomenon known as Rayleigh-Benard convection, as temperature differences drive the motion of silicone oil. Convection occurs when temperatures differences create subtle differences in density in fluids: less dense liquid rises but cools as it does so,…

Would You Eat This Space Lettuce?

It may look unnatural, but this is part of a series of experiments aboard the International Space Station that sees astronauts growing lettuce in space. Codenamed VEGGIE, the hardware see the vegetables take root in planting pillows that provide water and nutrients, while a special rig supplies them with red LED light in the absence…

How We Won the World Robot Soccer Championship

My team from UNSW Australia defeated team B-Human from Germany 3-1 last week to claim back-to-back Robocup SPL World Championships. Here’s how we did it. The competition involves fully autonomous robots, with no remote control, competing against each other in 5-on-5 soccer. Each team uses the same robots, so the competition is focused on software…