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Video: The doomed story of the mighty king crab

This short film, The King Crab by Oscar Hudson, uses Rudyard Kipling’s story, The Crab That Played with the Sea, as an inspiration to show how though a king crab can look fearsome and monstrous, it is hardly as intimidating as it looks. Especially when the mighty king crab is doomed for the kitchen. SPLOID…

Use the Grammarly Extension to Avoid Dumb Mistakes When Writing Online

Chances are you do a lot of writing on the web, and the Grammarly extension for Chrome or Firefox can help you keep your spelling and grammar as accurate as it needs to be. The extension promises to detect hundreds of errors that the likes of Microsoft Word would just wave straight through. Once the…

Ford’s New Headlights Spot and Turn to Illuminate Hazards at Night

Self-driving smart cars might still be years away, but the technology that makes them so smart is already benefitting drivers. Ford is currently perfecting a headlight system that uses infra-red cameras to illuminate unexpected curves and hazards on the road ahead that might be invisible to drivers otherwise. Developed at the company’s Research and Innovation…

A Lego Version of the Ant-Man Trailer Is Better Than the Original

A movie about a superhero that shrinks to the size of an ant had all the potential to be corny and awful. But the original trailer for Ant-Man succeeded in convincing everyone that the film would be great, and now there’s a Lego version that’s even more entertaining than the original. Made by the talented,…

Why Chuck Jones, the creator of Looney Tunes, was such a great artist

Tony Zhou of Every Frame a Painting does his always wonderful deep dive thing on Chuck Jones, the creator of Looney Tunes, and examines how evolved as an artist. It goes beyond his technical skill and his jokes and his characters his discipline and tells how Jones used the real world to inspire his work…

What’s the Biggest Change You’ve Seen Happen in Your Field?

The world is changing, and that includes our work lives, too. Today, we want to know about the changes you’ve seen in your own industry. Tell us in the comments what you do and what change—whether it’s the technology, the materials you use, or something else entirely—you’ve seen come over your industry in the time…

A Simple Magnetic Adapter Gives Your Charging Cables MagSafe Powers

A magnetic power connector didn’t seem that revolutionary when first revealed, but over the years the Apple MacBook’s MagSafe connector has proven itself to be an invaluable feature. And as the Znaps magnetic adapter shows, it would be just as useful for your mobile devices too. Using a pair of simple adapters—one that plugs into…

The Search for Alien Intelligence Got a $100 Million Boost

Russian billionaire Yuri Milner has announced a new initiative called Breakthrough Listen, a 10-year project that will search for radio and light signals emitted by extraterrestrials. At a cost of $100 million, it’s the largest sum of money ever allocated to the effort. As a discrete SETI endeavor, Breakthrough Listen will dwarf anything that has…

Spotify’s New “Discover Weekly” Playlist Knows You So Well It’s Creepy

Spotify’s got a new feature called “Discover Weekly,” an automatically generated playlist of music that’s tailored specifically for you. For something made by a computer this playlist is pretty damn good! The new playlists updates every Monday, and it’s generated using the music you’ve been listening to as a foundation. It also takes into account…

Bursting Balloons in a Sand Box Reveals the Origin of Mysterious Craters

When we think of craters, asteroid collisions are often what come to mind. But now, thanks to scientists who exploded balloons in a sand box, we have a better idea of other ways craters can be formed, like underground methane explosions, for instance. Felipe Pacheco-Vázquez, a scientist at Mexico’s Autonomous University of Puebla, led the…

Gotham‘s Version Of The Joker’s Origin Will Include A Few “Curveballs”

Guillermo Del Toro discusses the likelihood of Hellboy 3 happening. The new Spider-Man film has its writers. Arrow and Supergirl cast some comic book heroes and villains. Plus, Greg Grunberg talks Heroes Reborn, new footage from Killjoys and Crimson Peaks, and another new look at The Walking Dead’s new season. Spoilers! X-Men: Apocalypse Evan Peters…

This Stop-Motion Video Is the Amazing Geology Lesson You Never Had

What happens when you take 60 rocks from 15 different countries all around the world, capture 8,500 photographs of them and string them together into a three-minute stop motion video? The geology lesson you always wanted is what. Created by Christophe Thockler, the video (below) shows off rocks ranging from Madagascan Actinolite from Madagascar to…

The Hidden Cargo Aboard the Jason and the Argonauts’ Ship Constellation

This is the constellation known as Argo Navis, said to represent the ship of the same name that Jason and the Argonauts used in the quest for the Golden Fleece. And as the ship likely did, it houses some secrets of its own. The constellation was first identified by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in his…

Why Aren’t Human Fingers All the Same Length?

The human hand is remarkably different from that of other primates, with shorter fingers, a smaller palm and a significantly stronger thumb; of course, the most notable feature of our hands is the ability of the thumb to perfectly and comfortably oppose (come into square contact at the tips) each finger of the same hand.…

How One Company Plans to Launch Rockets Using Beams of Microwaves

More people than ever are joining the private space race, developing new ways to loft craft into the night sky. But the Colorado space startup Escape Dynamics has an unusual plan to achieve that goal, which will use beams of microwaves to power a rocket into space. Late last week, Escape Dynamics announced that it…

Just because nobody uses your public key doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea . It just means your friends don’t really care about security. [XKCD]

This Sea Sapphire Can Become Transparent in the Blink of an Eye

Now you see it, now you don’t. But the disappearing act performed by this small sea sapphire isn’t magic: it manage to flex its body to reflect frequencies of light that the human eye simply can’t see. As New Scientist reports, sea sapphires come in an array of different colors, including this electric blue. But…

Five Bizarre Fossil Discoveries That Got Scientists Excited

From trilobites to tyrannosaurs, most fossils are of creatures with hard shells or bones. These materials don’t easily biodegrade and sediment has time to build up around them and turn them into a record of the creature that is still with us millions of years after it has died. Soft-bodied organisms like worms, on the…

Hackers Threaten to Expose 37 Million Cheating AshleyMadison Users

AshleyMadison—tagline “Life Is Short. Have An Affair”—is an online site that facilitates cheating among its 37 million users. It’s a service founded on confidentiality and privacy, which now seems to have all of its data in the hands of hackers. They’re demanding the company take down the site, or they’re going to out a lot…

Add Missiles To the List of Weapons You Can (Sorta) 3-D Print

3-D printing has already spawned dart guns, pistols, and rifles, but up until now, the 3-D printed arsenal has been lacking the firepower of a guided missile. That’s something that Raytheon, noted producer of things that go bang, wants to change. The company has been working on 3-D printing the component parts of its guided…