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Watch Tom Cruise actually hang off a side of a plane in wild movie stunt

Tom Cruise is a certified crazy person but his movies are almost always enjoyable probably because of said craziness. He obsesses over doing his own stunts and this hanging off a flying plane in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation might be one of his most impressive feats yet. I mean, dude is really outside the damn…

Google Is Reopening Map Maker and Wants You to Police It for Pranks

Google’s Map Maker feature is coming back after getting shut down for too many prank entries. But now, Google will no longer deal with joke edits to Maps—the company is washing its pee-stained hands of moderation, shifting most of that responsibility to the Map Maker community. Google temporarily kiboshed Map Maker, which lets people add…

Marvel’s What If? Comics Are Coming Back, and They’re All About Thanos

For years, Marvel put out a What If? comic series, pondering alternate realities in the Marvel universe, covering everything from “What If Wolverine was a Vampire?” to “What if Aunt May was a Superhero?”. You know, the big questions. But this year, the series is back for a short run, with its eyes on the…

A New 3D Printing Support Filament Easily Dissolves Away in Water

When 3D printing a particularly complex object, you often need to incorporate additional support structures into its design, given how the layer by layer additive process works. And with 3D systems new water soluble filament, those unwanted support structures can easily be dissolved away with a little H2O. Removing support structures usually involves some very…

Venereal Disease and Self-Experimentation Should Not Go Together

Early scientists were not at all shy about experimenting on themselves. Isaac Newton stuck a needle into his own eye socket. Robert Hooke shoved his arm into a vacuum chamber. And in the first episode of Sacrificed from Fusion, we learn what 18th century physician John Hunter thought was an effective way to investigate gonorrhea…

What the Hell is the Warcraft Movie About? Our Complete Guide!

Warcraft made a splash at Comic-Con this year—both on the floor and in Hall H, and fans have been waiting ages for news. But if you’re not familiar with the series, you may be confused as to what all the fuss is for. Don’t know your Gul’dans from your Durotans? Here’s our complete guide to…

Astronomers Spot a Record-Breaking Supernova

An exceptionally bright supernova discovered last month appears to shine brighter than 500 billion Suns. That’s twice as luminous as the previous record—but because it’s low in hydrogen, scientists are confused as to where this exploding star got all its energy. Above: The remnant of star SNR E0519-69.0, a different supernova than the one recently…

We Can Now See Stunning Real-Time 4D Images of the Heart

X-rays, the technology that allows us to peer inside the human body in real-time, can only be used for limited durations for safety reasons. So GE has developed new software that instead relies on ultrasound, which is safe for even fetuses, to generate real-time 3D views of our internal organs. Ultrasound technology is not unlike…

10 Tricks to Make Yourself an Apple Music Master

Sure, you’ve signed up for the three-month Apple Music trial, but are you really making the most of all it has to offer? Before you decide whether or not to stay on board with Apple’s new streaming service, try this collection of tips and tricks. Follow (and Unfollow) Artists and Curators Your Connect page is…

Why Are Computers So Bad At Jokes?

That was the question a group of researchers—including The New Yorker’s Cartoon Editor, Bob Mankoff—asked in a study highlighted by Arxiv and MIT’s Technology Review. And really, asking why robots can’t tell jokes is a roundabout way of asking why humans find anything funny. What is funniness? Can it possibly be quantitative? And why is…

Beautifully simulated 3D trip through space is what dreams are made of

I woke up today and had already seen this stunning video of space before I even saw it in real life because I’m 100% sure it was created in my dreams. It wasn’t, it was rendered in the 3D simulation program Space Engine. But seriously, this digital recreation of space is what every kid imagines…

This is the Soundtrack of a Martian Marathon

The first Martian marathon was no easy trek: the Opportunity rover had to struggle through smooth, soft sand and clamber over sharp rocks. This is the sounds of the terrain it covered in its 11-year journey exploring the red planet. In July 2014, the Mars Opportunity rover broke the off-world driving marathon. In March 2015,…

The Pacific Rim Toy Line Finally Made The Best Jaeger Toy

Sure, there’s been versions of Striker Eureka in NECA’s excellent Pacific Rim line, both big and small. But none have let you do one of the giant robot’s coolest attacks: its anime-inspired salvo of rockets spewing out of its chest. That is, until now, with the most badass Jaeger figure yet. Being a movie about…

This Locked-Down Prison Tablet Makes iOS Seem Open

The nation’s overcrowded prison system is in a sad state, and it’s not made any better by only having access to this incredibly basic 4.3-inch JP5mini tablet. Available to inmates for $70, the Jp5mini is actually an upgraded (“upgraded” being a relative term) version of JPay’s JP4 tablet that introduces wireless connectivity in prisons where…

I Worked at Hacking Team, My Emails Were Leaked, and I’m OK With That

Is radical transparency the best solution to expose injustice in this technocratic world, a world that is changing faster than law can keep up with? That question became even more relevant to me, a privacy activist, when I found myself in the WikiLeaks archive, because I worked at Hacking Team nine years ago. The break-in…

Firefox Now Blocks Flash By Default (Update)

The Mozilla Firefox web browser now blocks Flash by default. And when I say “blocks,” I don’t mean it asks you nicely if you’d really like to use Flash. I don’t mean it automatically pauses Flash videos like Google Chrome. I mean Mozilla has decided that Flash is going down. I mean that the freaking…

What exactly is a calorie and why do we care?

By now, in 2015 with gluten excommunicated from diets and paleo celebrated and superfood vegetables being discovered left and right, we all generally know what kind of food is good for you and what kind of food is bad for you. But do most of us really know what a calorie is other than a…

New Android Wear Features May Take a Cue From Apple Watch

Apple may be on an imitation streak lately, but Cupertino isn’t the only one who knows a good thing when it sees it. According to Phandroid, the next update to Android Wear, Google’s smartwatch OS, will be taking a few ideas from the Apple Watch. Technology is filled with all kinds of rumors and speculation…

Apple Music Lets Siri Work as a Silly Sound Effects Machine

An unexpected perk, if you can call it that, of your free three-month Apple Music subscription? Siri can access it in order to work as a kind of sound effects machine. Go on, ask Siri to play the sound of farts. Go on. Ah, such juveline fun.Verge reports that the following list of silly sounds…

Is it possible that we could get an allergy-free peanut, that still tastes like a peanut? That’s just one of the projects detailed in the USDA’s newly-released Tech Transfer report, detailing some of the unlikely ways their research has been showing up out in the world.