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The Bizarre Case of the Unfaithful Wife and Her “Attic Man”

Her name was Walburga Oesterreich, but she went by the much flirtier “Dolly.” In 1913, this “naughty vamp” was in her early 30s and hitched to textile manufacturer Fred Oesterreich when she met teenager Otto Sanhuber. A love triangle with a spectacularly bizarre twist soon formed. The twist? Well, wanting to keep her lover close,…

How I Turned My Subaru Outback Into a Real Adventuremobile

Shopping for a truck to take off-road, I ended up buying a Subaru Outback, then modifying it to meet my need for dirt. 8,500 miles in, how’s it holding up? Pretty damn well, actually. “Confirmation bias” is a person’s tendency to interpret or recall information in a way that confirms his or her’s beliefs or…

Every Justice League Member in One Video, Including the Terrible Ones

I doubt it’s a coincidence that DC decided to make a video montage of every superhero that has ever joined the Justice League right before a Comic-Con they’re expected to debut some Justice League movie material. But never mind that. What the hell happened to the Justice League in the early ‘90s? Lightray? Crimson Fox?…

Oh God, Someone Ran Fear and Loathing Through Google’s Neural Network

By now, the entire internet’s realized that Deep Dream, Google’s artificial neural network, is capable of some pretty trippy images. But what happens when you run a movie about acid trips through the acid trip generator? Fear and Loathing in your worst nightmares, that’s what. Some sinister Github user recently published a set of instructions…

The Perfect Groot Costume Starts With This Rocket Raccoon Backpack

Headed to San Diego Comic-Con this week but still haven’t decided on a costume to wear? With ThinkGeek’s exclusive Rocket Raccoon backpack, you’re about 25 percent of the way to an impressive Groot getup. To keep the scale mostly accurate, Rocket unfortunately isn’t able to hold anything larger than an iPad or a couple of…

This Absolutely Filthy Mitchell and Webb Sketch Has a Historical Basis

This comedy sketch is not safe for work. It is, however, very funny. And one art historian actually fact-checked it. Find out why Victoria didn’t think that linden trees smell of that, and which tree Victorians believed actually did smell of it. The point of this sketch is that a modern idea—linden trees smelled like…

A Mid-Construction Redesign Made An Incredibly Powerful Radio Telescope

Out in Manchester, a remarkably powerful, 3,200 ton radio telescope has sat atop a field for almost 60 years. But the story of how it got there—and how near it came, even mid-construction, to not being there—is a tale of an incredibly close scientific call. Bernard Lovell had big plans to use his experience reading…

Blaine Gibson, Designer of Lifelike Robots at Disney Parks, Dies at 97

Blaine Gibson, a designer of countless sculptures and audio-animatronic figures at Disney Parks, has died. He was 97. The average visitor to Disneyland or Walt Disney World may not know Gibson by name, but they’re surrounded by his art. He worked on robotic figures for the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, and…

What It’s Like to Ride This Incredible E-Bike at 40 Miles Per Hour

What happens if you put a 4,000 watt motor—nearly five horsepower—on a bicycle built of strong, lightweight materials? I’ll tell you: pure craziness, heart-filling joy, and power pedaling at high speeds you could only dream of before. This is what the Trefecta e-bike provides to anyone brave (and wealthy) enough to take it for a…

We Know More About The Men (And Proton Packs) Of The New Ghostbusters

There are some major updates from the set of Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, including the casting of Michael K. Williams, Andy Garcia, Cecily Strong, Matt Walsh… and news anchor Pat Kiernan. Feig has also been having fun on Twitter, giving out more info about the new Proton Pack. But first, the actors. According to The Wrap,…

This Free Font Automatically Redacts NSA Surveillance Trigger Words

Some might see downloading this free font called Seen as the digital equivalent of donning a tin foil hat. Except that we know that security agencies like the NSA are intercepting emails and other communications, scanning for specific trigger words that this font automatically crosses out. But Emil Kozole’s Seen font isn’t necessarily designed to…

Which Movie Sequel Relied Most Heavily On References To Earlier Films?

Terminator Genisys didn’t just underperform at the U.S. box office—it also attracted an audience that skewed older. Maybe not surprising, for a film that rewards intricate knowledge of a movie from 1984. But which movie sequel relied the most on references to earlier films? Please include a picture, poster, clip, or other image for your…

Short doc: How people in a village shoot 100,000 rockets at each other

July 4th fireworks are nothing when compared to this insane 100,000 homemade rocket war in the village of Vrontados, Greece. Two churches in the small village fire off rockets at each other on Holy Saturday and the spectacle of the mock war is incredible to behold. There are rockets blazing every which way in both…

Google Shows You Ads for Better Jobs If It Thinks You’re a Dude

Google and Facebook make a ton of dough building profiles on you to help advertisers figure out what to show you. New research shows that you’re better off if Google thinks you’re a guy as it builds its advertising-catnip profiles. Carnegie Mellon and the International Computer Science Institute built a tool called AdFisher to examine…

Scientists in China Are Studying the Use of Animals to Predict Quakes

Government researchers in China have asked a select group of farmers to monitor abnormal behavior among their livestock — behaviors that could be indicative of imminent earthquakes. As the China Daily newspaper reported last week, the seismological bureau in Nanjing has converted seven animal farms into “seismic stations” with plans to develop several more. Animals…

Architect Finally Gives Us What We Want: A Beyoncé-Inspired Skyscraper

Just when you thought the world had hit peak Beyoncé, the hippest city in Australia is going to build a massive skyscraper inspired by… Beyoncé.This is not a joke. The city of Melbourne has given planning approval for the construction of a curvy 68-story tower in its central business district. It even moves. The skyscrapers…

American tragedy: Glenn Ford, who spent 29 years on Death Row at Louisiana’s Angola prison for a murder he didn’t commit, died July 3. He was released last March, but his happiness at finally being free was short-lived, thanks to his cancer diagnosis; he was also denied restitution. Image: Glenn Ford leaves prison on March…

Killer Alien Drama Extant Is Back, Cheesier and Trope-ier Than Ever

Last season on Extant, Halle Berry starred as an astronaut who got inexplicably pregnant with a killer alien baby on a space solo mission and brought it back to Earth. In season two, the inexplicable plot points pile on, resulting in a guilty pleasure dripping with everything you love to hate about scifi. Even if…

The Ten Most WTF Moments from the Penny Dreadful Finale

Penny Dreadful’s second season has been a Victorian Gothic rollercoaster, and going into the finale we had a half-dozen cliffhangers to clean up—but nothing could have prepared us for what happened. Okay, to be fair, the season has, in a lot of ways, prepared us for what happened: John Logan has clearly been building his…

How Hard Is It to Get Kicked Off Brazil’s “Sin-Free” Facebook? 

Evangelical Christians in Brazil are going louco for Faceglória, a new, “sin-free”Facebook knockoff for the very religious. Since launching a month ago, Faceglória has over 100,000 users pressing “Amen” instead of “like.” It also has strict posting policies: No swear words, no violence, no gay content or erotica, definitely no gory gay erotica. The emphasis…