Latest

Tonight Venus and Jupiter Will Be Closer Than They’ve Been In 24 Years 

Astronomical conjunctions occur when celestial objects appear close to one another in the night sky—this happens all the time and they’re not particularly unusual. But a conjunction happening tonight is notable in that it involves two very bright planets—Venus and Jupiter—and they’ll be closer together than they’ve been since Terminator 2 was in theaters. Over…

Mark Zuckerberg Finally Weighed in on Facebook’s “Real Name” Problem

The fervor over the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision is starting to wane across social media, and the rainbow avatars are starting to fade. As such, it’s easy to forget about Facebook’s problem with how it treats some LGBT users. Today, Mark Zuckerberg made his first public statement on the issue, but he didn’t really…

Slow motion video of a 142mph tennis serve shows the ball turning to goo

A tennis ball is squishy and bouncy and totally perfect for slow motion fun. Watch as a tennis racket hits the fuzzy yellow green ball at 142mph in slow motion, it’s incredible. The more you slow it down, the more flattened and deformed and goo-like the ball gets. At a certain point, it looks like…

A Steel Engineer Explains Why Cast Iron Is So Tricky to Make

By the time it arrives in your home, cast iron is one of the most durable materials you’re likely to lay your hands on. Getting it to that point, though, turns it to be an incredibly finicky process. io9’s comment of the day comes from commenter amp0730, an engineer at an auto parts foundry. They…

Sports Medicine Journal Reveals Our Childhood Coaches Tried To Kill Us

Remember when you were a kid and all your coaches and camp counselors and those vaguely hippie-ish guys who took your youth group hiking would tell you to drink, even when you weren’t thirsty? Turns out they were trying to murder you. The Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine published new guidelines on hydration that essentially…

If The Battle Of Endor Was Real, Its Documentary Would Look Like This

Imagine we lived in a galaxy far, far away and the battle of Endor from Return of the Jedi just happened. What would the eventual documentary look like? That’s the question posed and answered by the team behind Real Fake History, a new web series from Machinima. Each week, the team will tackle a traumatic…

Frank Miller’s All Star Batman & Robin Is So Bad, It’s Actually Awesome

In 2005, DC teamed legendary Batman comic writer Frank Miller and equally legendary artist Jim Lee for what they clearly hoped would be the ultimate Batman comic. What they got was a comic in which Batman called Robin “retarded.” In short, they got the worst Batman comic ever made. And I love it. Let me…

In This Week’s Comics, Canada Defends Itself From an American Invasion

Oh, and did we mention that the U.S. brought giant robots with them? And that this was written by Saga’s Brian K. Vaughn? We Stand On Guard leads the charge of all the coolest new comics starting this week, but it’s not all there is: Barb Wire makes her return! Space Knights! Grant Morrison madness!…

The Campaign to Crowdfund Greece’s Bailout Has Crashed Indiegogo

Yesterday we told you about a silly crowdfunding campaign to bail out Greece. Apparently there’s been so much interest that Indiegogo’s servers have been overloaded. The campaign is currently down. No joke. [Update: It’s back up and going strong.] Now, it’s probably safe to assume that the reason people were visiting the site had more…

Tuesday Game Room: Ridiculous Game Name Edition

It might be a quiet week, but we have not one, but two different ridiculously named games out: Blazblue Chrono Phantasma Extend and Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3: V Generation. While I go laugh at those, come and discuss what you’ve been playing in this week’s Tuesday Game Room! What have you been playing this week? Like…

How to Get Free Music for the Rest of the Summer

Apple Music is finally here! You know what that means? That means it’s time to cancel your other premium streaming services and coast through the rest of the summer on Apple’s dime. Here’s how. The process is simple, if you’re an iPhone user. (The same process will work for Android in a few months, when…

Is This Time Capsule Filled With $1 Million and a Ghost or Nah?

Does this mason jar contain a treasure map? Or maybe a million dollars? Or maybe even the ghost of a pirate that spent decades stalking the coast of Florida? No one knows for sure. All we do know is that a Florida woman recently found this old mason jar in a decaying tree trunk and…

Meanwhile in the Future: Death By Supernova

We often think of stars as twinkling, harmless little points of light that fill our night sky with majesty. But stars can be dangerous too. When they come to the end of their lifespan, some stars explode fantastically as supernovae. So what would happen if one of those giant explosions happened nearby? This week’s scenario…

Want to try free Apple Music for three months—and avoid having Apple bill you afterwards? Here’s a simple guideto turning off the sneaky auto-renewal feature. [Wired]

Watch as the Sun Spews a Massive Arch of Fire and Gas Into Space 

Our Sun has been quite active over the past several weeks, ejecting giant strands of stellar debris into the cosmos. NASA scientists recently captured a video of one particularly eye-catching explosion that produced a dramatic arch across the sun’s surface. This eruption, which occurred on June 18, 2015, grew into a substantial coronal mass ejection…

The Biggest Kangaroos Evolved Long Arms to Fight Over Females

Male kangaroos and wallabies, like a lot of seemingly quiet grazing animals, get into knock-down drag-out fights over females. They obviously don’t have antlers or horns to spar with, but they’re perfectly willing to grapple rivals with their forelimbs and kick the crap out of each other with their big hind feet. Those fights have…

A Foggy Holographic Display Lets You Draw In Mid-Air

Many people assume that one day TV and mobile displays will be replaced by floating holograms. And with this unique 3D display that uses invisible fog to generate floating objects, we’re one step closer. Like the holographic displays in Star Wars, the 3D full-color high-resolution objects generated by this setup can be viewed from any…

The Famous Optical Illusion Hidden in Every Typeface—Including This One

Hidden in the vast majority of typefaces is one of the most well-known optical illusions in the world. Can you spot the illusion, and can you identify the famous illustration that demonstrates its power over human perception? I’ll give you a hint on the first part: Look at the last three letters in the word…

What Are The Best Short Stories of the Year So Far? (June 2015 edition)

It’s a grand time to be a fan of short-form speculative literature. There are dozens of magazines, many of which are consistently amazing, publishing hundreds of stories on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. Here’s the problem: there are dozens of magazines, publishing hundreds of stories. It’s not possible to read every story that comes…

Sugary drinks kill 184,000 people each year through diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, according to new research from Tufts University. “It should be a global priority to substantially reduce or eliminate sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet,” notes lead researcher Dariush Mozaffarian, who says these drinks have no health benefits. Image: Mike Mozart/Flickr/CC BY 2.0