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“Meat Glue” And Other Icky Stuff In The Imitation Food Items You Eat

You already knew that the crab in your lunch roll wasn’t really crab — but you probably didn’t know about all the other kinds of imitation foods you eat all the time. From faux wasabi to milk and olive oil that’s partly made up of additives, these are the weird ingredients in the fake foods…

A Complete Guide to the Mythical History Of Westeros

Long before the events of Game of Thrones and George R. R. Martin’s fantasy books, Westeros was home to magic and strange, sinister creatures. We’ve only just started to glimpse this backstory on the show, but the books contain lots of hints. Here’s our complete guide to the fantastical past of this grim world. A…

Why This Strange-Looking Animal Has A Nose Like A Penguin’s Foot

This weird-looking thing is a Sichuan takin. It’s what happens when you let a bunch of sheep loose on the mountain ranges of Tibet for a few thousand years. It has a huge schnoz for the same reason the penguin has a unique set of feet. Find out what these unique animals have in common.…

This Should Be The Dominant Image of Texas’ Police Brutality Pool Party

It’s difficult to watch the footage of an out-of-control police officer losing his shit while breaking up a pool party of adolescents in McKinney, Texas. It’s impossible to forget the moment he kneels on top of a young girl in a swimsuit while she cries for help. Artist @markusprimelives responded by flipping the incident on…

A Collection Of Otherworldly Six Word Stories You Can Read Now

In this story collection, you’ll find a surprisingly crowded (but perhaps indifferent?) solar system, a very systematic weather system, and an ingenuous system to return your unwanted online shopping purchases — and the whole bunch of very short stories is ready to read right now. You shared over a thousand of your shortest, spookiest, strangest…

North America Was Once Full Of Super Tiny Beavers, And Super Giant Ones

When humans first arrived in North America about 15,000 years ago, the place was full of giant beavers. No, I’m serious. They were fucking huge, with enormous teeth. And now scientists have discovered the place was crawling with mini beavers too. Above: Castoroides, by Charles Knight Known as Castoroides, the giant beaver roamed North America…

Here’s Why The New Horizons Spacecraft Won’t Be Stopping At Pluto

In less than five weeks, New Horizons will zip past the Pluto-Charon system in a brief but historic encounter. Given the huge interest in Pluto, it’s fair to ask: Why won’t mission planners let the probe hang out a while? Above: Our first glimpse of Pluto and Charon in color (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied…

Don’t Watch This Film About A Dog Unless You Want To Cry

First, Ben Moon’s dog helped him survive a fight against cancer. Then, Denali succumbed to the disease himself. This film about their life together is incredibly moving. When Denali came into Ben Moon’s life in November 1999, Moon was 24 years old and had just moved west to Portland, Oregon. His girlfriend had convinced him…

No, Tomorrowland Isn’t Really An Optimistic Movie

There’s a meme going around that Tomorrowland underperformed at the box office because people weren’t ready for its message of optimism. There’s just one problem — Tomorrowland isn’t an optimistic film at all. Warning: Major spoilers ahead… So, some people have been claiming that Tomorrowland’s relative failure is because it was too optimistic. (One such…

The Badass Batman v Superman Batmobile Has Officially Been Revealed

The 2015 Licensing Expo just got under way in Las Vegas today, giving us our first good look at the redesigned Batmobile that Ben Affleck will be driving in the upcoming 2016 blockbuster, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. We’ve already gotten a few peeks at Batman’s newest ride, but these images, courtesy of Warner…

Video: Meat glue turns cheap cuts of beef into a fake ribeye steak

Meat glue is always going to be totally weird sounding but we’ve all eaten it before (if you eat at fast food restaurants, at least). It’s derived from blood and is a clotting agent that allows different types of meat to stick to each other, hence the name. You can do a lot of weird,…

A Charming Vintage Figurine Set That Memorializes A Famous Murder

The 1827 killing of Maria Marten came to be known as “the Red Barn Murder,” a crime so sensational that it spawned its own genre of art. And Red Barn Murder commemorations are still highly sought-after. Exhibit A: this charming ceramic rendering, which sold for nearly $20,000 in 2010. The auction house description gives more…

Static Shock Is A School Teacher On A Mission In This Heartfelt Fan Film

Electrogenesis may not have the slick production values of some of the fan films we’ve seen, but what it lacks in budget, it makes up for with its story of Virgil Hawkins as a teacher who has left Static behind. But when a student comes to him for help, Virgil realizes the world may still…

25 Doors From Around The World

I asked you to photograph some doors. And you gave us a peek into the intricate, gorgeous, and sometimes flat-out depressing possibilities that await us all from across the globe. Tobacco Lunch This is an old door to what was a lunch counter in the American Tobacco Campus in Durham, NC. The door is less…

Should Fukushima’s Radioactive Water Just Be Dumped In the Ocean? 

There is no permanent solution for Fukushima’s radioactive water, which has been leaking out of storage tanks again and again. Could the best option actually be just letting all into the ocean? Over at Nautilus, Eliza Strickland has a snappy summary of the problem with Fukushima’s radioactive water, which is at 620,000 gallons and counting.…

Why Franklin Richards Is The Most Ridiculous Character In All Of Comics

Franklin Richards, the son of the Fantastic four’s Reed Richards and Sue Storm, isn’t just a young hero-in-training, but one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel universe. And chief among those powers is being completely insane, as these facts will prove. Franklin is 47 years old. Not in actual years, of course. But…

Giant Leak Shows Us How The Final Oculus Rift Looked in 2014

Sometimes, all it takes is a little digging in a website’s style sheets to find a vein of gold. In this case, an enterprising Reddit user discovered a set of gorgeous high-res images of the final Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and a never-before-mentioned game controller—two days before Oculus’s big reveal. Whoops! Oculus founder Palmer…

Jon Bernthal Will Play The Punisher In Daredevil Season 2!

Ever since Daredevil’s second season was confirmed, we’ve been speculating as to who from Marvel Comics could show up alongside Matt Murdock. While everyone wondered about Bullseye and Elektra, instead Marvel have revealed that another anti-hero is headed to Hell’s Kitchen: Frank Castle himself! Jon Bernthal, whom io9 readers might be more familiar with as…

Vincent Bugliosi — who prosecuted Charles Manson and wrote the best-selling true crime classic, Helter Skelter, about the trial — has died at age 80. Despite a long, successful career, he lamented last year that “I can no more disassociate myself from [Manson] than I can jump away from my own shadow.”

The Boy Who Built A 500 Million-Degree Nuclear Fusion Reactor

The following excerpt is from The Boy Who Played with Fusion by Tom Clynes. The book, released today, tells the story of science prodigy Taylor Wilson, who by age 14 had built a 500-million-degree nuclear fusion reactor. Taylor toggles another switch, energizing the vacuum pumps. He and Brinsmead and Phaneuf watch the gauge as the…