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This Is How You Can Separate Liquids in Space

When you make a salad dressing, you shake together oil and acid to suspend tiny droplets of the latter in the former. Leave it on the counter for a few hours, though, and gravity separates it out into layers of its component liquids. So how would you perform that separation in space? It sounds like…

The Way We Categorize Hurricanes Sucks—But Here’s How We Can Fix It

Everybody wants a quick shorthand for a storm’s damage potential. But the index we hear used most often isn’t the best option. When a hurricane is coming in off the Atlantic, about to make landfall, you’re bound to hear talk of what category the storm is. Watch out, it’s a Category 1, or batten down…

This Music Video Goes On An Exhilarating Ride Through Earth and Space  

The music video for Dream Koala’s “Earth” from the Earth.Home.Destroyed EP, directed by the duo FABULOUS, is awe-inspiring in so many ways. From the wreckage of civilization to the beauty of nature on earth, every shot is amazing. And so is the lonely astronaut traveling through space, only to crash to Earth. It’s kind of…

PayPal’s Shady New User Agreement Opts You Into Robocalls

PayPal, a company specializing in online payments and fucking people over, has a new user agreement. Headlining the changes is a new provision that will let PayPal bombard your phone lines with robocalls — and there’s no opt-out. It’s put up, or get lost. The new user agreement is being released in advance of PayPal’s…

T-Mobile And Dish Considering Merger, Says WSJ

2015 has already seen a number of attempts from telecoms companies to merge; according to the WSJ, you can add another multi-billion-dollar deal to the ‘maybe’ column. The WSJ quotes “people familiar with the matter” saying that T-Mobile and Dish are in talks to merge, a deal that would create another leviathon telecoms company. T-Mobile…

iZombie Goes All I Know What You Did Last Undead Summer

Last night’s episode of iZombie, “Dead Rat, Live Rat, Brown Rat, White Rat,” does not hide its inspiration. We’ve got a typical serial killer set up, but with a zombie whom we all know. We also have some of the best dialogue of the week, a genuine revelation, and Major continuing to be the absolute…

Relive 50 Years Of Humans Walking in Space

Nothing quite captures the pinnacle of human accomplishment like spacewalks — it takes a unique combination of political ambition and technical knowhow to allow mankind to wander around the atmosphere. To celebrate 50 years of humans playing in the vacuum of space, NASA has released a documentary about the history of the spacewalk. ‘Suit Up’…

Joel McHale Is Going to Be Playing a Bill O’Reilly-Type on The X-Files

No. Seriously. Joel McHale’s going to be guest starring in the X-Files as “Tad O’Malley,” the anchor of a conservative Internet network. So, like Bill O’Reilly and Matt Drudge combined. According to Deadline, O’Malley will be an “unlikely” ally of Mulder’s, which sounds a lot like we’ll be getting a generous helping of McHale and…

Street Parking Won’t Be a Chore When Your BMW Finds Spots For You

A full third of all vehicular congestion in cities is estimated to be caused by people circling—and circling… and circling… and circling—as they look for parking. A new tool that will be onboard all new BMWs will aggregate real-time data to point drivers towards potential parking spaces and away from inevitable parking headaches. On-Street Parking,…

A Stealth Energy Startup Just Made a 10x Improvement to Its Fusion Tech

Tri Alpha Energy does not have a website. Its office in California is unmarked. But this stealth company apparently has hundreds of millions in cash. And now it has something to show for it, reportsScience: The company claims it’s gotten ten times better at containing high-energy particles necessary for fusion energy. But before we rev…

Intel’s Cheap Windows PC TV Dongle Is About To Get Way Better 

Cramming a full Windows PC inside of a cheap, $150 HDMI dongle sounds like a great idea—but Intel’s first attempt really fell flat. The Intel Compute Stick was underpowered, frustrating, and failed to live up to the hype. It wasn’t good enough to be a do-everything PC that fits in your pocket. No sweat: a…

Watch the slimy conveyor belt way a snail moves

The GIF, which was found onReddit, is sped up to reveal the mechanics behind how a snail slimes and glides and smooths its way over a surface. The body roll looks like a conveyor belt and is both gross and a weird sort of beautiful. Cool party trick. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us…

Launching a rocket underneath ice is always shatteringly great

I wouldn’t exactly advise everyone to try this when winter comes along again but I’d definitely say that launching a rocket underneath an icy lake is a very not bad way to spend like the forty seventh cold and boring winter day. It’s a little more spectacular than throwing boiling water in the air to…

In Modern Wars, What Happens To Captured Weapons?

For the U.S. Army, it depends on the type of weapons, and what our needs are. In Iraq, my unit regularly captured caches (sometimes very large ones). Typically these were your standard “slavshit” weapons — busted up AK-47s and AKMs, old RPKs, a few RPG-7 launchers and the like. We’d search through them, take anything…

Nobody Knows Why Giant Piles of Worms Mysteriously Gathered in Texas

After floods hit Denison, Texas last week, park rangers were mystified to find stringy clumps dotting the rain-soaked streets in inexplicably organized lines. It was no pasta-based après-flood prank. It was just piles of living, squiggling worms. Eisenhower State Park Superintendent Ben Herman told ABC News that rangers aren’t sure what’s up with the worms.…

Concept Art From The Neuromancer Movie That Never Was

Director Vincenzo Natali spent years working on a movie adaptation of William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, but it never came to fruition. Now he’s sharing art from the project, giving us a hint at what his Neuromancer movies might have looked like. In 2010, Natali came on board the Neuromancer adaptation, and we even saw…

Why Haven’t You Cancelled Your Cable?

Today the FCC voted to “effectively allow cable companies to charge whatever they like for all broadcast TV” — which is a shitty move. Most things about cable companies, the most hated of industries in terms of customer satisfaction, are terrible. Have you cut your cord or are you still wired in? It’s become a…

Want to know more about the mysterious Magic Leap and its plan to make virtual objects appear in the real world? Watch this fireside chat with three of the company’s leaders, including Snow Crash author Neal Stephenson. [MIT Tech Review]

Why a Footbridge In London Is Inspiring So Much Outrage

It doesn’t take much to make some cities angry. But in London, a special kind of rage is flowing over a project that seems pretty unobjectionable: A footbridge over the River Thames. Why? The Garden Bridge is pitched as an “enchanted space,” a “beautifully engineered copper-nickel structure” that’s home to a 1,200-foot-long garden spearheaded by…

You Can Now Own The Astrolabe From The Game Of Thrones Opening Credits

Or, as you might know it, “that spinning bronze sun thing that flies over the map while you’re humming along to the theme tune”. Yes, one of the coolest parts of Game of Thrones’ opening will soon be an elaborate display piece you put on your shelf. Perfectly for Game of Thrones though, you’ll have…