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How to Solve a Jewel Heist (and Why It Takes So Long)

London’s recent Hatton Garden heist was a burglary that to all intents and purposes appeared to be taken from a work of fiction. A daring raid that involved climbing down lift shafts, drilling through a reinforced concrete wall, gaining entry to a secure vault and breaking numerous secure metal safe boxes before making away with…

World War Z 2 has a release date of June 9, 2017. That puts it up against the already-announced Fantastic Four 2. Z 2 vs Four 2 — which film is most likely to actually come out on that date? [Deadline]

Jon Snow Is the Hero of Coldplay’s Game of Thrones Musical

After releasing small bits of the Game of Thrones: The Musical sketch for Red Nose Day, the full thing has finally arrived. Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton) may be giving the performance of his life by acting so enthusiastic about this. But none of it would be possible without Jon Snow. There are some great bits…

Reese Witherspoon Will Be the Live-Action Tinkerbell In Disney’s Tink

Congratulations — I guess? — to Tinkerbell, the latest character to get the live-action treatment from Disney. And Reese Witherspoon will be playing her. Tink’s actually been kicking around for awhile. We first heard about it back in 2010, when it was supposed to star Elizabeth Banks and McG was set to direct. In 2012,…

What Good is Measuring an Erection? 

You may have noticed some news around these weird sounding devices that measure “arousal”. They don’t. But they do measure changes in penile shape, and as such, can give users a rough estimate – in a non-invasive way – of how much blood is flowing into the penis during erection. Image: Diane Kelly How does…

Concept Art Writing Prompt: A Space Botanist Marooned

In this week’s Concept Art Writing Prompt by Alice Duke, a botanist contemplates her life on an alien planet with only her mutant dog creature for company. What story can you spin about this lady and her far-off thoughts? Each week, we feature an intriguing image that we hope will set your imagination running. If…

AdultFriendFinder Hack Might Expose Your Sexual Orientation

When a company or website you trust gets hacked, it can be pretty unnerving. Particularly if you trusted that company with your credit card or medical information. But what if the hackers had knowledge of your sex life instead? That could be a reality: AdultFriendFinder has suffered a massive data breach. https://gizmodo.com/targets-data-breach-settlement-could-pay-victims-10-00-1692327242 The UK’s Channel…

Here’s An Idea to Make Sure Your Rent Stays Low: Haunt the Building

What’s more expensive than living in New York? Living in an apartment in a popular, swiftly gentrifying part of New York when your landlord jacks up the rent to try to squeeze you out. So what do you do to prevent this from happening? Invent ghosts. This seems to be what’s going on in a…

These Video Tours Of Abandoned Mansions Are Incredibly Spooky

We love photographs of grand, abandoned buildings, where we can see what happens when once-luxurious digs fall into decay. But there’s something special about taking a video tour of a crumbling mansions… something that makes the experience a little creepier. Chateau de Bois, Belgium, built in 1912, abandoned since 1996, when two Dutch brothers bought…

Boondoggle HQ: The $25 Million Building in Afghanistan Nobody Needed

This is a story about how the U.S. military built a lavish headquarters in Afghanistan that wasn’t needed, wasn’t wanted and wasn’t ever used at a cost to American taxpayers of at least $25 million. From start to finish, this 64,000-square-foot mistake could easily have been avoided. Not one, not two, but three generals tried…

This Response To Solar Sail Haters Is On Point (And It Rhymes!)

For everything that is good out there, there’s always someone to naysay it. So how to respond when the haters come for our solar sails? With poetry, friends, only poetry. io9’s comment of the day today comes from this post on the successful launch of secret space plane X-37B, along with something interesting there for…

What Kinds of Apps Will the Kids of Tomorrow Use After Snapchat Dies?

Today we learned that the only person in the office excited about Microsoft’s Outlook updates was one of the youngest amongst us. Who can predict what the kids today will be into? More importantly for our purposes, what will the youth of tomorrow be using social tech for? https://gizmodo.com/we-talked-to-a-man-who-is-actually-excited-about-micros-1706111468 The post-millennial generation are digital natives…

How To Make A Microphone Out Of A Matchbox

Talk to a headphones-wearing friend on a microphone made out of a matchbox and a pencil lead. Sure, you could use a regular microphone, but would it be as cool? Say you’re MacGyver. You’re in an evil-doer’s secret lair, and are about to go and reveal his plan to the world. Suddenly, he realizes you’re…

NASA’s Plan To Make Cheap Spacecraft That Will Explore Distant Worlds

Right now, the cost of studying the atmosphere of a distant planet or moon is a multi-million dollar mission. But NASA is working to make space exploration way more affordable—using cheap, lightweight CubeSats. The CubeSat, a spacecraft that is just 10cm by 10cm, has been enthusiastically adopted by citizen scientists, students, and budget-strapped researchers over…

Animals Are Now “Sentient Beings” According To New Zealand Law

Earlier this month, a change was made to New Zealand’s Animal Welfare Amendment Bill stating that animals — like humans — are “sentient” beings. As reported in The Independent, the updated Act means it’s now a legal requirement for the citizens of New Zealand to “recognize animals as sentient.” Accordingly, “owners of animals, and persons…

The Problem With the Doomsday Seed Vault

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is undeniably fascinating: This concrete slab that juts out of the barren snowscape may represent humanity’s last hope in an apocalypse. But recently, plant scientists have questioned its mission. Is a remote refrigerator really the best way to preserve crop diversity? Over at the Guardian, Suzanne Goldberg has a lengthy…

See The Flash‘s Speed Force Scene (And All Its Easter Eggs) In Slow-Mo

If you watched this week’s finale of The Flash, you know that Barry Allen traveled into the Speed Force, which allowed him to run through time itself, amidst images of the past and the future. As such, it was jam-packed with fun comics easter eggs, and now you can get a really good look at…

Trailer For The Batkid Documentary Will Make You Feel All Warm And Fuzzy

With the help of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, five-year-old Miles Scott stole our hearts when he fulfilled his dream of becoming Batman for a day. The trailer for the upcoming documentary Batkid Begins takes us behind the scenes of the day that San Francisco became Gotham City and Miles became a hero. Batkid Begins hits theaters…

This Surreal Rotoscoping Of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” Is Everything

How did civilization exist before we had this? A group of 49 animation students were each given 52 frames of Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” music video, to rotoscope anyway they wanted. The results are surreal and astonishing. Can’t stop, won’t stop, watching this madness. [via BoingBoing] Contact the author at [email protected].

America’s Trains Suck Because Most Americans Don’t Ride Them

Last week’s horrific Amtrak crash surfaced new concerns about the US’s neglect of its rail infrastructure, with blame falling on Congress for failing to allocate enough money to upgrade the system for safety. The truth is that trains would be the safest way to travel in this country—if more Americans embraced a future on rails.…