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Restaurant Installs “Intruder Spray” To Tag Burglars With Synthetic DNA

A Subway franchise in Knoxville, Tenn. is the first US business to arm itself with “intruder spray,” which tags would-be robbers with a product called SelectaDNA. According to the manufacturer, the solution contains “a unique DNA code which can be used to uniquely mark and trace both items of property and criminals.” SelectaDNA’s US distributor,…

This Week’s TV: M. Night Shyamalan Debuts His Own Version Of Twin Peaks

M. Night Shyamalan launches us into a new mysterious town with his series Wayward Pines — and it might not be completely awful. HBO’s latest true crime documentary asks: should we arrest a man for talking about planning to commit a crime? Plus, we’ve got the season finales of Arrow, Grimm, The Vampire Diaries, and…

Is This Our First Look At Lupita Nyong’o’s Alien In The Force Awakens?

We recently found out that actress Lupita Nyong’o was using her considerable talents to play a all-new, motion-captured character for Star Wars: Episode VII. Now we may also know what that character looks like, too. As you may remember, Nyong’o is playing Maz Kabata, a space pirate who lords over a wide variety of smugglers,…

Here’s Your Chance To Own This Legendarily Weird Star Wars Poster Art

All serious Star Wars fans know the work of Tibor Helényi. The Hungarian painter, who sadly passed away last year, created some of the most-hated and beloved posters for the original Star Wars trilogy. And now, more than one year after his death, the original oil paintings are going to be auctioned off on May…

Cornell University’s Institute for Pale Blue Dots has a new name. Now called the Carl Sagan Institute: Pale Blue Dot and Beyond, the multidisciplinary research institute is dedicated to investigating the life-harboring potential of other planets, and to acquiring a richer understanding of our own. Image: Jason Koski/University Photography

Every living room is awesome with Emmet’s double-decker Lego Movie couch

Emmet Brickowoski was repeatedly mocked for his double-decker couch idea in The Lego Movie, but in real-life it’s an absolutely brilliant creation that the folks at Super-Fan Builds have finally turned into an actual piece of furniture. Having to look through the legs of everyone sitting on the upper-section is a small price to pay…

Ant-Man Is Maybe The Most Perfect Idea For Funko’s Pop! Vinyl Toys

I mean, after all, it’s a movie about normal people turning into tiny little people punching the everloving crap out of each other. Why not make tiny, cutesy toys out of them? If anything, Funko hasn’t gone far enough in miniaturising Scott Lang and Darren Cross. Just as the Sun rises and sets, Funko have…

MIT Finally Figured Out How To Remove Your Reflection From Window Photos

How often have you had a great photo-op ruined by there being a window in-between you and your subject resulting in reflections in your shot? So far there’s just no easy way to fix that in post-production, but researchers at MIT, led by YiChang Shih, have developed an algorithm that can extract and automatically remove…

The White House’s Fence Upgrade Looks Straight Out of Game of Thrones

From toddlers to truly deranged adults, the White House has seen its share of intruders this year. Now, the Secret Service and the Parks Service are upgrading the fence that so many crazies have scrambled over. And they’re using millennia-old defense techniques. After several embarrassing breaches this year, the Secret Service began looking for ways…

Seeing 1.3 million particles get thrown in a bowl is weirdly satisfying

Maybe it’s because they look like cheese puffs? I don’t know. But seeing this visual simulation of 1.3 million orange cheese puffy-ish particles get thrown into a bowl and the cascading physics that results because of that thought experiment basically stole my eyeballs for much longer than it should have. I just want to pour…

Razer Nabu X Review: Fit for Fitness, Not for Gaming

Razer loves to announce BIG, INDUSTRY SHAKING gadgets only to immediately scale them down. The company’s first laptop started life as a handheld game console. Its first tablet originally had handlebars. The Nabu X is Razer’s latest big idea, similarly shrunk down. It’s weird, but also kinda neat. What Was It? Okay,so originally, the Nabu…

Worried about “The Talk”? Teach Your Kids Sex Education With Candy

Even after more than a decade of studying sex in animals, my own attempts to teach my children about the “birds and the bees” were fraught with embarrassment, mostly for them. I wish I’d been as clever as medical educator Danielle Teller. In a recent article on Quartz, she describes a sugar-fueled game that got…

So Domain Trolling Is Totally a Campaign Tactic Now

The first big trend in online campaigning is emerging for the 2016 presidential race, and it’s domain trolling, or buying up the domain names of your political foes. Go to TedCruz.com and you’ll get redirected to a webpage praising Obama. Go to CarlyFiorina.org and you’ll see 30,000 sad-face emoticons representing all the people she laid…

Easily Add GIFs to Your Gmail With This Slick Chrome Extension

Giphy’s great new Chrome extension builds an animated image search engine right into your editor. I’m freaking out. Every party invitation email needs a GIF, and who wants to go to the trouble of doing a Google image search to find the perfect one. Ugh. The Labor. It’s pretty simple: After installing the extension, you’ll…

A Prank Image of a Peeing Android Killed Google’s Maps Editor

Google has temporarily shut down its Map Maker program while it figures out how to stop people from inserting pranks into its maps, like the image of an Android robot taking a big pee on an Apple logo that prompted an apology last month. Map Editor team member Pavithra Kanakarajan wrote a blog post explaining…

Meet the Crack Team That Designed the Technology in Age of Ultron

You probably didn’t think about it sitting in the theater, but all the screens and interfaces in Avengers: Age of Ultron were designed by someone in the real world—from Stark’s Iron Man schematics to Cho’s medical scans. Who are the designers that built this world? MeetTerritory Studio. At one point in the film, Stark says…

3D-Print This Flying Toy You Launch From a High-Speed Spinning Dremel

If you thought rotary tools like the Dremel were all work and no play, Make has a fun tutorial you’ll definitely want to try. You’ll need access to a 3D printer to create this flying toy disc affectionately called the Dremel Devil, and a rotary tool that you can power outside where it’s safest to…

Why Is There A Hole In Airplane Windows?

Here’s a question you’ve probably asked at some point in your life. Most likely you’ve asked it in passing, while parked in seat 22A on a flight to… wherever: What’s with that little hole in the airplane window? Photo Credit: Pedro Moura Pinheiro | CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 The purpose of this tiny hole is the…

Fracking Activity Is Probably Causing Earthquakes in Texas

Fracking can’t catch a break from bad press recently: Some think it’s triggering earthquakes in Texas, a state usually lacking in seismic activity. The U.S. Geological Survey says that the Dallas area (a fracking hub) has experienced 40 mini-temblors this year, with a 2.7 quake detected just this weekend. In January, nearby Irving was hit…

Mike Huckabee Half-Heartedly Defends His Cinnamon Pill Cure For Diabetes

If you’re looking for garbage health advice, there are quite a few people to turn to: Dr. Oz, The Food Babe, and… Mike Huckabee? Yes, presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has been peddling garbage supplements that are supposed to help cure diabetes. And he was on Face the Nation yesterday where he defended against critics of…