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You Used to Need a Court Order to Get Gmail to Unsend

This week we’re celebrating the arrival of an undo send option in Gmail. But one did not always simply unsend an email — in fact, just last year, Goldman Sachs had to get a court order before Google would unsend an email full of sensitive data that had mistakenly arrived in the inbox of the…

This Statue is a 500-Year-Old Snark Message Board

This is Pasquino, a statue near the famous Piazza Navona in Rome. For the past 500 years, it’s where you go when you want to read something mean, snarky, or scandalous about someone, and you didn’t have the internet to help you. The statue Pasquino was created well before the 1500s. Historians think it was…

Uncharted Movie Is Taking a New Direction—And Loses Its Director

Fans waiting to see the video game Uncharted as a movie are going to keep waiting. Another director has left the film and a source close to the production tells io9 the project is going in another direction. The first Uncharted video game was released in 2007 and instantly became a fan favorite. It starred…

Intense Scifi Film Shot Entirely in Moonlight Looks Completely Alien

23.2 lightyears from Earth sits the Scorpius Constellation, where scientists are working on an artificial biosphere that can harbor human life. And perhaps some other forms of life, too. That’s the premise of the violent, action-packed scifi short Refuge, which was released yesterday and is being billed as “the first narrative film ever shot with…

The lung-on-a-chip honored by the Design Museum in London this yearisn’t a one-off design, but a versatile method that can be applied to lots of human tissues. To wit: the National Institutes of Health just developed a placenta-on-a-chip, combining fetal and maternal cells to study how they interact. Contact the author at [email protected].

Why Didn’t Will Smith Come Back For Independence Day: Resurgence?

Tell anyone there’s an Independence Day sequel in the works and their first question is, “Is Will Smith coming back?” He’s not, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Now, it seems like one of reasons why he isn’t is M. Night Shyamalan. Smith has long been a mainstay of science fiction with hits…

Camera zooms can get so ridiculously close it’s scary

If you want to be a total creep and spy on things from miles away, just get a camera like the Nikon P900. The zoom is so ridiculous it’s scary. Check out the video by Fratila Angelo below that shows just how close you can get. It shows an excavator at work and when it…

Scooby-Doo Actually Had A Pretty Pro-Science Message

Scooby-Doo had plenty to teach us about meddling kids, hijinks, and the virtues of DIY van repair. But was there also a little something in there about the scientific method? io9’s comment of the day comes from commenter krashkow, who shared these thoughts on the underlying philosophy of Scooby Doo, and the scientific lessons they…

The Real Reason You Get Red Eyes After Swimming Is Gross

If you get bloodshot eyes after you take a dip in a swimming pool, know that it’s not chlorine to blame. It’s something far more disgusting! The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would like you to know that those red, itchy eyes were caused by someone’s pool pee. “Chlorine binds with all the things…

Shooting Challenge: Living Shadows

The days are long, and the shadows are longer. For this week’s Shooting Challenge, be a kid again and photograph your (or someone’s) shadow. The Challenge Photograph a shadow. Let’s make ‘em human or animal rather than just buildings, etc. The Method The real secret to photographing good shadows—assuming you don’t just set up a…

This Might Just Be The Most Weirdly Specific Star Wars Figure Ever Made

Star Wars has a noted history for creating toys out of even the most minor character, or the smallest costume change. Guy with an ice cream maker on Bespin? Action figure. Blue George Lucas? Action figure. But this Boba Fett toy being made for Comic-Con is perhaps the most bizarrely specific Star Wars toy of…

The Guy Who Invented Cell Phones Thinks Apps Suck 

The inventor of the first cell phone thinks that someday we’ll all have tiny computers implanted behind our ears instead of phones. He also thinks apps are terrible. Motherboard interviewed Marty Cooper, the 89-year-old creator of the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, which was the first handheld mobile phone—and Cooper made some bold predictions about the future…

This Chart Shows How Many People Have Died From Conflicts Since 1400

Oxford University’s Max Roser has meticulously pieced together a chart showing the global death rate from war over the past 600 years—and it paints a surprisingly optimistic picture. Each circle in the chart represents a conflict (data was pulled from the Conflict Catalog, 1400-2000 — so it doesn’t include the past 15 years). The size…

Which Scientist’s Life Would Make an Amazing Movie?

We’re seeing quite a few biopics about scientists these days, with films like The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, and now a possible upcoming movie about Charles Darwin. But what other scientist — perhaps someone lesser known — has a life story just crying out to be a movie? Let us know which scientist…

Watch a blacksmith masterfully forge a pair of tongs

It is an incredible amount of work to forge a pair of fireplace tongs. Like, this blacksmith should be awarded with a medal that lets everyone know that they should pat him on the back. Like he should think about retirement after shaping these tongs from metal. Watch the epic process of blacksmith Torbjörn Åhman…

How Ant-Man Will Affect Marvel’s Movies For Years To Come

Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige dropped a ton of Marvel news in a new interview, including several teases of specifically how Ant-Man will have an effect on Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which directors he’s met with for upcoming movies, recasting roles, Spider-Man and more. Let’s start with Ant-Man, which opens July 17.…

Go Now, These 11 Historic Places May Soon Be Gone Forever

It’s that time of year again: The National Trust For Historic Preservation has published is annual list of of the most endangered places in the country. And as always, it’s pretty damn depressing. The list is a way for the National Trust to call attention to buildings and places that are close to being demolished,…

We May Have Dramatically Misunderstood the Shapes of Black Holes

Even if you didn’t see Interstellar, you’ve probably heard about how black holes have an “event horizon” — and once you pass it, you’re mashed into multi-dimensional mush. But now, some physicists believe we got it all wrong. Black holes are more like fuzzy balls of cotton, with no event horizons at all. Over at…

Spider-Gwen‘s New Comic Confirms Not Everything Is “All-New” For Marvel

Good news, everyone! Spider-Gwen — the alt-verse Gwen Stacey who becomes Spider-Woman — will get a new series after Marvel stops shaking up its current comics with Secret Wars. The weird news? It also confirms that the Marvel universe we’re getting later this year may not be as “All-New, All Different” as we thought. https://gizmodo.com/marvel-will-launch-an-all-new-all-different-universe-1708974973…

Watch the World Fly By, One Instagram Hyperlapse at a Time

I just watched the sun set on Russia. Pigs run around a farm in Denmark. Hundreds of New York City students graduating in cap and gown. These things just recenty happened in locations all around the world, and yet I saw them all in less than a minute. Hyperlax is basically just a website that…