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Seeing cactuses bloom flowers is like watching aliens grow tumors

Usually when you see flowers bloom, it’s a beautiful, almost hypnotic phenomenon. It’s not exactly that poetic with cactuses though. Though the flowers themselves are ridiculously vibrant, the cactuses look like they’ve had radioactive appendages randomly glued onto their bodies. This time lapse, Freaky Flowers: Echinopsis Cacti in Bloom, was filmed by EchinopsisFreak: Echinopsis cactus…

Message Board Scrabble Lets Everyone Play Whenever They Have Time

One of the reasons Words With Friends became so popular on smartphones was because it let players take as much time as they needed between turns. There was no pressure from other players while everyone sat around a game board at a table. So perhaps this hanging message board version of Scrabble was partly inspired…

This ad’s food porn made me so hungry I’m now hypnotized

This commercial for Japanese restaurant Yugo—a very cool place in Madrid, Spain, decorated like a World War II Japanese bunker—is making me drool so much that I’m afraid of drowning in my own saliva. I want to stuff my face with a bucket full of those broiled toro nigiri. That’s the only thing in my…

What Was Your Favorite Book When You Were Growing Up?

Sometimes when you read a book can be as important to what you think of it as the story itself — and one of the best times to really get into a book is when you’re a kid. Maybe your favorite book then and your favorite book now are one and the same. Maybe you’ve…

Set Your Dropbox Links to Expire for Safer File Sharing

A few months ago, Dropbox added the ability to add expiration dates to the shared links you send out to let others get at your files and folders. Even if you’re very trusting of your friends and colleagues, it’s a good idea to apply this setting to all of the links you share. If someone…

Irregular-Shaped Building Blocks Let Kids Build Ultra-Modern Skyscrapers

Hot Wheels doesn’t sell tiny die-cast horse and buggies to kids these days, so why would anyone assume that children would want to build ancient castles with building blocks? Areaware’s Blockitecture set—designed by James Paulius—instead features a collection of irregularly-shaped wooden blocks that can be stacked and balanced to create a towering modern high-rise. Not…

This Little Cutie Is Hiding A Horrifying Secret In Its Cellar

For the most part, the collared pika is a vegetarian. But winters are cold in Alaska, and when the opportunity presents itself, this adorable animal finds a food source that is decidedly not vegetarian. The collared pika looks like a rat or groundhog, but it’s most closely related to rabbits. Like a rabbit, it snacks,…

Satellite imagery reveals how gold mining is destroying tropical forests

The picture above is terrible. It shows the catastrophic effects of the deforestation caused by the current gold rush in the tropical forests of South America. The consumption of gold worldwide is increasing in the last years due to the global economic crisis and the instability in the financial markets. According to a paper published…

Watch more cute monster animation drawings get inserted into daily life

I just love the fake cartoon reality that augmented reality artist Marty Cooper creates within our world because his character drawings pack so much personality that I just want them to be real. Here he is with part three in his Aug(de)mented Reality series, which splices crazy cute monster drawings into normal situations of real…

Another Independence Day Star Is Coming Back For The Sequel

Have Marvel and Sony found their new Spider-Man? Could an Avenger fall in Age of Ultron? Neill Blomkamp talks about his Alien movie. The next Star Wars may begin with a crash landing. Plus, what’s next on Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and more. Rejoice, for there are spoilers! Top image: The Walking Dead.…

Cats Using Instagram, and Everything Else You Missed Yesterday

Cats posting to Instagram, Microsoft invading Android tablets, LG’s goes metal on the G4. This is all the news and rumors from the past 24 hours, all on BitStream. We have reached peak technology. Pack it up. We’re done. Whiskas, a company known more for feline food than feline wearables, is working on a “Catstacam,”…

This MCU Themed House Turns Your Living Space Into Avengers Tower

Sure, there’s being a fan of the Marvel movies — watching them all, going to midnight screenings, buying the merch, reading the comics — and then there’s decking your house out with wall-spanning prints and giant logos. That’s like, Coulson-levels of fanboying right there. The job was taken on by Absolook Interior Design, who took…

How a Bee Sting Saved My Life

Ellie Lobel was ready to die. Then she was attacked by bees. Christie Wilcox hears how venom can be a saviour. “I moved to California to die.” Ellie Lobel was 27 when she was bitten by a tick and contracted Lyme disease. And she was not yet 45 when she decided to give up fighting…

These Light-Emitting Fibers Could Make Fabrics That Glow

A team of researchers has developed a new light-emitting fiber than could be woven into fabrics, providing flexible smart fabrics than can illuminate themselves. The fibers use a stainless steel wire core, which is coated with a thin layer of ZnO nanoparticles and then wrapped in electroluminescent polymer. Finally, a transparent coating of carbon nanotubes…

A German Airbus A320 Has Crashed in the French Alps

A passenger airplane operated by German airline Germanwings—Lufthansa’s low-cost division—has crashed in the Alps in southern France. The Airbus A320 crashed close to the mountain village of Barcelonette during a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf. The French TV station iTele reports that there are at least 142 passengers and 6 crew-members were aboard. Newspaper Le…

This is what happens when you ask OK Go to make your commercial

Damian Kulash—lead singer of OK Go and the guy who creates their popular music videos—just made this neat commercial for the Chinese home furniture brand Red Star Macalline. The ad features the band members and follows the same visual style as their video The Writing’s on the Wall. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us…

“It costs how much for 10MB? Forget it, my email can wait.” [Truth Facts]

Curiosity Has Found Nitrates Important for Life on Mars

Samples obtained by NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars have been analyzed and shown to contain nitrogen compounds, that are a source of nutrients for living things. Researchers have been scouring Mars for signs of organic carbon, but they’ve now discovered signs of nitrates at three areas on the Red Planet—Rocknest, John Klein and Cumberland. The…

Graphic novel I Kill Giants, about a young woman fighting real and imaginary monsters,is making its way to the big screen. Joe Kelly will adapt his own graphic novel into a screenplay. And Anders Walter, of Oscar-winning short Helium, will direct. [Deadline]

This Is What the First Growth Spurt of a Star Looks Like

A team of astronomers has pieced together data from orbiting observatories to create this image of a star undergoing a huge growth spurt during the earliest phase of its development. In the images, the protostar known as HOPS 383 appears to accumulate a huge mass of gas and dust in a very short period. Known…