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Stop motion video makes marbles look like they have a mind of their own

This music video directed by Christophe Thockler for Victoria+Jean’s song Firecracker reminds me a little bit of staring inside a kaleidoscope. Only if the inside of that kaleidoscope was filled with mini-drones in the shape of marbles that move around as if they were controlled by one hive mind. My imagination aside, it’s pretty cool.…

Sploid Casey Chan

Using Satellites, We Can Spot Pirate Fishing Boats from Space

The ocean is vast. We cannot patrol all of it. But now environmental groups are getting into the satellite game, watching for illegal fishing boats from the skies. It’s just one more example of how high-quality, real-time satellite imagery can change our relationship to the world around us. NPR has a storyabout Pew Charitable Trust’s…

Tech News Sarah Zhang

Video: Making cast iron skillets the old fashioned way is pretty fun

Anthony Bourdain has a new show of sorts that explores the craftsmanship of certain items and the people behind them and the first episode focuses on Borough Furnace, a small metal casting workshop that makes handcrafted cast iron skillets. You see a bit of the process of how they turn recycled iron into cookware. It’s…

Sploid Casey Chan

BattleBots Is Back After Ten Years, And It’s Bound To Be Incredible

Oh hell yes: BattleBots is coming back to TV. This summer, homemade robots will battle to the death on television, just as Asimov intended. They’ll be faster and stronger than ever before. Which makes sense, because the last time BattleBots was on television was over a decade ago. Imagine what they could do now. According…

Television Sean Hollister

How the Pentagon plans to launch rockets into orbit using jet fighters

DARPA’s Airborne Launch Assist Space Accessis not a new idea. In fact, they have been working on it for some time. Now the Pentagon’s research arm have a neat concept video to show us how they are planning to put stuff in low earth orbit. You know, like satellites and other secret darpish things. SPLOID…

Sploid Jesus Diaz

Skin From Human Cadavers Helps Wounds Heal Better

Scientists have a promising if slightly grisly treatment for wounds: skin from human cadavers stripped of everything but its cells. Sound weird? Let me explain. Organ transplants are easy to understand; you take the whole organ and put it in a new body. But there are plenty of structures like ligaments, cartilage, the windpipe that…

Health Sarah Zhang

Jupiter Ascending‘s Spaceship Designs Are Even Cooler Than You Knew

Jupiter Ascending has some of the most stunning visuals we’ve ever seen in a space opera. The movie’s spaceships are just stunning, and unlike anything else in movies or elsewhere. We talked to lead designer George Hull, and he told us how Brutalist architecture and Siamese fighting fish influenced these ships. We’ve featured Hull’s artwork…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

This Bauhaus-Inspired Watch Is Smart Because It’s So Simple

When I started college, my family bought me a Mondaine Swiss Railway watch based on actual Swiss Railway clocks. I loved it. How could you beat a classic? Now, a new addition to the MoMA Design Store from Uniform Wares has shown me the way—in the form of a timepiece designed to look like Bauhaus-inspired…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

We’ve Reached Peak Self-Centered Jerk On The Vampire Diaries

Last night’s episode of The Vampire Diaries was pretty entertaining in parts — there was an epic silverware fight, and later Damon used bourbon as a weapon! — but it was also an episode in which the onslaught of selfish, short-sighted decisions got a little hard to watch at times. Spoilers ahead… Actually, the main…

Television Charlie Jane Anders

The concept art of Jupiter Ascending is glorious eye candy

“Jupiter Ascending isn’t just a mediocre film. It’s also self-indulgent, and in love with its own excesses,” says Charlie Jane Anders for io9. One of the excesses is the glorious eye candy, which seems to be a constant mental overload. You can thank the genius of George Hull and his baroque concept art for that.…

Sploid Jesus Diaz

Even Our Balloon Animals Will Soon Be Made By Robots

DARPA’s ATLAS is an impressive feat of robotics engineering, but despite representing the bleeding edge of automatons, it’s slow and clumsy when it comes to doing anything on its own. A better way to make a robot as skilled as a human is to simply put a human in complete control of it, manipulating it…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski

Prepare To Be Alarmed, But Unsurprised, By The “Princess Bedroom” Trend

We can’t take our eyes off photos the Wall Street Journal published in its recent exploration of the pricey, Disney-inspired “princess bedroom” boom … nor can we scrape our jaws off the floor at the dollar amounts quoted therein. $35,000 for a wee carriage-shaped bed, you say? The article, which contains not a speck of…

io9 Cheryl Eddy

How to perfectly cut a giant glass pane by slamming it

I’ve seen this cutting operation with smaller glass panes, but I would have never imagined that it could work so nicely at such a big scale without the glass shattering in a million pieces. I can watch these dudes doing this job for hours. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Sploid Jesus Diaz

Boost Important Emails To the Top of your Gmail Inbox with Boomerang

There’s a danger that once you’ve replied to a thread in Gmail it can sink lower and lower down your priority list and eventually get forgotten about altogether. If you want to make sure that you’re following up important messages when they don’t get a response, then this popular browser extension is one way to…

Gadgets David Nield

This Time, The Bride Killed Bill With Cuteness

If you’re looking for something to do in Los Angeles tonight, consider swinging by the opening of Truck Torrence‘s Mass Hysteria! show at Gallery 1988 (East). Torrence will be showing off his pop culture crowd illustrations, packed with adorable versions of familiar TV and movie characters. What possesses Torrence, who also goes by 100% Soft,…

io9 Lauren Davis

The Long, Spiraling Path NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft Will Take to Ceres

Over the next few months, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will be slowly spiraling down toward Ceres, a dwarf planet out in the asteroid belt. Ceres’ gravity and Dawn’s ion drive will work together to pull the spacecraft into a tighter and tighter orbit, which is rather mesmerizing traced out in full like this. Dawn is already…

Space & Spaceflight Sarah Zhang

Kirk Brawls With Vader In This Glorious Star Trek Vs. Star Wars Trailer

It’s the age old question that has seen nerds gesticulate wildly at each other for decades – Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer. Bat’leth vs. Lightsaber. Vader vs. Kirk. But it turns out there are only winners (that’s us) when Star Wars and Star Trek go toe-to-toe in this very silly, very fun trailer mashup. The trailer…

Tech News James Whitbrook

Two Doctor Who Showrunners Just Had The Best/Dumbest Argument Ever

Everyone gets into arguments about their nerdy passions. This even includes former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies and current showrunner Steven Moffat, who just brought one of their super-important canon arguments to light: Namely, did the Doctor have sex with Queen Elizabeth I? As you may recall, the Doctor has been married to River…

io9 Rob Bricken

Original Birdman Ending Could Have Starred Johnny Depp

We really enjoyed Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, and the ending certainly left us with a lot of questions. However, the original ending would have been a bit more finite and even furthered one of the themes of Hollywood’s obsession with ego and fame. Oh, and it would have featured Johnny Depp. Over on the Q&A…

Movies Meredith Woerner

A Beginner’s Guide to Mezcal, Tequila’s Divine Cousin

About a decade ago, a friend of mine had a year of magical drinking. He’d been through a rough patch, moved home to Southern California, and taken up residency at a local tequila bar. Not really much of a drinker, he’d usually just read and people watch. A single drink would last him the afternoon.…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

Stop motion video makes marbles look like they have a mind of their own

Using Satellites, We Can Spot Pirate Fishing Boats from Space

Video: Making cast iron skillets the old fashioned way is pretty fun

BattleBots Is Back After Ten Years, And It’s Bound To Be Incredible

How the Pentagon plans to launch rockets into orbit using jet fighters

Skin From Human Cadavers Helps Wounds Heal Better

Jupiter Ascending‘s Spaceship Designs Are Even Cooler Than You Knew

This Bauhaus-Inspired Watch Is Smart Because It’s So Simple

We’ve Reached Peak Self-Centered Jerk On The Vampire Diaries

The concept art of Jupiter Ascending is glorious eye candy

Even Our Balloon Animals Will Soon Be Made By Robots

Prepare To Be Alarmed, But Unsurprised, By The “Princess Bedroom” Trend

How to perfectly cut a giant glass pane by slamming it

Boost Important Emails To the Top of your Gmail Inbox with Boomerang

This Time, The Bride Killed Bill With Cuteness

The Long, Spiraling Path NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft Will Take to Ceres

Kirk Brawls With Vader In This Glorious Star Trek Vs. Star Wars Trailer

Two Doctor Who Showrunners Just Had The Best/Dumbest Argument Ever

Original Birdman Ending Could Have Starred Johnny Depp

A Beginner’s Guide to Mezcal, Tequila’s Divine Cousin

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