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Confirmation That Photosynthesizing Sea Slugs Steal Genes From Algae

For decades, scientists have puzzled over how a certain sea slug acquires the ability to photosynthesize after ingesting algae. An advanced imaging technique now confirms that the slugs are literally stealing genes from the algae. It’s considered the first example of “horizontal gene transfer” in a multicellular organism. Researcher Sidney Pierce and colleagues have shown…

What Are You Working On?

Whether it’s a full-time project or more of a spare-time deal, we want to see all the work that you’ve been cooking up in your labs, basements, garages, sewing rooms, and everywhere else. Get ready to be admired, because it’s io9 show-and-tell time! Show us a couple pictures, stills, project designs of the small scale…

Man’s Wikipedia Edits Mostly Consist Of Deleting ‘Comprised Of’

How far would you go to correct your pet peeve? Would you create a computer program just to find it? Would you build a weekly, scheduled habit around curating those results? Would you, ultimately, manually edit tens of thousands of Wikipedia articles to obliterate that pet peeve from the face of the internet? One man…

First Daredevil Trailer Is Dark, Dangerous And Full of Ass-Kicking

Behold the very first footage from Marvel’s inaugural Netflix series Daredevil! Take a look at the dark, gritty world Matt Murdock/Daredevil is going to have to clean up, one punch at a time. Plus, a few glimpses of the Kingpin! Look at all that blood! This might be the bloodiest Marvel trailer to date. Boardwalk…

Back in the 1800s, Punxsutawney Phil would have been a meal. Back in the day, Gobbler’s Knob was the site of an annual groundhog hunt. You can read all about the history of groundhogs in Pennsylvania at History.com.

Huge Game Of Thrones Rumor Debunked, But What About That Avengers Rumor?

A long-running Game of Thrones rumor is seemingly quashed for good. Plus, we may already know who’s playing Star Trek 3’s villain. John Wesley Shipp talks about the difference between the Flash shows old and new. And a classic Star Wars villain is coming to Rebels. Hi-yo, Spoilers, away! Top image: Agents of SHIELD. Avengers:…

One Year Later, Obama Failing on Promise to Rein in NSA

A year ago, President Obama made tepid promises to reform the NSA (check out our analysis of those commitments). Today, he followed up with more specifics. What do you need to know? His reform plan: Fails to fix the problem of unconstitutional National Security Letters The President’s reform proposes a three-year limit on the gag…

This skeleton is a long exposure and time-lapse photography masterclass

LA-based director Darren Pearson gives a masterclass on long exposure photography and light painting technique in this neat video. The time-lapse shows a light-made skeleton with some serious skateboarding skills. Darren writes: These light-sculptures are created through long exposure photography (the same technique commonly used to write a name with a sparkler or capture car…

Here Are the Clothes We Need For the Inevitable Apocalypse

Gelareh produces clothes that I absolutely will never be able to afford, but that I would absolutely loot post-apocalypse. Although the white ones may draw far too much attention from the drones hunting us from the skies. But for now, the new look for spring and summer based on spinal columns. If, for whatever reason,…

This video game sums up life in the most heartbreaking way possible

PipocaVFX’s We Go Forward starts off as most cheery side scrolling video games do: run, jump, smash bad guys and keep going forward. But then the game transforms into a metaphor for life: we can’t make the jump but we can’t go backwards so we settle, we teach our kids to be better and then…

Comic Con Gets a Villainous Makeover in The Minions Trailer

While the first Minions trailer delved into the centuries-long hunt by the adorable yellow creatures for a purpose, this new one gives a better look at the story of the Despicable Me prequel. It involves the Minions visiting the Villain-Con and going home with world-famous evil person Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock). Although the film takes…

It’s a New Episode of Haphead, the VR Gamer Dystopia Series

io9 is proud to be distributing new episodes of Haphead every week. In episode 3, we start to see the results of all Maxine’s haptic brain interface gaming — she’s become a serious ninja. But at home, she’s still fighting with her old-school punk dad about being a wage slave. Created by Jim Munroe, Haphead…

Can you recognize popular brand logos even if they are in Chinese?

A good logo should be easily and universally recognized, even if it were written in Chinese. But sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Chinatown, a project by Mehmet Gozetlik, shows how a famous logo can look both foreign and yet still somehow be recognizable at the same time. It’s like getting a glimpse of…

Someone Beat Amazon To The Drone Delivery Party

Drone delivery might be a pipe dream, but it’s Amazon’s pipe dream. Well, not any more: Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba has a drone delivery pilot programme, starting today. From now until Friday, select members of the public in Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai will be able to order a particular brand of ginger tea (which…

Watch the unbelievable camouflage super powers of an octopus

Octopuses have become my favorite animals because it’s very clear that they possess super powers from an alien world and even clearer that they use those powers for evil (or exactly how I would use them). Here’s an octopus showing off his truly incredible camouflage powers. It goes from a brown mound to a blue…

This Cable Charges Your Phone Faster – Sort Of

You might think that plugging a USB cable into a USB socket would mean your phone always juices up at the same speed — but you would be sorely mistaken. Charging your phone is a surprisingly complicated thing to get right, a problem that this particular crowdfunding campaign is on a mission to solve. Let’s…

Hilariously horrifying parody of every commercial for kids in the 90s

I don’t know if ridiculous 90’s style commercials like this completely disappeared or if it was just because I stopped watching Saturday morning cartoons but I totally miss getting sold diabetes or useless toys from overexcited kids and crude special effects and weird parents. This parody of those 90’s commercial nails them. RocketJump totally skewers…

A week ago, while you were safely tucked up in bed, a group of NASA scientists up in Alaska were preparing to launch a rocket into the Northern Lights. The Auroral Spatial Structures Probe was a mid-sized rocket, launched 30 miles into the thermosphere to study the electromagnetic energy that heats the atmosphere during the…

Infrared Astronomy Defeats Trash Bags But Finds Glasses Challenging

My love affair with the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope is no secret. I seek shapes in glowing nebula, and never pass up amultispectral composite image with an infrared layer. But what benefit does it actually serve to stare into space in these longer wavelengths? Top image: The same scene seen in optical and infrared light.…

Putting Up Fences Could Wipe Out Australia’s Plague Of Cane Toads

Australia’s cane toads are an instructive case of the problems of invasive species, as the creatures were originally introduced to control pests and then became a pest themselves. But now new research indicates that the best control mechanism is surprisingly simple: fences. Image credit:Cane toad | Sapo de caña (Rhinella marina) by Fernando Flores/flickr/CC By…