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The FAA’s Drone Ban at the Super Bowl Is Absurd

You may have heard about the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) quietly declaring that this year’s Super Bowl will be a “no drone zone.” You may not have heard just how big that no drone zone will be. It’s 60 miles wide. The no drone zone is larger than the city of Phoenix. Seems a little…

Hunting Ducks from a Folding Kayak

The folding Oru Kayak goes from flatpack to floating in just minutes. Tough enough for the real world? We took it down the Colorado River, armed with a shotgun, to find out. https://gizmodo.com/hunting-ducks-from-a-folding-kayak-1682584159

Hunting Ducks from a Folding Kayak

The folding Oru Kayak goes from flatpack to floating in just minutes. Tough enough for the real world? We took it down the Colorado River, armed with a shotgun, to find out. We all grew up hunting ducks. For most, it was in the form of 8-bit ducks on the original Nintendo. But, for the…

America Likes Science. It Does Not Like Scientists’ Findings.

Survey results published Thursday by the Pew Research Center in collaboration with the American Academy for the Advancement of Science indicate most Americans hold science in high esteem, while revealing huge opinion gaps between scientists and the general public over issues like GMOs and anthropogenic climate change. The surveys’ key findings are highlighted in a…

Have We Hit Peak Food? 

Better question: what are we doing about peak food? The world hit peak wheat in 2004, peak eggs in 1993, and peak dairy way back 1989—all according to a recent study in Ecology and Society that leads to the worrisome conclusion we could be running out of food. The study looked at how the production…

The Gorgeous View From a Delivery Drone Over Hong Kong 

Drone delivery is inherently dangerous—regardless of how excited companies like Amazon are getting about the idea, the thought of airborne robots weaving in between skyscrapers and over cars is downright unnerving. That’s why it took months of preparation for a group of hobbyists to stage Hong Kong’s first drone delivery. The mission was to send…

Bill Gates has joined the growing chorus of concern over the potential risks of artificial superintelligence. He shared his thoughts in a recent Reddit AMA, writing: “I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned.” He has now added his name to an open letter…

A Near-Collision Stretched This Galaxy Like A “Taffy Pull”

Why does this galaxy have such a long curvy tail coming off it? That river of sunlike stars, going into deep space, was pulled away from NGC 7714 due to the gravitational pull of a galaxy passing by. This galaxy was spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope in four separate exposures. NASA writes: Though the…

Suddenly, The 100 Turns Into Planet Of The Apes

There were a lot of great things going on in last night’s The 100, but one of the most memorable aspects of the episode was pretty darn weird. While the Grounders and the Sky People prepare for a massive battle, their two girl leaders need to bond — over a very large, very hairy enemy.…

We’ve already ogled Mondo‘s fantastic new poster for Alien by Tyler Stout. But upon closer inspection the poster ALSO says, “Soundtrack Available On Mondo Records.” Could we be getting a vinyl re-release of Jerry Goldsmith’s Alien score? God, we hope so. [via Bloody Disgusting]

​Tell Us About Your First Internet Community

The first thing I did when my family finally broke down and purchased internet service was disobey my mother. I’m sorry, Mom, but I made a ton of internet friends. It was the late 90s, and parent groups were convinced the internet super highway was nothing short of a pedophile’s gateway to fast and convenient…

Jurassic World and Avengers Lego games announced

Warner Brothers made the announcement today that we will be getting a few new Lego games in 2015. We are getting Lego: Jurassic World, Lego: Marvel’s Avengers and Lego Ninjago: Shadow of Ronin. There are no release dates yet other than sometime this year for Jurassic World and Avengers, Lego Ninjago: Shadow of Ronin releases…

Samsung NX1 Review: A Mirrorless Camera Packing Heat But Lacking Glass

Samsung sells a crapload of cameras all around the world. But not for pros. At $1500, the new NX1 is the first Samsung cam packing enough power to be taken seriously by photography enthusiasts. It shoots 4K video and fires off super fast 15 frame-per-second bursts. It’s a good camera… but maybe not good enough.…

The Forgotten 13th Avenue That New York City Built and Then Destroyed 

Yesterday we looked at the great “fattening” of New York and all the parts that are built on what basically amounts to trash. But it turns out that parts of the city have also disappeared—and for a few decades, New York even had 13 grand north-south avenues, not 12. Earlier this week, in the course…

Another Marvel Superheroine Just Got Added To The Jessica Jones Show

Oh, man. As if casting David Tennant as the impossible sinister Killgrave on Marvel’s upcoming Netflix TV series wasn’t awesome enough, Grey’s Anatomy’s Rachael Taylor has joins the cast as the title character’s best friend Trish “Patsy” Walker, best known as the ass-kicking supheroine Hellcat. Weirdly, Hellcat was not part of the Alias comic that…

The Science Fiction Books That Every Computer Scientist Should Check Out

With so many prominent scientists warning about the dangers of rogue artificial intelligence, and so many ethical concerns coming down the pike in A.I. research and computer science generally, how can computer experts educate themselves? By reading science fiction books. That’s the conclusion of a new paper (PDF) called “Teaching AI Ethics Using Science Fiction,”…

Watch the guts of a DSLR camera in action at 10,000 frames per second

The Slow Mo Guys got a 10,000-fps high resolution camera and pointed it into the guts of a DSLR camera shooting photos at 1/8000th of a second. It’s amazing to see how much vibration there is when the mirror and diaphragm move. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Farmer Uses Flying Drone, Careful Feed-Truck Driving To Create “Cow Art”

“We have happy cows in Kansas,” notes farmer and YouTube star Derek Klingenberg. His latest endeavor involves taking aerial images of his field as his cows mob together to create two eyes and a smiley face, guided by the almighty allure of a feed truck. Sure, this “cow painting” is not as intricate as, say,…

Moby Whisk Is a Great (Egg) White (Mixing) Whale For Your Kitchen

It seems the recent trend of giant sea creatures invading your kitchen isn’t going away anytime soon—and we’re not talking about calamari made from giant squid. This adorable mixing tool, affectionately known as Moby Whisk, is the perfect accompaniment to that Nessie Ladle from last week. Who cares if it looks like the skeleton of…

Funko Are Starting A Marvel Subscription – But It’s Not All Good News

The rise of the Lootcrate-style service for nerdy merch has just gotten big with announcement that Marvel and Funko are teaming up on a Bi-monthly subscription service to deliver toys and merchandise to your doorstep. But if you’re a regularly collector of Funko’s Pop! Vinyls, you might not want to get too excited. The loot…