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What You Wear Can Actually Change Your Mental Abilities

How much difference can a lab coat make? How about a doctor’s coat, or a painter’s coat? They’re all the same coat – or at least they were all the same coat during an experiment conducted in 2012. But researchers discovered the way we’re dressed can change the way we act, or even the things…

The Lego Helicarrier Is Real, And It Looks INCREDIBLE

It’s been long rumoured, but yes, it’s finally real: Lego are making a massive SHIELD Helicarrier, and by god it looks beautiful. Ready your wallets, Marvel fans – this one’s a doozy. https://gizmodo.com/are-lego-actually-making-a-gigantic-shield-helicarrier-1662645886 Ahead of the set’s official unveiling at New York Toy Fair next month, the Wall Street Journal were granted an exclusive look…

What Does Marvel Have Planned For Vision Beyond Age Of Ultron? 

Katie Cassidy delves into Laurel’s role as Black Canary on Arrow, while we learn more about the future of both time travel and the Rogues on The Flash. Plus, release dates for Ghostbusters and Salem’s return, and our first look at the midseason première of Agents of SHIELD. Spoilers, ho! Top image: Avengers: Age of…

You Can Order Sony’s $1280 Walkman Today, But Don’t

Hello, friends. Welcome to BitStream, a new roundup of awesome news fit for the TL;DR format. It’s a bum rush of information to your brain. Daily. For the audibly indulgent Have $1,280 to spend on audio tech that’s arguably superfluous? Yeah, me neither! But Sony’s going to try to sell you one anyway with the…

Watching this octopus tractor mowing a roadside ditch is hypnotizing

After a few hours on the road you get bored and your mind starts asking questions like: How the hell do they mow the ditches on the roadside. Don’t worry we have you covered. They use awesome machines like this—the CLAAS Xerion 3300 VC Octopus. I want one. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us…

The Lego SHIELD Helicarrier is real and amazing

It’s not quite as detailed as the version many thought Lego had leaked in a video a few months ago, but it turns out the SHIELD Helicarrier is very much a real set and is as awesome as anyone could have hoped for. Pricing is US $349.99 – CA $399.99 – DE 349.99€ – UK…

Over time, things sure do get weird when it comes Facebook friend requests. [Truth Facts]

Spectacular Sun halo display captured in video in the Austrian Alps

Swedish aircraft mechanic Kalle Centergren took this video of a Sun halo display when he was skiing in the Austrian Alps a few days ago. Even though some people think Sun halos are extremely weird, they are quite frequent. This is one of the best I’ve ever seen. This video explains what causes such a…

Your Coding Style Is Like a Digital Fingerprint

If you think that good code is a plain, expressionless and elegant string of characters that is, at its best, utterly anonymous, think again. New research suggests that programmers have ways of writing code, which can be used as a digital fingerprints. Whether it’s how they space out code using spaces and tabs, naming conventions…

Execs: There’s A Reason We Keep Making Sequels

Variety has a bunch of short essays about the problems in Hollywood, but two executives discuss the commonly-held sentiment that there are just too many sequels coming out of Hollywood. Jim Gianopulos, chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment defends the choice to make more movies in a series, so long as they’re good: If…

This Flexible Skin Patch Could Use Friction to Power Your Wearables

The idea of capturing some energy from you constant writhing and wriggling ins’t new—but this small, flexible device certainly is. The postage stamp-sized circuitry, once attached to the skin, could generate electricity to power the gadgets secreted about your person. The device captures the piezoelectric effect—where electrical energy is generated by mechanical stress. A thin…

Sharp New Image of Galaxy M 82 Reveals Its Dead Supernovae

This new image of galaxy Messier 82, acquired by astronomers from Chalmers University of Technology, is said to be “the sharpest astronomical image ever taken at very long radio wavelengths.” In fact it’s clear enough to show tiny, bright dots that are thought to be supernova remnants. While previous images have shown M 82 to…

A Team of Archeologists May Have Found the Body of Cervantes

Earlier this week, experts announced that they may have found the remains of Don Quixote writer Miguel de Cervantes in crypt in Madrid. The fragments of a coffin with initials “M.C.” were found under the chapel of a cloistered convent, and now forensic work will determine if one of the bodies found was actually Cervantes’.…

How Will the Ebola Epidemic End?

Upon his return from 6 weeks volunteering with the King’s Sierra Leone Partnership at a number of Ebola isolation facilities in Freetown, Tom Boyles considers the endgame of the Ebola epidemic. There are encouraging signs of an overall reduction in confirmed cases of Ebola in west Africa. The graphs below show the epidemic curves for…

Djokovic plays an insane tennis match against a M1 Abrams tank

Filmmaker and visual effects specialist Michael Shanks created this surreal video showing ATP’s number one Novak Djokovic playing a crazy tennis match against a computer generated M1 Abrams tank. It’s a shame the video it’s only 58 seconds long, I would happily watch the entire match. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook…

How Computers Handle Negative Numbers (and Sometimes Get It Wrong)

The digital world runs on binary. But while numbers made up of ones and zeroes is easy enough to get your head round, what happens when you need to express a negative number in digital form? https://gizmodo.com/how-to-read-text-in-binary-1623727454 In fact, it’s not too dissimilar to the way we put a minus sign at the left-most side…

Four Rockets Fired Into An Aurora

In order to better understand the impact auroras have on Earth’s atmosphere, NASA launched four rockets carrying experiments were launched on January 26, 2015. This is part of a composite image of all four rockets, done in 30-second exposures. See the full image below. Image: NASA/Jamie Adkins Here’s how NASA describes the project: To help…

Microsoft Outlook for iOS and Android Looks Like Acompli and That’s Good

Well, that didn’t take long. After Microsoft bought the hit email app Acompli (it was even one of our favorite apps of last year) last month, they turned it around pretty quickly into an official Outlook app for iOS and Android. Outlook joins Office as Microsoft continues its mobile software push beyond Windows Phone. For…

Flyover drone footage of Auschwitz concentration camp

The BBC flew a drone over the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp today to show off what it looks like and it’s absolutely haunting. Over a million people died in this concentration camp from 1940 to 1945. It’s been 70 years since the Soviets liberated the camp and it’s still so tragic to see. The BBC writes:…

Short film: We’re so obsessed with our phones that we’re missing life

This short animation Mr. Selfie by We Are Seventeen totally nails everyone’s over reliance on their phones. We use it in bed to fall asleep, we use it in bed when we can’t fall asleep, we have our phone in the bathroom, on our commutes, on the sidewalk, through live events, through nature and basically…