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How Sharlto Copley Became Chappie And Why Hugh Jackman Has To Kill Him

Sharlto Copley (District 9) brought the titular robot of Chappie to life, thanks to performance capture and director Neill Blomkamp, but as it turns out everyone wanted him dead. We spoke with the Chappie’scast — Copley, Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver — about the violence they inflicted upon this adorable robot. Sharlto Copley io9: You’re…

Mos Eisley — you’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and ravers. Tunisian dance festival Les Dunes Electroniques staged a dance party last week on the Star Wars sets used for Mos Eisley and Mos Espa in the prequels. You can see a variety of extremely surreal pics from the event here. [Via…

El Niño Is Finally Here, But Not Quite How We Expected It

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] has announced the long-predicted El Niño for this year has finally arrived. But it doesn’t look quite like we thought it would. Despite last year’s predictions that we could see a weather event that might rival the incredibly powerful El Niño of 17 years ago, the actual conditions…

Not Even Science Could Explain the Bacteria In My Apartment

Three years ago, I gently brushed fiber-tipped swabs against the surfaces of my tiny New York apartment. Microbes live everywhere, and I was gathering samples for genetic analysis — I wanted to identify my microscopic housemates. Just as microbes live all over our bodies, they also live all over our pillows and furniture and doorknobs.…

A Stop-Motion Etch A Sketch Made of Dominoes Is Even Harder To Draw With

To help promote its online store that sells nothing but tiny plastic bricks, Bulk Dominoes enlisted the help of the extremely patient FlippyCat to build a giant Etch A Sketch that only works through the magic of stop motion. But it’s the perfect way to represent just what a pain it is to draw anything…

The CIA Is Investing In 3D Printers That Can Build Electronics

The 3D printing industry is still very much in its infancy. But that could change if the CIA has its way. The intelligence agency’s venture capital firm just invested in Voxel8, the company behind the first multi-material, 3D electronics printer. What does the CIA want with 3D printing? We can only guess at this point,…

Tattoos Can Burn You During An MRI

Here’s an odd by-product of body art. In an MRI machine, a tattoo can start generating heat to the point where it burns your skin. In 2011, a football player went in for an MRI, presumably to see what horrible, horrible things his chosen profession was doing to his body. He came out of the…

Every City Should Use Hydrophobic Paint That Shames Public Urinators 

If you’ve ever lived in a bar neighborhood, you know the smell. It’s the stench of idiots peeing all over the walls, doors, and sidewalks of your street—and until now, there really hasn’t been a solution. The proactive residents the “party district” of Hamburg took matters into their own hands by painting the walls of…

Why Hillary Clinton’s Homebrew Email Is a Political Nightmare

You’ve probably heard: Hillary Clinton used a private, personal email addressfor all of her official business as Secretary of State. She didn’t even have a State Department email address. As a result, her email was far from secure — and that is a big problem, but it’s not the only one. The security issue is…

Take a Terrifying Test Drive of This New 95 mph Mega Rollercoaster

An amusement park called Carowinds in Charlotte, North Carolina, is putting the finishing touches on its new mega coaster called the Fury 325. The first hill sends riders plummeting down an 81-degree drop at 95 miles per hour and before the ride is officially open, you can now take a test drive from the comfort…

Patton Oswalt Has A Completely Serious Idea For An Unbreakable Trilogy

And it’s pretty goddamn good, too! Screen Junkies sat down with the actor/comedian, who explained his thorough and exceedingly clever plan for two sequels to M. Night Shyamalan’s superhero movie, which starred Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. I’d sure as hell watch them. Contact the author at [email protected].

Our Favorite Android, iOS, and Windows Phone Apps of the Week

Congratulations! We all just survived another seven complete revolutions aboard Mothership Earth. Time to celebrate with new apps. This week we got stuff that’s going to make eating food better, Tweeting better, making music better, and chatting securely better. Let’s find out how. Android Caviar As the name suggests, Caviar is food delivery at a…

Fantastic Redesigns Of Women Characters By Women Science Fiction Artists

What do women want in their women characters? Art director and Muddy Colors columnist Lauren Panepinto addresses sexism in art and what she wants creators to think about when developing female characters. Even better, she shares redesigns of popular female characters done by female science fiction and fantasy artists. Before we begin, I would like…

Now on Sale at Walmart: An 11-Year-Old External Hard Drive

Say hello to the Seagate 160 GB external hard drive. It runs on USB 2.0, is nearly a foot long, and weighs a sturdy five pounds. So hurry on down to Walmart to scoop one up for your very own—on sale! Oh, and by the way,it came out in 2004. Consumerist spotted the (terrible) dealsitting…

Star Trek Online‘s Memorial For Leonard Nimoy Is Here And Perfect

When Leonard Nimoy passed away last week, the internet was heaving with tributes for the Star Trek star. Now Nimoy has been immortalized in an official Star Trek product — the massively mulitiplayer role-playing game Star Trek Online. Two statues have been added to the long-running Star Trek MMO to commemorate the actor’s passing. Nimoy…

Not Taking A Lunch Break Is Psychologically Bad For You. Here’s Why.

If you’re not taking a lunch break, your creativity is probably suffering. This might seem obvious, but now there’s research to back it up. And it doesn’t even matter what you eat, or if you eat at all; what’s important is that you physically step away from your workspace to recharge. A recent episode of…

Comcast Customers Are Getting Screwed on HBO Go Again

HBO Go is finally available for Playstation 4 users, huzzah! Unless you have Comcast. Then you’re shit out of luck, because the cable giant isn’t supporting it. In an email to Gizmodo, Comcast confirmed that its customers don’t have access to HBO Go through Playstation 4. Right now Comcast customers can’t get past the activation…

The Time That Charles Babbage Tried To Summon The Devil

Charles Babbage was one of the fathers of computing, but in addition to his fascination with mathematics and engineering, he had a curiosity with the occult. Starting from an early age, Babbage wondered if the existence of God and paranormal phenomena could be proven scientifically — and he started by trying to summon the Devil.…

The High Tech Farms Where Our Future Food Will Grow in Nothing But Air

If our planet is going to support an extra four billion people by the end of the century, we’ll need to find some creative new ways to feed ourselves. One option would be to turn buildings into farms and grow our crops in the air. Another: To install networked food computers in everybody’s home. I’m…

The BTTF clock tower scene perfectly recreated with Lego

If you needed any further proof that everything is better with Lego, the folks at Macro Lego Universe recreated the iconic clock tower scene from the end of the original Back to the Future movie. Given how successful The Lego Movie was, it’s probably not a bad idea for Hollywood to just recreate every movie…