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This Is How Many Seagulls Fly Past a Single Window In An Hour

Videographer Paul Parker filmed seagulls flying past his window in Cornwall, England, for an hour. He compressed the hour into the short film you see above. This is not a video for ornithophobics, because, wow, are there a lot of birds here. Parker also used the “echo effect” in After Effects to show the flightpaths…

Suicide Squad May Have Found Its New Rick Flagg in Joel Kinnaman

Ever since Tom Hardy dropped out of Suicide Squad, we’ve heard all sorts of names as a possible replacement Rick Flagg. And now it seems that Warner Bros. may finally be circling a replacement: Joel Kinnaman. The Wrap reports that Kinnaman is “in negotiations” to play Rick Flagg. Of course, no one’s confirming this and,…

Terminator Genisys Toys Reveal The Terminator’s Time Machine 

Terminator Genisys does one thing that no other Terminator movie has done so far: reveal the actual time machine that zooms naked robots and humans back to the beginning of time. And now thanks to Mattel’s Toy Fair booth we can get an even better look. We’ve seen glimpses of the official time machine from…

The Webb Telescope’s “Golden Spider” Is Giant And Gorgeous

Behold, the GIANT GOLDEN SPIDER! Ok, this shiny marvel is actually a 2012 look at the James Webb Space Telescope under construction at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center: The golden-colored thermal blankets are made of aluminized kapton, a polymer film that remains stable over a wide range of temperatures. The structure that looks like a…

The Powerball lottery jackpot soared over $500 million last week, leading bright and broke minds everywhere to wonder if math could be deployed to get ahold of some of that cheddar. Here’s a handy, graphics-heavy strategy guide … and hey, invite us to your mansion party when you win, won’t ya?

The Remnants of an Exploding Star Are Beautiful Outer Space Chaos

NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory snapped this image of the aftermath of a thermonuclear explosion of a white dwarf star. According to NASA: G299 was left over by a particular class of supernovas called Type Ia. Astronomers think that a Type Ia supernova is a thermonuclear explosion – involving the fusion of elements and release of…

The Best Valentine’s Day Gift I Ever Got Was This Flash Drive

I hate Valentine’s Day. Don’t get me wrong — I enjoy romance, and being in love, and all that crap. I just despise all the bullshit ads about buying flowers and candy and state-sanctioned representations of erotic attachment. That’s why I got a warm glow inside when my sweetie gave me this awesome flash drive…

A Monstrous Problem Complicates A Sweet Italian Romance In Spring

Indie horror filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead had the buzziest segment in last year’s V/H/S: Viral (skaters vs. skeletons brawl “Bonestorm“). Next up: monster romance Spring, about an American drifter who meets the woman of his dreams … or nightmares? … while backpacking through Italy. The filmmakers, whose previous feature was 2012’s Resolution, told…

Should We Be Trying to Make Contact with Extraterrestrials?

Another debate popped again this week, one that’s been talked about and argued over for years now—whether we should be actively seeking out and sending messages to habitable planets in the search for life beyond Earth. Known as Active Seti (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), some researchers and scientists want to continually broadcast messages to known…

Here Are Some Wild Ponies, Just Chillin’ On The Moor

This peaceful shot of a group of endangered Exmoor ponies comes courtesy of British Flickr user Tom Lee. The photographer reports: These beauties were on MOD [Ministry of Defence] land at Pippingford (I was on the public side of the fence). The light was so good and benign I had to take my camera. We…

If you’ve noticed the amount of science news in your Facebook feed is on the uptick, here’s one reason why: in a survey of nearly 4,000 scientists, 87 percent agreed that “participation in policy debates and engagement with citizens and journalists is necessary to further their work and careers.” The study also found that “a…

How Pan Am Became King of International Travel, and How It Lost It All

Welcome to Reading List, your weekly collection of most-read work from around the web. Valentine’s Day is behind us and the gruesome work week hangs over all our heads, but for now we can take solace in a story detailing the rise of fall of great American airline, how one single tweet can ruin a…

Psychedelic Drug Could Have Promising Future In Treatment Of Asthma

A potent psychedelic drug, DOI, was recently shown to be effective in treating asthma in a mouse model. Photo Credit: Flickr user KristyFaith. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 The psychedelic drug DOI (2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine) was invented by chemist Alexander Shulgin in the 1980s. Shulgin’s story itself is worth looking into. Over the course of his lifetime, in addition…

This Week’s Puzzle Has A Very Simple Solution. Can You Find It?

Sometimes, challenging puzzles have surprisingly straightforward solutions. This is one of those puzzles. Sunday Puzzle #20: The Monk And The Mountain At precisely 7:00 a.m., a monk sets out to climb a tall mountain, so that he might visit a temple at its peak. The trail he walks is narrow and winding, but it is…

This 25-Year-Old Computer Just Sold for $23,000 on eBay

The Apple 1 is the most sought after collector piece of computing hardware. It is the Action Comics No. 1 of retro computing. The first appearance of Superman. The one that started it all. But if there was to be a No. 2, it would be this guy—the Commodore 65. Although it doesn’t have the…

The Top 6 Fictional Robot Fights We’d Definitely Want to Watch

For near a decade, humanity’s thirst for gladiatorial robot fighting went unsatiated when BattleBots went off the air. But with this month’s joyous announcement that BattleBots would be returning to television, those memories of robot-on-robot violence came flooding back. So, I asked a simple question — what awesome robot fight would you wish you could…

An Insider’s Look At Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes’ Remarkable VFX

We’re miffed that Andy Serkis didn’t get any big nominations for his turn in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. And now, after watching this new behind-the-scenes Weta Digital video depicting the on-set motion capture work by the “ape” cast, we’re miffed on behalf of all the other actors, too. That said, Dawn’s visual…

A Stunning Shot Of Today’s Sunset In Adelaide, Australia

Flickr user Mertie captured this remarkable shot of the evening sky over Adelaide, Australia today. The photographer reports: Spectacular summer evening sky in Adelaide. Adelaide had a top of 38.6 at 2pm and by 8pm it had cooled to 25.0. That’s a high of nearly 102 Fahrenheit, to taunt all the winter-bound folks in the…

This Is Our Entire Solar System And Its Tiny, Scattered Planets

A quarter of a century ago this weekend, the Voyager spacecraft took one last, long look back before shutting down its camera for its interstellar mission. The 60 photographs from 6 billion kilometers away comprise our first solar system portrait. This is our solar system from 6 billion kilometers away. Voyager 1 snapped this first-ever…

New FAA Drone Rules Are Thankfully Lenient But a Headache for Amazon

The Federal Aviation Administration just published its proposed rulemaking on commercial drone regulations. These regulations come after a leak, reported by Forbes over the weekend, that outlined some of the FAA’s thinking on what the future of American skies was going to look like. In short, it’s great for commercial hobbyists and photographers and bad…