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Watch a tiger jump impossibly high for meat in slow motion

Holy crap. I’m pretty sure the fence separating the tigers from the humans does absolutely nothing because these tigers can easily out jump it. Look at them gracefully fly in the air and snatch the meat like a wide receiver catching a touchdown pass. These beasts are basically basically comic book superhero versions of regular…

Sploid Casey Chan

All I Want Out of New Year’s Eve Is a Swingin’ Party

I listened to “Swingin’ Party” by Kindness more than any other song in 2014. It’s not really party music, and it’s certainly not swing music. (It’s not about swinging either, perv.) But the chill, let’s-hang-out-with-our-favorite-friends vibe is everything I want out of my New Year’s Eve. “Swingin’ Party” was originally released by The Replacements in…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

The Change That Could Have Saved Spider-Man 3

After reading Sam Raimi’s explanation of just went wrong with Spider-Man 3, a lot of the blame for the comparatively lackluster movie fell on the shoulders of one character: Peter Parker’s symbiotic frenemy, Venom. But could one change have saved the movie? https://gizmodo.com/sam-raimi-the-problems-with-spider-man-3-were-my-mist-1676733026 The problem wasn’t necessarily the introduction of Venom’s character, argued some commenters.…

io9 Ria Misra

If Only The Hobbit Was As Fast As This Music Remix

Here is a very dancey mix made entirely out of dialogue and sound effects from The Hobbit. The best part is when Gandalf shows up around 1:12 — and then things really start getting weird. If only the actual movies moved this fast. Dragon! Youtube tribute created by Glover.

io9 Meredith Woerner

Physicists Tackle Our Favorite Science Fictional Debate

This debate comes up every time I watch a time travel movie: Is the timeline fixed, or is it constantly changing depending on what we do? Turns out that this is also an argument among physicists, some of whom believe the passage of time is illusion — while others view it as very real, and…

io9 Annalee Newitz

The Science of How Champagne Gets Its Bubbles

Without its bubbles, champagne is ordinary white wine, unfit for sabering or smashing against new ships. So what gives sparkling wines their sparkle? A fascinating process called secondary fermentation. Unlike most wines, champagne goes through an additional fermentation in the bottle. Sugar and additional yeast are added when the champagne is bottled, and the yeast…

Tech News Sarah Zhang

These Maps Reveal How Cities Will Erode Over Time

A digital artist known as Chaotic Atmospheres has run city maps through World Terrain, a software system that simulates real-world geological events like erosion. The results are these evocative “erosion flow maps” that imagine what might happen to cities if they flowed into the environments around them. Tokyo, Japan Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Paris, France…

io9 Vincze Miklós

Just Drink Prosecco

It’s New Year’s Eve, which means that amateurs across the planet will be imbibing far more booze than they’re accustomed to, and more likely than not, the intoxicating mixture will include a bunch of bubbly. Here’s why it should be a cheap bottle of prosecco and nothing else. Seeing the light at the end of…

Tech News Mario Aguilar

Monarch Butterflies May Soon Be an Endangered Species

A sharp decline in North America’s monarch butterfly population (90 percent in the last 20 years!) means the species may soon be headed for protected status. On December 29, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced it’s “launching a scientific review to determine whether the monarch butterfly should be protected by law under the Endangered…

io9 Cheryl Eddy

Brooklyn’s Best NYE Tradition Ends Tonight

If Times Square is too gaudy, crowded, and frankly insane for you, then there is another New York tradition worth your New Year’s Eve—one that is, in fact, ending tonight. For the past fifty years, the Pratt Institute has set out its amazing collection of big old steam whistles out on the lawn of its…

Tech News Sarah Zhang

The Best Science Books of 2014

There’s no better way to learn about science than by reading a book that makes it relevant to your everyday life. That’s why 2014’s best science books show us how science and culture are interconnected, two threads in the same story, braided together in ways that can be funny, engrossing, and often deeply moving. Here…

Books & Comics Annalee Newitz

What Is Your Prediction For 2015?

We’re nearing our final hours of 2014 and the not-so-distant future of 2015 is looming closer than ever on our horizon. What do you predict the year ahead will bring? Maybe you have a prediction for something about your own personal year ahead. Or maybe you want to make a prediction about a new or…

io9 Ria Misra

What the Hell Is Champagne Sabering?

The first time you see someone sabre a bottle of Champagne a series of thoughts run through your mind: Why is that person waving a knife… or perhaps a sword? What’s that in their other hand? A bottle of Champagne! Where is this going… Oh god. I’m about to get sprayed by Champagne at best,…

Tech News Joshua Malin - VinePair

By The Goddess, Look At This Wonderful Mass Effect Cosplay

You know it’s a job well done when I have to question if this is a person in cosplay or the actual Liara T’Soni from the Mass Effect games made flesh through an act of sorcery – but rest assured, this is Jen of Soylent Cosplay, doing an outstanding job recreating everyone’s favourite Asari scientist.…

Tech News James Whitbrook

NASA’s Most Ambitious Scientific Balloon Collapsed After Two Days Aloft

Welp, this is disastrous. A giant, state-of-art balloon carrying a telescope to detect gamma rays invisible to human eyes was supposed to fly over Antarctica for 100 days—NASA’s longest and most ambitious scientific balloon mission ever. Instead, the balloon sprung a leak almost immediately, taking down the entire mission with it. The instrument aboard, the…

Tech News Sarah Zhang

Charlie Brooker Gives You The Year’s “Reasons To Be Fearful”

The media critic and creator of Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker, does his own version of Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ “Reasons to be Cheerful” called “Reasons to be Fearful” — it’s a pretty good rundown of why everything sucked in 2014. Plus a few reasons to hope for 2015. via Observation Deck

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

A North Carolina town drops a possum at midnight on New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve countdown balls tend to be large, sparkly. What they tend not to be are arboreal marsupials. Not so for Brasstown, North Carolina. In the “possum capital of the south,” possums are the traditional marker lowered into a cheering crowd to symbolize the end of the year. For the past 20 years, Clay…

Tech News Kate Knibbs

Report: Lizard Squad Hacker Arrested by U.K. Police

Lulz-seeking low-level dipshit troll coterie Lizard Squad is allegedly down one member. Vinnie Omari, member of the obnoxious hacking collective claiming responsibility for DDoS attacks on PlayStation and Xbox, was arrested after police raided his London home, according to the Daily Dot. Omari was allegedly released from jail on Tuesday, and says that no charges…

Tech News Kate Knibbs

8 Apps to Help Make New Year’s Eve Bearable

New Year’s Eve is the Las Vegas of holidays: An overhyped, boozy moneypit beloved by thirsty amateurs and precision-engineered to facilitate paralyzing morning-after regrets that are only tolerable if you’re 10000% booty-faced. There is no app that will make it *good* but some apps can make it less bad. To start though, the absolute worst…

Tech News Kate Knibbs

Japan’s New Attack On Titan Theme Park Exhibit Looks Completely Insane

Are you 1) heading to Japan in the next few months, 2) an Attack on Titan fan and 3) not utterly freaked out by the above picture? If you said yes to all three questions, then you might consider stopping by Universal Studios Japan for an Attack on Titan-themed attraction that will blow your tiny,…

io9 Rob Bricken

Watch a tiger jump impossibly high for meat in slow motion

All I Want Out of New Year’s Eve Is a Swingin’ Party

The Change That Could Have Saved Spider-Man 3

If Only The Hobbit Was As Fast As This Music Remix

Physicists Tackle Our Favorite Science Fictional Debate

The Science of How Champagne Gets Its Bubbles