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The Black Plague Came To Norway In The Creepiest Way Possible

In the 1300s, the Black Death sprang up in central Asia, and marched steadily over the Old World. As it claimed Europe from the south, people in the northern countries thought they might be safe from it. Then it came, in the form of a classic horror movie trope. We know of a few of…

The Encryption Tools the NSA Still Can’t Crack Revealed in New Leaks

Most of us—at least the cynical ones—assume that the NSA has probably beaten most of the encryption technologies out there. But a new report from Der Spiegel that draws on documents from Edward Snowden’s archive shows that this simply isn’t true. There are some tools that the NSA, as recently as two years ago, couldn’t…

This Lego Version Of The Force Awakens Trailer Is Amazingly Well Done

As we come to the end of 2014, year of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, we head into 2015… year of the mashups of said Star Wars trailer. We’ve featured some good ones here on io9, but this Lego-ified take might be one of the best. Youtuber Zach Machias over at Mind Game…

Do We Finally Know What The Star Wars Spin-Off Movie Will Be About?

Plus, read a possible description of Max van Sydow’s Force Awakens character. Roberto Orci talks clears up some Star Trek rumors, Mark Ruffalo hints at a big mistake from Bruce Banner in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Robert Kirkman trolls us with a possible huge death in The Walking Dead. Spoilers now! Top image: Star…

Tim Burton-era Batmobile Model Features Pop-up RC Machine Guns

At first you’ll probably be a little disappointed to learn that this incredibly-detailed 29-inch long model of the Batmobile used in the Tim Burton-era Batman films isn’t fully remote control—you can’t drive or steer it. But while it sits there looking beautiful, you can remotely deploy its pop-up machine guns, blast smoke from its afterburner,…

Glorious video shows how chocolate and vanilla ice cream bars are made

Sploid reader Alden Gleason saw this beautiful GIF last week and decided that we should all see the full source video, which he made at Julie’s Organic Ice Cream in Eugene, Oregon. So he uploaded it to YouTube in high definition for all of you to enjoy. It’s a glorious film of cream dreams. Hey…

Listen to the wisdom of an 80-year-old alpinist still climbing mountains

Sir Chris Bonington’s is one of the best British mountaineers of all times. And, at his 80 years old, he still climbs mountains. Perhaps lacking some of the strength he had years ago, but with such determination that he makes me feel old—and I’m almost half his age. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us…

The Bank of England Will Monitor Social Networks to Set Interest Rates

The world’s eighth oldest bank is joining the modern age. From 2015, it will monitor social networks and mine them for information and early signs of economic ups and downs. The Bank is setting up a new taskforce that will investigate how it can use all kinds of new data—because it believes it will be…

Two-mile-high structures rising on Saturn’s rings

Someone on Reddit posted this old November 2010 image by the Cassini spacecraft. It shows 2-mile-high (3.5-kilometer) structures rising on Saturn’s B ring’s outer edge. We talked about this back then, but it’s a great peg to show this cool artist impression of what it would look like from the ring itself: Another finding from…

Watchmaker takes apart and reassembles a Rolex in hypnotizing video

This video shows a professional watchmaker taking apart and reassembling a Rolex Submariner. The insanely intricate movement of this watch is composed by more than a hundred little pieces, all of them vital to make it work with absolute precision, and all of them assembled by hand. [Watchfinder] SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us…

John Oliver slams New Year’s Eve in hilarious new Last Week Tonight clip

Surprise! There’s a new surprise segment of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on YouTube and god I needed this as much as I didn’t need The Interview: Three minutes of slamming New Year’s Eve—the holiday when all the amateur party-goers invade the world to be extremely annoying—and how to get out of it. Right…

This Is What Happens When Drops of Different Liquid Land on Each Other

It might be rare that droplets of different fluid land on top of each other, but what happens when they do? This image shows exactly that happening. These images, captured by the Splash Lab, show what happens when liquids of different densities land on top of each other. In the images, the red liquid is…

Can Deaf People Hear Voices?

One man experiences a voice projected in his brain “like a ghost”. A woman hears voices “shouting through her stomach” accompanied by “black, shadowy lips”; another hears her sister’s voice talking to her at night when she is in bed “like it is coming from a transmitter or a radio”. These three people are deaf.…

This Cyberman Feeder Turns Squirrels Into The Doctor’s Deadly Foes

Doctor Who fan Emma Young made this Cyberman feeder for her backyard. Forget any other plan the baddies have ever had in canon, the Cybersquirrel is by far the scariest. Where would you even hide from a hundreds of upgraded squirrels? Young said, “My whole family love Doctor Who so I decided to create a…

The XKCD Phone 2: Every Feature You Never Needed

Randal Munroe’s first phone design was good, but your second hand no doubt feels… empty. Fortunately, there’s now a another design for you to imagine using. The XKCD Phone 2 is feature-packed. And it’s even washable (though, only once). [XKCD]

Amazing drawings are actually made of insanely complex cut paper

Maude White shows impossible skills and infinite patience in her beautiful series of illustrations made entirely up of paper, with no pencil or ink. She turns the paper into the lines of the drawing by subtracting tiny pieces out of it with an X-acto knife—an extremely delicate process. You can follow Maude White on Facebook,…

Gmail Has Been Blocked in China

Gmail has been blocked in China, following months of disruption. Reports suggest that China’s Great Firewall is to blame, with large numbers of users being cut off from their email since last Friday. Reuters reports that “large numbers of Gmail Web addresses were cut off in China on Friday,” and users are reporting that the…

Damman, Saudi Arabia as seen from the International Space Station. This photoof a glittering, opalescent city was taken by ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who couldn’t remember where she took it. You can help identify all the photos taken from space at the Cities at Night project. Image credit: ESA/NASA

AirAsia Rescue Chief: The Plane Is Likely at the Bottom of the Sea

The Indonesian official in charge of the rescue of AirAsia flight QZ8501 says that aircraft is likely “at the bottom of the sea.” That’s a bleak outlook as rescue attempts start afresh this morning in an attempt to find survivors. https://gizmodo.com/airasia-plane-goes-missing-over-indonesia-with-162-peop-1675724248 Speaking to the media on Monday morning, Bambang Soelistyo, Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue…

The Interview Chalked Up $15 Million in Online Sales Over Christmas

The Interview may be over-hyped and not really worth the drama. It may have been torrented by the world and his hacker. But it also managed to take in an impressive $15 million over the Christmas period just in online sales. That beats by a significant margin the estimated $2.8 million the film earned in…