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Steven Moffat Finally Confirms The Doctor Can And Should Be A Woman 

Yes, Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat has finally, finally announced out loud that the Doctor not only can be a woman, but that the character’s next reincarnation may finally see this monumental (and long overdue) change. Photo: Jacklyn Black Cosplay. He also confirmed that gender itself is “fluid” for the residents of Gallifrey, something effectively…

Delta Now Serves Craft Beer to Help You Forget How Awful Delta Is

Anytime you go careening through the airin a giant metal tubefull of strangers and recirculated air, you’re probably not going to have a great time. The airlines make sure of this. So to help ease the pain and/or lack of personal space, this week, Delta will start serving beer that doesn’t taste like poison wrought…

Bureaucracy and Bad Design Killed the World Trade Center’s Green Dream

Once upon a time, One World Trade was a trumpeted as the future greenest skyscraper in the world. It turned out to be anything but, and today, Mother Jones has obtained documentsexplaining what the hell happened. The short answer is money, bureaucracy, bad design. Oh, and Hurricane Sandy. It’s a story that would have gone…

Solar cell efficiency is nearing 50%. Australian scientists have set a new record by converting more than 40% of sunlight that hits solar panels into electricity. These panels could eventually be mounted on roofs, which current have a 15-18% efficiency rate. And in Germany, scientists converted 46% of light into electricity in a lab, a…

11 Gifts for the Budding Chef in Your Life 

You’re bound to have someone on your Christmas list who wants to learn how to cook or cook better in the New Year. The thing is, it’s not all that hard. You don’t need fancy tools or crazy gadget—you just need the essentials. Trust me, I know! I spent five years of Christmases working at…

Watch Years Of Space Station Construction In Just A Few Seconds

Building the International Space Station took over 40 missions between 1998 and 2011, with one more piece planned for delivery in 2015. Now you can watch the whole thing come together in just a few seconds thanks to this construction timelapse! Top image: The Intentional Space Station nearing completion in 2009 with then freshly-installed solar…

A State-by-State Map of How America Likes Its Porn

America loves porn. Everybody loves porn. And according to data from Pornhub, we are increasingly loving porn from mobile devices rather than desktops. How does you your state measure up? Pornhub has a map to help you find out. In all 50 states, we watch most of our porn on mobile devices, although it’s not…

Listen to the Music Created By Radioactivity

Moscow-based musician/engineer Dmitry Morozov has built an incredible instrument called the Metaphase Sound Machine. It produces music based on radioactive particles sensed by its built-in Geiger Counter. Just watch this video. Morozov says his work was partly inspired by American physicist Nick Herbert, whose early experiments with sensing quantum entanglement resulted in the Metaphase Typewriter…

Drones Fly Too Close to Airplanes 25 Times a Month

With more drones in the air than ever before, there are more chances for the unmanned, under-regulated flying machines to collide with planes and helicopters flying over U.S. airspace. Close encounters and even near-misses happen more often than you would think: about 25 times a month, in fact. That’s according to data the Federation Aviation…

The Wonderful Geometry Of Budapest’s Spiral Staircases

There’s just something magical and mysterious about a staircase that goes around and around, letting you glimpse all the levels above or below. Whether they’re perfectly round or other shapes, spiral staircases are beautiful. And Budapest is full of Modernist architecture that includes some stairways to wonder. Here are our favorites. The Ca’d’Oro (Palazzo Santa…

An Attack On Cosplayers Is An Attack On All Fans

There seems to be a growing dissent against Cosplayers. Recently they’ve been blamed for the Economy, and over the weekend we saw former Micronauts artist Pat Broderick hit out at Cosplayers on Facebook. But what detractors don’t get is that attacking Cosplay is attacking the very fans that love and admire their work. Header Image…

Here’s a Trailer for a Vertical Movie Because Everything Is Terrible

Argentinian filmmakers Gonzalo Moiguer and Rodrigo Melendez have set about making a movie shot entirely in vertical orientation. GREAT. It’s vertical because a lot of people use phones to shoot vertical video! Clever? Maybe! It comes with good intentions at least. I asked the Moiguer why vertical, and amongst his reasons is an interesting comment…

Comet Dust Has Been Hiding Out in Antarctica This Whole Time  

Last month, the European Space Agency landed on a comet 300 million miles away to take samples that could help unravel our solar system’s origins. It turns out there are pieces of comets closer to home, too. Scientists have justfound comet dust preserved in the frozen reaches of Antarctica. Why the big hoopla over comets?…

The Taste Of Coffee Can Be Influenced By The Color Of Your Cup

If your morning brew tastes more bitter than usual, you may want to consider changing the color of your mug instead of adding more sugar. In a paper recently published in the journal Flavour, Australian scientists sought to learn if our perception of coffee could be influenced by the color of the cup from which…

This Short Doc On How Napster Changed Everything Is Worth a Watch

The New York Times’ Retro Report series has an excellent new short documentary video about the rise of Napster. Remember the year 2000? We were such pirates back then. One of the most interesting modern interviews from the video is with a former VP at Universal. He’s forced to basically admit that the entire industry…

Slow-motion cutaway video shows how a fully automatic shotgun works

I can’t have enough of videos that show things cut in half working. This one shows a fully automatic shotgun in action. It’s sad to see how humans spend so much time and intelligence developing perfect death machines like these—but the engineering work is fascinating nonetheless. SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook…

Forget Amazon, Hachette Is Selling Books on Twitter

Book publisher Hachette is no longer in a blood feud with Amazon, but it’s already experimenting with new, Bezos-free online selling options, just in case. The latest: An experiment where best-selling Hachette authors will be able to sell their books directly to fans on Twitter. Hachette is partnering with Gumroad, a company that helps people…

Mark Hamill Will Be The Trickster Again On The New Flash Series

Mark Hamill is set to reprise one of his most iconic roles, and I’m not talking about Luke Skywalker. Hamill will return to the role of the Trickster, the maniacal supervillain he played on the original 1990 Flash TV series, on the CW’s new Flash show. That’s awesome. Why is this awesome? Well, mostly because…

The Pope Says Nuclear Deterrence Is No Longer A Justifiable Doctrine

Although the Catholic Church has always opposed nuclear weapons, the Vatican reluctantly acknowledged during the Cold War that mutual assured destruction was the best-worst option for averting catastrophe. Today, a dramatic declaration from Pope Francis reversed that position. The message was delivered to some 800 delegates from more than 150 countries attending the Vienna Conference…

​This Medical Condition Turns Your Life Into An Out-of-Sync Video

Ever had trouble getting the audio synced up with the video on your computer? Get the right kink in your brain, and you could live your whole life that way. One man began a new phase in his life when he looked at his daughter’s television and noticed that the audio and the video were…