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Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer Are Sixtiestastic In Man From UNCLE Photo

It’s been a long time since we heard anything about Guy Ritchie’s big screen reboot of the 60s classic Man from U.N.C.L.E., but here we are with the first official still. I actually think Armie Hammer looks pretty great as Illya Kuryakin. There was a long casting process for this project, with the project starting…

This Solar Flare Image Is Beautiful In Its Simplicity

A solar flare peaked at 7:28 p.m. EST on December 19, and the NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught this image of it. It was classified as X1.8-class. X-classes are the most intense flares, with an X-2 being twice as strong as an X-1. Image: NASA/SDO

Video: The skilled precision and interesting history of making a violin

The violin is a cute little instrument but also, as I learned from watching this video of violin maker (or luthier) John Young, a really interesting instrument to make. It’s artfully designed and carefully shaved down and is still made in a similar way from when it first appeared centuries ago. Young makes each violin…

Science Shows Why Reindeer Are Perfect Sleigh Pullers

On the latest episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart, host Joe Hanson delves into the science behind a number of Christmas-related science quandaries. Including: Why do the lights always tangle? What’s makes reindeers noses red? And what could let Santa visit every child in one night? [via Tastefully Offensive]

Acoustic Tweezers Can Rearrange Your Cells into Geometric Patterns

Have you seen Chladni figures? They’re patterns made when sand is exposed to sound waves on metal plates. They can be amazingly intricate. And now scientists could be making them with living cells. Put a grain of sand on a frantically vibrating plate and it will hop off. Put it on a still plate and…

FDA Ends Ban on Blood Donations By Gay Men … But There’s A Catch

Talk about problematic progress. The AP headline crowing “US Moves to End Ban on Blood Donations by Gay Men” comes with a whopper of an asterisk: gay and bisexual men who wish to donate blood may do so only if they’ve refrained from having sex with another man for a full year prior. This is…

Barack Obama’s Presidential Library Could Look Like An Alien Spaceship

A number of architects had designs among the finalists for the Obama presidential library, but our favorite is this one by Oslo/New York firm Snøhetta. It’s variously described as looking like a coral reef or a teardrop, but to us it looks like a pretty cool alien spacecraft. Here’s another image of the Snøhetta design,…

Being inside a Porsche engine factory is like being inside a Transformer

This video is fascinating because it let’s us pretend to be a fly on the wall of a Porsche 911 engine assembly line. There’s no annoying soundtrack, no voiceover explaining what’s happening, we’re just seeing humans and machines teaming up to create beautiful, powerful engines that purr the best cars. All the shiny metal reminds…

A Rescue Ship Raked the Ruins

It was almost too late. The buildings were falling to dust, eaten by the invisible jaws of the nano-disintegrators, and hostiles had ringed the city in deadly mechas. But then a rescue ship came out of nowhere, and we heard the Commander’s voice calling from an open hatch. This amazing scene was created by Hyunwook…

Short film: The Grim Reaper can be bad at his job too

I like this cute short film from animation studio Simpals called ‘Dji. Death fails’ because it shows how the Grim Reaper can be bad at his job too. Death, he’s just like us! The Grim Reaper thinks he has easy pickings when a driver careens off the road but ends with death escaping, well, death.…

Seeing a leather belt get hand made is so satisfying

A belt is so simple, it’s just fabric that ties together to hold up your pants. But in this video, you see how considered the process of making a leather belt is. Each feature of the belt, whether it be the holes or the rivets or the buckle or the color, is carefully handled and…

Bring Science Into Snowflakes For Truly Geeky Decorations

In our Scientific Guide to Celebration, we harness the power of science for enhancing all your celebratory moments. Today, embrace the power of symmetry for maximum science in your decorative snowflakes. An assortment of physicist-snowflakes. Image credit: @MattJayWhy Deck the halls with Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Erwin Schrödinger to up the intellectual caliber of…

The Best Local, Obscure Holiday Traditions Around The World

‘Tis the season for all manner of celebrations. But, while some holiday traditions (like reindeer sweaters and the foisting of cookies on any and all unsuspecting visitors) have picked up traction, others (like your friendly neighborhood Mari Lwyd, pictured above) remain sadly obscure. Top image: Mari Lwyd in Chepstow / Andy Dingley Today, we asked…

Was Michael Rockefeller Killed By Cannibals?

Michael Rockefeller was the son of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and an aspiring ethnographer. In 1961, he disappeared while researching the people of what was then New Guinea in what has become one of history’s most intriguing unsolved crimes. Now, a documentary offers evidence that he was killed by cannibals. https://gizmodo.com/the-8-most-intriguing-unsolved-crimes-1671225025 As Page Six…

New photo reveals titanic cliffs on Rosetta’s comet

Just when I thought I had enough of Rosetta’s photos of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, ESA has released this four-image mosaic that shows an incredible cliff more than one kilometer (0.62 miles) high. The image was taken from a distance of 20.1 kilometer on December 10. Here’s another version, zoomed out. The image resolution is 1.71 m/pixel…

Navigate the Legend of Zelda the Windwaker with this Lego map

Windwaker is my favorite iteration of the Legend of Zelda franchise. In fact, over the last few days, I have watching gleefully as some of the kids in my family play through the HD version of it. This Lego build of the world map by BrucilSprout has been quite useful in remembering exactly where everything…

The Evil Dead Show Will Have Two New Leads Along With Ash

Last month news dropped that Evil Dead was coming back to Starz along with former lead Bruce Campbell and creator Sam Raimi. We were excited, and now we know a little bit more about the series. Entertainment Weekly published a massive interview with Bruce Campbell that’s really a lovely in-depth look at the making of…

The cutting edge of a knife is totally invisible to the naked eye

That’s a red blood cell on top of a knife’s cutting edge. Now, we know we can’t see a red blood cell with our naked eyes. It’s too tiny. But we think we can see the cutting edge of a knife because it’s there in front of you, right? No, you can’t see it. To…

Even if you’re not in the UK, you can listen to the Good Omens radio play online. BBC Radio 4 has the first two episodes of the adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s apocalyptic comedy are available for streaming, and will be for the next four weeks

Survey Reveals the Worst Countries for Tripping on Psychedelics

The annual Global Drug Survey charts drug use patterns across the globe. Of particular interest this year are some stats revealing which countries are the most likely to produce “bad trips” for users of psychedelic drugs. The Guardian reports: The GDS produces a “High-way Code” to safer drug use, based on the experiences of users.…