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Photo Safari: Lions

I always thought it was odd that lions were called the King of the Jungle when, in truth, they live on the savannah and in the bush. Still, they’re definitely royalty among the African megafauna. Above, a lioness bares her teeth – it may appear aggressive, but the truth is I managed to catch her…

Map of record-breaking cold blanket covering the US

It’s not only Buffalo engulfed in a terrifying snow wall. Yesterday was the coldest November morning since 1976: More than 85% of the surface of the contiguous United States reached or fell below freezing. This is much more anomalous than last year’s polar vertex: Ten degrees celsius below normal temperatures! According to Dr. Ryan Maue,…

Quadcopter And Unmanned Helicopter Combo Is Great At Fighting Fire

Forest fires are a persistent problem for the U.S, and our best line of defence is still all too often just men on the ground with backhoes. But combining a remotely-piloted quadcopter with Kaman’s unmanned K-Max helicopter could make for a fearsome alternative to smokejumpers. The joint unmanned K-Max helicopter is already a well-established program,…

Honest Trailers Finds That, In Retrospect, The Little Mermaid Is Creepy

While the crew at Screen Junkies hits all the points many, many people have found objectionable over the years, they also found a few new ones. Like: Why are some sea creatures full characters and others beasts of burden? And: “Les Poissons” is actually the scariest song in the movie. They have to take everything…

The first demo video of the world’s tallest roller coaster is terrifying

The world’s tallest roller coaster won’t even be made until 2017 and this is just a demo video of what the roller coaster is going to feel like but I’m already scared. Skyscraper at Skyplex in Orlando will be the tallest roller coaster in the world at over 500 feet tall and you ride the…

This Clever Wardrobe Hides An Entire Apartment

Thanks to the increasing price of real estate in almost every growing city, apartments are growing smaller by the year. But thankfully, architects are getting more crafty with every reduction in size. Previously, I’d have written off an 8 square meter apartment as impossibly tiny for anything but my pet hamster — but after seeing…

Tiny hamster eating too much tiny Thanksgiving food is just so cute

I love Thanksgiving. Family and food and football and more food and Fall and friends and even more food. And though all of that makes me smile, nothing captures the essence of holiday better than this tiny hamster: it ate so much tiny Thanksgiving food that you can see the guilt and worry on its…

Pebble and PayPal Give You Another Stupid Way To Pay For Stuff

Tech companies are continuing with the long, hard struggle to rid the planet of credit cards. Today’s slightly awkward solution comes courtesy of PayPal and Pebble, who will now let you ditch your wallet, provided you own a Pebble smartwatch, have a PayPal account, and shop at stores that take PayPal. The system is a…

Ron Solo Thinks You Should Let The Hagrid Win

We’ve featured the amazing mash-ups of James Hance previously, but holy hell has he outdone himself with this piece, where he puts Rupert Grint and Robbie Coltrane, as their Harry Potter characters Ron Weasley and Hagrid, as the two most famous scoundrels of the Star Wars universe. Then there’s this: Unfortunately, these are the only…

The 500 most popular types of porn in one chart

Everybody watches porn but everybody has different tastes. And there is just so much porn to watch. But how can we figure which type of porn is most popular? This chart from Data Looks Dope’s Max Einstein reveals the top 500 video tags in porn. You’ll see everything from hardcore to Argentina. The data comes…

Google’s tweaking its search results again. This time, it’s adding a little tag to mobile-optimized results when you search from your smartphone, so that hopefully you won’t get stuck on a GeoCities page by accident. Google’s also said that it might change page ranking based on whether a site is mobile-optimized or not. [Google]

This Terrifying Simulation Shows A Year In The Life Of Earth’s CO2

NASA scientists have produced an ultra-high resolution computer model showing the ebbs and flows of carbon dioxide over the course of an entire year. It’s both stunning and undeniably frightening. This is the first hi-res simulation to show in such fine detail how carbon dioxide actually moves through the atmosphere. Watching it, you can see…

Congress Has Killed NSA Reform

Freedom has died, quite literally. To be more accurate, the USA FREEDOM Act of 2014, which sought to limit telephone record collection and reform the secret FISA courts, has failed to move forward. The bill failed in the Senate, defeated by an irritatingly close 58 to 42 (the bill needed 60 votes to move forward).…

An Unexpectedly Moving Scene From Last Night’s The Originals

I had some severe doubts about the latest bizarre plot twist on The Originals, but the show actually pulled out a surprising twist that made it actually quite powerful. Every once in a while, Joseph Morgan brings out a gentle, mournful side to Klaus and it’s hard not to be affected. See for yourself. Spoilers…

Build your own BTTF Jules Verne Train

There were lots of disappointed folks when the last round of Lego Ideas reviews came in and the Team BTTF Jules Verne Train did not make it into the production phase. Thankfully, they have released the building instructions for Lego Digital Designer in both Locomotive and Power Functions forms. Once you create a build guide…

We Made a Slight Miscalculation

Look, I’m sorry that you’re upset. But sometimes we materialize before we really have a chance to think about what molecular format is going to make the most sense for the timeline we’re visiting. Honestly, I don’t think any of the natives are even going to notice. Alejandro “Burda” Burdisio is an illustrator and concept…

Stop Reading This and Go Watch Chelsea Peretti’s New Stand-Up Special

Chelsea Peretti’s new stand-up special on Netflix is amazing. Seriously, why are you reading this and not watching it right now? I honestly don’t care if you’ve seen it before. Stop reading and go watch it. Again. Are you seriously still reading this? What conceivable reason could you have? Do you think I’m going to…

Survivors Of A Nuclear War Find A Secret Bunker—But There’s A Catch

Phoenix 9 is an impressive post-apocalyptic short film set after a nuclear war has devastated the world. A ragtag group of survivors are seeking sanctuary, and they’ve become a family in the process. But things get complicated when they come across a secret military installation that may be too good to be true. Phoenix 9…

Uber’s New Privacy Policy Has a Hilarious Loophole

In case you haven’t already switched to a new method of getting around town, this might help to cement your decision. Uber has published an update to its privacy policy and it includes a loophole so wide you can drive an entitled black SUV through it. Only a day after BuzzFeed published a report that…

Rosetta Is Sending Back Intriguing Data on the Origins of Earth’s Water

While you were worrying about Philae’s landing, the spacecraft Rosetta has been patiently circling the comet, doing its own science. And it’s just dropped some intriguing results into the big debate over how Earth got its water. In case you’re just, ahem, wading in, the origin of Earth’s water has been a great, unsolved scientific…