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Florida’s Nighttime Coast Looks Stunning from Space

Check out this amazing nighttime image of Florida as seen from the International Space Station. The Sunshine State features some of the most desirable oceanfront properties in the U.S., producing a near-perfect illuminated outline. Wow, this image really shows how big Florida’s metropolitan areas have become. NASA’s Earth Observatory puts it all into perspective: Illuminated…

io9 George Dvorsky

Wonderful prank gives housekeeper the home she was supposed to clean

Those make-good-stuff-happen pranks are getting crazy. After turning a waitress’ shift into the best day of her life, the people at Break decided to give away a house to Cara Simmons, a housekeeper and single mother of three. But first, they made her believe the new house was actually her new workplace. In fact, the…

Sploid Jesus Diaz

What is a “Cauliflower Ear”?

People who watch boxing, rugby, or mixed martial arts probably already know what cauliflower ear is. I had to learn from James Bond. Cauliflower ears, an interesting quirk of biology, are ears that have swelled up and collapsed until they resemble cauliflower. In Diamonds Are Forever, James Bond goes to a bath house spa, and…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Here Are All 556 Asteroids That Bombarded Earth in the Past 20 Years

NASA has released a new map of every single asteroid that entered Earth’s atmosphere from 1994 to 2013. Although almost all 556 of the asteroids disintegrated harmlessly, this well splattered map shows us exactly how common asteroids strikes are and how often our atmosphere saves our skins. This map from NASA’s Near Earth Objects (NEO)…

Space & Spaceflight Sarah Zhang

That Time When Wonder Woman And A Luchadore Teamed Up For Safer Sex

Here’s a totally wonderful Mexican safer sex poster, in which Wonder Woman and a Mexican wrestler join forces to promote condom use. This poster comes via cyberpunk performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña, whose home we spotted it in. (We’re posting it with his permission.) Here’s the whole thing, in all its glory:

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

You Can Now Send Cash to Friends Via Snapchat

You can now send more than just nudes selfies on your favorite ephemeral messaging platform. Snapchat teamed up with the mobile payments company Square to launch “Snapcash,” which lets debit card holders 18 and older send money within the private messaging service. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel revealed its e-payments plan to Re/code. How it works…

Tech News Darren Orf

Deals: $50 off Lego UCS Sandcrawler at Toys R Us

Toys R Us currently has the Star Wars Sandcrawler (75059) on sale for $249.99 (was $299.99) and I highly recommend picking it up at this price as you should not ever find it cheaper. Lego instituted a policy last year stating that exclusive sets and hard to find items (basically any set over $150) will…

Tech News Michael Schulte

Shooting Challenge: Timelapse

Timelapse photography gives you a super fast version of events, as if you’re seeing the world the world through immortal eyes. So for this week’s Shooting Challenge, make us all feel immortal. The Challenge Take a timelapse. (Don’t know how? No problem! If you have a smartphone, it’s easy!) Then upload the finished version to…

Tech News Mark Wilson

How Good Is Your Eye for Pixels? This Game Will Tell You

Anybody who’s done a little bit of graphic design takes pride in being able to spot the dimensions of an image. But how good are you really? Pixactly, “an online tool that tests how well you know your pixels,” will now show you in five easy rounds. The challenge is simple. Pixactly presents a pair…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

Gorbachev Tried To Get George Bush To Spoil Who Killed Laura Palmer

Twin Peaks can add another fanatic to its long list of obsessed fans, one Mikhail Gorbachev. In fact, the former President of the Soviet Union was so into Twin Peaks he tried to get U.S. President George H. W. Bush to pressure David Lynch into revealing who killed Laura Palmer. Lynch declined, obviously. Songwriter Ryan…

Television Meredith Woerner

How Does This Mind-Bending Illusion Work?

No, there are no magnets in there. The ball is rolling just the way you see it. This illusion is the work of mathematics professor, Kokichi Sugihara, from Meiji University and, if you’re wondering how he did it, the video below where he swaps the perspective of the illusion briefly to show you the other…

io9 Ria Misra

Hollywood Is Spending Billions To Turn VFX Into Art, And That’s Awesome

The movie industry has been going all-out, for the past decade, to overwhelm us with incredible images of superhero battles, space action, and dragons. Movie budgets skyrocket. IMAX screens pulsate. It’s all kind of overwhelming. And, you know what? That’s kind of excellent. I’m always kind of bemused when people complain about there being too…

Movies Charlie Jane Anders

Intel Mica Hands-On: A Fancy, High-Fashion Beeper For $500

Early this fall, Intel announced its first “luxury smart bracelet” built in conjunction with Opening Ceremony and aimed specifically at the ladiez. Today, we finally got to spend some time with the device and can say with total confidence: Yep, that is one pretty… beeper? The most important thing to note here is that Intel’s…

Gadgets Ashley Feinberg

How Do We Make Transforming Quantum Circuits? Lasers and Ultracold Atoms

Well, here’s a cooooool finding. Take any piece of electronic equipment you can think of and its circuits are powered by, yes, electrons. But a new experiment takes us one step closer to “atomtronic circuits” made of supercold quantum matter that can be reconfigured on the fly. Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory started with…

Physics & Chemistry Sarah Zhang

An Immaculate Millennium Falcon Model Made Entirely Of Cardboard

Most people are happy to clean a basement by just tossing or recycling the mountain of cardboard boxes that always seem to accumulate down there. Thomas Richner took the road less traveled, though, and stretched his Saturday afternoon chore into a multi-week project building a five-foot long model of the Millennium Falcon using nothing but…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski

Why Are All the Sea Stars Dying?

For the last year and a half, sea stars all along North America’s Pacific coast – from Baja California all the way to Alaska – have been withering away into nothingness. Today, researchers announced they’ve found the culprit: it’s a virus. Sea star wasting disease (SSWD) has been known for several decades at least, but…

Biology Jason G. Goldman

7 Worldbuilding Tropes Science Fiction and Fantasy needs to Stop using

Last week our own Charlie Jane Anders gave us some excellent advice on the difference between good Worldbuilding and great Worldbuilding – but sometimes creators of some of our favourite worlds run afoul of a few tiresome Worldbuilding tropes. Here’s seven clichés that need to stop cropping up in Sci-Fi and Fantasy. https://gizmodo.com/the-difference-between-good-worldbuilding-and-great-wor-1658543247 Header Image…

Tech News James Whitbrook

How a Con Artist Used Basic Chemistry to Prophesize the Apocalypse

In 1806, the people of Leeds were sure that the rapture was upon them. Chickens had actually started laying eggs with apocalyptic messages on them. That’s when a group of intrepid skeptics revealed that Leeds was in the thrall of chemistry, not the end times. It’s not entirely the fault of the citizens of Leeds…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Even Hunting Was Supposed To Become Automatic in the Future

The great promise of the 20th century was that everything would one day be operated by push-button. Even hunting was supposed to become automatic, as you can see in the invention above from 1922. The May 1922 issue of Science and Invention magazine included this contraption which promised “hunting without firearms.” A telegraph key was…

Tech News Matt Novak

Constantine Is A Lot More Fun When It Sticks Close To The Comics

This week’s Constantine borrows heavily from Hellblazer #1 with its tale of a hunger demon. And while it’s clearly tied to this version of John Constantine and friends, the use of the comic’s story and imagery does a lot to anchor this episode and finally make it feel distinct from other supernatural shows. This episode…

io9 Lauren Davis

Florida’s Nighttime Coast Looks Stunning from Space

Wonderful prank gives housekeeper the home she was supposed to clean

What is a “Cauliflower Ear”?

Here Are All 556 Asteroids That Bombarded Earth in the Past 20 Years

That Time When Wonder Woman And A Luchadore Teamed Up For Safer Sex

You Can Now Send Cash to Friends Via Snapchat

Deals: $50 off Lego UCS Sandcrawler at Toys R Us

Shooting Challenge: Timelapse

How Good Is Your Eye for Pixels? This Game Will Tell You

Gorbachev Tried To Get George Bush To Spoil Who Killed Laura Palmer

How Does This Mind-Bending Illusion Work?

Hollywood Is Spending Billions To Turn VFX Into Art, And That’s Awesome

Intel Mica Hands-On: A Fancy, High-Fashion Beeper For $500

How Do We Make Transforming Quantum Circuits? Lasers and Ultracold Atoms

An Immaculate Millennium Falcon Model Made Entirely Of Cardboard

Why Are All the Sea Stars Dying?

7 Worldbuilding Tropes Science Fiction and Fantasy needs to Stop using

How a Con Artist Used Basic Chemistry to Prophesize the Apocalypse

Even Hunting Was Supposed To Become Automatic in the Future

Constantine Is A Lot More Fun When It Sticks Close To The Comics

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