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The so-called “National Vaccine Information Center” is now encouraging parents to stick anti-vaccine warning labels on candy that they distribute to children who are trick-or-treating. That’s a real Halloween horror story.

Should the Rich Be Able to Buy Places on Clinical Trials?

“But you have missed the bigger idea!” exclaimed Peter Lanciano, grabbing the pepper grinder and banging it on the table. “The problem isn’t how to get my drug into Mr Pepperpot. The problem is how to protect me from being sued if Mr Pepperpot dies.” It had taken me two years to track Lanciano down.…

Disney Villains’ Version of “Counting Stars” Is Evilly Good

This is more proof that it’s the singing Disney villains, not the heroes, that deserve center stage. Give this a listen and you will never sing the correct lyrics again. Also, stick around for Scar’s truly amazing entrance. Other excellent moments: the excellent James Woods’ impression the Hades does, Cruella’s saunters, Jafar’s excellent hitting of…

Right in the center, you’re looking at Mars’s Atlantis basin—now 4 billion years old—and the delightfully named Chaos that surrounds it. The Chaos is in fact hundreds of flat-topped hills, stretching 170 kilometers away from the flat basin. [ESA]

ARM’s Next-Gen Mobile Graphics Chips Will Save Your Battery

The English-based chip design company ARM has announced its new silicon, and as well as churning the pixels, its new graphics chips will play nicely with your battery, too. VentureBeat reports that the company’s new Mali chips—and there are a lot of them, spanning low- to high-end applications—offer both higher performance and higher energy efficiency.…

Waste Hours Staring At These Mesmerizing Looping Works of Art

Drew Tyndell’s latest series of digital works — made by painting each frame in Photoshop — could very easily double as hypnosis tools. There’s enough going on here, that you could literally miss the rest of this sentence trying to see them all. There are some less abstract ones, but, for whatever reason, I just…

If you use Samsung’s Find My Mobile service , maybe stop: security researchers have found an exploit that means it can be used to remotely wipe your phone.

Tim Cook Talks Privacy, Watch Batteries and the Future of TV

In a rare public interview, Tim Cooks spoke to the Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker at the newspaper’s 2014 global technology conference last night. Here are a few choice cuts. Cook took to the stage to discuss Apple’s future, and along the way spoke about Apple Watch, NFC payments, TVs and the security of your…

Please Let This Static Shock Casting Rumor Be False

Let’s be clear: This rumor comes from anonymous sources and is in no way official. But it worries me so much, I’m breaking a couple of my own deeply-held convictions to pray to every deity I can that it’s not true. Ready? Okay, deep breath. The rumor is that Warner Bros. is looking at Jaden…

Space Whiskey Safely Returned To Earth

Back in 2011, a group of alcoholics masquerading as scientists managed to somehow persuade their bosses that sending (very small) vials of whiskey to space was a viable ‘experiment’. Four years on, the whiskey has eluded the clutches of the ISS astronauts, and has landed safely back on Earth. The idea behind the experiment, a…

Good night, Moscow

This beautiful time-lapse by Alexander Spirin shows the many contrasts of Moscow. A gorgeous city that mixes classicism and modernity taking it to the extreme. You can start the night at the Bolshoi ballet and finish it two days later stepping out the wildest club you’ve ever been into. This is part of a series…

The best pictures from National Geographic’s Photo Contest 2014

Everybody knows what the best thing about the end of the year is. It’s easy. No, it’s not Christmas presents. Or seeing family over the holidays. The best thing about the end of the year is National Geographic’s Photo Contest. It’s a tradition where we get to see just how awesome the world around us…

Tim Cook: Apple Pay Is Already The Leader In Contactless Payments

Apple Pay has only been live for one week, but Apple’s already got some welcome news — according to Mr Cook himself, Apple’s fledgling payment system has hit the ground running, and already overshadows other NFC payment systems. Score one for Cupertino. Speaking at the WSJ.D Live event, Apple’s CEO said that Apple Pay has…

Comic Reveals That Ghosts Have Better Fashion Sense Than You

We’ve all been a little overwhelmed by all the different terms applied to fashion. It’s hard to keep up. And then there’s the ghost fashion world, where there should be nothing but time to do that. However, it’s harder to be avant garde within the stricture of the traditional ghost outfit than you’d think. This…

The Replicator Is Still Sci-Fi, But Here’s A Start

The dream of the Replicator—a machine that can create or copy any object—has mesmerized us ever since Star Trek used one to conjure a glass of water out of thin air. Yet, like so much other sci-fi tech invented by show business, it’s always been just out of reach. The 3D printer company XYZ Printing…

Crazy people put car inside giant inflatable ball, roll it down a hill

This is fun and I don’t care it was made by the car manufacturer. I care that someone was crazy enough to think about putting a freaking car inside one of those giant inflatable balls—called Zorbs, apparently, perhaps the biggest ever made—and then pushed it down a hill. I only wish they put people inside.…

This Credit-Card-Size Cellphone Would Be the Ultimate Backup

Smartphones are great and wonderful in almost every way, but they’re also as needy as a newborn puppy — if you don’t feed them on electrons every night, they turn very quickly into useless hunks of glass. That’s why I am seriously excited for this credit-card-sized backup phone that you could slip into your wallet…

You’ll Be Glad This Mind Control Handbook Doesn’t Exist… Or Does It?

Behold the cover to The Person’s Guide to Ritual & Invasive Mind Control, a book that purports to teach you how to “filch people’s thoughts & manipulate their memories via the nasal cavity.” The first clue that this book isn’t actually real probably comes from the name of the author, Ludovico Milgram — no prizes…

Sleepy Hollow Reveals Daniel Boone’s Cannibal Secret

First there was the amazing Henry Parish TV ad for his legal services, now there’s a salacious behind-the-scenes tell-all documentary report of the secret lives of Daniel Boone. Thank you, Sleepy Hollow. Turns out his family ate people, or something. I’m sure we’ll find out all about it in this week’s episode. But one thing…

Seeing glow in the dark human stick figures do trick shots is so fun

Dude Perfect, the masters of the YouTube trick shot videos, has tried something different this time: they dressed up in glow in the dark costumes and pulled off their stunts while looking like glowing stick figures. It’s actually pretty awesome to see stick figures bounce and move around like humans. The trick shots are obviously…