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Person of Interest Is Back, and Here’s Everything That’s Changed

Last night’s Person of Interest was one of those season premieres that’s also a reboot. It was slightly clunky, but we learned all the new ground rules for this show now that our heroes have scattered, assumed new identities, and must cope with constant surveillance from a hostile A.I. named Samaritan. Spoilers ahead! I suspect…

How are these water drops just floating on the surface of the water?

Water isn’t supposed to float on top of water because well, water is water. So how are these droplets of water suspended on the surface of the water? Sound. The water is actually on top of a speaker and the acoustic vibrations allows the water drops to stay as drops on top of water. It’s…

HTC Is Teasing Some Kind of New Camera

HTC’s just released a new, deliberately mysterious video that’s teasing some kind of waterproof, slo-mo capable camera, to be released on October 8th. Should GoPro be worried? In the movie, we get a couple of casual real-world events captured by the mystery HTC device: underwater footage of girls swimming! Girls playing slo-mo soccer! Hipsters street-jamming…

Report: The Nexus 6 Is Made by Motorola, And Is Terrifyingly Massive

According to 9to5Google, this is the next Nexus device: a Motorola-made, 5.92-inch behemoth. In other words, the next Nexus could be the mother of all phablets. 9to5Google claims to have sources ‘directly familiar’ with the upcoming device, set to be launched in mid-October for a November release. The specs they’ve been leaked include a hand-torturing…

iPhone 6 survives crazy drop test from a wingsuit 7,000 feet in the air

Because dropping the iPhone 6 on the sidewalk is not enough and because soaking it in liquid nitrogen to shatter it and shooting it with a .50 cal is a little too unfair, RatedRR decided to do the ultimate drop test for the new iPhone: dropping it while skydiving in a wingsuit thousands of feet…

Happy Wednesday, Key and Peele Is Back in Our Lives

Good news for fans of sketch comedy and laughing: Key and Peele comes back for its fourth season tonight, and the first episode is stellar. Key and Peele was always good, but the third season was especially smart and silly, and if this season is as strong as its opening episode, we’re gonna have a…

These Actions Have Done The Most To Curb Carbon Emissions

As our leaders gather in New York for a UN meeting on climate change, it’s fair to ask which measures to date have contributed the most to slow global warming. Because no one has really thought to ask this question, The Economist recently tried to find out. In the chart above, The Economist ranks 20…

Why Sprawling LA Could Be Denser Than NYC in a Decade

By 2025, the biggest cities in the world will not only be bigger, but exceptionally denser. According to a new study, Hong Kong will be the densest megacity on the planet, almost twice as crowded as the runner up. And here in the U.S.—and this might be a real shocker—Los Angeles may be more dense…

How Laline Paull Brought Real Science into Her Novel The Bees

Science fiction has a celebrated role in inspiring real scientific advancements. But, the relationship also works in the opposite direction, with science inspiring stories to go to new places. Here, author Laline Paull explains just how scientific facts sent her novel The Bees into an unexpected direction. Paull joined us today to answer questions about…

The Beautiful Near-Silence of Botswana’s Okavango Delta at Night

I spend most of my weekdays on my sofa sitting in front of a computer screen. I’m guessing a lot of you spend most of your weekdays in some kind of indoor office environment, also sitting in front of a computer screen. Wanna close your eyes with me and take a sonic journey to Botswana’s…

These illustrations perfectly make fun of our obsession with Facebook

Everybody uses Facebook even if you don’t. Artist Pawel Kuczynski played on the idea of our obsession with the social network and people’s behavior while using it and how Facebook treats its users in these perfectly on point satirical illustrations. They take Facebook’s logo and twist it into something else. The illustrations are clever! Facebook…

Nick Harkaway’s Tigerman Takes Superheroes Where They’ve Never Gone

Nick Harkaway’s Tigermanis a funny, original and very human novel about a man who puts on a costume and rights wrongs. It’s also an echt superhero novel – it gives us a new take on superheroics, different from either superhero comics or films, by showing them through the lens of literary prose. All the familiar…

Ridley Scott Says Prometheus 2 Is Xenomorph-Free

When Noomi Rapace and the severed head of Michael Fassbeder resume their interstellar adventures in Prometheus 2, they can take comfort in the fact that they won’t be bothered by any more xenomorphs. Ridley Scott says the sequel to his 2012 quasi-prequel to Alien will be completely devoid of Aliens. Yay? Scott told Yahoo Movies…

Famous Comic Strip Artists Draw Their Characters While Blindfolded

Back in 1947, LIFE Magazine asked ten famous cartoonists to draw their characters while wearing a blindfold. How did they do? Here are the results. Dixie Dugan, by John Striebel Steve Canyon, by Milton Caniff Dagwood Bumstead, by Chic Young Skeezix, by Frank King Secret Agent X-9 (or Phil Corrigan), by Mel Graff Smilin’ Jack,…

Winnie the Pooh was based on a real bear that participated in WWI

Everybody loves Winnie the Pooh and his adorable addiction to honey. It’s often believed that the children’s book character is based on a teddy bear that the author, A.A. Milne, gave to his son Christopher Robin Milne. But this is only partially true. In fact, Christopher Robin named his stuffed bear after a real bear…

Cirque Du Soleil Choreographed A Dance For Drones And It’s Pure Magic

What happens when you get Cirque du Soleil to produce a performance by robotic quadcopters? You get this incredibly charming video about an electricians whose workshop is suddenly filled with dancing lampshades. Cirque du Soleil teamed up with ETH Zurich and Verity Studios to treat the quadcopters as flying puppets for SPARKED, turning ordinary lampshades…

“Space Bubbles” Caused a Deadly Firefight Between the U.S. and al-Qaida

One of the bloodiest rescue missions in Afghanistan in 2002 was caused by a tactical error. But that error could have been prevented if it hadn’t been for “space bubbles” that prevented a military helicopter from getting crucial intel from a remote command post. Illustration of the battle by KEITH ROCCO New data about what…

Dystopian science fiction can teach us a lot about the future of cities. In an article published today onSlate, I talk about the history of dystopian cities in SF, and how they’re connected to urban policies and changes in the real world.

Seal Beach Has Decided to Solve Its Coyote Problem By Killing Them

It’s always sad when a beloved family pet becomes dinner for local wildlife, but is trapping and killing wildlife the answer? One Southern California community thinks so. In Seal Beach, a coastal community in Orange County south of Los Angeles, people are tired of losing their pets to coyotes. So the City Council agreed at…

A Blueprint-Style Catalog of Man’s Greatest Erections

Do you love architecture? Like, really, really love it? The Schematic of Structures is the latest poster by the chronic catalogers at Popchartlab, showing bitty, blueprint-esque icons of famous constructions from Stonehenge to the Burj Khalifa. Owning one and hanging it on your wall would be a great way to publicly show your appreciation for…