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The Best Science Fiction Books, According To Real-Life Scientists

We’ve all seen lists of the worst science fiction books and movies, according to scientists — but what are the best? HuffPost Science reached out to 15 great scientists and asked them to name their favorite science fiction stories — and the results were pretty interesting. Among others, MIT cosmologist/physicist Max Tegmark named Greg Egan’s…

Researcher Examines The Real Biology Of Captain America And The Hulk

While many comic book heroes may have gained their powers through scientific experiments or accidents, there’s more magic than science behind their powers. Or is there? A Stanford biologist looks at how epigenetic science can explain two Marvel characters’ abilities. Post-doc researcher Sebastian Alvarado considers how epigenetics might account for Captain America’s change in physique…

Why Didn’t These Triceratops Sneakers Exist When We Were Kids?

Fortunately, if this team reaches its crowdfunding goal, they’ll be available in adult sizes as well. Also looking for crowdfunding help is an exciting new anime, dolls based on real historical women, and a new online science fiction and fantasy magazine. Under the Dog This is one of those Kickstarter campaigns where you most definitely…

The Newest Weapon in the Fight Against Land Mines Could Be…Plants

Land mines are not only explosive but also poisonous, leaking toxins into the soil that make plants sick. That’s unfortunate for the plants but fortunate for us—if we can figure out how to look for sick plants as harbingers of land mines. Airplanes equipped with a low-cost sensor that captures non-visible light might be the…

‘Butt’ is an actual unit of measurement

The imperial system is a funny thing. Like, really funny. So funny that there is actually a unit of measurement for wine (or whiskey) casks called a “butt.” That means if you fill the barrel up, you technically have a buttload of wine—though you’d probably just call it a full butt. Are you laughing yet?…

Automated Transfer Vehicle 5 was the last to arrive of the spacecraft currently filling the ISS docks, but it’ll be the most spectacular when it leaves.

A Simple Ceramic Watch Born From Dieter Rams’ Design Philosophy

At $440 it’s not the cheapest or most functional timekeeper you can strap to your wrist, but if aesthetics are your priority when buying a watch, you’re not going to find anything simpler or cleaner than one created using Dieter Rams’ design philosophy. Braun’s latest timepiece features a case and strap made entirely from ceramic…

Who’s The Most Versatile Creator In Science Fiction And Fantasy?

Science fiction and fantasy are huge, diverse genres. They include a million different styles, tones and types of storytelling. And a few especially talented or adventurous individuals have managed to explore a lot of different approaches to science fiction and fantasy in their careers. But who’s the most versatile creator? Please include a clip or…

The US Once Poisoned Alcohol Supplies to Scare People Away From Drinking

Today I found out that in an effort to scare people away from drinking alcohol, the American government once poisoned certain alcohol supplies; this resulted in the death of over 10,000 American Citizens. This, of course, was during Prohibition. The government became frustrated with the fact that despite the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol…

Only 1 in 4 Nevada residents were born there, the lowest of any state

Americans who can claim themselves “born-and-raised” are far more rare in some parts of the country. While most states count at least half of their current population as natives, there’s a pretty large anomaly when you get to Nevada: Only 25 percent of its current residents were born in the state where they live. And…

Racing To Build Ikea Furniture Is a Guaranteed Relationship Destroyer

Need a quick way out of a relationship? The folks at Buzzfeed have come up with the most perfect weapon of mass destruction for marriages, friendships, and even family ties. It simply requires a pair of couples to go head-to-head in a race that has them assembling a single piece of Ikea furniture. Putting together…

These Swirly Light Paintings Look Like a Flash-Forward to the Rapture

Martin Kimbell‘s ethereal photography uses tricks with LEDs to cover landscapes in glowing, otherworldly beams of light. Read more about it below, on Reframe. https://gizmodo.com/these-swirly-light-paintings-look-like-a-flash-forward-1622356642

These Swirly Light Paintings Look Like a Flash-Forward to the Rapture

Despite predictions to the contrary, we have yet to experience any kind of global rapture here on earth. Should believers ever get beamed up to the heavens, I kind of imagine it would be in the kind of illuminated vortices created and snapped by British photographer Martin Kimbell. The glowing tornadoes are actually long-exposure light…

Magical Butter MB2 Review: Your One Stop Edible Cannabis Shop

Toking’s not for everyone and neither is vaping. A growing portion of both the recreational and medical marijuana crowds are turning to edibles to deliver their THC. Now, you can make your own cookable concentrates more easily and more quickly than you could by hand with the Magical Butter MB2. What Is It? The Magical…

NASA Is Developing Origami Solar Panels

Brian Trease, a mechanical engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is working with researchers at Brigham Young University to construct a solar array that uses origami principles for deployment. Such devices could one day beam power down to Earth—and folding them into a small size could minimize launch and assembly costs. The researchers are intent…

Could You Solve Enough Puzzles To Make It Out Of This Locked Room?

Real-life room escape games are point-and-click puzzle games made real. You and your team are locked in a room, and you have to solve a series of puzzles in order to get out. So how does it all work? Photo by Calsidyrose. I’m a sucker for point-and-click puzzle games: Crimson Room, Machinarium, The Mystery of…

Pro Hackers Could Be Spying on You Through YouTube

Bad news, dudes and dudettes. It’s getting increasingly straight-forward for deep-pocketed hackers to buy commercial-grade equipment so sophisticated that it can infect your computer with malware when you do something as innocuous as watching cat videos on YouTube. This is why it’s time to encrypt your shit. Morgan Marquis-Boire, a celebrated hacker turned security researcher,…

The Panama Canal Is 100 Years Old, Just In Time for Its Makeover

One hundred years ago today, the SS Ancon became the first ship to officially pass through the Panama Canal. Because of the outbreak of World War I, there wasn’t a big party for the grand opening. The waterway would go on change the history of transportation, and now it’s time to change the canal itself.…

The Main Villains Of Star Wars: Episode VII May Have Just Been Revealed

It’s a big day for the Empire. First we get the possible reveal of the new Stormtrooper helmets, and now we may have learned about the new villains who will be bring grief to the galaxy. And it may be someone we’ve met already… Take your daily Star Wars rumor grain of salt, and remember,…

Behold The Real Photo Nick Frost Took While Shooting Shaun Of The Dead

Remember the garden scene from the greatest zombie film ever made, Shaun of the Dead? The one where Shaun (Simon Pegg) and Ed (Nick Frost) discover a zombie in their backyard and mistake her for a drunk girl, and take a pic? Well, it turns out Frost really did snap a real picture, and this…