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The Worst Hurricanes in Living Memory Across the North-East, Mapped

Imagine if you could find a 105-year-old in every town and ask them which hurricane strike they remembered being the worst throughout their entire life. Or imagine mining databases for the same information. Either way, this map is the result. Put together by Randall Munroe for today’s XKCD, this map uses HURDAT and NCEP rainfall…

This Adorable Robot Will Help the ISS With Robotic Refuelling

The International Space Station just took delivery of a stash of new hardware—amongst it this attractive robot that will make up part of the Robotic Refueling Mission. Known as VIPIR—or the Visual Inspection Poseable Invertebrate Robot to its galactic buddies—the Pixar-like robot will help astronauts look where they’d otherwise be unable to see. It joins…

Samsung Galaxy Alpha: Android Brains, iPhone-Like Body

Samsung has just announced its latest Galaxy smartphone, the Alpha. With its chamfered edges you might confuse it foran iPhone from a distance, but it’s got plenty of its own fun tricks as well. The new phone is related to, but substantially different from, the existing Galaxy S5. It’s certainly slimmer than the S5, at…

Amazon’s New Mobile Card Reader Brutally Undercuts Square And PayPal

Look who crashed Square’s payments-on-the-go party. Amazon just announced its own credit card reader and app combination called Amazon Local Register, which will enable anyone from your mom organizing a yard sale to taco trucks use a smartphone or a tablet to instantly accept credit card payments. The device only costs $10, the app is…

Trojan Horse Gold Particles Could Finally Treat Brain Tumors

Glioblastoma multiforme is a cancer that’s as deadly as it sounds. It’s the most common and aggressive brain tumor in adults that’s especially difficult to remove surgically—but we now have a technique to treat it. It’s so tricky to remove because the tumor cells invade the surrounding, healthy brain tissue. Victims typically die within a…

FBI Facial Recognition Caught a Fugitive on the Run For 14 Years

The FBI’s facial recognition initiative is big and getting bigger. And it’s just proved that it works too, by helping capture a fugitive who’s been on the run for 14 years, during testing in Asia. Neil Stammer has been evading U.S. authorities since 1999, when he was arrested for child sex abuse and kidnapping. His…

Ben-Hur Remake Wants Tom Hiddleston As Its Star

According to Deadline, MGM and Paramount are trying to woo Tom Hiddleston into starring in the latest remake of Ben-Hur. Well, he certainly has experience in both big-budget action films and in historical epics set in Rome. Just at the start of this year, he was in the Donmar Playhouse’s production of Coriolanus. Photo credit:…

Facebook Will Now Crash 50% Less Often on iOS

I don’t know why you would use the official Facebook app on the iPhone — Paper’s fabulous — but just in case you do, you’ll be happy to know that Facebook has squashed a pretty major bug that reduces crash rates by 50%. The company’s engineering blog states that one of the app’s top crashes…

Here’s how much lighting can change the way someone’s face looks

It’s obviously not a secret that lighting has the ability to change how a person’s face looks but photographer Sebastian Petrovski wanted to show how dramatic that difference could be in his photo series Perception Is Reality. The photos, which were pointed out by Lost at E Minor, can seem to capture different people. The…

Pixels rearrange themselves and morph into different works of art

The Creators Project points to a neat little project where famous works of art are re-arranged and transformed into other famous works of art. So the Mona Lisa can become American Gothic and vice versa. It’s like seeing art become a wonderful illusion. The project was done as a sort of programming puzzle at CodeGolf.…

This Is The Most Insanely Wonderful Science Fiction Music Video In Ages

I’ll cut to the chase: Around the 1:50 mark in this video, Ariana Grande launches missiles from her breasts at a robot. That would be enough, but her whole attitude is like “Yawn, just another day on Mars.” She even tosses her hair and shakes her head while she does it! There are serious sci-fi…

Remember that new Type-C reversible USB connector we told you about last year? Well, it’s finally ready for mass production. You’ll begin seeing devices with the new standard in the next few months. Yes, it will break compatibility with existing USB connectors, possibly leading to worldwide outrage — think about what happened when Apple replaced…

Intricate Cardboard Models of Theoretical Flying Machines

If you happen to be in Melbourne, Australia this month, you can see Daniel Agdag’s creations live at his “The Principles of Aerodynamics” show at the Mars Gallery. Agdag creates his work without blueprints, just putting together whatever strikes his fancy. And his fancy is very intricate. The show, his first solo one, will be…

With A Brand New API, Uber Is About To Be Everywhere

You can request an Uber directly from the Google Maps app on your phone. Heck, you might even be able to order a car directly from Facebook Messenger. So why not other apps? It seems like you could start doing that as soon as next month. Sources tell TechCrunch that Uber plans to launch an…

Be Mesmerized by This Gif of Comics Characters Morphing Into Each Other

This is great, and you can stare at it forever trying to find a pattern. Sometimes there is one, and then something comes along to disrupt it. [I Raff I Ruse on tumblr]

Fox Steals Dog’s Toy While the Dog Barks Jealously From Inside

I feel like tonight, we are all this dog. And we are trying to hard to be the fox. [via Tastefully Offensive]

Warning: The awful image spam is back. You can read what was happening here. I hate to do this, but since nights don’t have the staff days do to handle it, I’m going to close comments for the new posts going forward. I’m sorry. Update: It looks like we have a fix so comments on…

Why Is Warner Bros. Developing TWO Aquaman Scripts?

Warner Bros.’s DC strategy has taken a strange turn. Well, an even stranger turn than before, as The Hollywood Reporter says that the studio has two writers working on two separate Aquaman scripts. Did anyone anticipate that we’d be getting overloaded with Aquaman news? Between Zack Snyder calling a radio station to defend the character…

Watch The Art In this Gallery Transform When The Lights Go Out

What happens when the lights go out in a Williamsburg gallery? All kinds of cool stuff. Brooklyn- and Barcelona-based graphic designer Alex Trochut has adorned Kinfolk 94 with a series of his trippy glow-in-the-dark art, and the results are pretty awesome. Trochut picked pics for his Binary Prints based on a kind of “city lifestyle”…

Land diving is way scarier than bungee jumping

Bungee jumping seems like a much safer alternative when you’re comparing it to the ancient tradition of land diving (or nagol). National Geographic shows how villagers in the South Pacific jump off a rickety 100 foot tower toward the ground with only vines attached to their ankles. Crazy. And even if you can get over…