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What Would An Eclipse Look Like From Right Next To The Sun?

Just what does a solar observatory in orbit see when the moon moves right between it and the sun? These pictures of a partial eclipse of the sun, from way, way up close, answer that question. Images: NASA / SDO It’s called a lunar transit, and it happens when the moon overlaps, but doesn’t completely…

Cocoa farmers trying chocolate for the first time is a must watch

You would think that chocolate is universal. Something that is everywhere, that everyone can enjoy. It’s not. There are people who have never tried it, even the farmers who break their backs to harvest cocoa beans for a few cents in the Ivory Coast. Watch their faces light up when they eat it for the…

Get Lost In A Brand-New Trailer For The Maze Runner

Get it? Maze? Get lost? Oh, fine. This second trailer for the movie based on the best-selling post-apocalyptic YA novels reveals a bit more about the mysterious world of the maze, more of lead character Thomas’ interactions with his fellow lost boys (including Jojen Reed), and a few more of the maze’s secrets. I mean,…

Why Russia Was Studying Space Lizard Sex In the First Place

For a brief moment, the internet was captivated by the thought of geckos copulating madly in a lost Russian satellite. Russia has since regained control of its lizard-sex orbiter, but the whole episode has gifted us an opportunity to consider a topic of extremely legitimate scientific interest. Namely, lizard sex in space. The formerly lost…

All Blood Donation Centers Should Be This Shade of Red

Every once in a while form meets function in such a wonderful way that an architectural pun is born. It’s hard to find a better example than the Blood Center in Raciborz, Poland. Let’s just say they don’t have to worry about a spill staining the carpet. This blood-colored building is home to a whole…

Why Bran And Arya No Longer Want To Be Rescued On Game Of Thrones

Season four of Game of Thrones contained some major departures from the books — and some of them underscored just how much Bran and Arya Stark no longer want or expect to be rescued. We caught up with Isaac Hempstead-Wright and Maisie Williams at Comic-Con, and they told us why things are only going to…

How the “10 Percent of Our Brains” Myth Started (And Why It’s Wrong)

Morgan Freeman can make anything sound legit no matter scientifically implausible. In Lucy for example, which premiered last Friday, his character cites the “fact” that humans only use about 10 percent of our brain’s resources. This is very, very wrong! But why does it keep getting tossed around? And how much of our brains are…

Banish Bruised Fruit By Floating It In This Webbed Elastic Bowl

Until scientists deliver zero-gravity fruit bowls, this clever creation from Scaleno is going to have to be our next best thing for keeping fruit from getting bruised. The Wassily bowl uses a web of stretchy silicone elastics to suspend fruit so it doesn’t get all banged up every time you search for a snack. The…

Running for as little as five minutes a day could add years to your life. And it doesn’t matter how fast you run. After studying 55,137 adults between the ages of 18 and 100, it was discovered that runners had a 30% lower risk of death from all causes and a 45% lower risk of…

China’s Building the World’s Biggest Sea Plane

Just because the Spruce Goose never took off doesn’t mean that aquatic planes in general are wholly useless; these aquatic turbo-props are still used for a variety of humanitarian efforts throughout the world. Now, China has announced that it’s currently developing the world’s biggest functional sea plane. But will it ever get off the ground?…

What If Batman Recruited A Bear To Be Robin?

There have been a handful of Robins over the years, but thus far, none of them has been a bear. As this animation by Cale Atkinson proves, that’s a rather large and hairy oversight. Atkinson has made two sets of animated gifs revealing the adventures of Batman and Bear-Robin. In the first (turned into a…

This is how they remove crashed airplanes off an aircraft carrier deck

A cool photo of a crash crane lifting a damaged Harrier jet off the deck of the US Navy’s amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge. The crash and salvage team regularly practice this kind of operations in case of an airplane crash. That crane is surprisingly huge—just look at the guy in the cabin and the…

Facebook’s App Strategy Is Bad News For Anyone Who Uses Apps

Starting this week, to check Facebook messages on your phone, you’ll need to download Messenger, the company’s standalone chat app. This is part of a bigger Facebook strategy to create many standalone mobile apps. That might make sense for Facebook, but it sucks for you. That specific change isn’t all bad. Messenger is easier to…

How This ISS Fireball Revealed a New Type of Cool, Invisible Flame

Remember that flame burst recorded by an astronaut aboard the ISS? Well, it wasn’t just for the fireworks. In fact, that great ball of fire led to the discovery of a previously unknown type of cool-burning flame that isn’t even visible to the naked eye. We all marveled at the incredible-looking Vine published by astronaut…

Over 100 Geysers On Enceladus May Be Spouting Water Onto Its Surface

Scientists working on NASA’s Cassini mission have discovered no less than 101 distinct geysers on Saturn’s small icy moon Enceladus. Just as exciting is the possibility that liquid water may be reaching the surface — making Enceladus a major target for future exploration. Back in 2005, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft sent back images showing what appeared…

The First Man-Made Biological Leaf Turns Light and Water Into Oxygen

If humanity hopes to realize its dreams of exploring the stars, we’re going to need to find ways to recreate life on Earth aboard a spaceship. Simply stockpiling enough vital supplies isn’t going to cut it, which is what led Julian Melchiorri, a student at the Royal College of Art, to create an artificial biological…

Use Your Smartphone To Improve Your Sleep

Stories of how technology is bad for our health are par for the course, but smartphones—and the apps on them—can be used to make significantly positive changes as well. One of the areas where you’ll find a cornucopia of brilliant apps is in the field of sleep. Here’s a small selection of apps that might…

NASA’s Opportunity Rover Just Smashed The Off-World Driving Record

The Opportunity rover has been trekking across the Martian surface since 2004, but this past Sunday its odometer clicked past the 25-mile (40-km) mark, establishing a new off-world distance record. It’s a remarkable achievement — so whose record did it smash? The answer is the Soviet Union’s Lunokhod 2 Rover. This probe trundled along the…

Spotify Just Added a Surprisingly Exciting Equalizer to Its iOS App

Remember equalizers? You know, the little dials that used to keep your tiny boombox speakers from tweaking out at high volume but have sort of disappeared in the world of digital music. Well, they’re making a comeback in the latest update to Spotify’s iOS app, and I’m unduly excited about it. Update your Spotify app…

The Photoshop Party Is Here To Save The Movies From Themselves

You’ve got Photoshop, an idea about how to fix a movie, and the absolute certainty that it’s time to combine the two. Let’s do this thing. Show us the imaginary movies that would have been way better than the originals, whether you want to give every movie the Loki cameo it deserves, do a noir…