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Tell Us Your Best Stories From Inside The Lab!

The lab is a unique place. It’s part office, part studio, part library, part kitchen, and part playroom, often with several thousand dollars of equipment and a few highly flammable chemicals thrown in. We’re looking for all of your best stories of life in the lab. Maybe your story is about coming up with an…

Garmin’s Vivosmart Is a Fitness Tracker With Smartwatch Tendencies

When last we checked in on Garmin’s fitness trackers early this spring, we saw the Vivofit present some good ideas but ultimately fall short of being a good product. Well here comes take two: The Vivosmart, which packs in the good stuff of an activity tracker, plus the notifications of a smartwatch. It definitely sounds…

Ayahuasca: A psychedelic brew that makes you connect with the Universe

Turkey-based filmmaker and CG artist Okan Çalışkan explains in this beautiful film the hallucinogenic powers of ayahuasca. This psychedelic brew, mainly consumed in North South America and Brazil, is normally used as a tool for spiritual awakening. Shamans often prepare Ayahuasca mixing it with DMT (Dimethyltryptamine): A chemical substance the body naturally produces during birth…

Bizarre Sea Creatures Force Scientists To Create New Category Of Life

Marine biologists have identified two new species of sea-dwelling, mushroom-shaped creatures that don’t belong to any known taxonomic classification. Say hello to a completely new genus: Dendrogramma. Back in 1986, the authors of the new study pulled two distinct organisms from depths of 400 and 1,000 meters along the south-east Australian continental slope. The mushroom-like…

An Asteroid Is Set to Skim By Earth This Sunday

Keep your eyes peeled: a small asteroid called 2014 RC is set to skim past Earth on Sunday 7th September. It should safely miss the planet—if calculations are correct. NASA scientists reckonthat the lump of rock should pass over New Zealand at about 2:18 p.m. EDT on Sunday September 7th. Current observations suggest that the…

Who Will Survive Past The Middle of Season 5 Of The Walking Dead?

Plus Andrew Lincoln previews Rick’s mental state. Robert Downey Jr. thinks Black Widow absolutely deserves her own movie, right now. Jamie Chung wants to return as Mulan in Once Upon a Time. Plus a new look at Clark Kent in Batman v. Superman. Spoilers now! Top image: The Walking Dead Batman v. Superman Here are…

Dyson’s First Robo-Vac Has Tank-Treads and a 360-Degree Camera

There have been all kinds of gimmicks to help your robot vacuum clean every inch of your home without requiring you to steer it around. But Dyson, while late to the robo-vac party, might have unsurprisingly come up with the best one yet. Its Eye 360 includes an all-seeing 360 degree camera that knows where…

These Exploding Buckybombs Can Blast Your Body’s Viruses And Bacteria

A buckyball is a single molecule of buckminsterfullerene, a form of fullerene that contains sixty carbon atoms arranged like a football. Now, scientists have discovered a way to convert buckyballs into deadly buckybombs and use them to take out entire armies of nasty viruses and bacteria. Vitaly Chaban of the University of Southern Denmark in…

iClouds aren’t dangerous to fly into, but they sure are distracting. [Telegraph]

This Is What Internet Traffic Looks Like When You 3D Print It

This might look like a child’s first attempt at using a potter’s wheel, but you’re actually looking at a solid object that represents the flow of digital data that is internet traffic. It’s an art installation called EXtrace by Vincent Brinkmann and it uses a 3D printer (of sorts) to craft an object which represents…

Lumia 730 and 830 Hands-On: Windows Phone on a Budget

The flagship Nokia 930, known as the Icon in the U.S., ticks off a lot of must-haves in a smartphone: great camera, great screen, great performance. But the $600 off-contract price might be somewhat atmospheric for some of us. That’s where the Lumia 830 comes in. For 330 euros off-contract, roughly $435, the Lumia 830…

Nokia’s New Charger Tells You When Your Phone Needs Juice

Microsoft has big plans to expand the appeal of Windows Phone 8, and two new mid-range Nokia Lumia handsets are only the start. Two slick new gadgets and a Lumia-centric software update could make Windows Phone an even more attractive option. Ever forget to plug in your phone before bed? The new Nokia Wireless Charging…

This just in from IFA: Microsoft announced a brand new Lumia update called Denim, that will let you activate Cortana with a jaunty “Hey Cortana!” just like “OK Google” on Android. Yep, Cortana will now be always listening for your voice. There are also a bunch of camera improvements to launch the camera app faster…

Litter Bugs: Creatures Made From Our Cast-Offs

British artist Mark Oliver makes his “Litter Bugs” from gears, old eyeglasses, tins, and other things he collects as materials for these pieces. Each one is given life through its display with a common name and a “scientific” name. The one above is the “Curio Bug” or “Coleoptera Peculiar.” On Oliver’s website is a description…

This Firewall Keeps Phony Towers From Intercepting Your Phone Calls

Earlier this week, we reported about how rogue cellphone towers all over the U.S. could be intercepting your phone calls and loading malware on your device. The good news: there’s a firewall that identifies these towers and alerts you instantly. The bad news: You need a $3,500 device to use it. Wired has an interesting…

You Won’t Believe the Slew of Leaked Celeb Photos Conan Found

No, really, you won’t. Is that Kim Kardashian… reading a book? Prince trying on… sensible clothes? These can’t be real. That iCloud bug has a hell of a lot to answer for. Well, not really. But these pictures are quite funny. Thanks, Conan! [Team Coco]

Headbutting Ram Takes Out Drone

This ram is very lucky that this was just a quadcopter piloted by a man he could easily defeat when he came looking for it. If it had been the U.S. military, he would have been toast. It’s like a trap: the ram takes down the drone, and when the owner’s hands are full of…

HTC Desire 820: A Powerful 64-Bit Android Mid-Ranger

A “mid tier hero”, if such a phone can exist, HTC’s Desire 820 is an intriguing device. Despite being directed at the less-expensive mid-range end of the market, it’s the world’s first to sport Qualcomm’s powerful new 64-bit, 1.5GHz quad core Snapdragon 615 processor. Whether or not Android devices need a 64-bit chip is up…

Would You Ever Use Twitter For Private Group Chats?

Twitter has never been a company to shy away from shaking up its core feature set. The company’s CFO Anthony Noto now says that you might soon be able to have Facebook Messenger-like group chats in your Direct Messages. Noto, who was speaking at the Citi Global Technology Conference in New York, said that adding…

NYT: Rdio Is Turning Itself Into Spotify With Free Music and Ads

Rdio’s great, but it’s long been the under-featured, overlooked alternative to the likes of Spotify and Rhapsody. Now, the New York Times reports that Rdio is striking out with a new freemium model: abundant free music, with a shed load of ads. So, like Spotify then. Rdio began offering a free radio service last year,…