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​10 Villains And Evil Organizations That Badly Need P.R. Makeovers

It’s never been a better time to evil. But there’s one cardinal rule to being a successful bad guy and that’s to pretend you aren’t evil. No one is going to support a group named the Murder Society, but if you call yourselves the Action Society? Then you’re in business! Here are 10 villains who…

The Bacteria That Got Spread Throughout The US By Military Testing

Have you ever heard of serratia marcescens bacteria? Today they are a cause of hospital infections. In the 1960s, they were secretly sprayed across Washington, San Francisco, and New York. In 1977, a few unsavory facts came to light about the bacteria. Apparently, about 10 years earlier, the Special Operations Division of the Army’s Chemical…

How To Make Soccer Popular in America: Play It With Giant Slingshots

Leave it to Joerg Sprave, the internet’s favorite slingshot-building madman, to finally come up with a guaranteed way to make all Americans love soccer. Instead of the players being limited to only using their feet, they should all be allowed to carry this soccer-ball-firing slingshot that can easily propel a ball the length of the…

Your First Look At Half Wild, The Sequel To Sally Green’s Half Bad

We found Half Bad by Sally Green dangerously addictive , with its story of Nathan a boy who’s the spawn of a white witch mother and a black witch father. Now here’s an exclusive peek at the cover to the sequel, Half Wild. And Green will be here at 10 AM PST to answer your…

The Latest Super-Thin ATM Skimmers Are Virtually Unspottable

Just like consumer tech, criminal tech advances in leaps and bounds—and none more so than the ATM skimmer. Now, the kinds of skimmers being used are so slim and small that you’ll never see them—and their battery life means they last an age, too. Krebs on Security has a round-up of some of the miniaturized…

This Week’s TV: Halle Berry Is Having Rosemary’s Space Baby!

We’ve got two big TV premieres this week: Halle Berry gets mysterious pregnant on a solo space mission in Extant and Guillermo del Toro brings his vampire contagion to TV with The Strain. Plus, Hemlock Grove, Mythbusters, and Masters of Sex are all back for their fresh new seasons. Summer TV is in full swing!…

Inside the 13 Coolest Offices of the Year

Bonkers offices tend to spring up like so many expensive mushrooms during boom time, especially in the tech world. But it turns out that average companies are investing in great design too—at least according to the shortlist of great offices chosen by the World Festival of Interiors this year. The Festival is an annual awards…

First Walking Dead Season 5 Look Reveals… Uh… Zombies Still Exist

Okay, the “first look” from season five of The Walking Dead, which aired during last night’s special episode of Talking Dead, was kind of a let-down. But if you were worried that suddenly zombies were somehow no longer threats, this brief clip of Carol and Tyreese avoiding them should quell your fears, I guess.

The Soundtracks Behind Your Favorite Books

Books have typically missed out on getting the soundtrack treatment that movies have. But more books than ever are getting their own soundtracks now, and that’s a good thing. Today, we want you to create a soundtrack to go along with a book of your choice, whether an old classic or a new favorite. You…

How 911 Became the Emergency Call Number

Before the 1960s, the United States didn’t have one universal phone number for Americans to call if they needed help from the police or fire department. Callers simply had to know the phone number for each department in the area they were currently in. In the case of large cities, there were often multiple police…

The Military Has Hired Hollywood To Help Build An Actual Iron Man Suit

Since Tony Stark is unavailable to advise the military on its robotic exoskeleton project, officials have turned to the next best thing: the special effects team that made the Iron Man costume. “It’s daunting,” says Lindsay MacGowan, co-founder of Legacy Effects, “because somebody’s life eventually is in your hands.” The Wall Street Journal reports that…

​The Secret Messages That Fooled The Inquisition

Giovanni della Porta was an Italian polymath and scientist back in the 1500s, when agents of the Inquisition were locking people up, including his friends. When he needed to get messages to them, he came up with an ingenious solution that involves writing secret codes inside an egg. della Porta came up with a method…

New Kinect for PC Arrives July 15th (and the Hacks Not Long After)

Microsoft has announced that the Xbox One’s Kinect sensor will be available for PCs from July 15th—and it will usher in a whole new wave of fascinating and useful hacks. Cast your mind back to when the first Kinect became available for PC, and you’ll remember a sudden explosion of cool and crazy hacks that…

Game Of Thrones Wine Is Coming

Now you too can get drunk on wine with Cersei and Tyrion Lannister because there’s about to be an (unofficial) Game of Thrones wine collection released. Sadly, none of them are named “The God of Tits and Wine.” Common Ventures has put together the Wines of Westeros, a non-affiliated wine collection inspired by the GoT…

Man With Giant Claw Rescues Bear With Milk Can On Its Head

While this Wisconsin lumberjack’s decision to assist the bear with the claw of a timber forwarder, rather than a call to the state’s Department of Natural Resources, was probably ill-advised, it appears the procedure went off without a hitch. In other news: I know people always say it, but, good grief, bears are fast. [Vern…

Airplanes of the Future: Mid-Air 3D Printing, Real-Life Transformers

BAE Systems has thrown a few wild ideas out there today, revealing what it thinks, hopes or possibly just imagines cutting-edge military aeroplanes may be like in the year 2040. One of BAE’s bizarre imagination exercises is an on-board 3D printer knocks out a quick UAV to deploy for investigation purposes. Possibly even odder is…

The imminent arrival of Microsoft’s Surface Mini is more off-and-on than a light switch—but now, Evleaks reckons it’s back in production in anticipation of a summer release.

Watch Engineers Test Their New Martian Dropship

Inspired by the Skycrane that NASA devised to safely land Curiosity on the surface of Mars, the European Space Agency has unveiled its own version of the rover-on-a-rope concept: the Dropter. An engineering team spent eight months developing the quadcopter dropship, which is designed to deliver rovers to their target landing sites while avoiding rock…

These storm photos are so perfect that they feel like illustrations

Photographer Jody Miller has been storm chasing and the results are outstanding. These vivid images capture the fury of mother nature in some extraordinarily beautiful landscapes. Jody Miller is a photographer, designer and animator who has participated at the Ansel Adams workshop and loves shooting abandoned and lonesome places, particularly at night. You can visit…

Watching cells grow over time is a lot of fun

Andy Lomas made this music video for a song called Seething by Max Cooper. Lomas created software that emulates biological cell growth. Just by adjusting certain parameters, such as the forces between cells or the source and quantity of nutrients,he obtains different forms. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook