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This Is What Your Professors Really Think About You Leaving Academia

As university budgets shrink, more and more graduate students are seeking jobs outside academia. You’d think this would be a good thing for the world, but professors aren’t convinced. In fact, many actively discourage their students from striving for non-academic jobs. The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Stacey Patton reports that at a recent conference on…

How The Lightest, Strongest Outdoors Fabric Is Designed And Manufactured

Hyperlite Mountain Gear makes packs and shelters with a new, Space Age material called Cuben Fiber. It’s 15 times stronger than steel and lighter than anything that’s come before. How do they do it? We asked Hyperlite Mountain Gear’s founder, Mike St. Pierre. IW: What is Hyperlite Mountain Gear? MSP: Hyperlite Mountain Gear is a…

I want one of these cool speeders to go to work every day

This is the work of young concept artist Seokin Chung,just out of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. I like his style—not only the aesthetics of his designs but his rough, simple, but very effective brushwork. Seokin Chung is a freelance concept artist based in Los Angeles. Someone should hire this kid.…

Can’t Find a VW Camper Van? This Retro Trailer Is the Next Best Thing

If your ideal vacation has you cruising the countryside in a VW Camper Van, but you’re having a heck of a time finding a used one for sale, Dub-Box USA might just have a decent alternative. In fact, the company’s retro-styled camper trailers are probably better option than an aging VW, thanks to modern amenities…

Firestorm Is The Newest DC Hero To Join The Arrow/Flash TV Universe

Greg Berlanti is apparently dead-set on brining the entire DC universe to television. Besides all the heroes and villains who have already been added to Arrow’s next season, Robbie Amell has just been cast as Ronnie Raymond, a.k.a. Firestorm, in The Flash. Robbie, who is the cousin of Arrow star Stephen Amell, recently has his…

Scarlett Johansson Shoots Everyone In The Brutal First Clip From Lucy

Once Scarlett Johansson gets her drug-induced superpowers in Luc Besson’s upcoming action film Lucy, she wastes no time putting bullets through anyone who stands between her and her freedom. See just how violent things get in this clip. Lucy comes out on July 25. [via Comic Book Movie]

Google Maps Update Lets You Measure Distances (or Aimlessly Doodle)

Ever try measuring the straight-line distance between two points on Google Maps? You had to hold some object or appendage up to the little scale, then eyeball-measure the distance on your screen. What a mess. No more—a new update puts the task a right-click away. Also, you can doodle with it. This new feature is…

Gas-Guzzling Galaxies May Reveal Clues About The Early Universe

In a galaxy more than 12 billion light years from Earth, stars are being created at a rate 500 times faster than in our Milky Way. That cosmic fertility comes at a price: the galaxy is quickly running out of fuel. But it’s also teaching us more about galaxy formation in the early universe. The…

Structure Sensor Review: A Tiny 3D Scanner With Huge Potential

Structure Sensor, the world’s first iPad 3D scanner, is the sixth highest-earning project ever funded on Kickstarter and one of the most highly-anticipated gadgets of the year. Does it deliver on the promises that made thousands of backers feel like they were seeing the technology of 2020? It definitely feels like a glimpse of the…

This Could Be the Future of Military Helicopters (No, Really)

The race to build ever-faster helicopters has seen some rather, um, unique designs take flight in recent years, but nothing quite like this Frankensteined airship from the AVX Aircraft Company. And though it may look strange, this concept chopper could soon be setting some new airspeed records. Built as part of AVX’s bid for the…

The Latest Phantom Super Slow-Mo Camera Chews Up Frames Even Faster

Super slow-motion footage turns even the mundane motion of a circular saw into a spectacle worth watching. Vision Research’s Phantom cameras have long been the masters of the medium, with their absurdly high frame rate possibilities up to a million frames per second. And its monster camera just got even faster. The new Phantom v2511…

10 Huge Tentpole Movies That Should Have Been Low-Budget Gonzo Films

It’s the middle of summer movie season. These days, that means tons of movies, designed to bring in the broadest audience to justify their $100 million-plus budget. And sometimes, you can tell these films, deep down, want to be “B” movies. Here are 10 huge-budget movies that would have been more fun with less money.…

El Niño is looking very likely to bring droughts and heavy rains this summer, but researchers at the Great Barrier Reef are worrying about a different facet of the phenomenon: Coral bleaching. Current conditions signal that it could be a bad year for the reef.

Adidas miCoach Fit Smart Shows How Hard You’re Exercising At a Glance

The Adidas Fit Smart might seem like just another fitness tracker, and in many ways it is. But the app-and-watch combo also features a handy a color-coded gauge that shows just how hard you’re exerting yourself. No more slacking, slacker. This isn’t Adidas’s first foray into fitness tracking, but it’s more in line with what…

Cholesterol Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means

Many new studies are complicating our understanding of the role cholesterol plays in heart disease. And last month, a group of researchers published the results of a study showing that what you thought you knew about “bad” cholesterol is probably wrong — or at least far too simplistic. Over at KQED, Liza Gross has the…

The Trailer For Gene Yang’s Shadow Hero Is The New Superhero Hotness

Gene Yang blew our minds with American Born Chinese and Boxers & Saints — not to mention the Avatar: The Last Airbender comic. So we’re thrilled to be able to premiere the book trailer for his new graphic novel The Shadow Hero, exclusively at io9. It’s the origin story of an Asian American superhero from…

Taking Photos From Inside Fighter Jets Is the Coolest Job Ever

For all the boring photography jobs out there—weddings, corporate, et cetera—Sergeant Larry Reid Jr. did pretty well to avoid them all and land one of the most thrilling jobs imaginable. He is the photographer for the Air Force Thunderbirds. His job is to fly with the team and document their amazing flights. In this video…

Original Back to the Future 2 Hoverboard Up For Auction

Doc Brown himself recently lied to us about the existence of hoverboards. But if you’ve got the cash, an original hoverboard (albeit, still non-hovering) could soon be yours. One of the original hoverboards used in filming Back to the Future: Part II will be going on sale this fall and it’s expected to fetch a…

The First (And Only) 3D Film Alfred Hitchcock Ever Shot

You may have seen this classic Alfred Hitchcock movie already — but probably not the way that he intended. In response to this post on when 3D movies are worth the extra cost and hassle and when they’re not, commenter Michael Walsh reminded us of the famed director’s first (and last) foray into the world…

A Dizzying Drone’s-Eye View of How the NY Public Library Sorts Books

Your friendly local librarian hasn’t been replaced by technology just yet, but that doesn’t mean the library itself hasn’t benefitted from a few modern upgrades. Wrangling special-order books and DVDs between the New York Public Libary’s 150 branches is a daunting task, but it’s actually made surprisingly efficient with the laser scanning machines at its…