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Why Mysterious UFO-Like Lights Glow in this Norwegian Valley

As a name, Hessdalen may be more familiar to UFO watchers than scientists. The valley in Norway is prone to “strange, hovering, flashing balls of lights” best attributed, as some believe, to alien origins. Now scientists say they’re on the verge of an explanation: The valley is a giant natural battery. But first, let’s set…

Google search for iOS just got updated with Siri-style voice searching—including follow-up questions like “what’s the weather like?” followed by “how about this weekend?”. It also features custom alerts to keep you updated on your favorite sites, blogs, and more. Download it here for free. [iTunes via 9to5mac]

Star-Crossed‘s Final Episode Ended With A Nearly Perfect Cliffhanger

Gotta hand it to Star-Crossed — this doomed CW show left us wanting more, with a final sequence that pulls back the focus and raises the stakes, while leaving a ton of characters in jeopardy. Too late to save the show, unfortunately. See for yourself, above. Spoilers ahead… Seriously, that is a great cliffhanger. Reminds…

This Bluetooth Buckle Adds Smart Functionality To Mechanical Watches

Ask any serious watch aficionado why they’re hesitant to switch to a smartwatch, and their reasons will have nothing to do with functionality—but everything to do with how ugly the current crop of smartwatches are. The Modillian, a replacement strap buckle that adds Bluetooth, hopes to fix that by adding basic smartwatch capabilities to more…

What Actors Do You Want To See More In Genre Movies?

Normally my response would be Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep, but they are both starring in huge new genre films (Ant-Man and Into the Woods, respectively). And that fills our heart with happiness. So who else would you like to see jump into scifi and fantasy film? Go big or go home: we choose you,…

Please Stop Calling Everything a “Hack”

We have a problem. Be you blogger, journalist, tech writer, or commenter (both racist and otherwise), it’s time to stop with the gratuitous overuse of “hacking.” Existence itself is not a hack. It’s one thing to use “hack” to refer to anything crafty or resourceful. Appropriate even. You broke into the NSA’s database. You tweeted…

Warehouse 13 Finally Proves That Love Is Stronger Than Artifact Magic

Warehouse 13 wrapped up most of the arc of its final mini-season last night, with the frenetic “Shisi Cangku.” Claudia’s sister and the evil alternate Benedict Valda collide in a frenetic story in which a record player nearly kills people but a capella singing saves everyone. Spoilers ahead… Warehouse 13 has always been a show…

Demon’s Souls, Logitech Peripherals, Xbox One Sans Kinect

Playstation 3 owners can grab the digital version of the game that started the Souls series, and my favorite of the three, for just $11 today. Umbasa. [Demon’s Souls digital, $11] Ready to cut the cord? If you live in a city, the Mohu Leaf is a perfect, discrete antenna for picking up local broadcasts.…

The Most Common Languages Spoken in the U.S. After English and Spanish

What’s the language that the most Americans speak after English? As you’d probably guess, the second-most common language spoken in the U.S. is Spanish. But if you look at the most common languages after English and Spanish, the results get a little more surprising, especially when you parse them by state. Using data from the…

Gareth Edwards Explains The Most Important Thing Godzilla MUST Have

Godzilla director Gareth Edwards took on quite a big legacy when he decided to update the classic monster movie — and instead of sexing up our beloved Kaiju, he changed the the story of Godzilla forever. He explains the real events that inspired his monster saga. Spoilers ahead… What do you need to make a…

This Is What Comic Books Looked Like in the Middle Ages

Curators at the British Library have compiled a list of the manuscripts in their collection which they believe are among the best examples of Ye Olde Comick Bookes, rife with superheroes, supervillains, origin stories, drama and, of course, blood and gore. Among the top candidates: Saint and Superhero: The Guthlac Roll (12th or 13th Century)…

The Most Common Language In Each US State—Besides English And Spanish

In 43 of the 50 United States, Spanish is the most commonly spoken language after English. But if we remove Spanish from the mix, which language turns up most in each state? Using data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, Ben Blatt at Slate has created several language maps of the US that go…

Chevy Assembly Line Workers Ride Around on Wall-E-Style Floating Chairs

Remember those floating chairs that our uber-lazy future offspring rode around on in the movieWall-E? Chevrolet just installed the real-life version in two of its assembly lines. Meet the fully-automated, gesture-controlled Ergo-Chair. True, the comparison to Wall-E isn’t one-hundred-percent accurate: the Ergo-Chair-riding employees use them for work, not for slovenly laziness of the highest order.…

This Is Why We Can’t Wait for Person of Interest Tonight!

Tonight brings the season finale of Person of Interest, and we’ve got an exclusive clip from CBS to whet your appetite for anarchy in the U.S.A. Collier’s privacy terrorist group Vigilance is putting the government on trial, while two AIs are about to go head-to-head. In this clip, which seems to take place right after…

Watch these aircraft avoiding a catastrophe at the very last second

I knew that all the airplanes and helicopters in this compilation of fatal accidents avoided at the last second weren’t going to crash. I knew nobody got injured or died. I knew all these things and yet I was curling my toes and found of myself saying “ffffffuuuuu” with every one of them. Very lucky…

It’s A Good Time To Be An Animator (In Los Angeles)

The Animation Guild recently released some data they’d been collecting over the years, announcing that jobs in animation are at a record high. According to their data, there were more than 3,350 animators in the guild’s Los Angeles jurisdiction last year, which is more than ever before. The boom can likely be attributed to the…

Microsoft Just Won’t Stop Making the Xbox One Worse

The Xbox One is a fine machine—great even—but it’s nothing compared to what it was supposed to be. Reluctant backtrack after reluctant backtrack has left us a box that does a shadow of what it might have done. And with a new Kinect-free Xbox One bundle, Microsoft is fully burying those dreams and all but…

10 Photos Of The Last Human Alive

The population of earth has been destroyed…except for one person. That was the theme of this week’s Shooting Challenge, and the photos that you created in response are strange, funny, and most often, haunting. Winner: Table for One The Lone Survivor is visiting his favourite restaurant; it is still set up for hundreds of guests.…

Audio-Technicas, The Littlest GorillaPod, Electric Shaver, LifeProof

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard of the fantastic Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones. If you still don’t own a pair, here are several different varieties on sale. https://lifehacker.com/five-best-headphones-5949489 refurb Audio-Technica ATH-M50 Professional Studio Monitor Headphones with Coiled Cable [black] ($75) | Buydig | Use promo code emkswizz refurb Audio-Technica ATH-M50 Professional Studio…

Stellar Carnage as Neutron Stars Collide

When two neutron stars collide, they viciously shred each other before merging into a black hole punctuated by a gamma ray burst. A new supercomputer simulation sets a mismatched pair of neutron stars in a death-spiral to investigate the process. The merger completes in seconds, ringed by a halo of diffuse gas. When a massive…