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Men Without Beards Could Soon Have An Evolutionary Advantage

Hipsters take note: Beards may be all the rage — and they might be making you more attractive for now — but this is a fashion trend that could ultimately be the cause of its own undoing. Top image: Greg Anderson via Peta Pixel. A recent experiment by Zinnia Janif, Rob Brooks, and Barnaby Dixson…

4 Charts That Prove More Americans Are Biking and Walking

Americans are not only walking and biking to work, they’re gaining more support from local government and advocacy groups. And they’re also making cities safer: The higher the number of people walking to work, the lower the pedestrian fatality rate, according to a new report out today. The Alliance for Biking and Walking has been…

The KFC Double Down is coming back

After destroying touchscreens, stretching belt holes and greasing up all 10 fingers and maybe some toes, the vaunted Double Down from KFC—the ‘sandwich’ that served as America’s tipping point for ridiculous food creations—is coming back on April 21st for a limited time. It was last seen four years ago in 2010. Same deal as before:…

Man Lives In Dead Bear For Two Weeks

Artist Abraham Poincheval has been living inside of a taxidermy bear for a few weeks, as part of an interactive art exhibit in France. Poincheval’s two-week hibernation took place at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature. And will continue (after a short break) at Gassendi in Digne-les-Bains. Inside the bear, the artist…

Bill Gates’ New Patent Would Keep Glassholes From Spying on Your Screens

Google’s big Glass free-for-all has come and gone, but whether or not anyone actually bought the damn thing, cameras are popping up all over the place, and people are starting to get (perhaps rightfully) paranoid. Fortunately there could be tech in the future to save your screens from prying camera eyes. And Bill Gates has…

This Lego automata will hypnotize you with acid house music

If you’re a fan of “slow hypnotic acid house” music, then this Lego automata is for you. Oxford Contemporary Music provided a grant to produce this piece of Lego technic genius. Besides the music, I’m completely mesmerized by the mechanics of the build itself. Play house is an automata that mechanically computes and performs hooky…

What could Apple possibly want with a dam in Oregon? Is raising condors with hand puppets going just a bit too far? Why should we all start eating prickly pears? Hey, it’s time for this week’s Landscape Reads. Apple Bought a Dam to Power Its Data Center When you upload your data onto iCloud, it…

Why The Movie Industry Owes A Hell Of A Lot To CGI Animation

Can you imagine Michael Bay’s Transformers without the CGI Autobots and Decepticons? It would be unwatchable if it were even ever made. James Cameron’s Avatar would have lost the gorgeous visuals that made it more than a Fern Gully re-telling for an older audience. Our old friend Gollum would have just been an emaciated man…

Is Google Aiming Too Low By Planning A “Science Fictional” Future?

That new profile of Google X, Google’s mysterious futuristic project, includes the intriguing detail that all of Google X’s projects must have “a component that resembles science fiction.” That sounds ambitious and thrilling. But the Atlantic’s Robinson Meyer says that’s actually too narrow a view of the future. Meyer’s essay is worth checking out in…

Relive All of Your Favorite Retro Computer Reboots on One Website

Remember a time when every single software update you made to your computer’s OS or applications required a complete reboot of the system? Computers are still far from perfect, but over at The Restart Page you can relive those annoying and constant operating system restarts of yesteryear, and appreciate how far things have come. Everything…

First Breathtaking Images from Europe’s New Sentinel Satellite

The first satellite in the European Space Agency’s new Earth-monitoring Sentinel mission is already sending photos home. The first photos are of land use in Belgium, flooding in Namibia, and glacial retreat and land cover monitoring in Antarctica. Land Use in Belgium The first image from Sentinel-1A: land use around Brussels, Belgium. Image credit: ESA…

Here’s a US map showing the constellation of city lights and highways

It’s like staring at the night sky only instead of looking up to see stars and constellations, we’re looking at the bright lights of cities connected by highways. A Reddit user superimposed state boundaries and interstate routes onto a NASA photograph of the United States of America at night to show how and why things…

51 Awesome Webcomics The Eisners Have Completely Failed To Recognize

Yesterday, the nominations for the Eisner Awards, often considered the Oscars of Comics, came out, honoring five comics in the digital comics category. But there are dozens of amazing webcoimcs out there that the Eisners have completely ignored. The category for Best Digital Comic launched in 2005 and it’s always been perplexing for avid followers…

The West Wing, Ender’s Game, Everything Bioshock

Own the entirety of The West Wing, one of the best television shows ever, for under $100 today. Use code SAVINGS to bring it down to 98 bucks. Bartlet for America. [WBShop] Ender’s Game | $13 The insane deal that is the Bioshock Triple Pack made Bioshock Infinite our second most popular game of 2013.…

The X-Men Will Appear In Amazing Spider-Man 2 But Not In A Cool Way

Sorry. You’re going to see a lot of articles on the internet today happily proclaiming “An X-Men/Spider-Man movie crossover!” but unfortunately, you should not be excited about this seemingly momentous news, and here’s why. It’s because an X-Men: Days of Future Past clip or trailer will play after ASM2’s credits. There’s no connection between the…

The Future of Interstellar Communication Goes “Pew, Pew, Pew”

It’s no subspace transceiver but this prototype communicator bound for the ISS could revolutionize how we share data over the vast expanses of solar space. It will deliver Gigabit speeds through deep space. As the quality and quantity of onboard sensors improve on NASA’s interplanetary probes and orbital telescopes continue to increase, so too does…

Thank Joss, Agents Of SHIELD Has Started Torturing Its Characters

The more bedraggled and miserable the Agents of SHIELD get, the more watchable the show seems to be. That’s not much of a surprise — misery is usually more fun to watch than comfort — but what’s especially great is how these characters have seemed to come to life as their world dies. Spoilers abound……

Google Camera Is a Standalone Photography App for Android

Google is now offering a standalone camera app for Android that’s very similar to the standard app that ships with the stock version of Android. TouchWiz users rejoice. Google Camera replicates many of the features from the stock Android 4.4 KitKat app, like Photo Spheres. And even if you’re running stock on a Nexus device,…

A Google Glass App That Helps the Watchers Watch the Watchmen

If you’re committed to avoiding the gaze of the ever-growing number of cameras recording our every move, Google Glass hardly seems like a sensible purchase. That is, unless your face-computer can steer you around each camera’s field of view. Enter Sander Veenhof’s new Glass app, Watch Your Privacy. Now, you and your Glass can watch…

Floating Nuclear Reactors Might Make More Sense Than You’d Think

At a symposium held by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers this week, a team of MIT engineers will present an idea that seems to tempt fate: A floating nuclear reactor, anchored out at sea, that would be immune to tsunamis and earthquakes. Is it really that crazy of a plan? First, here’s what they’re…