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Watch Every Cyber Attack in the World in Real Time

Kasperkspy Labs recently launched a beautifully terrifying interactive map that shows online threats arounds the world in real time. In practice, it’s a global visualization of cyber attacks that, Kaspersky hopes, will motivate you to buy their security software. But it’s still a hell of a spectacle. The interactive is also informative. The data displayed…

Why Freezing Yourself Is a Terrible Way to Achieve Immortality

What happens after we die? It’s a question that has plagued the human mind since we first developed the concept of “death.” The search for an answer—and, more importantly, a means of circumventing its effects—has encited organized religion and served to shape one of the foundations of human culture. We’ve built pyramids to house our…

Are The Best Sentences In Science Fiction Mostly Aphorisms?

A lot of science fiction’s most quotable authors do seem to write a ton of aphorisms — Robert A. Heinlein comes to mind, for example. But over at the Guardian, there’s a discussion of the greatest sentences in genre fiction, and the question arose: are the best sentences in genre mostly aphoristic? For example, writer…

30 Photos Taken Straight Up

We look down at our feet all the time, while view directly above is often. Here are 30 photographs that celebrate the oft-overlooked view…no pun intended. WINNER: Notre Dame × An upshot of the Notre Dame cathedral in Strasbourg, France. A magnificent building and a must see if you get the chance. – Nils Rohwer…

Futurama, The Art of Final Fantasy, New Humble Bundle [Deals]

124 episodes and 4 feature-length adventures, all yours in one complete, attractive set for $85. We’re definitely worried about this price not sticking around. [Amazon] The Sky: The Art of Final Fantasy slipcased edition hardcover | $13 + shipping The last time we listed this it was $31, which was a killer deal at the…

Why a Head Injury Can Be Far Worse Than You Realize

Each year in the United States, 2.5 million people will visit the ER for traumatic head injury. Of them, 50,000 will die. And those who do recover often exhibit lingering effects. It’s a serious public health issue that’s only getting worse. Here’s what you need to know about protecting your head. The human brain is…

This Paleo Beer Is Made With Yeast From a 35 Million-Year-Old Fossil

As microbrewers continue their quest to brew beer with ever stranger ingredients, here is one possible winner: Yeast living on the 35 million year-old fossil of an extinct whale. Bone Dusters Paleo Brew is the alcoholic brainchild of a paleontology lover and a brew brewer, and it may soon be coming to a tap near…

Crazy camera trick takes the Hitchcock zoom to a whole new LSD level

You know the Hitchcock zoom effect: A camera on a dolly moves back or forward as the lenses zoom in or out, changing the field of view. French photographer Micaël Reynaud has created a new variation of the technique—which you can see above—combining the dolly zoom with slit-scan photography. The dolly zoom effect was developed…

When The Robots Take Over, They’ll Come On Eight Legs

Most robots have a problem, which is that they’re hard. The last few years have seen major advances in soft robotics, but the challenge to create a soft-bodied robot that can both locomote and manipulate objects has not yet been realized. At The Octopus Chronicles, Katherine Harmon Courage reports that a group of Italian researchers…

Intelligence‘s Season Finale Was A Parade Of The Show’s Greatest Hits

And even with an episode that seemed to bring together everything that’s ever worked on this show into one package, it was still only… adequate. Not quite horrible, but not quite enjoyable, either. On the good side, we had: Lillian being smarter than the rest of the intelligence community leaders. Mei Chen returning to kick…

Why One of World’s Most Remote Places Has the Fastest Internet

Ever been to Bjørndalen? No, of course you haven’t: This tiny town, located in a remote area of Svalbard, the Arctic archipelago controlled by Norway, has more polar bears than humans. Curiously, it’s also home to some of the country’s fastest internet speeds. Broadband companies see Svalbard as a testing ground for new infrastructure—a kind…

A long-running study is re-affirming the life-extending benefits of calorie-restricted diets. It overturns a study from 2012 indicating otherwise. The 25-year experiment shows that rhesus macaques, when eating 30% less than normal, are twice as likely to live beyond those who could eat whatever they want. Above image: A photo taken of two rhesus macaques…

Join the Debate: 3D Printed Guns or Government Regulation?

Here’s the question: in a world where the design of a 3D printed gun is freely available on the internet, can we—or should we–regulate open source design? Or are limits impossible in a world of anonymous file sharing? Does any attempt at control go against the whole spirit of open source, decentralized innovation? “We cannot…

io9 Book Club Reminder: Meet 4/8 to Discuss Annihilation

This month, the io9 Book Club is reading Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation. We’ll meet on April 8 to discuss it. Join us! There’s still time to read the (short) book. We loved Annihilation, which is the first book in VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy. We’re hoping VanderMeer will join us later that week to talk about the…

​The 12 Weirdest Comic Crossovers Ever

Crossovers are an everyday occurrence in the comics industry, where Spider-Man hangs with Wolverine, Batman stops by Teen Titans HQ, and Aliens battle Predators. But not all crossovers make as much sense as these do. Here are a dozen of them that aren’t necessarily bad, but they’re all definitely weird. 1) Archie and the Punisher…

How to hack your air conditioner thermostat to make a wall explode

Sponsored by the game Watch Dogs, the folks at RatedRR explain how you can hack into anything in real life—from cameras to AC units to smart power outlets to wireless LED lights—to use those home devices as remote bomb detonators. And of course, their demonstration includes actual bombs and explosions for your cheering pleasure. SPLOID…

$150 Chromebook, Futurama Box Set, Bluetooth Speaker, Nikons [Deals]

Acer has refilled its refurbished goody bag with $150 Acer C720 Chromebooks, as well as the touchscreen-toting C720P for $220. The C720 line is regarded for its best-in-class battery life, and is the commerce team’s pick for best Chromebook. These sold out quickly last time they were available, so don’t delay. refurb Acer C720 Chromebook…

9 People Who Thought Gmail Might Be an April Fools’ Prank

Gmail’s officially entering its tender tween years today, and after a decade with the internet’s favorite email service, we can barely even remember our lives without it. But then, that’s why we have the internet—to remember for us. Google chose a pretty dubious day to announce the birth of Gmail (April 1, 2004), so news…

London’s plan to grow up might go down, Elon Musk’s quest to make electric cars cool, and funny anti-Rob Ford ads appear in Toronto. Plus: Learning from streets in Vietnam, Paris, and Manhattan. All this and more in this week’s Urban Reads. A large and influential group of Londoners have launched a campaign against 200…

A Fascinating New Alternate History In Which Egypt Rules The World

Alternate histories – with their roads not taken and mix of real and supposition – can be dreams come true for junkies of world-building — and Ramona Wheeler’s Three Princes might contain enough awesome to make you overdose. Spoilers ahead… Though the most common times to twist into alternate history are those surrounding World War…