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Awe-inspiring simulation of a flight through the known Universe

This simulation of a flight through the known universe shows “the real positions and images of the galaxies that have been mapped so far” according to the Galaxy and Mass Assembly catalogue. While the positions of galaxies are spot on, they have been made bigger for visual purposes. At high speed, the Universe looks like…

The hilarious truth of how Oreos are unmade and extracted for materials

If you reverse the process in one of those enlightening How It’s Made videos you get a fantastically funny How It’s Unmade parody series. This particular comedic episode shows how a delicious Oreo is extracted to provide half the United States with flour and harvested for cocaine, gunpowder, cocoa and sugar by wizards. It’s hilarious…

Steampunk Wind in the Willows illustrations are bursting with charm

Artist Krista Brennan adds a touch of bespoke technology to Kenneth Grahame’s classic tale of a curious mole, a leisure-loving rat, and the fad-crazed Mr. Toad, lending her own vision to the characters and their world. For her Steam in the Willows illustrations, Brennan takes as her inspiration the industrial era in which Grahame was…

Extremely rare albino blue marlin caught on camera for the first time

It’s the unicorn of the sea. The Billfish Report is calling these photos the first ever pictures of the extremely rare albino blue marlin. The mystical creature replaces the shiny blue and silver skin of typical blue marlins for a pure white that looks so striking in the ocean. Captain Juan Carlos Zamora with Carlos…

No, Artificial Light Is Not Destroying the Rain Forest (Yet)

A disturbing series of headlines made their way around the internet this week. “Artificial Light Is Now Harming Rain Forests,” read one at Vice News. Smithsonian went with the more sedate, “Restoring Cut Rainforests Might Not Work Well If There’s Light Pollution Nearby.” That’s bad news for rain forests! Except it’s not entirely accurate. To…

Watch A Wall Of Hand-Drawn Pics Turn Into A Sweet Animation

Animation artist Caleb Wood recently took to the blank wall of Duluth’s Prøve Gallery to free-hand a series of teensy drawings. The installation looks like bunch of quirky hieroglyphics until you see this awesome clip of them in motion and then—it’s alive! First, take a look at a few of the still shots from Wood’s…

Amazing Satellite Image Cutouts Turn Infrastructure Into Intricate Art

Human civilization has littered the natural terrain with sprawling megastructures too big to be entirely seen from the ground. But when seen from above, isolated from their surroundings—as in the work of Jenny O’Dell—these vast tangles of organized chaos will wreak even more havoc on your sense of scale. O’Dell has been using satellite imagery…

Amazing parents’ perfect lip-sync to Frozen song

This has to be the most perfect lip-sync job I’ve ever seen. Heck, if somebody told me these two were actually singing Frozen’s Love Is an Open Door I would totally buy it. I’m flabbergasted by how well they do it. And the daughter not giving a damn is the perfect cherry to this sugary…

Three Dead Racehorses Are Being Moved to Make Way for L.A. Development

A group of USC archaeologists received an unusual request. Their services would be required to dig up several large mammals—but not the Ice Age fossils that dot the L.A. landscape. They needed to unearth three horses buried under a racetrack. Hollywood Park was built as a lavish horse-racing facility in 1938 with investors such as…

This Map Lets You Find Every Street, Place, and Thing With Your Name

If you’ve ever secretly believed that you deserve a place named after you, then you have come to the right corner of the internet. This handy little app finds every street, river, garden, park, castle, or cave with your name already on it. Can’t you already do this with Google Maps, you ask? No, Google…

Dr. Proctor’s Fart Powder is basically The Rocketeer but with farting

Based on the hit Norwegian kids’ books by Jo Nesbo, the movie version of Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder completely — wait for it — blew us away. But since the fart powder is odorless, it’s okay! Here’s the official description of completely bonkers movie How far can a successful fart get you? Will it only…

1996: “IDC predicts that by January 1997, up to a fifth of America’s top 500 companies boasting Web sites will have either closed them down or frozen their growth. Although more people are expected to peek at the Web this year, many will cancel their subscriptions and go back to watching television.” [Times of London]

Is This Ride-Sharing Smart Minivan the Future of Self-Driving Cars?

Autonomous vehicles are likely going to have to do more than just drive themselves: They’re also going to have to organize carpools. GM’s EN-V was cute and all, but this Akka Link & Go 2.0 is more like a tiny bus—which is a much more reasonable proposition for a self-driving, car-sharing fleet. Released this week…

A Cloaking Device For Sound Will Make You Invisible To Sonar

A cloaking device that makes you appear completely invisible is still trapped in the realm of science fiction. But researchers at Duke University have successfully created a cloaking device that works with sound instead, making an object completely invisible to SONAR and other acoustic imaging techniques. So how does a bunch of perforated plastic sheets…

Rare diamond reveals existence of water deep inside Earth’s mantle

This battered diamond has survived a “journey to hell and back,” and it has a pretty specular story to tell. Spat out from deep inside the earth, it is our first direct evidence for a scientific theory that says that vast amounts of water are trapped deep inside Earth’s mantle. Discovered by miners who thought…

You Haven’t Seen Gravity Until You’ve Seen It in a Weightlessness Tank

Forget IMAX 3D. If you really want to see Gravity as it was meant to be seen, then this personal screening room/bathtub/human storage pod a la The Matrix is the only way to go. Last week, 12 lucky fans in Stockholm, Sweden were invited to take part in the ultimate Gravity viewing experience of true…

Good god, this bloody mutant monster can’t be a real spider

I don’t even know what I’m looking at here. I think I see some eyes and a beak attached some oversized head attached to the body of a spider. It’s a pelican spider. “They look like little birds,” says Hannah Wood of the University of California, Davis. The spider’s body is about the size of…

Explore the Inside of a Fruit Fly Brain in Stunning 3D

Brains are really complicated, even for the smallest of critters. If you’re a scientist who studies brains, then you might try to use some common words so that other scientists will know what you’re trying to communicate. People who study vertebrates generally agree on their terminology, which makes mammal and bird brains a bit easier…

Scientists Built an Impossibly Small Engine But Don’t Know How It Works

It must be fun to invent something. One day it does not exist, and the next day it exists. But how would you feel if you didn’t exactly know why your new invention worked? The minds behind this all-new microscopic engine could tell you. Ask Vitaly Svetovoy at the University of Twente. The electrical engineer…

The Most Unsettling Perfume Ads, Including Two Directed by David Lynch

David Lynch directs a sensuous commercial for Opium Perfume, in which extreme closeups of eyes and other body parts deconstruct the body you’re supposed to be desiring. Weirdly, Lynch’s perfume ads are far from being the most unnerving or strange of all the classic scent commercials. Barbara Herman, author of a new book called Scent…