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World’s Tiniest Tweezers Grab Nanoparticles Using Nothing But Light

When you’re working with tiny nanoparticles, you need extremely delicate tools. Like, say, tweezers that can manipulate particles 1,000 times thinner than a human hair without physically touching them. That’s exactly what researchers at the Institute of Photonic Sciences have come up with: optical nanotweezers that use light to move tiny particles in three dimensions.…

Tech News Bob Sorokanich

Ice volcanoes… in SPACE! (That never gets old.)

Remember when Europa spewed water into space in December? NASA has tracked down where (they think) it came from. This is the official USGS basemap for Europa, compiled from the Galileo and Voyager missions and centered on the projected plume location at -65 degrees latitude, 183 degrees longitude. Think of this as our “Before,” image.…

Space & Spaceflight Mika McKinnon

These Smartshoes Help the Blind Navigate City Streets

Wearable technology is a pretty busy buzzword these days, but some of the coolest inventions take the idea well beyond some gadget that lets you read email on your wrist. Wearable technology can actually be life-changing for some people. Consider, for instance, what these shoes can do for the blind. The world’s first-ever smartshoe is…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes

What Almost Human could learn from Fringe

This week, Almost Human delivered an underwhelming season finale, one that dusted its core relationship in a layer of saccharine while barely touching its overarching mysteries. Almost Human could learn a lot about how to build a season from another weird science procedural, Fringe. We don’t know yet if Almost Human will be renewed for…

Television Lauren Davis

Vintage Music Covers Were the Tentpole Movie Posters of 100 Years Ago

When movies were in their infancy, the biggest and most extreme storylines weren’t in tentpole summer films, but in other media. Like books — but also, music sheets. Sheet music of 100 years ago featured alien messages, posthuman visitors and more. Check out the most fantastical sheet music covers of all time! I’ve heard from…

io9 Vincze Miklós

Tour the Crazily Complex Skeleton of NYC’s Newest Subway Line

The Second Avenue Subway is more than 80 years in the making. Some said it would never be done. Yet, deep underneath Manhattan this spring, the final framework is being laid for a system that will carry millions of commuters through the city—and it looks downright primordial. The MTA sent photographer Patrick Cashin into the…

Tech News Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

The funeral scene you didn’t get to see in Venture Bros. season 5

We’ve got an exclusive deleted scene, straight from the funeral of an original Team Venture member. Watch everything you didn’t see from the 5th season burial of Dr. Entmann. This bonus scene comes from the special features on the new 5th Season DVD release. And it not only reveals Otto Aquarius’ real age, but also…

io9 Meredith Woerner

Roku’s New HDMI Streaming Stick: $50 and More Than 1,000 Channels

This is Roku’s brand new streaming stick. It’s only $50 (half the price of the last version), and it’s ready to pop into your TV right out of the box. Available in April, the stick plugs right into your TV’s HDMI port and comes with a remote and access to more than 1,000 different channels.…

Tech News Leslie Horn

This youth hostel feels more like a space academy

This is the winning project to expandone of the oldest youth hotels in Germany, located in central Munich. Looking at its interior, it now feels like a Star Trek space academy. According to the architects, its design promotes a communal experience and the “established traditions of simple traveling, youthful curiosity and the thirst for encounter.”…

Sploid Jesus Diaz

Tokyo Is No Longer the Most Expensive City in the World

Legendarily unaffordable Tokyo is no longer the priciest metropolis in the world—it has been supplanted by another, far more inaccessible city. Want to take a guess who it is? It’s not New York. It’s not San Francisco. The world’s most expensive city is… Singapore. The bi-annual Worldwide Cost of Living study by the Economist Intelligence…

Tech News Alissa Walker

Here’s a First Look at Microsoft’s Siri-Like Assistant Actually Running

We’ve been hearing for sometime about Microsoft’s forthcoming Cortana assistant, set to arrive in Windows Phone 8.1. Here’s a video that appears to show the new Siri-clone in action. And it looks pretty damn good. The video illustrates much of what’s been rumored: Cortana is a truly personal personal assistant, asking about your interests, tastes,…

Tech News Mario Aguilar

This seriously badass exoskeleton can lift well over 200 pounds

Italian engineers have developed a wearable robot that allows operators to to lift up to 110 pounds (50kg) in each extended hand. Developed by Perceptual Robotics Laboratory (Percro) at Pisa’s Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, it could eventually be used for work in factories or to clear debris and rescue survivors in earthquake zones. The “body extender”…

io9 George Dvorsky

41 Beautiful Black & White Photos

Who needs color when good old black and white photography is so simply beautiful? Here are the results from this week’s Shooting Challenge. Winner: Happy Husky I was in Titlis near Engleberg this weekend shooting some night time photography with stars etc then I remembered the shooting challenge. This Husky was so happy bounding around…

Tech News Mark Wilson

Unlocking the Mystery of the $10 Million California Time Capsule

An anonymous Northern California couple out walking their dog recently discovered six rusty canisters buried on their property. The canisters were filled with 19th century gold coins, worth about $10 million today. Who’s responsible for that much buried treasure? You might just be looking at him. Several theories have emerged about the Saddle Ridge time…

Tech News Matt Novak

What book or documentary helped you learn the most about science?

Lots of us are taught about science in the classroom, but that isn’t always the best environment to learn. Sometimes, we learn more from watching a TV series about science, or reading a really engaging nonfiction book. What book or movie/TV documentary helped you really understand a scientific concept for the first time? Image by…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Goodbye SOFIA, Hello Europa!

Happy (?) budget day! NASA is running a teleconference on how they plan on spending $17.6 billion in 2015. Discussion is lively on #NASABudget, and you can submit comments to the press conference using #AskNASA. It’s old news that the NASA budget is tiny compared to annual pizza consumption (nearly $36.8 billion in 2012), or…

Tech News Mika McKinnon

What a 30,000-Year-Old Giant Zombie Virus Means For the Future

A monster virus comes back from ancient times to wreak havoc on mankind. That may sound like a blurb from a science fiction novel, but as scientists have known for some time, it’s not at all impossible. And thanks to the recent revival of a 30,000-year-old giant virus in Siberia, there’s increasing concern that it…

Tech News Ashley Feinberg

When the world is ending, the only thing to do is make slapstick movies

We’re all obsessed with the end of the world lately — but at last, John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey have broken that anxiety down into three distinct stages. They’re putting out collections of pre-apocalyptic, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction. And you can read my story from the pre-apocalyptic volume now. The pre-apocalyptic volume, The End…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Sony NEX-7, $20 Off Kindles, Timbuk2 Bags 25% Off, [Deals]

The Sony Alpha NEX-7 is a tiny camera with a huge sensor, and you can get a nice bundle today on eBay for a great price. $950 gets you the camera, kit lens, case, extra battery, and a UV filter. For comparison’s sake, Amazon has never charged less than $998 for the camera and lens…

Tech News Shep McAllister

To fly on Titan, pack your wingsuit

Back-of-the-envelope math suggests that a human in a normal wingsuit running at ridiculously quick speeds (11 m/s), or in a quadruple-sized wingsuit running at normal speeds, could soar through methane clouds on Saturn’s moon. Okay, fine, as an undergrad class project, it glosses over some of the critical details like drag and how to actually…

Tech News Mika McKinnon

World’s Tiniest Tweezers Grab Nanoparticles Using Nothing But Light

Ice volcanoes… in SPACE! (That never gets old.)

These Smartshoes Help the Blind Navigate City Streets

What Almost Human could learn from Fringe

Vintage Music Covers Were the Tentpole Movie Posters of 100 Years Ago

Tour the Crazily Complex Skeleton of NYC’s Newest Subway Line

The funeral scene you didn’t get to see in Venture Bros. season 5

Roku’s New HDMI Streaming Stick: $50 and More Than 1,000 Channels

This youth hostel feels more like a space academy

Tokyo Is No Longer the Most Expensive City in the World

Here’s a First Look at Microsoft’s Siri-Like Assistant Actually Running

This seriously badass exoskeleton can lift well over 200 pounds

41 Beautiful Black & White Photos

Unlocking the Mystery of the $10 Million California Time Capsule

What book or documentary helped you learn the most about science?

Goodbye SOFIA, Hello Europa!

What a 30,000-Year-Old Giant Zombie Virus Means For the Future

When the world is ending, the only thing to do is make slapstick movies

Sony NEX-7, $20 Off Kindles, Timbuk2 Bags 25% Off, [Deals]

To fly on Titan, pack your wingsuit

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