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10 TV Shows That Had To Fail So We Could Get Game Of Thrones

Game of Thrones feels like a leap forward in fantasy television. But no television show emerges from a vacuum, and for Game of Thrones to succeed, a number of innovative and brilliant TV shows had to crash and burn, to light its path. Here are 10 TV shows that failed, but helped pave the way…

This New Doubleclicks Song Is All You Need to Survive Mass Extinction

My book about humanity’s future, Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, comes out in paperback next week. To celebrate, I asked amazing geek band The Doubleclicks to create a book trailer. The song they wrote is wondrous. For those who aren’t familiar with The Doubleclicks, they’re a singer-songwriter duo from…

Forget a Ouija Board, What if You Can Conjure a Ghost With Your Mind?

We’ve all been there — you freak yourself out telling stories or watching a horror movie and all of a sudden you’re seeing poltergeists everywhere. But what about people who have actually caused paranormal phenomena to happen, with just the power of their brains? One of the most famous explorations of the link between the…

Why Locating 911 Calls Is So Hard—And How To Make It Better

You’ve heard the cautionary tales about dialing 911 on your cell phone. A call about missing children in Illinois gets routed to Canada. A stroke victim in New York is only located after a gruelingeight-hour search. Locating 911 calls in 2014 is a byzantine process that involves generating a fake phone number—but a Next Generation…

Some of L.A.’s Most Beautiful Landscapes Are Its Freeways

The vast and looping knots of L.A.’s elaborate freeway system have long inspired an unlikely stew made from equal parts road rage, suffocating air pollution, and an unexpected aesthetic appreciation for their stacked coils and crisp lines. A drivable geometry textbook, the freeways are perhaps the city’s real monuments, Stonehenge-like megastructures that novelist J.G. Ballard…

DARPA’s New Biotech Division Wants To Create A Transhuman Future

The Pentagon’s advanced research wing has announced its latest budget — and whoa, does DARPA ever have some ambitious plans for the future. Their new Biotech unit will be harnessing biology for national security, and dealing with everything from stopping plagues to building synthetic soldiers. DARPA’s commitment to cutting-edge innovation is unquestioned. The very essence…

Baby Elephant Wanders Into South African Living Room, Has A Snack

A 10-day-old African elephant (Loxodonta africana) somehow became separated from its herd and wandered into a house at the Thula Thula Private Game Reserve in Zululand, South Africa. Above: The elephant herd at the Thula Thula Game Reserve. You’ll want to expand it to really see the details. The female infant has been named “Tom,”…

Philips’ New Clear LED Bulbs Look Just Like Incandescents

Despite being more energy-efficient and longer lasting, consumers keep finding excuses for wanting to stick with ancient incandescent lightbulbs. But with clear glass and a special LED lens that looks like a traditional filament, Philips’ latest LED bulbs might finally convince those afraid of change. Not only do they look like incandescent bulbs before they’re…

This Cool Animation Explains U.S. Arctic Policy In Just Two Minutes

The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet. And as it does so, many nations — especially those with Arctic coastlines — are assessing opportunities for establishing new trade routes and tapping into the region’s vast reserves of offshore oil and gas. But the Energy Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution believes…

Geoscience of the Megaquake and Tsunami in Chile

At 4:45pm on Tuesday April 1st, a magnitude 8.2 earthquake hit the coast of Chile. This megathrust earthquake produced substantial ground shaking for hundreds of kilometers, and spawned a tsunami that triggered evacuations in Chile and Peru. Chile has a history of earthquakes ranging from shallow (red) to deep (blue). The recent magnitude 8.2 is…

22 Strange Medical Instruments From the Past That Make You Shudder

In the history of medicine, machines became crucial parts of the diagnostic and treatment process in the first half of the 20th century. Scientists and doctors experimented with some really strange devices, and they developed a lot of creepy-looking health equipment—at least some of which seems almost horrific, seen through the eyes of today. The…

This Liquid Turns Drinks Orange In The Presence Of Date Rape Drug GHB

Researchers at the National University of Singapore have developed the first fluorescent sensor for the date rape drug γ-Hydroxybutyric acid, more commonly known as “GHB.” The liquid, when mixed with a beverage spiked with GHB, causes the drink to turn bright orange in color. Not as elegant as, say, a straw that changes color in…

Who Needs Campfires When Machines Can Perfectly Toast Marshmallows?

With a few modifications made to their egg decorating machine—including the addition of a compact oxy-fuel torch—the folks at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories were able to create what could possibly be the world’s first automatic marshmallow toaster. Sadly you can’t actually buy one, given the design was first revealed yesterday. But since it’s a hack…

What Happens To Wildlife After A Tsunami?

After a magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck Chile yesterday, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama. While it’s still too early to know how the wildlife along that stretch of Pacific coastline fared – let alone how our own species fared – we can look to previous tsunamis…

How Animated GIFs Can Teach Us About Computer Science

Everyone loves animated GIFs, but you might not realize that their grainy, jerky video can teach us a lot about the compromises that computer scientists everywhere have to make. The low frame rates and small color gamut in GIFs are what make them, frankly, a bit rubbish for video. But arriving at a balance between…

​What Would Happen If Disney Bought DC Comics?

April Fool’s Day is over, and thank goodness. Every year there’s some asshole claiming that there’s a new U.S. government, or someone found a way to turn the electricity back on, or that the motorcycle barbarians have gone back to Australia. So annoying! Admittedly, I lie about being a mailman all the time, but at…

Amazon has started adding Metacritic review scores to its video game listings—meaning there’s professional reviews of the games to go with the enthusiastic amateur views, too.

Can Six Astronauts Live Together for 17 Months And Not Go Crazy?

The “Mars500” project was the most ambitious attempt yet to simulate the conditions of an expedition to the Red Planet. A newly published study assesses the psychological well-being of the crew during their “mission”—and reveals what it was like to live in cramped quarters with 6 people for 520 days. At the State Scientific Center…

All The Different Ways People Say “Hi” To Each Other Across The Country

“What neighborhood do you live in?” “How’s your mom?” “Where do you go to church?” These are just some of the ways people all across the country say hello to strangers. “The Geography of Small Talk” was put together by The Atlantic based on research from their correspondent Deborah Fallows to look at the questions…

North Korea’s New Space Agency Logo Looks Awfully Familiar

To mark the one-year anniversary of its space program, North Korea has released a new logo for its National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA), and it looks unabashedly like NASA’s iconic emblem — right down to the blue globe, lettering, and swooshed ring. According to the North Korean Central News Agency, the choice of the globe…