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Doomsday Seed Vault Adds 20k New Crops—Including Beer Barley

This week marks six years since the Svalbard Seed Vault opened to serve as an agricultural Noah’s Ark for humanity. Within its walls, scientists have collected nearly one million seeds from all over the world—just in case. Now, they’re adding many more. According to National Geographic magazine, the vault just accepted 20,000 new types of…

As animal food will have been wholly abandoned before the end of this century, the debris of the kitchen will be much more manageable than at present. — January 11, 1914 Anaconda Standard newspaper in Montana

These Sleek, Activity-Sensing Lights Adjust to Your Movements

Do you ever feel like lights don’t move enough? That’s a serious question! After all, humans are constantly in motion—so wouldn’t it make sense for our lights to follow? Thibaut Sld certainly thinks so. The Canadian designer’s latest project aims to be the ultimate interactive lighting system. It involves wand-shaped fixtures made of cast polyurethane…

This is the one science fiction trend that has got to stop

For a while after The Matrix came out, the trend was bullet time. Every damn movie had to have a slomo/fastmo fight scene where the cameras zoomed around. Then every movie had to have zombies. But there are always new trends, and old ones that just won’t die. Which of them needs to stop right…

First clip from the new season of Orphan Black!

Here is: The very first footage from the second season of Orphan Black. It’s short and sweet, but filled with clone tension! It has been FAR too long since we’ve seen Tatiana Maslany in action. The new season of Orphan Black will air on BBC America on April 19, 2014.

FBI and Secret Service Phone Calls Intercepted by Google Maps Exploit

Yesterday, when Bryan Seely showed me his various Google Maps exploits, he showed me more than just dick jokes and fake businesses. Using these tricks, Seely was also able to set up a system that could surreptitiously record phone calls to the FBI and Secret Service. And he actually did it. https://gizmodo.com/its-ridiculously-easy-to-troll-google-maps-with-fake-l-1531646581 The premise is…

The Perfect Microwave Listens to Popcorn Popping So It Never Burns

Tossing a bag of popcorn in the microwave is much easier than dragging out the hot air popper, except that you have to watch it like a hawk to make sure it doesn’t burn. Alternatively, you can swap out your dated microwave for this new model from Whirlpool that actually listens to the popcorn as…

Why dark chocolate is good for your health

Confirmed: Dark chocolate is good for your heart. Really good. What’s better, scientists have discovered that people who eat 70 grams of chocolate every day increase their vascular health dramatically by “restoring flexibility to arteries and preventing white cells from sticking to the walls of blood vessels.” The research published in the March 2014 issue…

The San Francisco Mint Burned Its Carpets to Find $3,200 Worth of Gold

Even after the gold fever died down, gold itself was in the air in San Francisco—as long as you knew where to look. That place would be in the San Francisco Mint. In a majestic granite and sandstone building downtown, bullion was turned into gold coins—as well as lots and lots of gold dust. A…

Shocks to the brain temporarily rouse people from vegetative states

After undergoing transcranial direct current stimulation, patients in a minimally conscious state exhibited signs of increased awareness and even the ability to communicate. The effect didn’t last long — but the insights gleaned could lead to more effective interventions. Patients who are in a coma cannot move or respond to their environment. But a so-called…

Robotic Garden Lamps Can Follow Your Guests Around the Party

Backyard lighting is as much about decoration as it is about safety, allowing you to enjoy your artificial oasis at night without the risk of accidentally stepping on a hidden rake. But why run lights to every corner of your yard when you can just mount a decorative Japanese lantern to a quadruped and simply…

At St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport, a massive new terminal designed by London-based Grimshaw Architects is nearing completion after almost three years and a billion dollars’ worth of work. The terminal’s 54-foot spans are carefully tilted to keep deep snow from accumulating on the roof. [Architect’s Journal]

Is it possible to build a city that doesn’t isolate people?

City life is famous for creating a paradox: you’re surrounded by thousands of people, but you feel utterly alone. One geographer says we’ve been trying to solve this problem the wrong way. Many things contribute to loneliness, but there are two basic causes of isolation in cities. One is that cities tend to grow into…

Report: Amazon Is Gearing Up to Add Free Streaming Music to Prime

Re/code reports the claims of industry sources who say Amazon is in talks to create a streaming music service that it would bundle with Prime subscriptions. The report makes a lot of sense, and if true, it would make Amazon Prime and even better deal than it already is. Think how amazing that would be!…

A Projection Clock That Automatically Adjusts To a Room’s Lighting

By now most of us probably solely rely on our smartphones to wake us in the morning, but with their screens off it’s not easy to quickly glance at the time in the middle of the night. So keeping an alarm clock on your bedside table isn’t a completely antiquated idea, particularly if it’s able…

You should probably pay attention to Jake Gyllenhaal’s twisted Enemy

While we know very, very little about the Jake Gyllenhaal-starring movie adaptation of Jose Saramago’s novel The Double, we’re starting to see some seriously trippy things in this NSFW trailer. We admit we didn’t really understand just how twisted Enemy was until a few friends explained that we should probably give this flick a shot.…

The Best Science Fiction Romance Novels You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

Over at USA Today, there’s a new column about science fiction romance books, called Sci-Fi Encounters — and for the first installment, Veronica Scott is interviewing author S.E. Smith. And more importantly, compiling a reading list of great SF romances. Including clones, breeder slaves and time travelers. The books on Smith and Scott’s list all…

Watch a pelican flying from a camera on his beak

This is Big Bird, a Great White pelican who lost his flock after a storm hit Lake Tanganyika. Injured, unable to feed himself, he desperately landed at the beach of the Greystoke Mahale Camp in Tanzania, where he recovered and learned to fly again. Here’s his story, according to camp owners. It was nearly 4…

Your Next Artisanal Salami Could Be Part Kanye

The line between celebrity worship and cannibalism thinned ever so slightly this week. Meet BiteLabs.org, a website purportedly dedicated to growing artisanal meat from celebrity tissue samples. Because we could all use a little more Vitamin Bieber. Set up more like an art project than a legitimate (and presumably delicious) commercial enterprise, the site seems…

What is the universe made of?

In this newly released video from the folks at TED-Ed, educator Dennis Wildfogel teams up with animator Ash Barker to explain not only what the universe is made of, but what it took for those cosmological building blocks to get where they are today. Via TED-Ed: The atoms around you have existed for billions of…