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YouTube In Your Browser Is Becoming More Like YouTube On Your Phone

Once upon a time, in the early days of smartphones (y’know, a few years ago), a company would do everything possible to make its app look as similar to its website as possible. Now everything is topsy-turvy. Today YouTube revealed that some of the website’s new look is going to be borrowed from its mobile…

Tech News Brent Rose

This story only takes a couple minutes to read — and it’s superb.

Some of the shortest stories pack the biggest punches. Case in point: “In the Marrow” by Malon Edwards, published over at Lakeside Circus. It’s under 1,000 words, and it tells the story of a gynoid and her girlfriend, who’ve been driven apart by their parents — and by the “sexually deviant” gynoid’s memory loss. Here’s…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

This Awesome Machine Knits a Fully Formed Sweater, Sleeves And All

This awesome OpenKnit machine can weave a sweater from a digital pattern in about an hour—that’s cool. I mean, look at it go! Even cooler is that you can actually construct this awesome OpenKnit machine yourself. Welcome to a brave new world of textile design. GitHub‘s got the plans to put the whole thing together,…

Tech News Jordan Kushins

What the hell is going on in Katy Perry’s new Music Video?

Ever wanted to go to a neon rave, in a totally inaccurate representation of ancient Egypt? You are in luck — Katy Perry just released her music video for “Dark Horse.” It’s… well you just need to watch it, because I’m struggling to come up with the words to describe this kaleidoscope of crazy. Why…

io9 Meredith Woerner

These are the most fantastical playgrounds ever built

When you’re a kid, visiting an amazing playground is the greatest experience ever. And these fantasy-themed playgrounds around the world have us wishing that we were kids again so we could run around in them like small, crazy people. Parque Gulliver, Valencia, commissioned in 1990, designed by Sento Llobell (via Google Maps, Robyn Lee and…

io9 Vincze Miklós

How to be a winner by being a nontransitive loser!

There are a set of special dice, called Efron’s Dice. Each die will win over the last. And it will keep going until there’s an ultimate winner – which will lose to the original loser. There’s a lesson, there, that frustrates many sports fans. Here’s how to snatch victory from the jaws (or even the…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

An entire city block in Manhattan was electrified yesterday

An entire city block in Manhattan was electrified by stray voltage yesterday, charging up everything from the metal street grates to the doorknobs. The event began when a stray volt of electricity met an early morning rain. That, combined with the lingering salt left on the streets from earlier snows, created the perfect storm for…

io9 Ria Misra

Daaaaamn: NASA’s Opportunity Rover Photographed from Mars Orbit

Check out this outstanding photo of NASA’s intrepid Opportunity rover. The Agency’s HiRISE camera caught a rare glimpse of the spacecraft on Valentine’s day while orbiting high above the “Murray Ridge” section of the western rim of Mars’ Endeavour Crater. Can you spot it? Here, have some arrows: Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona; Caption Credit:…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

A Tiny Briefcase That Turns Citibikes Into Electric Scooters

The bike share programs that have popped up in major cities around the world make for a cheap way to get around town for a few hours—unless you’re lazy. So if you find yourself suffering from “let’s just take a cab” syndrome, you might want to consider funding this clever little briefcase called the ShareRoller…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski

Believe it or not, this awesome magical thingamajig exists

Excuse my ignorance, northerners of the world, but I didn’t know such wonderful thingamajigs existed in that snowy world of yours. May the Gods of Snow always protect you. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

Sploid Jesus Diaz

First Concept Art for Paramount’s Star Trek Theme Park

The bad news: the Star Trek area at Paramount Park Murcia, in Spain, won’t be a representation of Risa, the pleasure planet where Riker picks up strange games. Rather, it’ll be some blend of Starfleet Academy and Starfleet HQ, judging from this concept art. The good news is that Trek fans will finally have a…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Atomic Bomb Testing Dummy (1953)

March 1953: A dummy sitting behind a protective shield in a Nevada basement used for atomic bomb testing. The mannequins used for these kinds of tests were often purchased from downtown Las Vegas department stores like J.C. Penney’s. [National Geographic’s Tumblr “Found”]

Tech News Matt Novak

Here’s How All That Winter Road Salt Is Made

Road salt has been a point of contention lately, what with all this wintry weather. If you live in a snowy climate, you’re probably used to seeing warehouses and dump trucks full of the stuff. But where does all that ice-melting goodness come from? National Geographic brings us this fascinating, oddly soothing video explaining the…

Tech News Bob Sorokanich

The real highway to hell is in Russia

This is the Tolbachik volcano, laying down roads of magma over the Peninsula of Kamchatka for condemned Russians to drive on their way to hell in cars equipped with dashcams. At least, that’s what it looks like in Lusika33’s photographs. It’s truly pretty—in a Mordor kind of way. Watch the rest of the series here.…

Sploid Jesus Diaz

Licking Ice Cream To Make It Sing With NYC’s Weirdest Orchestra

Last week, at a former bodega in Alphabet City, food designer Emilie Baltz and smart object designer Carla Diana conducted the second performance of their “Lickestra“—a “musical licking performance” involving conductive ice cream cones, four volunteers, and a pre-recorded soundtrack of peculiar tones and baselines created by musician Arone Dyer of Buke&Gase. Lured by the…

Tech News Nicola Twilley

Looter caught trying to sell a hoard of Roman gold and silver

An amateur archaeologist — or more accurately, an opportunistic ass-wipe with a metal detector — recently uncovered a treasure trove of gold and silver artifacts in Germany. But he was promptly caught after trying to sell the rare items on the black market. The items, which date to the early part of the fifth century…

io9 George Dvorsky

Resurrecting Dinosaur-Age Proteins To Cure Human Disease

While dinosaurs have not yet been resurrected Jurassic Park-style, scientists fiddling with ancient DNA sequences have made a discovery that may turn out to be a tad more useful: a treatment for gout. That a 90 million-year-old protein could treat a modern disease is a fascinating window into evolutionary history. If you’ve heard of gout,…

Tech News Sarah Zhang

Scientists just created some of the most powerful muscles in existence

In a surprising breakthrough for the world of materials science, researchers have created some of the most powerful artificial muscles we’ve ever seen. And they did it with simple fishing line. These freakishly strong and cheap muscles could revolutionize robotics, and perhaps one day our own bodies. Ray Baughman, director of the NanoTech Institute at…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Darren Aronofsky wins battle with studio over cuts to Noah

For the past few months, we’ve been unsure which version of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah would be hitting theaters — there were tons of reports that Christian audiences reacted badly in screenings. Paramount had reportedly cut as many as six different versions of the film. But now, it appears Aronofsky has won. https://gizmodo.com/are-we-all-wrong-about-vin-diesels-role-in-guardians-o-1450447491 In an article…

Movies Charlie Jane Anders

Some Guy Turned Each Episode of Breaking Bad Into Its Own Dope Poster

It’s been five months since one of the greatest shows ever to grace the small screen has gone off the air, but if you’re one of the many rapt Breaking Bad fans, you’re probably still pretty deep in mourning. Fortunately for you, Hungarian designer Zsolt Molnár (Zsutti) decided to pay homage to the meth-loaded masterpiece…

Tech News Ashley Feinberg

YouTube In Your Browser Is Becoming More Like YouTube On Your Phone

This story only takes a couple minutes to read — and it’s superb.

This Awesome Machine Knits a Fully Formed Sweater, Sleeves And All

What the hell is going on in Katy Perry’s new Music Video?

These are the most fantastical playgrounds ever built

How to be a winner by being a nontransitive loser!

An entire city block in Manhattan was electrified yesterday

Daaaaamn: NASA’s Opportunity Rover Photographed from Mars Orbit

A Tiny Briefcase That Turns Citibikes Into Electric Scooters

Believe it or not, this awesome magical thingamajig exists

First Concept Art for Paramount’s Star Trek Theme Park

Atomic Bomb Testing Dummy (1953)

Here’s How All That Winter Road Salt Is Made

The real highway to hell is in Russia

Licking Ice Cream To Make It Sing With NYC’s Weirdest Orchestra

Looter caught trying to sell a hoard of Roman gold and silver

Resurrecting Dinosaur-Age Proteins To Cure Human Disease

Scientists just created some of the most powerful muscles in existence

Darren Aronofsky wins battle with studio over cuts to Noah

Some Guy Turned Each Episode of Breaking Bad Into Its Own Dope Poster

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