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Asus ZenFones: An Android Army with Intel Inside

After years of bringing you the horror/glory that is the PadFone and FonePad, Asus is branching out on its phone fone offerings and introducing not one, not two, but three flavors of “ZenFone,” Android handsets with ultrabook lineage. The three new flavors of phone come in 4-, 5-, and 6-inch sizes, rather unsurprisingly, and rep…

Are GMO bans akin to climate change denial? A piece in this week’s New York Times examines the challenges a Hawaiian politician is facing in finding credible information about genetically modified foods, amidst passionate anti-GMO pleas and charges from agricultural researchers that GMO bans are anti-science. [via Discovery Blogs]

Here Are Some of the Creepiest Abandoned Prisons We’ve Ever Seen

There is perhaps nothing more poignant than an abandoned prison. When you see these haunting images, it’s hard not to imagine what once went on in these now-crumbling rooms. A jail on the island of Procida in Italy, built in 1563 as a castle, transformed into a prison in 1815, closed in 1988. (via Luca…

Asus Transformer Book Duet: One Laptop, Two Tablets, All the Crazy

Once upon a time (earlier this year) Asus announced its Transformer Book Trio; a Windows PC with an Android tablet hiding inside. Now with the Transformer Book Duet, Asus is pushing its “more is more” approach one step further by adding “Windows 8.1 tablet” to the repertoire. Just like the Transformer Book Trio, the Duet…

Now that’s an exceptionally clever Popeye tattoo

Take a closer look at this Popeye tattoo, and you’ll see that the guy’s hand is Popeye’s super-powered, spinach fist! This tattoo is bananas clever. The ink art was created by Russian artist Alina Fokina. And kind of reminds us of this previously beloved Manga tatt (also spotted by Geekologie). [via Geekologie]

Insane biker survives suicidal attempt to cross a flash flood

Michael Henao is a lucky man. You can argue that he’s insane, sure. Perhaps an idiot too. What else would you call someone who encounters a flood and tries to cross it? But, ultimately, he’s a lucky insane idiot who survived a suicidal—and failed—stunt. In early September 2013, Colorado suffered severe damage from a historic…

Here’s How Ridiculous This Year’s CES Will Look in 2034

Since 1967, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has been a showcase for our high-tech future. Language translators, virtual reality systems, and even robots have graced the many different convention halls that have hosted CES over the years. Below we have a look at some of the fabulous gadgets from the Consumer Electronics Shows of yesteryear.…

China’s J-15 Flying Sharks Are Actually Russian Knockoffs

No surprise here. Like some of China’s other new planes, its new J-15 fighter jet is really just a clone of an older Russian design. But can a clone surpass its master copy? China hopes the answer is yes. The J-15 Flying Shark is a derivative of the Russian SU-33, which entered service in the…

A major step to predicting when supervolcanoes will explode

Scientists have learned that massive caldera volcanoes, like the one stewing beneath Yellowstone, are ruled by geological processes far different than the ones governing conventional volcanoes. These massive reservoirs of magma can explode spontaneously — an important piece of insight that can help us predict a future disaster. Super-eruptions are extremely rare, occurring once every…

Mountain Dew-flavored Cheetos are the nerdiest food ever invented

Japan — because of course, Japan, obviously has combined Cheetos the snack food with Mountain Dew the beverage to create a lemon-lime snack food that will revolutionize the way gamers will eat junk food while pretending to be a half-elf paladin. I kid because I love; seriously, if this insanity were somehow available in the…

Brave People Are Building Futuristic Farms on Japan’s Radioactive Soil

What does radioactive salad taste like? How about rice sprinkled with nuclear fallout? Well, if you’re truly curious, consider taking your next vacation in Fukushima, where some intrepid farmers have begun the daunting task of farming the region’s tainted soil. Construction just began on a rather futuristic project in the Fukushima prefecture. The so-called Renewable…

What’s the greatest outer space TV show of all time?

Television can go anywhere and explore any time — but we all know the best TV shows take place out in the final frontier. Television has shaped our dreams of space exploration for decades. But what’s the best space TV show of all time? This week, we’re doing the “open channel” posts a little differently.…

The Pebble smartwatch just got a fancy new body. If you’re not a fan of rubber and plastic (you aren’t), Pebbles now come in a “Steel” flavor that’s made of metal and far better (read: less painful) to look at. The catch? it’s $100 more, and virtually identical on the inside.

You Can Record a Ridiculous 8 Shows at a Time with Dish’s New DVR

Dish’s Hopper, long the king of DVRs, just zoomed even farther ahead: it’s introducing a new SuperJoey, an improved version of their client receivers to its main DVR the Hopper. The improvements? It’ll be possible to record 8 shows at once. That’s insane. DISH has also introduced a Wireless Joey along with the ability to…

How Saving an Endangered Bird Almost Doomed It Again

Have you ever heard of a copulation hat? Well, perhaps we should talk about human-assisted bird reproduction for a minute. When the pesticide DDT threatened peregrine falcon populations in the 1970s, conservationists donned leather caps on which male birds in a breeding program would land to, well, copulate. The ejaculate was collected for artificial insemination,…

LifeProof Your Devices, iPad Air, iPod Touch, Eneloops [Deals]

LifeProof is having an excellent New Year’s Sale on a range of great accessories and protections for your precious devices, including car mounts, iPad covers, and arm bands. Code WRING50 gets you the 50% off in question, and the code is all over the listing and next to every item, so we doubt you’ll forget…

Holy Shit, This Is What Happens When a Fireworks Factory Explodes

Early yesterday morning, a fireworks factory near Granada, Colombia apparently exploded, blowing up five separate warehouses used to store gunpowder. If you’ve ever needed a reason not to play with fireworks—this is it. According to Time, there has only been one person reported slightly injured, which is unbelievably lucky considering the sheer scale of this…

Kid lip-synced to Queen song for 3 years to make cool time-lapse video

Three years. That’s what it took Matt Perren to make the lip-sync video you can see above, a time-lapse in which he moved his mouth every day to match the phonemes from Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now, then took a photo. I don’t know if he is a genius or a mad kid, but I…

There’s Another Weird PadFone Coming Out For Some Reason

Well, if it were a human this thing would have borderline personality disorder. Asus is back with a second-gen version of the PadFone, the big ass smartphone that transforms into an even bigger tablet when docked, and it has yet to recover from this severe identity crisis. The KitKat-running PadFone X will be out later…

Huawei Says It’s Launching a 4G Phone in the U.S. (Don’t Count On It)

Meet the Ascend Mate 2, a big ass 6.1-inch 4G phone from Chinese purveyor of cheap phones, Huawei. Company exec Richard Yu said the device is actually getting a U.S. release on AT&T. We’re just not exactly convinced. Now, absent a confirmation from AT&T, we’re a skeptical here. Especially considering Huawei has recently said it…