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Watch a 10-minute preview of the new anime Space Dandy in Japanese

Although this ten-minute preview of Shinichiro Watanabe’s new series Space Dandy isn’t subtitled in English, you don’t need to understand Japanese to enjoy this bit of alien-hunting fun. While the first ten minutes do take us to the “breastaurant” Boobies, and there is a bit of silly T&A along with some brief sexual slapstick, there…

New Year’s Eve Brings Romance and Time Travel to Regular Show

We’re smack dab in the middle of holiday weekends in North America, but some of our favorite cartoons are poking their heads out of the snow to break the holiday hiatus. Regular Show returns with a New Year’s special, while My Little Pony tackles an invasion of vampire bats. As always – minor spoilers ahead!…

Spend Your Weekend Gawking at Nearly 700 Old Maps of the U.S.

Okay, history buffs. We’ve got a challenge for you: Learn as much as you possibly can from the 700 odd maps just uploaded to the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab. Your brain will thank you later. The maps come from Charles O. Paullin’s 1932 Historical Geography of the United States—and they’re enthralling. The history…

Man in China Builds Giant Transformers Replica to Propose to Girlfriend

You know how when a guy courts a girl, sometimes the right move is a grand gesture? A bouquet of flowers to say you’re sorry. A surprise weekend getaway to mark an anniversary. How about a giant Transformers replica to pop the question? That’s what this guy did. According to Chinese news site Jinyang, he…

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Bildundtonfabrik

Check out this wildly animated history of, I think, human history? I dunno, my Spanish is pretty rusty.

Lifting cannons with helicopters seems like a lot of fun

It looks like Call of Duty. It’s not. It looks like a movie. It’s not. Instead it’s an incredible photograph of a Marine Corps Super Stallion Helicopter taking off with a M777 howitzer in the California desert. In real life. What a powerful image. The helicopter is lugging the 7,500 pound 35 foot long monster…

Why do so many galaxies in space look like this?

Flat. Like a streak across space. Thin. Stretched out. How come whenever we see galaxies, they always look like this? NASA has the answer. And it has something to do with how a ball of dough becomes pizza. This image of spiral galaxy ESO 373-8 was captured by NASA with the Hubble telescope. It shows…

Support your hometown mech squad. With your help, we will prevail!

Our fighting men and women can’t do it alone. They need the help of mechs, built out of tons of case-hardened Dynastreem — and that means they need your help, pulling extra shifts at the Dynastreem factory. Will you turn your back on them in their hour of need? Yes, it’s the holiday weekend —…

A Band Called Death: Preemininent Punk Rockers, Forgotten Then Found

Discovering music is a way different game in the digital age, when new artists and tunes are a mere mouse click away. Before algorithms were responsible for instantly introducing new faves into the mix, recording demos and hustling for radio play was a key factor in building buzz and gaining new fans. A Band Called…

The Can’t-Lose Secret to Making Anybody Want to Read Your SF Novel

Over in Locus, there’s a must-read essay by God’s War author Kameron Hurley, about how to talk to your friends and family who don’t “get” science fiction and fantasy books. A big part of it is getting over your urge to dismiss your own books (or favorites by other authors) as “silly.” But there’s also…

Watch Arthur C. Clarke predict the computers of today, in 1974

Arthur C. Clarke didn’t just put the smackdown on A.I. skeptics — he also predicted the future of compuers with pinpoint accuracy, in this recently released 1974 interview. Not just the personal computer, but telecommuting and internet commerce. https://gizmodo.com/must-read-arthur-c-clarke-puts-the-smackdown-on-a-i-954492306 Buzzfeed has some great screencaps/quotes from this interview, released by ABC in Australia. Including the great…

Mars Express to Make Daredevil Flyby of Phobos

In a daredevil flyby, the European Mars Express satellite will buzz Phobos, the red planet’s largest of two moons. The orbiter will come within 45 kilometers (28 miles) of its surface. But there’s a catch — this isn’t a photo opportunity. Coming so close to Phobos without taking photos may sound like forgetting to pack…

These Neon Lights Show The Growth Of Shanghai’s Urban DNA

Shanghai is, unfortunately, seeing record levels of smog lately, but there’s no sign of dull toxic haze in this neon display by artist Lu Xinjian. “City Light” is a glowing part of I Love Shanghai, an exhibition at the local Art Labor gallery; here, pop stylings and primary colors actually show the real-life urban grid—with…

This animation sums up everything that happened in 2013 in one minute

Christmas is over! The year is almost up! And in days like today when there’s not much going on, it’s always fun to look back at the year that was. Who did something stupid? What silly things happened? What do you remember? ADHD sums up the entire year of 2013 in under a minute in…

Is this 1950s-era car the most futuristic vehicle ever?

Move over, Delorean. Only one car was futuristic enough to have traveled the streets of Back to the Future, Gattaca, and Battlestar Galactica, and that car was the Citroën DS, circa 1955. First manufactured in France in 1955, Citroën continued to make the DS though the mid-70s. Those 20 years were plenty for film-makers, who…

Our Favorite Android, iOS, and Windows Phone Apps of the Week

Well, one holiday week has drawn to a close, and another is nearly upon us. Frankly, that means a slow-ish week for apps. And yet! There were still some notable newbies to the app scene. Download these babies and let your phone feel as bloated as you do. Multi-Platform Updates Translate Powered by Translate.com, this…

How did a toy car magically appear behind these two pieces of paper?

In this illusion, a toy car seemingly appears from no where. How is that possible? Well, the car was always there. Really. It’s a simple but masterful trick, the toy car is programmed to travel along a designated route while the red cards are shown off as a distraction. As one card is shown to…

Reindeer racing is a real thing

Reindeer racing is popular in Norway, Finland, and Russia, where tongue-lolling reindeer pull sleds or skiers over the snow in the highly competitive contests of subarctic speed. The photo above was captured by Ronel Reyes at the Sami Festival in Tromsø, Norway back in February. Read more about the sport in this fantastic feature from…

Jules Verne is the Second Most Popular Author in the World

Since 1932, UNESCO has maintained a database called the Index Translationum. It is an international bibliography of translations—that is, a list of all the books in the world that have been published in translation. The current list tabulates the cumulative bibliographical information on books translated and published in nearly one hundred of UNESCO’s member states…

Sounds like Elizabeth director Shekhar Kapur is still working on his long-delayed epic about water wars in the year 2040, Paani. Let’s hope it actually happens.