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Exploding Giant Bubbles Will Never Get Old

Though we can never be in awe of bubbles like we once were, we can still have fun with them. Lots of fun! And the easiest way to have more fun with bubbles is to go bigger and add in slow motion to capture the exploding bubbles. When you see these giant bubbles get popped…

Presidents of the United States of America: Peaches

“Peaches” is one of those songs from the 90s that you always forget to remember. You loved it—everyone did. But for some reason, this masterpiece of post-grunge alt rock rarely shows up on any 90s playlists. That needs to stop. Let’s start with the video. For the entire first half, the band is playing in…

NYC’s Taxi of Tomorrow Won’t Be Your Only Choice of Cab

New York’s State Supreme Court just put the brakes on the Taxi of Tomorrow, ruling that the Taxi and Limousine Commission doesn’t have the power to make Nissan’s NV200 the universal yellow cab. But how could NYC riders have benefited from it? Unlike the current fleet of consumer cars converted for taxi duty, the Nissan…

This 3D-Printed Web of Plastic Caps Turns Water Bottles Into a Vase

If your recycling bin overfloweth with empty plastic water bottles and you’re just too lazy to take them to the curb, why not turn them from an eyesore into a lovely centerpiece with this 3D-printed web of bottlecaps? All you need to do is scrounge up twelve similarly sized bottles and you’ve got yourself a…

This Air Travel Map From 1929 Is Absolutely Stunning

The 1920s was a thrilling decade for aviation. Daredevils were just beginning to hop across the Atlantic, and at least one airline was even experimenting with in-flight entertainment. But if you wanted to tour the United States by air it was a pretty involved process. And this beautiful map from 1929 showed you how it…

An Interactive Map of San Francisco’s Many Literary Landmarks

In the lead-up to Litquake, the annual city-wide literary festival that kicks off this Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle just launched a seriously impressive online map marking some of the Bay Area’s most iconic moments in print. The extensive resource is organized by tabs, each of which has its own dedicated collection of site-specific pins…

Soar Through the Alps With This Interactive Video of a Wingsuit Flight

Taking flight with a wingsuit is probably the scariest thing I can think of doing. And that’s part of the reason why this interactive video of German crazy person Beni Kälin jumping off a Swiss mountaintop is so cool. It feels like you’re flying—except without the risk of dying part. The peak in question is…

A Sleek Ping Pong Table You Won’t Want To Hide in the Basement

Billiard tables have become bonafide works of art that some people furnish entire rooms around—but ping pong tables are only just catching up. But the hideous green folding contraptions of yesteryear are quickly being replaced with sleek pieces like this gorgeous Bola Service Table designed by Barcelona-based studio A.P.O. It’s a regulation-sized ping pong table…

Report: Apple Is Holding an iPad Event October 22

AllThingsD is reporting that Apple is holding an iPad event on Tuesday, October 22. Apparently, the focus of the event will be not only iPads, but also new Mac Pros and OS X Mavericks. AllThingsD has a pretty good track record with these things—it correctly predicted the date of the iPhone event last month, so…

This Mesmerizing Ai Weiwei Installation Is Made From 3,144 Bicycles

Last night in Toronto, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei presented a new version of his incredible Forever Bicycles installation. As the centerpiece of this year’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, the all-night contemporary art event that takes over city streets, 3,144 bicycles, the most Weiwei has used of this work to date, were stacked 100 feet…

Comment of the Day: Fear of Flying Edition

In today’s comments, we delved deep into Gotham City’s legal system, shared some tips for cooking chicken (with or without salmonella), and tried to scare each other right out of the friendly skies. In response to this post, on the awesome power of airplane turbulence, commenter Dake alerts us to the phenomenon (and strength!) of…

Is This Samsung’s New Curved Screen Phone?

We’ve seen rumors that Samsung is bringing a curved screen phone to market, thanks to new bendy screen tech. Now @evleaks, a leaker with a pretty solid record, has dug up this supposed press shot. Man, if this is real, it’s real weird. What would be the purpose of this kind of rounded screen? Who…

What if superpowers were a sexually transmitted disease… and fatal?

The characters of Titan’s new comic Death Sentence are not heroes. They’re normal people who had unprotected sex, received superpowers, and will die in six months — and that’s the fantastic premise of Death Sentence #1, which you need to check out. Plus zombies attack Riverdale, The Walking Dead goes to war and more in…

This iPhone Prank Tricks People Into Thinking They’re Getting a Text

You know the feeling. You and a friend are having a conversation via text and the little bubble with the blinking dots shows up indicating that she’s typing. So much anticipation! You’d stare at those dots for hours waiting for a text, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t it be funny if the dots just kept blinking? Well,…

Ancient Archeological Sites That Were Destroyed By Stupid Humans

Humans love to hear about ancient history, but they aren’t always that great at preserving it. Here are some of the worst, most thoughtless, and just plain dumbest ways that humans have wrecked their own heritage. The discoverer and destroyer of Troy, Heinrich Schliemann in the 1870s Schliemann found Troy in 1871, but there were…

How Salt and Pepper Became the Yin and Yang of Condiments

They’re staples on every American dining table and the requisite ingredients in virtually every European cuisine, so inseparable that polite society dictates they always be passed together. Salt and pepper are the undisputed champions of condiments—but how did they get so popular? Everybody Loves Salt Table salt—aka sodium chloride or NaCl—has been a preferred seasoning…

Toothpicks have been around for 1.8 million years

A recent analysis of well-preserved jaws shows that hominids have been using toothpicks for a long time. A really long time. The jaws, or mandibles, were discovered in the Dmanisi Republic of Georgia, and they belong to the earliest proto-humans to ever venture outside of Africa. They’re now referred to as Homo erectus georgicus, and…

The world’s first malaria vaccine is on track to be approved by 2015, paving the way for its use by 2016. “It’s on that trajectory, and the plan is to file with the European Medicines Agency in 2014,” says David Kaslow, VP of product development at the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which supported development of…

Disney Lets You Feel Textures On a Touchscreen By Zapping Your Fingers

In an attempt to give touchscreens another level of interactivity, researchers at Disney have come up with a remarkable way to generate tactile feedback as fingers slide across a smooth glass display. And all without deforming or changing the shape of the display in the process. Imagine a touchscreen keyboard where you can physically feel…

3 Ways That Big Brother Is Secretly Stuffing You With Vitamins

We might not always realize it, but a lot of the stuff we’re putting into our mouths has been meticulously engineered by Big Brother to turn us into robust, super-human specimens. Sure, it kind of sounds like the plot of a corny sci-fi flick—but we’d be nothing more than rickets-stricken piles of rotting teeth without…