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All the FX Tricks Used to Make the Awesome Star Trek Credits

After the opening teaser scene in this summer’s Star Trek: Into Darkness, the film bursts into a batshit outer space title credit sequence, which sets the blood-boiling tone for the rest of the adventure. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how those rad 3D graphics were made. The video above, made by special effects company Video…

The Canadian scifi series Starhunter is returning — but as a web series. The 2001-03 show has been picked up by Starfield Indie, who plan to debut 26 new episodes beginning in November. There are plans for an online game, various graphic novels, and the HD rerelease of the original series, too. [Via The Hollywood…

Iconic Joy Division Designer Peter Saville Is “Rebranding” Kanye West

Legendary designer Peter Saville gave a design voice to bands like Joy Division and New Order. And now, he’s making his first foray into hip-hop by designing a whole “visual identity” for Kanye West. Which is the most Kanye West thing ever. Saville is the perfect person to take on this task. He’s spent the…

Here’s how engineers salvaged Italy’s massive shipwreck

Yesterday, engineers successfully led one of the largest salvage operations in history on the shipwrecked Costa Concordia, which smashed into a small Italian island twenty months ago. Workers were able to right the ship in roughly 19 hours. This graphic shows how they did it, and how they’ll float it away. Don Foley created this…

Ron Howard confirms The Dark Tower is still in the works

Hey, there’s some actual news about Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman’s massive, ambitious The Dark Tower movie-and-TV-series mega-project, and the news is good: They’re still working on it… they’re just being really quiet about it. Howard told Empire: The Dark Tower is something that we’re still working on. We’ve all taken a vow of silence…

The “Smell” of Tainted Wine Is Actually Your Nose Going Numb

Wine lovers dread “cork taint,” the mildewy, wet-basement-full-of-old-newspapers odor that ruins a freshly-opened bottle of wine. But the chemical responsible for cork taint’s foul smell may actually work by numbing your nose’s scent receptors. Huh? 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole (TCA for short, and the stuff that ruins your cabernet) occurs when natural cork fungus inadvertently contacts chlorine cleaning…

What do you really need to know about the universe?

I’ve spent the last three years writing the “Ask a Physicist” column in which you folks have sent me some great questions about black holes and warp drives and so on, (and please keep ’em coming). But why? How much do you really need to know about the universe? https://gizmodo.com/what-are-your-prospects-for-getting-a-faster-than-light-5840071 Image of the massive hurricane…

Chinese Mercenaries Are Hacking into American Networks

Cybersecurity firm Symantec took a major swipe at Chinese hackers on Tuesday, when it revealed the details of the group that’s behind some of the best-known attacks on the United States. Unlike earlier reports, however, Symantec’s report isn’t about the Chinese military. These are hackers-for-hire. Symantec has dubbed the mercenary group “Hidden Lynx” and says…

The Tiny Model Jets At This RC Air Show Are Still Incredibly Thrilling

Putting those cheap RC toys you can find at a department store—and even the model kits from a hobby shop—to shame, these incredibly detailed scale model fighter jets look almost as intense to fly as the real thing. In fact, racing through the skies they’re almost impossible to distinguish from the real thing too. This…

Canadian scientists protest government muzzling of researchers

Hundreds of protesters, many of them wearing white lab coats, gathered yesterday across 17 Canadian cities to express their annoyance at the federal government’s anti-science policies. Advocates say the campaign to counter these measures has moved into a new phase. As a quick recap, the Conservative Harper government has been waging a kind of war…

Rdio-Exclusive Doc Goes Behind the Scenes of Felix’s Space Jump

We’ve heard some about how Red Bull’s chief engineer (with the help of NASA) managed to drop daredevil extraordinaire Felix Baumgartener from the edge of space and see him back down in one piece. But now a new documentary is going to give us—or Rdio subscribers, rather—a behind the scenes peek at what it takes…

How an unlicensed, untrained illegal abortionist does her job—and why

This is the story of an illegal abortionists who helps desperate women that need to abort using the combination of “two different drugs that, when used together, will abort nearly any first-trimester pregnancy.” https://jezebel.com/i-help-desperate-women-and-i-could-go-to-jail-for-it-1320076409

Here’s why you should be watching Sleepy Hollow right now

The first episode of Sleepy Hollow aired last night, and in case you made the terrible mistake of not watching, we should talk about changing that. The thing is – and I get it – this is a hard show to take on faith. The pitch is, “She’s a skeptical but driven law enforcement officer…

This physics grad student made a mind-blowing Bohemian Rhapsody cover

Question: What do you get when you mix a cappella, sock puppets, string theory and Queen? Answer: The geekiest (and astonishingly good, musically speaking) cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody” EVAR. Easily the greatest physics-themed cover of the classic we’ve ever heard. Seriously. The thing’s a masterpiece. To be fair, “Bohemian Gravity” may well be the only…

The salvage of the Costa Concordia condensed in a 50-second video

It’s been almost two years since the 984-foot-long cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground on the island of Giglio, Italy, killing 32 and injuring 64. Its carcass remained there until now. Watch the rescue operation in this time lapse. https://jalopnik.com/watch-the-costa-concordia-flip-upright-for-the-first-ti-1333436510

This Tiny Mobile 3D Scanner Snaps Right Onto Your iPad

3D scanning has been around for years, but it’s traditionally required the use of a clunky device. Today, a Bay Area startup has unveiled a tiny alternative: The Structure Scanner, a diminutive 3D scanner that hooks right into your iPad, allowing you to capture 3D information about the world around you. The device—which launches today…

Brazil’s Wild Plan to Purge America From Its Internet

Brazil is not very happy about all these NSA revelations. As home to Latin America’s biggest economy, the country understandably hates the idea that the United States is listening to its phone calls and reading its emails. In fact, Brazil hates it so much that it wants to disconnect itself from the U.S. internet altogether.…

The Star Trek: TNG crew looks amazing in Original Series uniforms

Okay, this is just awesome. One Redditor photoshopped the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation into the original series uniforms, and the results are amazing. All of our love to deadfraggle and their delightful photoshopping skills, mainly because we want more more more more more. Let’s add Wesley Crusher, Tasha Yar (in a dress!!!)…

“Everyone Else Has One” Is a Perfectly Good Reason to Buy an iPhone

It’s not even better, it’s just popular. You only want one because you see everyone else has one. These are some of the more common reasons people avoid the iPhone. It’s a perfectly natural reflex—it just also happens to be a dumb one. It’s easy to forget that the tech we use is so communal,…

Google Wallet’s latest version is available this week for all Android phones running version 2.3 and higher. Send money to any of your contacts with just an email address, and you’ll also get early access to using Gmail to send out payments from your desktop. Got too many loyalty cards lying around (or have a…