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The Super-Secret “Research” Sub That Helped Win the Cold War

Quests for scientific knowledge and military superiority often go hand-in-hand. And nowhere is that more exemplified than in the nuclear-powered NR-1 research vessel. When it wasn’t busy exploring the wonders of the deep ocean, its crew engaged the Soviet Union in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game of sub-sea espionage—much of which is veiled in secrecy even…

Why red velvet cake was originally red (and why it can’t be anymore)

With the emergence of Big Cupcake, almost all of us have seen some red velvet cake with white cream cheese frosting. And so let us delve into a little kitchen science, which may help us realize why our great grandparents’ cake is not the same as ours. Today, red velvet cake gets its coloring from…

The Google Play Music iOS App Is Finally Here

Google Play Music has always sort of been available on iOS through your favorite HTML 5-enabled browser app, but today, the service is available as a native iOS application. Rejoice! The new Google Play Musi app includes both the standard, free Google Play Music service that allows you to match and upload your music collection…

6 Predictions For the Coming Video Revolution (of 1986)

Remember 1986? My memories of the time are a bit hazy, since I was just three years old and all. But apparently, the poor saps of the mid-1980s didn’t even have streaming HD movies pouring through their internet tubes. The horror! The September 28, 1986 edition of the Doylestown Intelligencer in Pennsylvania published an article…

How Dodge Makes LED Taillights Glow Like TRON Suits

LED taillights are everywhere, but most are pixellated eyesores. The 2014 Dodge Durango’s LEDs don’t suffer that problem. They give off a uniform electroluminescent glow, like someone wrapped Clu around the back of an SUV. It’s a neat look with some cool light trickery involved. https://jalopnik.com/heres-how-chrysler-crams-a-ton-of-leds-in-the-back-of-1464314493

Will Smith to sail New York City across the Atlantic like a boat

This could very well be the most fantastic premise for an urban fantasy movie ever. Will Smith is set to star in The City That Sailed, about a New York street magician who is separated from his daughter in London…. and winds up sailing the entire island of Manhattan to England to retrieve her. That’s…

Stabilized Footage of the JFK Assassination Is Unsettlingly Real

When it’s bouncing around and playing back at a jittery 18 frames per second, the infamous Zapruder footage of John F. Kennedy’s assassination feels almost unreal. But when it’s stabilized with additional interpolated frames bringing it to a steady 30 frames per second (like we’re used to seeing on TV) it suddenly becomes much more…

The creepy Sleeping Beauty experiment changes the odds of a coin flip

Ever heard of the Sleeping Beauty experiment? It’s an experiment that, for many reasons, will never be conducted. If it were, we’d have to rethink the way we calculate the odds of a coin flip. Allow me to describe the Sleeping Beauty experiment’s surpassingly creepy procedure: Sleeping Beauty is put under sedation on a Sunday.…

This domestic spider can liquify your flesh with one bite

To the right: the necrotized ear of a 22-year-old dutch woman who just came from vacation in Italy. To the left: the common spider who liquefied its flesh and cartilague with one bite, a Mediterranean brown recluse. I thought these kind of things only happened in exotic countries but this bastard is everywhere, including the…

A Sensor-Packed Teddy Bear That Keeps an Eye On Your Baby

A stuffed animal can give a child some much needed comfort, but the Tedi promises to do the same for new parents. On the outside it looks like your run-of-the-mill plush toy, but on the inside it’s packed full of sensors that report various aspects of a child’s status and progress to a smartphone, allowing…

Astronomers Fooled by the Largest Optical Illusion in the Universe

For years, astronomers thought that a galaxy floating 100 million light-years away was a single celestial object, a perfectly on-edge spiral galaxy with a colossal jet streaming away from it. But it’s all just an optical illusion — and a rather massive one at that. In a statement released by NASA yesterday, the space agency…

It’s Time for a Gif Party! And All Your Gifs Are Invited

It’s Friday and that means that you — and all of your gifs that have been waiting so patiently throughout the week — are invited to a gif party. Why? Because you guys are awesome. So send in your favorite gifs and let’s gif this party started! (Note: Gifs are encouraged but gif-puns will be…

Lego graphics card can only do 8-bit graphics and 64-bit nerdgasms

You make pretty much anything you want with Lego, including a graphics card. And when Lego and computer parts collide, it’s like a double nerdgasm sandwich with cheese. It totally looks like the real thing. Genius work by Nick V. You’re reading Leg Godt, the blog with the latest Lego news and the most awesome…

Travel Back to the Nonexistent Past With a Functional Google BBS

Back in the day, the internet was hard. There weren’t search engines or pretty HTML5 websites. There weren’t address bars or social networks. You had to dial up other computers and make connections yourself. At least that’s what they tell me. My earliest internet memories involve AOL, but for those real internet pioneers, this fully-functioning…

Plenty of Moto X price cuts lately, and here’s one more: Verizon will give you a white or black X for free with a two-year contract. Just punch in the coupon code vzwdeal on checkout. Color customization still costs $50 though. [Verizon via TalkAndroid]

Bad Robot just tweeted the first official production picture from Star Wars: Episode VII, featuring director J.J. Abrams meeting R2-D2 in person, and it’s the first real, tangible proof that this sequel is really happening. Anyone else feel it’s weirdly surreal to see the two of them together?

Rejoice with these stellar animations from Dark Universe

There’s no better way to start a Friday than watching some of the amazing animations from Dark Universe—the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden planetarium show. Bonus: Neil deGrasse Tyson reads a poem. https://amnh.kinja.com/when-i-heard-the-learnd-astronomer-with-neil-tyson-1464452745

A Sleek Wireless Thermostat You Might Actually Want To Frame

Better known for the company’s hardware that reports the weather outside, Netatmo has teamed up with Philippe Starck to create a new device that gives you complete control over the climate inside your home from your smartphone. And unlike similar wireless thermostats from Honeywell and Nest, Starck has ensured that Netatmo’s offering doesn’t overcomplicate things.…

Everything you need to know about MAVEN, NASA’s next Mars mission

MAVEN, NASA’s next spacecraft launching to the Red Planet in barely three days time on November 18th, seeks to unlock one of the greatest Martian mysteries: Where did all the water go? Above: Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, engineers and technicians prepare the MAVEN spacecraft for encapsulation…

Artist Discovers Unseen Color Photos of JFK’s Final Moments

After sitting forgotten in storage for more than 45 years, the daughter of an amateur photographer has uncovered a set of remarkable images taken mere minutes before President John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. The photos, which now appear in TIME and LightBox, were taken by H. Warner King, a Dallas Jewelry wholesaler and amateur…