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More Popular Idioms Translated to Make Sense with Today’s Technology

When’s the last time you put all your eggs in one basket? Probably never. But! When’s the last time you put all your data in one hard drive? Probably right now (you gotta learn better backup habits). And though we know that practice makes perfect and that patience is a virtue, what actually applies to…

This Hashtag Limiting Instagram Update Should Totally Be Real

Is Instagram over yet? Or our distant relatives just finding out about filters? Wherever the picture sharing app currently stands on the sliding scale of not owning a TV to being an Oprah audience member, it’s obvious to anyone who has used Instagram that people like hashtags, people like food pictures (and sunset pictures and…

Even dinosaurs love a good sunset

It was a beautiful evening at the lake, and Deinonychus antirrhopus ruffled its feathers appreciatively. As to what the ancient animal might have been thinking, we can only speculate that it had something to do with noms. Deinonychus antirrhopus was a dinosaur who lived during the early Cretaceous period, and whose length could grow to…

How Pacific Rim Should Have Ended

We absolutely loved Pacific Rim. It was everything a great summer action movie should be. And plus, when it’s Guillermo del Toro making giant robots fight giant monsters, what can go wrong? Well, according to the well wrinkled critical brain of HISHE, Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi’s characters in the movie would totally re-think the…

New research suggests women can make sperm, and men can make eggs

What started as an investigation into developmental mouse biology has become a lot more than that. Biologist Katsuhiko Hayashi discovered a way to turn mouse skin cells into sperm and egg cells — and actually used these modified cells to create a living baby mouse. The question is, can it work in humans? Illustration via…

This brilliant robot horror short is becoming a full-length film

Add another example to the ongoing trend of short films being expanded to full length features — back in April we featured this terrifying short movie Abe, about a robot who becomes a serial killer. Now MGM is turning it into a full-length creepfest.

Watch a Prankster ‘Accidentally’ Break His iMac in Front of People

You know that soul dropping feeling you get when you see someone drop their phone? It’s the sound that’s the most horrifying thing. A crisp crack that’s not unlike adding ice to your soda. Painful. There goes hundreds of dollars! Now imagine that same feeling multiplied as you watch in horror as some stranger drops…

A dentist wants to clone John Lennon from his rotten tooth

All you need is DNA. A Canadian dentist says he’s working with “American scientists” to clone John Lennon from a rotten molar the Beatles singer had extracted in the 1960s. According to the press release (warning: it autoplays a weird parody song, “Love Me Tooth”) dentist Michael Zuk bought the tooth at auction for $31,000…

And now, a stop motion short film about a magic beard

After growing out a full mop of facial hair, Ben Garvin decided that a good beard should never go to waste. So he picked up his iPhone and carefully stitched together this remarkable stop motion film. Garvin used the Stop Motion Studio app to edit the film. [Neatorama]

What Do Car Badges Reveal About Japanese Design Culture?

Japan has a complex history of engaging (or not) with the outside world—starting in the 1600s, when the shogunate put a strict ban on foreign trading, religion, and language. Much has changed then, but Japanese designers still have an interesting relationship with Western culture. For example: The fact that the badge of every Japanese car—even…

Amused to death: Which apocalypse movie is the most fun?

Every summer, the Earth gets destroyed by another couple of apocalyptic disaster movies. Why do we love seeing ourselves destroyed? Because daily life is a banal struggle, so global catastrophe or alien invasion seems fun in comparison. Plus, people behave beautifully when fighting a war together. https://gizmodo.com/whats-your-favorite-or-least-favorite-disaster-porn-1179307511

The Weirdest-Looking Time Machines in All Science Fiction

If you’re going to travel through time, you’ve got to do it in style. Here are some of the most eye-poppingly great time machine designs from pop culture history. The Project Tic-Toc, a secret experimental time machine of the U.S Army in Time Tunnel (1966-1967) (via Friday87central and xtimeline) The Time Sled from Time Machine…

This is one of the scariest (and wrongest) pterosaur pictures ever

Quetzalcoatlus is an azhdarchid pterosaur, an enormous Cretaceous-era animal with a 10-meter wingspan. And for decades, most people believed it looked like this blisteringly Satanic creature — despite all evidence to the contrary. How did so many people get it so wrong? Illustration by Richard Orr Over at Tetrapod Zoology, paleontologist Darren Naish gets to…

Delectable Wine for iOS: Identify Wine and Dole Out Recs Like a Pro

Everyone loves wine—or rather, everyone likes to seem like they love wine. And what better way to give off an air of sophistication than to be able to offer perfect recommendations, pairings, and analyses on any wine at a moments notice? Delectable lets you do all that with absolutely no preparation required. What does it…

Nobody Wants to Fly Air Force Drones Because It’s a Dead End Job

We’ve been hearing for years now unmanned aerial vehicles (a.k.a. drones) are the war machines of tomorrow, the weapons of a new age, the way of the future. There’s only one problem: no one wants to fly the dang things. Air Force Col. Bradley Hoagland just published a paper outlining the challenge of finding enough…

Time Warner will briefly lift its CBS programming blackout on Thursday night, just long enough to air the Democratic NYC comptroller debate. It’s a small victory for democracy in a feud that’s been grinding on since August 2nd. [WSJ]

Quite possibly the best human vs. robot competition in history

Last month saw the debut of R2B2, a button-mashing robot that can unlock a phone in hours, just by randomly pushing buttons. But the real question is, can this little pin-typing hacker robot beat a human hacker? R2B2 was invented by a team of security engineers at io9 pals iSEC Partners — and iSEC security…

This Optical Illusion Lets You See Your Own Brain Waves

The pinwheel-like drawing above is nothing but black and white lines. When you look at it the right way, though, something strange and beautiful happens: it begins to flicker. You may think it’s just a regular old optical illusion at first, but actually, you’re looking at your very own brain waves. To see the optical…

Could a new Star Trek TV show about Worf actually happen?

There have been tons of ideas batted around for a new Star Trek show, including Bryan Fuller and Bryan Singer collaborating on a show tying in with the J.J. Abrams films. But apparently one idea has gotten as far as actual discussions: a show about Worf, the Klingon who appeared in TNG and DS9. https://gizmodo.com/j-j-abrams-is-the-guardian-of-star-trek-including-o-5904078…

SwiftKey Cloud Syncing Makes the Best Android Keyboard Even Better

SwiftKey is fantastic. It’s got great prediction, great personalization, swipe-based entry options, and pretty much anything else you could want. Now, it’s getting even better with SwiftKey Cloud, which syncs your data between all your devices. https://gizmodo.com/swiftkey-4-adds-flow-so-you-never-have-to-stop-typing-5985629 Part of SwiftKey’s secret sauce is how it can learn about your written voice from your Gmail, Twitter,…