Latest

Sansa Stark’s actress adopted her real-life direwolf

In Game of Thrones, Sansa Stark’s dire wolf Lady met an untimely end as a sacrifice to mollify the queen’s anger after Arya’s dire wolf Nymeria bit Prince Joffrey (and then ran away). In real life, however, Lady’s doing much better — especially after actress Sophie Turner adopted the Mahlek Northern Inuit Dog who played…

Thai university uses the most ridiculous anti-cheating device

Look at these poor students taking an exam at a university in Thailand: a paper headband with two paper sheets stapled to each side so they couldn’t look at the next desk during exams. It’s been a scandal in the country because people find it humiliating—understandably. https://kotaku.com/these-anti-cheating-hats-make-me-sad-1165692137

For morning viewing: 3 timelapses of last week’s Perseid meteor shower

Last weekend’s Perseid display may go down as the most spectacular meteor shower of 2013. Did you miss it? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here to wrest you from the clutches of Monday morning indolence are three arresting timelapses of the shower, each under 90 seconds long. The first comes from photographer P-M Hedén,…

This Watch’s Tiny Tweeting Bird Is a Miniature Mechanical Marvel

To celebrate the 275th anniversary of clockmaker Pierre Jaquet Droz opening his first workshop, the company that bears his name—even to this day—has created a fantastic timepiece that uses tiny piston-powered bellows to produce a realistic chirping bird sound. But watches have been doing that for years. What’s amazing about this piece is its tiny…

This robot can jump 10 times its body length

Check out TailBot, a 1-ounce, 3-inch bot designed by a team of students at Michigan State University. It doesn’t look like much, but this little guy can perform some rather remarkable physical feats — and it uses a unique tail inspired by nature to get the job done. TailBot is unprecedented in that it’s the…

Sony’s bargain model 12GB PS3 is now available in the US for $200. Ditching the hard drive for flash-only memory, the cheapo model originally limited to Europe is now on the Sony store (but out of stock currently) for $70 less than the 500GB model. [Sony]

11 Amazing Historical Snapshots From One of the World’s Best Archives

The J. Paul Getty Museum is home to troves of fascinating historical artifacts. And last week, the museum announced a project to give the public unfettered access to it. The Open Content Program makes 4,600 high-resolution images available for free and for any use whatsoever. Here are 11 gems to help begin your historical journey.…

Does an Amazing Spider-Man 2 photo tease Spidey’s worst villain team?

Samuel L. Jackson takes us deep inside the psyche of Nick Fury and reveals more about the Captain America sequel. David Tennant talks about working with Matt Smith on Doctor Who’s 50th birthday. And let’s start the week with another helping of Batman casting rumors… now with more Nathan Fillion! Spoilers ahoy! Top image from…

Our Garbage Is the Most Accurate Time Capsule of All

Time capsules are meant to give future generations a glimpse of what life was like many years ago. But not surprisingly, humans tend to fill time capsules with only the good artifacts of a civilization, making the story seem rosier than it really was. So when archaeologists and researchers want to find out the real…

Lou Donaldson and Lonnie Smith: Cherokee

I saw Lou Donaldson play the other night. Which is crazy, because Lou Donaldson is 86. But he’s still the man. He was joking around and calling out charts. And though his range is kind of impaired at this point, he was using the limitations to be more creative with what he did have. And…

Behold the Magellanic Stream that encircles the Milky Way

Eons ago, two of our satellite galaxies became locked in a cosmic game of tug-of-war. Their fierce gravitational interactions ripped out a huge ribbon of hot, potentially star-forming gas that now surrounds much of our own galaxy’s southern hemisphere, as this amazing new Hubble image shows. The so-called Magellanic Stream takes its name from its…

A Cast That Makes You A Little Bit Iron Man Is Awesome

If you’re wearing a cast, something bad probably happened. You may feel crappy about it or frustrated or some other dark feeling, but you tell yourself it isn’t unbelievably itchy and just try to ignore it. Or. You draw an Iron Man arm on it and then you are a bamf anytime you do anything.…

We are now accidentally making monkeys dumber

The use of stone tools is incredibly rare, so much so that it was once thought to be the exclusive domain of humans and our ancestors. Fellow apes like chimpanzees and baboons have since been proven to use stones as tools, but only a couple non-ape primates are known to do it. But now human…

Man hacks Zuckerberg’s Facebook to show how much his security sucks

A Palestinian man hacked into Zuckerberg’s Facebook page to demonstrate how much its security sucks. This happened after his efforts to communicate the access hole were snubbed by the company’s security team on numerous occasions. The result of the hacking was innocuous, but a lot of people are going to get chastised at Facebook’s headquarters…

Why Being Human‘s finale was the perfect way to end the show

Last night, the final episode of the original Being Human aired in North America, revealing to us latecomers what Brits have known for some time now: How it all ends. And it was a fantastic way to end not just this series, but the show as a whole. Spoilers below. Also, a musical number! I…

Millions Of Stars In Motion Make Glorious Intergalactic Collisions

Collisions happen on different scales. Particles collide. Squirrels accidentally run into each other. Rams butt heads. Tectonic plates shift against each other. There’s a lot going on. But in this photo a dwarf galaxy and spiral galaxy are smooshing into each other. And galaxies are kind of huge. About 60 million light years from Earth,…

The incredible miniature vehicles used in The Dark Knight

While many of the chase scenes in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight may have looked larger than life, some were actually quite a bit smaller. Take a look at the model mobiles that sped and smashed through the streets of Gotham. New Deal Studios designed, fabricated, and photographed the 1:3 scale model Lower Wacker Drive…

A Guy Hacked Zuck’s Wall After Facebook Ignored His Bug Report

Khalil, a Palestinian white hat hacker, submitted bug reports to Facebook about a vulnerability that allowed him to post on anyone’s wall. But Facebook’s security team didn’t do anything. So Khalil wrote on Mark Zuckerberg’s wall about it and was generally a badass. Khalil explains on his blog that he submitted a full description of…

Peggy Carter finds a mysterious vial in latest Agent Carter clip

We get more and more excited for the Marvel one-shot short film Agent Carter, with Hayley Atwell reprising her role as Peggy Carter, with each new clip. In this one, Peggy discovers a strange vial, but she won’t make off with it easily. https://gizmodo.com/hayley-atwells-back-in-action-in-marvels-newest-short-747805424 You can also watch the first clip over at EW. Agent…

Missing The Beautiful Perseid Meteor Shower Was Dumb Of You

Look there were a lot of options. NASA streamed the shower with commentary, local astronomer associations were posting pictures, and there’s always . . . what’s that place? Oh right. Outside. You could have gone and watched. But no. It was a Saturday night and you were busy. https://gizmodo.com/nasa-will-stream-the-perseid-meteor-shower-live-until-3-1093920662 Luckily Kai Gradert has you covered.…