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Was rabies used an ancient biological weapon?

Rabies spread by bites of infected dogs has been deeply feared since antiquity. But the virus also gave some people a rather nasty idea: Why not use it as a weapon? The main vector of rabies is domestic dogs, but wild animals such as foxes and bats can transmit the disease to humans. Rabies is…

This Personal Alarm Weaponizes Your House Key

A self-defense course will teach you how to use your keys as a weapon, but in practice, when you’re under attack and panicking, protecting yourself with a keyring isn’t as easy as it sounds. So the Hit, from Unikia, combines a loud audible panic alarm with a pop-up holder that turns a key into a…

All the Gold on Earth Comes From Massive Space Explosions

Previously, astronomers had been under the impression that the heavy elements—gold, platinum, lead, uranium, etc.—came from supernova explosions. But now, scientists have announced a new theory for these highly valuable elements, this one involving two ultra-dense neutron stars and one spectacularly violent, grossly expensive collision. We Are All Made of Stars Essentially, we’re all here…

Good news! VLC is back on iOS tomorrow. It had been pulled by Apple back in 2011, but VideoLAN thinks it’s got everything worked out with copyright holders this time. Hopefully it’s here for good this time around. [TNW]

How Comic-Con Attendance has Grown, and Other Geeky Infographics

In March 1970, 145 people attended the Golden State Comic-Con, which would eventually grow into the phenomenon now known as San Diego Comic-Con. This is just one of the gorgeous comic book infographs from Tim Leong’s new book Super Graphic. Years ago, Leong ran the magazine Comic Foundry, a culture magazine spanning newspaper strips, superhero…

Dealzmodo: $100 5.1 System, Jim Guthrie Humble Bundle, Marvel Blu-rays

Add 5.1 surround to your living room for $104 courtesy of woot! today. This Pyle 5.1 Home Theatre system with Active Subwoofer will have your neighbors complaining without aggravating your wallet, and you can blow all your non-techy friends’ minds by explaining what the .1 in 5.1 is. [woot!] Top Deals • Pyle 5.1 Home…

All Those Open Browser Tabs Really Are Killing Your Laptop’s Battery

There’s a ton of info on the web. You’re never going to read it all, but you want to, so your browser has fistfuls of open tabs waiting for that rainy day when you’ll want to read a two-month-old article that’s no longer relevant to anything. But have you ever wondered what all those tabs…

Where do space whales come from?

It’s the perfect painting to find at a garage sale: the 1970s-style space whale, floating through a psychedelic wonderland of nebulae and hippie hopes for world peace. But where did this iconic image come from? Over at Lapham’s Quarterly, Rebecca Onion has a great essay where she explores the strange history of the space whale.…

Can You Guess Which Movies These Facial Mashups Belong To?

Every director has his or her own distinct visual mood, but does that mood extend to what types of faces they cast? Based on data pushed through a facial recognition algorithm, these images shows us the aggregate of every face shown in a handful of blockbusters from the past few years. As you might guess,…

Newly discovered “Pandoravirus” could redefine life as we know it

Scientists have discovered a pair of viruses that defy classification. Bigger and more genetically complex than any viral genus known to science, these so-called “pandoraviruses” could reignite a longstanding debate over the classification of life itself. The Largest Virus Ever There was a time when scientists regarded viruses as small and simple. Then along came…

Parkour goat is tired of your bullsh*t fence

Five-foot fence? Please. Parkour goat’s got this. Goats were basically born to do this kind of thing. They scale near-vertical faces on the daily. [Spotted on Laughing Squid]

The very best finds on the floor at Comic-Con 2013

Navigating the sweaty masses on the Comic-Con floor can be soul-crippling. So we did it for you! Here’s our list of the best booths, sites, toys, action figures, and goodies you should be gobbling up (with location numbers) on the floor of San Diego Comic-Con. That’s not just He-Man, it’s King He-Man at the Mattel…

Shooting Challenge: Insects And Other Creepy Crawlies

This is it. My favorite annual Shooting Challenge of the year. You go out into the grass and muck and photograph bugs. The Challenge Photograph an insect, bug, arachnid, whatever! The Method Many of you will dust off the old macro lens this week, which is fantastic. Others might repurpose a telephoto lens for ground-level…

Anonymous Says They Leaked 2,000 Congressional Email Passwords

The rascals over at Anonymous are still pretty upset over the recent revelations about the NSA spying on seemingly everyone so they’re acting out in the only way they know how: hacking. Specifically, releasing the supposed email accounts—and passwords—of seemingly everybody on Capitol Hill. On Monday night, the affiliate account @AnonLastResort tweeted a link to…

A 69-Year-Old Experiment Finally Worked For the First Time

One of the longest standing experiments has finally yielded a result. Started in 1944, it only took 69 years but the tar-like pitch at Trinity College Dublin has finally dropped. Pitch, for the uninitiated, is a highly viscous material that looks solid but is actually just a slow moving liquid. The point of the experiment…

Heal your Game of Thrones anguish with these plush Direwolf puppies

It’s no secret that this past season of Game of Thrones has been rather… rough. But what better way to get over your agony than by snuggling your very own plush Direwolf puppy? These three Stark pets are the pinnacle of Factory Entertainment’s brand-new, shockingly adorable Game of Thrones plush line. The Direwolf puppies stand…

Here’s the New Lego Back to the Future Set

This is the back of the box of the Lego Back to the Future set, which I got last week. While I’m still disappointed with how they made the hood, it’s still a nice set. That car’s front is easily fixable if you get some extra pieces—and the third movie’s car actually looks nice. Masashi…

io9 Book Club reminder: Meeting 7/30 to discuss Odds Against Tomorrow

In July, we’re reading Nathaniel Rich’s near-future novel of climate disaster and corporate insanity, Odds Against Tomorrow. We’ll meet July 30 to discuss it, and we hope Rich will join us later that week for a discussion! What is this io9 Book Club all about? We meet once a month and discuss a book we’re…

Who Needs a Breathalyzer When a Urinal Can Tell How Drunk You Are?

Here’s a brilliant idea that could prevent countless drunk driving-related deaths from occurring. Working with a marketing agency called DDB, Zouk, a popular nightclub in Singapore, installed a series of urinals that are able to monitor a patron’s blood alcohol level and warn them if they’re too drunk to drive. It starts when a club…

Like humans, chimps and orangutans remember their past

Sometimes a particular smell, flavor or other sensory cue can trigger a flood of distant memories. New research shows chimpanzees and orangutans have similar capacities for this kind of episodic memory — they’re able to accurately recall an event that happened three years prior. The results suggest, once again, that we’re just not as unique…