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This Longboard Stroller Might Help You Fend Off Parental Lameness

Once you have kids your coolness factor starts a slow but inevitable decline towards a lame life of tucking in Polo shirts and constantly stressing over mutual funds. But before your kids reach their teenage years, there are ways to prolong your coolness, like swapping your stroller—as expensive or tricked out as it may be—with…

This Saturday, 6/1: io9 Meetup in San Francisco!

It’s time for another io9 meetup in San Francisco, the city that got rich on asteroid mining and used all those credits to build the first public nanofabricators. Come out to meet your fellow io9ers at San Francisco’s Borderlands Bookstore Cafe this Saturday afternoon! It’s hard to imagine we used to worry about earthquakes here.…

Nathan Fillion comes inbetween Mike and Sully in new Monsters U. clips

Bros don’t let girls come between then, but two things: 1) in this new clip from Monsters University, Mike and Sully aren’t quite bros yet, and 2) that ain’t no lady, that’s Nathan Fillion — as a monstrous jock and member of hoighty-toighty frat Roar Omega Roar! Luckily, it appears that Mike and Sully manage…

How a Supercomputer May Have Finally Unlocked a Way to Beat HIV

There’s no easy answer for HIV; the sly virus uses our own immune cells to its advantage and mutates readily to shrug off round after round of anti-retrovirals. But thanks to the efforts researchers from the University of Illinois and some heavy-duty number crunching from one of the world’s fastest petaflop supercomputers, we may be…

Here’s what Pangea looks like mapped with modern political borders

Pretty wild, right? It’s a map of Pangea — a supercontinent that formed roughly 300 million years ago — mapped with contemporary geopolitical borders. What you see here is an anachronistic mashup — a modern map, complete with geological features that did not exist 300-million years ago, with its various parts relocated to the general…

This Tiny Toaster USB Hub Is Your Adorable Novelty Deal of the Day

There’s a lot of cute and stupid USB drives out there, but these anthropomorphic pieces of toast take the cake. They even come with a hub that looks like a toaster. Cuteness is expensive when it first comes out, so its no surprise the whole set is now on clearance for a fraction of the…

The First Images of Molecules Breaking and Reforming Chemical Bonds

Microscopy is advancing in leaps and bounds these days. It was just last week that scientists produced the first image of a hydrogen atom’s orbital structure. Not to be outdone, Berkeley chemists have now captured a series of images showing molecules as they break and reform their chemical bonds. It looks almost… textbook. https://gizmodo.com/the-first-image-ever-of-a-hydrogen-atoms-orbital-struc-509684901 It’s…

A Strong Candidate for Greatest Science Fiction Dance Sequence Ever

Science fiction is full of great dance sequences and supervillain musical numbers. But this scene from The History of Future Folk is still a strong contender to be the best of the bunch. There’s a cop-and-criminal tango, interspersed with a balletic alien kickpunching fight. Awesome. https://gizmodo.com/the-greatest-scifi-dance-routines-of-all-time-349053 https://gizmodo.com/the-36-greatest-supervillain-musical-numbers-of-all-tim-5978701 Like The Wall, The History of Future Folk…

Three Hypnotic Soundscapes Made From Paper, Air, and Motors

Sound—more than smell, taste, or even sight—has a unique power to move us. Zimoun, the Swiss installation artist, makes it his business to exploit it. You’d be amazed at how spooky the sound of a few cotton balls hitting a wall can be. Zimoun uses simple, cheaply-bought materials, like cardboard boxes, cotton balls, and pieces…

Scientists Revived 400-Year-Old Plants That Could Help Us Live on Mars

A recently uncovered, perfectly preserved, 400-year-old plant specimen might be the answer to our increasingly important colonization of other planets—and the preservation of the human race as a whole. You probably already know that human stem cells hold a vast, wildly exciting potential—both in terms of furthering our understanding of the human body and in…

Things are looking bad for Space Battleship Yamato, but awesome for us

In case you were wondering if Japan’s new Space Battleship Yamato remake was still looking phenomenally badass, well: If you consider massive space battles with giant guns, Gamilons, dogfights, explosions, and people on starship decks yelling orders and freaking out to be badass, then the answer is an unequivocal “yes.” Behold the new trailer for…

Warning: This brief clip from The Wall will creep you the hell out

Seriously, there’s something intensely creepy about this scene from The Wall, a new movie coming out in New York today. The premise is similar to Stephen King’s Under The Dome, but the execution is a lot more low-key… and kind of intense, for all that. The Wall is opening today at IFC Center in New…

Looks like LinkedIn is the newest site to (finally) jump on board the two-step verification bandwagon. So you can finally rest easy knowing that the safety of your resume is intact, or something.

The Father of Radio’s Stunningly Accurate 1960 Vision of the Year 2000

Flat-screen TVs, online shopping and men on the moon? These were all sci-fi fantasies in 1960. Somehow, though, inventor Lee DeForest predicted that by the year 2000 they would all become a reality. Turns out you don’t necessarily need a crystal ball to see into the future. The Father of Radio The January 17, 1960…

Apple Juice: How to Charge Your Phone With Pocket Change and Fruit

Arthur C. Clarke wrote that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” but he was wrong. It’s easy to tell the difference—technology works. For example, “remote-viewing” mentalists claim they can see events far away, yet they fail every test. In fact, remote viewing is simple: It’s called TV. Another example that recently circulated online…

Alien teens can be just as godawful as human ones in CW’s Star-Crossed

Like the play the inspired its name, the CW’s Star-Crossed features two young lovers who belong to groups — in this case, two species — that hate each other. Of course, in Romeo and Juliet, the Montagues and Capulets didn’t force all their teens to go to the same high school together. In this riduclous…

Simple Smartphone Stuffed Animal Surgery to Terrorize Your Child

Yuta Sugiura has created what could be one of the most awesome ways to terrorize your kids—if you’re into that kind of thing. She’s developed a very clever app that lets a camera-equipped smartphone breathe life and interactivity into a stuffed animal, without having to modify it in any way besides finding a way to…

Shapeways Now Lets You 3D Print With Soft, Squishy Plastic

Are you ready for an influx of 3D printed sandal and slip-on shoe designs? Shapeways, your one stop shop for 3D printing when you don’t want to shell out for a printer of your own, is now offering a new material called Elasto Plastic, a flexible off-white elastomer. It’s soft and squishy, but still returns…

The 10 Totally Awesome Rules of Evolution in Science Fiction

Evolution may be one of the most controversial scientific ideas in recent history, but it sure is boring to watch it happen in real life. That’s why science fiction stories adhere to these 10 very special rules for evolution, just to make a long, complicated process into something totally rad. 1. There is a “next…

Navy Work Uniforms Burn Like Paper, So Sailors Will Get New Garb

Even in non-combat situations, sailors in the US Navy are exposed to lots of heavy equipment, which can be very dangerous. Like ships and stuff. Too bad the current Navy Working Uniform (NWU) will burn like a Duraflame if exposed to fire. The good news: they’re getting new gear. Nope, the standard issue NWU isn’t…