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Free Screening of Neil Jordan’s New Vampire Movie Byzantium

If you’re in San Francisco — or feel like making a road trip — you can be among the first to see Byzantium, the new vampire movie from Neil Jordan. It stars Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton as two vampires who come to a coastal town, unleashing mayhem and bloody confusion. The screening is this…

A New Drug Could End Chronic Pain Forever

Treating pain is a tricky business—especially when it comes to the chronic, perpetually debilitating type. For things like back injuries, osteoarthritis, and bone cancer, you’re really only left with two options: deal with the often dangerous, unpredictable side-effects of prescription painkillers or suffer through it. But all that might change soon thanks to a Moroccan…

Samsung’s Galaxy NX Is Loaded: Big Sensor, Lenses, Android UI and LTE

If last year’s Samsung Galaxy Camera looked like Dr. Frankenstein had sewn a point-and-shoot camera onto the back of a Galaxy S3, the new Galaxy NX is the opposite. It takes the Android UI 3G/4G/LTE connectivity of a smartphone, and slaps it onto the back of an interchangeable-lens camera. As we learned from last year’s…

Samsung Has a Mutant Windows 8-Android Convertible Tablet

At Samsung’s event in London today, they took the lid off of two new Windows 8 tablets. One is very normal. The other is very weird. We’re pretty excited about the weird one. ATIV Q Samsung’s most interesting tablet-type thing is a double-hybrid freak of a device. It has a keyboard that is connected by…

Work From Home Or Work From Hell? Families Drive Home Workers Nuts

Working from home? Did you end up with children in that same home? Now that it’s officially summer, you may have noticed that your once-quiet home office is now a noisy nightmare. How can you stop your kids from driving you to insanity and violence? [Photo via Shutterstock.]

We Can Make It to the Edge of the Observable Universe in a Few Decades

Do you find our galaxy too confining? Do you long for the vast expanses of extragalactic space? Now, you can make it to the edges of the observable universe in only a few decades! In this week’s “Ask a Physicist,” we’ll offer you a practical guide for the intergalactic traveler. Illustration by esk6a A few…

Pick Up After Your Dog Or This Little Girl Eats the Poop!

People who let their dogs poop everywhere and then refuse to clean it up don’t have any morals, so it’s unclear why this new public awareness campaign in the English city of Bristol will have any effect. Maybe the £1,000 fine ($1,547 U.S.) will help the poopsmiths learn some manners. https://jezebel.com/city-combats-dog-poop-problem-with-image-of-little-girl-514552269

Volvo’s Awesome New Autonomous Self-Parking Car Is Pure Magic

Realizing that cars that automatically parallel park themselves are old news, Volvo has taken the concept one step—actually several miles—further with a new concept vehicle that can actually find an empty spot and park itself in a lot. You just abandon your car at the entrance of a parking lot, and like a valet you…

The American Medical Association has declared obesity a disease

In a landmark decision that could have a dramatic impact on the lives of millions of Americans, the American Medical Association voted Tuesday to officially recognize obesity as a disease, drawing a clear distinction between what has long been regarded as a consequence of lifestyle and a medical illness. “Recognizing obesity as a disease will…

Instagram’s awesome new video editing will come with a stabilization feature called Cinema. RIP, Vine.

Hilarious Recount of Man of Steel

Obviously, io9’s Rob Bricken’s recount of Superman’s new movie is full of spoilers, but it’s absolutely hilarious. Worth your lunch time even if you haven’t watched the movie yet. https://gizmodo.com/the-most-important-scenes-from-man-of-steel-as-i-remem-516405346

Space Explorers Need Better Food!

It’s exciting to go into space, but it gets boring eating the same old freeze-dried food and toothpaste tubes of pasta sauce. NASA is now fighting “menu fatigue” with a new plan to combine home-cooked (spaceship cooked?) meals with the ready-to-eat staples like dehydrated ice cream. https://gizmodo.com/space-food-sucks-nasas-quest-to-serve-astronauts-four-517568578

Tomy’s Self-Transforming RC Cars Could Be the Greatest Toy Ever

We’ve already brought you a few clips of Kenji Ishida’s amazing self-transforming RC cars, but so far he’s only made about ten of them available to the public, at a staggering $24,000 a piece. But there’s great news for those of us who’ve chosen to pay off our mortgages instead of buying a toy robot:…

Video on Instagram: Facebook’s New Vine-Like Video Sharing

You’re about to be able to cloak short video clips in vintage filters. Facebook just added video to Instagram, similar to Twitter’s Vine app, only smarter. It has many more features than Vine—it looks like video sharing done right. For the uninitiated, Vine lets you share six second loops of short video clips in a…

12 Most Unfaithful Movie Versions of Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

Tomorrow, Max Brooks’ acclaimed novel World War Z becomes a movie… well, sort of. They kept the title. Actually, World War Z is just the latest in a long line of films that depart from the books so much, they’re basically a brand new story. Here are 12 science fiction and fantasy movies that toss…

Cool Dad Rents Whole Theater For Large-Screen Gaming On Son’s Birthday

A very awesome Florida dad rented out his local historic movie theater so his son could have a fantastic 13th birthday party: pizza and video games played on the big screen. Jonah has Type 1 diabetes and often volunteers with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

iPhone Versus Android Mapped Across the Entire World

iPhone versus Android is a battle for the ages, and it’ll never really be settled. But now you can see which camp is claiming what territory with this map the that shows the geographic use of both devices across the entire world. Oh and also there’s Blackberry. Now to be fair, this isn’t a comprehensive…

“Cure For Homosexuality” Quacks Shut Down Evil Church After 40 Years

A scam “Christian ministry” has shut down after 40 years of peddling a fake “cure” for homosexuality. Exodus International’s president says he is “deeply sorry” for all the misery the execrable tax-exempt organization has caused over four decades of jihad against gays.

This amazing R2-D2 cake can project a holographic Leia

This incredible — and edible — version of everybody’s favorite Astromech droid can actually project Princess Leia’s holographic message to Obi-Wan. I just hope whoever received the cake didn’t accidentally eat the Death Star Plans hidden inside, because otherwise the Rebellion is gonna be screwed. [WedgeStrap via Hackaday]

The STEHM Microscope: Finally, Nanoscientists Can See What They’re Doing

Your average atom is about 62 to 520 picometers in diameter, but since that’s a full factor smaller than the 390 to 700 nanometers human eye can perceive, direct observation using conventional microscopes is physically impossible. But that’s where the electron beams come in. The University of Victoria has just installed the most powerful scanning…