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Scientists Built a Mini Laser Gun That Generates Anti-Matter

Remember that time you mixed vinegar and baking soda and decided you wanted to be a scientist? Maybe you should have followed through. Then you could have been one of the guys that just developed a tabletop “gun” that creates positrons by shooting lasers at gold. A team of physicists working at the University of…

Amazing Video: The Great Gatsby Stripped of Greenscreen Effects

Could The Great Gatsby be one of the year’s most special effects-heavy films? This VFX sizzle reel certainly makes it look that way. Check out the incredible lengths the professionals went to, to create the pier, a period version of New York City and the Buchanans’ lavish mansion. This is a window into how much…

Girl Invents Amazing Flashlight Powered Exclusively By Body Heat

15-year-old Ann Makosinski, from Victoria, British Columbia, has created a LED flashlight powered only by body heat. Zero batteries. Just hold it and it will start working. Look at her demonstrating it in the video.

Exploding Bullets Frozen In Plexiglass Are Hauntingly Beautiful

Just because a piece of glass might claim to be “bulletproof” doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s actually, well, bulletproof. But if your bullet-resistant glass is sturdy enough, that speeding bullet will usually just end up lodged in layers of polycarbonate. That’s what intrigues photographer Deborah Bay. She recently found herself struck by the unexpected beauty…

The 10 Greatest Female Samurai and Ninjas

The way of the ninja requires massive sacrifices, and samurai must live by the exacting code of Bushido. Usually, pop culture depicts ninjas and samurai as stoic men — but here are 10 amazing women who rose to the challenge. 1) Tsukikage Ran While women weren’t technically allowed to be samurai in feudal Japan, that…

Starting on Monday, Facebook’s going to start stripping out ads from the more unsavory Facebook groups. No more worries about your wholesome ads popping up in “We Love Porno, LOL.” Phew.

Explore Twitter’s Hidden Landscape In These Gorgeous Interactive Maps

Twitter never tires of finding clever new ways to show off its mountains of tweets, it’s going literal with actual mountains of tweets. Twitter’s in-house data visualization scientist Nicolas Belmonte put together these new, interactive, topographical maps of tweet history, and the result is a digital mountain range like you’ve never seen. Drawing from the…

Desire Modification is on the way, with Anti-Addiction tech

I’ve argued before that the most profound change from cyborg technology will come not from upgrading our capabilities, but from changing our desires. Our desires form the core of who we are. They are literally why we get up in the morning. And there are many aspects of our desires that we’d like to change,…

Sky Fighter: Meet the Man Who Wants to Drone-Proof Your Home

Last week, FBI Director Robert Mueller finally admitted that the Bureau uses drones to carry out surveillance on Americans (say hi!). Meanwhile, the tweens next door are probably spying on you too, watching you pick your nose using a $300 drone they bought on Amazon. UAV use in America—and public anxiety over it—is exploding. And…

How Real Scientists Shaped the Story of Europa Report

We’ve praised the astounding beauty and raw realism in the space thriller Europa Report for some time now. In a world where hard science fiction is traded for alien carnage and chase scenes, Europa is a rare creature, but how did it get that way? We spoke with screenwriter Philip Gelatt about the arduous research…

Summer Scorcher: California Temperatures To 129 Degrees

Temperatures could hit 129 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend in California’s deserts, the National Weather Service warns, while Phoenix should see 118 and Las Vegas will reach 117—heat levels rarely seen even in the scorching Southwestern U.S. A persistent high-pressure system over the hot deserts has cut off the usual cooling from the Pacific Ocean. Palm…

What is happening in this bizarre Japanese retro-futuristic art?

Over at Dark Roasted Blend, there’s an amazing collection of retro-futuristic art from Japan, circa 1930-1960. Some of the images show robots under construction, or robotic spacecraft, while others… there appears to be a creepy robotic nanny and a magic saxophone. Check out some of our favorites from among Dark Roasted Blend’s massive collection below.…

How Will You Buy Things In Space? PayPal Hopes You’ll Use PayPal

The first space hotel is now in the works, and the first Virgin Galactic tourists will soon ride SpaceShipOne into low-earth orbit. But how will people pay for stuff in space? Change will just float away. “PayPal Galactic” is here.

This Concrete Ball Was Supposed to Be the Motel of the Future

In 1935, an inventor from Indiana devised a new way to build what he believed was the motel of the future. If William E. Urschel had had his way, tourists around the world would all be relaxing in these concrete golf-ball-looking structures by now. It’s a good thing he didn’t get his way. Comparing his…

Today’s School Kids As Dumb As Ever

Despite all the iPads and Internet porn, America’s school kids are just as dumb as their parents—high school test scores have been flat for 40 years, even though today’s kids spent their entire grade-school years being pointlessly tested.

PayPal teams up with SETI to launch PayPal Galactic (a Space Bank)

You guys. You guys, it’s happening. PayPal and members of the SETI Institute (like Jill Tarter) have teamed up to bring the world/solar neighborhood PayPal Galactic. Which is basically just like PayPal, only it’s for space-payments. https://gizmodo.com/it-looks-like-paypal-is-making-a-move-to-be-the-first-b-514001258 https://gizmodo.com/jill-tarter-inspiration-for-the-movie-contact-tells-u-5932368 PayPal president David Marcus had this to say, in a statement: As space tourism programs are opening…

A Fifteen-Year-Old Has Invented an Incredible New Kind of Flashlight

Are you ready to play everybody’s not-so-favorite guilt game: what was I doing at that age? Ann Makosinski, a tenth grader from Victoria, British Columbia, has created a simple LED flashlight powered by body heat. So instead of having to recharge it or swap in a fresh pair of AAs every so often, you literally…

New Yorker’s Bert and Ernie Tenderly Watch Gay Marriage Decision

America is delighting to the current New Yorker cover, which shows Sesame Street same-sex roommates Bert and Ernie in a tender moment during the big gay marriage news from the Supreme Court.

How Chupa Chups Put Salvador Dalí in the Candy Store

The Chupa Chups packaging is uncanny—you could spot the swirly, colorful wrapper from a mile away, and you’d instantly know it was the most famous Spanish lollipop in the world. David Airey, an Ireland-based graphic designer, put together this illustration that shows the evolution of the Chupa Chups logo since it first arrived on the…

Byzantium explores what vampirism would actually be like

Forget superpowers and sparkly weddings and crazy dirt sex. The vampires in Neil Jordan’s quiet, subversively funny new movie Byzantium are dealing with real problems. Like how to kill, but maintain your moral code. And how to live apart from your mother after 200 years. This is the smartest and most rewarding vampire movie of…