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One Trillion Cicadas Are About to Take Over the East Coast

According to the Smithsonian Institution researcher Gary Hevel, one trillion cicadas—a giant insect the size of a human finger—are about to take over the East Coast. Some had said it would be a mere 30 billion, which were already enough bugs to go to the moon and back. How gross this could be? University of…

Kramer Glitch Art Basically Re-Invents Glitch Art

Glitch art can get rather repetitive these days. But when the very subject of your glitch art is Kramer repeatedly sliding into Jerry’s apartment?? Well, the mold has been broken. Michael Richards’ blustery entrances are a national treasure of television. Watching them melt together in pixelated splashes creates an impressionistic dance of nostalgia. Monet—move over.…

Dino Corn Cob Holders Convince Your Kids to Eat Their Veggies

If dinosaurs had held your veggies when you were a kid, would you have ever passed them off to the dog? Probably not, because these dino corn cob holders are awesome. So maybe you’re old and have things like your health to worry about now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still appreciate these kitschy…

How Ultraviolet Light Will Sterilize Super Bugs

Hospital infection rates are on the rise with 1 in 20 Americans already being admitted to the hospital this year, according to CDC estimates, and in some instances, winding up more sick than when they arrived. These infections kill around 100,000 vulnerable patients and cost the healthcare industry $30 billion annually. To combat hyper-infectious agents…

Cities Are the Future of Human Evolution

Humans began to live in urban settlements about 7 thousand years ago. As humans continued to evolve over the millennia, so too did our cities. Now, our cities are about to change again — and they’re going to look more like ancient Machu Picchu than the gleaming towers of glass and steel we have today.…

Traditional psychological diagnoses are going out of style

In a major milestone, a powerful organization of mental health researchers has said it will not be using the new, fifth edition of the Diagnostical and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), a handbook that has virtually defined the field of psychiatry in the United States for decades. Here’s what this means. The National Institute…

Fitbit Flex Review: Peer Pressure Sucks

Fitbit’s One is arguably one of the best activity trackers available today and, yet, less than seven months since it hit the street, Fitbit has decided that a stripped down version worn on the wrist was something the market’s been clamoring for. Back in ’77, Bert Lance first uttered the immortal phrase “If it ain’t…

These Videophone Concepts Are Cooler Than Your iPhone’s FaceTime

Once upon a time, the videophone was a futuristic technology on par with flying cars. It symbolized futuristic communication. Sadly, the reality of FaceTime and Skype didn’t quite measure up to these retro futuristic concepts. Toshiba’s Model 500 View Phone, from the late 1960s Pictured above. (via Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Telephonoscope, 1878 This drawing of…

You’ll be able to try out the next update to Windows 8—codenamed Blue or 8.1 or whatever you prefer—at the end of June, during Microsoft’s BUILD Conference. The public preview will be released then, according to Microsoft.

Warehouse 13 shows how to do television’s most overused concept right

Tons of television shows follow the same model as Warehouse 13 — every episode has an “A” story and a “B” story, and the “B” story is usually something personal to the characters. Often, these two storylines are thematically related, in a way that feels cheap or silly. But last night’s Warehouse 13 was a…

8 Unbelievably Beautiful Cityscapes and Their Reflections

It’s easy to assume that these stunning and totally surreal images are the work of Photoshop’s helping hand, but all the photographs you see before you, unbelievable as they may be, are the work of nothing more than a photographer, a camera, and impeccable timing. All taken by different photographers, the various water-framed skylines extend…

Time Warner Cable’s TV app for Android will suddenly become WAY more useful starting (probably) next Tuesday. They’re adding a bunch of features, including access to 4,000 shows on demand and live TV for older Android phones (running 2.2 or higher).

DNA’s double helix discovery turns 60 – how monumental is it, really?

In April 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson published an unassuming one-page research paper with a finding many claimed would “revolutionize biological research”: the double helical structure of DNA. But how revolutionary has the discovery been, really? In a retrospective published over at Project Syndicate, Emeritus Professor of Medical Ethics and Humanities at the University…

Adorably Wrap Your iPhone Charger Like a Needle and Thread

Until smartphone batteries last for weeks on end, carrying a backup charging cable wherever you go will be a necessary evil. But at least you don’t have to deal with a perpetual tangle of wires if you import SoftBank’s new Itomaki AC Adapters. They’re shaped like a thread spool letting you wind your cable around…

The first sign of the pending penguin apocalypse!

While it looks like an unprovoked attack by zombie penguins, these are actually Falkland Gentoo penguins returning home through a sandstorm. The photograph was taken by Michael Lohmann — and it has won him the runner-up prize in the bird category of the GDT Nature Photographer of the Year 2013 prize. Image: Michael Lohmann/GDT. The…

Starting today, you can now opt into Boingo’s on the go Wi-Fi subscription service with the tap of a button from your iOS device and have it billed directly to your iTunes account. [iTunes]

This Solid Aluminum iPhone Dock Is Your Deal of the Day

When Apple changed the venerable 30-pin iOS connector to the reversible Lightning connector, it threw a lot of accessory makers into fits. One of those makers is Elevation Lab, which first garnered attention in 2011 with a wildly successful Kickstarter selling a CNC-machined iPhone dock made from a solid piece of aluminum. As most observers…

What do screencaps reveal about the future horrors of Ender’s Game?

You’ve seen the first trailer for the movie adaptation of Ender’s Game —now it’s time to pick it apart frame-by-frame and uncover the secrets hiding in each second. Get a good look at a Formic ship, the tech-ed out classrooms, the space shuttle school… and most importantly, THE BATTLE ROOM! The first shot has to…

The Real-Life Buildings Used to Sell Elysium‘s Luxurious Dystopia

Elysium, Neill Blomkamp’s long-delayed futuristic Matt Damon vehicle, tells the story of a class war between the unwashed masses, who live on Earth, and the super wealthy, who live in an absurdly opulent community in the sky. And as it turns out, the super-luxe buildings of Elsyium’s tomorrow actually exist right here in the present…

Windows 8 Is a Failure as Big as New Coke

According to Tami Reller—Microsoft’s Windows marketing boss—PC users think Windows 8 is too hard to learn. So hard that they are “fixing” it big time. Some people are calling this update the biggest consumer product failure since Coca-Cola’s New Coke, which was discontinued three months after its introduction. Except New Coke was a matter of…