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This Speaker-Packed Wagon Redefines A Party On Wheels

Forget pulling a wagon filled with kids. If you really want to enjoy a day at the beach you’ll hit the sand with this speaker-packed wagon in tow. A pair of 12-volt batteries power the Blastmaster XL’s 2,000 watt sound system for up to 40 hours of non-stop partying, and yes, it comes with cup…

A Government Program Wanted to Make the Perfect Artificial Heart—With Radioactive Decay

The idea of putting a decaying radioactive isotope inside your chest might make you a little uneasy—and rightly so. But in 1967, the National Heart Institute and the Atomic Energy Agency set out to make it happen in the form of a plutonium-238-powered atomic heart. Think Tony Stark with nuclear waste in his chest. The…

You can see more than fifty percent of the Moon. Here’s why.

How much of the moon can you see? Most people would say fifty percent, but they’d be wrong. You can’t see more than fifty percent at a time, but look upward for a year, and you can see nearly sixty percent of the moon’s surface. We’ll tell you how. Look up in the sky on…

Wish I Was Rich As The Stars

I could spent an extremely large amount money at the upcoming Space History Sale at the Bonhams. I especially love this lot of space suit development photographs.

Bitcoin and Other Virtual Currencies Finally Get Some Regulation

Companies that distribute and exchange Bitcoin will now be subject to the same rules as Western Union. The hope is to crackdown on Bitcoin-related crime. Regulating virtual currencies is tricky because it’s hard to do it without admitting that they’re legitimate in some way. But given the surge in Bitcoin’s popularity—and its utility as the…

The science of swarms will blow your mind

Here are two things you should do immediately. One: watch this. It’s a jaw-dropping video of starlings in flight that will straight up give you chills. The swirling cloud of birds is called a “murmuration,” and it’s just one example of how animals in very large groups can engage in remarkably coordinated collective behavior. Two:…

The 15 Minute Phone Charger You Don’t Actually Want

Buffalo has just announced a new backup battery called the Voltissimo that makes the bold claim of being able to fully charge an iPhone in just 15 minutes. While there’s no technical reason it shouldn’t be able to deliver on that claim, it’s not the best idea for your phone in the long run. Available…

Postwar Dreams of Flying in Style

During World War II, many Americans had high hopes for what life would be like in the future. Sometimes this was fueled by advertisers who promised that great things were just around the corner. Sacrifice for your country now they said, and all of your wildest high-tech dreams would come true after the war. As…

More People Have Cell Phones Than Toilets

It’s easier to put a phone in someone’s hand than it is to build a proper sanitation system. According to a UN report, 6 of 7 billion people in the world have cell phones, while just 4.5 billion have access to a toilet or latrine. While that might seem like an apples to oranges comparison,…

Pepsi’s Plastic Bottle Design Gets Its First Redesign Since 1997

Pepsi has redesigned the shape of its 16-ounce and 20-ounce plastic bottles for the first time in 16 years. Move the arrows on the slider above back and forth to see the a before and after comparison. The slider isn’t meant to be a 1:1 comparison of the actual bottle sizes, but it gives you…

Millions of deaths indicate we’re all eating too much salt

Some worrisome stats for your morning: new research concludes that excess salt consumption has had a hand in over two million heart-related deaths worldwide in 2010, 40% of which were premature. In a study recounted at yesterday’s American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans, researchers examined 247 surveys of adults participating in the 2010 Global…

Scientists find 8 impossibly adorable new frogs in a single forest

Naturalists working in the mountainous forests of Sri Lanka’s Peak Wilderness Sanctuary have uncovered no less than eight new species of frogs, nearly all of them critically endangered. Sri Lanka is known for its amphibian diversity — with well over 100 species documented — but to find eight new species over the course of just…

This Is How You Respond to Rumors

Don’t hand your iPhone to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. During an interview on Finnish TV show Hjalliksen kanssa, an interviewer made exactly that mistake and is short one functional iPhone for having made it because Elop threw that sucker on the floor. After pressing Elop for details on upcoming releases, pulling out his iPhone, and…

All delays considered, HTC is now promising the One will pop up in the U.S. “before the end of April.”

The Croods is a movie that teaches your children to play in traffic

If you have too many children, and want to get rid of a few of them, then you should definitely consider taking them to see The Croods. A movie whose message is: “Run towards danger! Any danger! Preferably without looking first!” Spoilers ahead… Actually, I’m pretty sure The Croods doesn’t mean to convey that message.…

These Incredibly Realistic Human Face Computer Graphics Will Obviously Be Used for Porn

We’ve seen how impressive Nvidia’s new Titan GPU can be, but this is kind of nuts. Face rendering that is pretty darn close to bridging the uncanny valley. It’s remarkable. And also? This is obviously going to be used for porn. https://gizmodo.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-a-massive-gpu-that-might-be-u-5985291 Everything is used for porn. And this, especially, should be put right to…

The Disney Princesses Springbreakers Trailer: Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo, B*tches!

What if Harmony Korine’s dark Springbreakers replaced its Disney show starlets with actual Disney Princesses? Just imagine the sweet ladies robbing their Evil Stepmother for Ball money, using their wands for evil, getting high and makin’ it with the genie. This College Humor trailer is pretty hilarious down to the last gag.

This Is Nature’s B-2 Bomber

The B-2 Spirit aka Stealth Bomber has a very distintictive shape, and when you place it up against a hawk/falcon(?), you can suddenly see why. Nature has bombers of its own, and that form factor just happens to work out well for us too. But for all their similarities, I think we’d all prefer to…

The Milky Seas Effect is why the ocean sometimes glows blue

The above picture shows the first photo of the famous Milky Seas Effect. It’s a luminescence that turns thousand-mile patches of ocean a glowing milky blue. Bioluminescent algae are not new to science. It’s not unusual for them to light up the ocean, especially when they’re agitated by crashing waves. Sometimes entire boats can be…

Pocket Spotlight Turns Your Smartphone Into a Tiny Photography Studio

Your smartphone’s LED flash is better than nothing if you find yourself needing to take a photo in the dark. But the results are usually harsh and uneven. So if you find yourself in need of better lowlight shots but refuse to buy a real camera, the Pocket Spotlight is a reasonable compromise. It’s basically…