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How much caffeine is too much?

A lethal dose of caffeine is thought to be roughly 10 grams — about the mass of your standard #2 pencil. That converts to a whopping (but basically undrinkable) 4.69 gallons of coffee, or 120 standard cans of Red Bull. Still, 2012 saw several deaths linked to energy drinks in the United States — five…

How NASA Wants Us to Explore the Universe With Robotic Avatars and Holodecks

Take three minutes of your life to listen to Dr. Jeff Norris, one of the science rock stars at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He talks about how NASA is working to democratize space exploration by using robots, holodecks and 3D technologies so we can all see space with our own eyes using…

HBO orders a pilot of Damon Lindelof’s post-Rapture series The Leftovers

HBO is making a show about those who didn’t get spirited away after God’s Rapture? Awesome. Damon Lindelof is behind it? Ehhhhhhh. Luckily, the premise is based off of Tom Perrotta‘s (Election) book The Leftovers which is trades the Left Behind Bible-thumping for actual intrigue. Either way, we’re one step closer to seeing this actually…

Evasi0n Jailbreak Has Unshackled Close to 7 Million iOS Devices

Earlier this week, the jailbreak tool to rule them all, evasi0n, was released and since then there have been close to seven million new jailbroken iOS devices. At least that’s what the creator of Cydia told Forbes. The actual breakdown of those nearly seven million devices as of last night boils down to 5.15 million…

Here Comes the Snowpocalypse From Space

Here it is. They can’t stop laughing at New Yorkers in Minnesota, where they have these “snowmagedons” every other day during winter—but show this picture from NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite to the former, and we will run away, screaming and looting supermarkets: The satellite image, captured at 9:01 a.m. EST, shows clouds associated with the western…

This Is the Best Tooth Extraction Method I Can Possibly Imagine

Some kids wait until a tooth falls down on its own and then wait to collect whatever the tooth fairy brings. Not this one. She’s just too badass and decides to take matters into her own hands. And her bow. If I ever have a kid, I want her to be just like this. And…

Did Games Workshop give up on trying to own the term Space Marine already?

Since December, you haven’t been able to buy M.C.A. Hogarth’s book Spots the Space Marine: Defense of the Fiddler on Amazon, because Games Workshop claimed it owned the trademark on the phrase “space marine” due to its popular Warhammer 40K games. As far as we know, Games Workshop’s lawyers haven’t stopped making absurd claims about…

The Big Super Bowl Blackout Was Caused By a Boringly Faulty Relay

Beyoncé? The Illuminati? Aliens? Nothing so interesting caused the big Super Bowl blackout last Sunday. According to Entergy Corp, which was in charge of power at the event, the outage was due to the boring failure of a boring electrical relay device. Installed to prevent damage to Superdome equipment in case of a cable failure,…

New Ancient Evidence Confirms That Yes, An Asteroid Killed All the Dinosaurs

For most of us laypeople, it’s an accepted truth the dinosaurs were wiped out by a big ol’ asteroid that smashed into the Earth, easy as that. For scientists, however, there’s always been some question as to whether or not that was actually the case. But some new revelations have proven that we dummies were…

Viva Las Venus: The Jetsons and Wholesome Hedonism

This is the 17th in a 24-part series looking at every episode of “The Jetsons” TV show from the original 1962-63 season. The January 20, 1963, episode of The Jetsons was titled “Las Venus” and along with the second episode of the series, “A Date With Jet Screamer,” is a great futuristic example of what…

12 Real Animals We Can’t Believe Aren’t Pokémon

Those who question the theory of evolution generally do it on religious grounds. But there’s a non-faith-related reason to question evolution. A lot of animals are too absurd to have been shaped by any kind of natural selection process. Here’s our working alternate explanation: these animals were designed by tired anime artists slaving away in…

Now anyone can edit and share Office Web Apps, even without an Office 365 account—a very welcome addition.

Beautiful Minimalist Science Graphics, c. 1960

For the weekend: vintage science art from the backs of books in LIFE Magazine’s Science Library, published throughout the 1960s by Time Inc. See also: this set of minimalist science posters by graphic designer Kazumasa Nagai, also featured in the magazine’s 60s Science Library. Health and Disease © 1965 Time Inc. The Mind © 1964…

Chicken & Waffles? Sriracha? Oh Please Let These Be the New Lay’s Chip Flavors

Unless you never watch TV and avoid visiting your local grocery store, you’re probably aware that Lay’s is running another contest where they invited people to submit ideas for new potato chip flavors last year. The finalists for the company’s ‘Do Us a Flavor‘ contest are supposed to hit stores next Tuesday, but it looks…

This is the best Star Wars cake we’ve ever seen

Holy Hoth, this cake version of a Star Wars Star Destroyer is glorious. Look at it, with its icing, and its gorgeous stand that makes it look like it’s floating — it even lights up! This cake is too beautiful to eat. We should all just tenderly stroke the grey icing with respect and awe.…

How Your Ears Do Math Better Than Mathematicians

When you listen to music, when its waves of sound collide with your ear, you don’t hear a wall of sound. A great deal of information might travel in a sound wave and, if that sound wave were actually a giant wave of water rushing onto a beach, you might expect to feel it as…

The most perfect sphere ever made tests Einstein’s theories

This is a refraction of an image of Einstein in the most perfect sphere ever made. The flaws on this quartz sphere are no bigger than forty atoms. It, and other spheres like it, have been sent to space to test out a couple of Einstein’s ideas. These near-perfect spheres are going to be sent…

At Least No One Can Hear What You’re Doing In These Musical Rhythmic Potties

In an attempt to make the often overused and undermaintained portable toilets not the worst part of a music festival in Argentina, the organizers decided to make a bank of stalls one of the musical acts. So they wired up the johns with lights and sounds that were all synced to each other, and whenever…

Buddha hates love in Jet Li’s The Sorcerer and the White Snake

Apparently Buddha’s an asshole. I know, right? It was news to me as well. I was under the impression he was a pretty chill deity until I watched Jet Li’s recent fantasy martial arts flick The Sorcerer and the White Snake, based on an ancient Chinese fairy tale, in which a young doctor and a…

Who Wore It Best? The Nightmarish, Blood-Gargling Zombie Edition

Last week, we decided to host a contest in conjunction with the release of Dead Yourself, the horrifying The Walking Dead photo app that allows you to transform the faces of innocent bystanders into oozing, putrid, maggot-filled messes. Well, your final submissions (like the lovely Lea L.’s shot above) are in, and much to our…