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How Porno Downloaders Are Shamed into Paying Cash to Keep Their Names Clean

You don’t pay for porn. That’s a problem for pornographers, but aces for porno copyright trolls like John Steele, attorney at law. Buzzfeed took a deep look into how they squeeze money out of porn torrenting cases, whether you downloaded anything or not. For a point of reference, here’s, basically, how the operation works: The…

Barrel Lamp Holds Nothing But Glorious Light

In their most unkempt forms, wood, concrete and steel are sturdy and raw materials. And when you can manage to combine the qualities of those materials with an aesthetic form, the results are often gorgeous. Such is the case with New Duivendrecht’s Barrel Lamp. Inspired by the design of an industrial spotlight, the lamp is…

Why Romney and Obama’s Written Science Answers Aren’t Enough

Romney and Obama have agreed to answer questions on science and science policy, but it’s a bittersweet victory. A few weeks ago we told you about ScienceDebate, an independent citizens’ initiative devoted to having Obama and Romney face off over fourteen questions about science in a publicly televised debate. Now, ScienceDebate.org reports both presidential candidates…

Could This Possibly Be the New Kindle Fire?

The Verge claims it’s got its hands on an image of Amazon’s new Kindle Fire being announced next week. We’re dubious. It’s certainly possible, since we’re almost certain that we’ll see a new Kindle Fire, since the current Fire is sold out at Amazon. But gosh, that bezel looks weird (read: very possibly Photoshopped), and…

Chimps don’t care if someone else gets robbed

Is justice a uniquely human concept? However you want to define it, the fact is we mete out punishment based on what one individual has done to another, even if we don’t know either of those people. Yet this sort of group enforcement of laws seems pretty fundamental to our society — and it looks…

Stanford Is Building a Body-Cooling Glove That Might Work ‘Better Than Steroids’ for Athletes

One of the reasons professional athletes illegally use steroids is to help speed up their recovery time after a particularly grueling game or injury, thus making them fresh as spring chickens the next time they compete. But one of the goals of helping the body to recover is lowering core temperture, and Stanford believes that…

Nobody Has Any Idea What the Cloud Is

A recent survey has unearthed an interesting/borderline depressing fact—one in three people think cloud computing has to do with literal clouds. That’s right: many of us think we need an umbrella to access SkyDrive. You’d think this was the kind of statement your mother said at the dinner table and then you texted to all…

12 Supercool Projects You Can Make From Scratch This Weekend

Tomorrow is the start of the most glorious thing in the universe: a three-day weekend. With all that time on your hands, you can marathon those DVDs you’ve been saving, or re-read George R.R. Martin. But there’s also another way you could use this long weekend: Building your very own robot, or TARDIS, or Batarang…

Reinventing the Ice Cube Tray

As we enjoy the last few weeks of absolutely everything being served on the rocks, take a moment to admire the cubes inside that sweaty glass. Long ago ice used to be a novelty, shipped across the country-or world-in massive chunks carved from frozen lakes and rivers. We’ve come a long way from 19th century…

Rosacea could be caused by mites unleashing feces inside your pores

Holy crap. File this away under things you desperately wish you could un-know: lurking in your pores right now are tiny bugs, closely related to spiders, that live off your facial oils. Usually, these bugs are harmless, but harbor too many of them and their tendency to die and decompose while they’re inside you becomes…

Disco Fish and Snails on Wheels: The Amazing Vehicles of Burning Man 2012

Most people assume Burning Man is just this mecca of sex and drugs. It isn’t. Well, it is, but that’s a much smaller part of the picture than people make it out to be. A major part of the event is the collection of hundreds of incredible sculptures on wheels just rolling across the desert.…

Jeopardy Home Game Will Expose How Stupid You Really Are

When you’re watching Jeopardy and playing along at home, it’s easy to ignore the endless run of questions you get wrong because you’re not keeping score. Such is not the case with this home version of the game. It keeps track of just how ignorant you really are—so it’s a good idea to maybe only…

Turns out those longevity maniacs were wrong about how to live to be 800 years old

It turns out longevity boosters like Aubrey de Grey — the scientific community’s answer to Alan Moore — may be very wrong about how to live longer. De Grey, who runs a nonprofit devoted to inventing life-extending tech, has often talked about the idea that starving yourself will lead to a longer life (though he…

How Self-Sustaining Space Habitats Could Save Humanity from Extinction

This planet can’t protect us forever. Sooner or later, there’ll be a catastrophe that renders this world uninhabitable for humans. And when that day comes, we’ll need to know already how to live in space. Yesterday, we explained why we should reboot the Biosphere 2 projects of the 1990s. There are a lot of scientific…

The Best Mars Panorama Yet Feels Just Like Being There

This morning Hans Nyberg sent me the most impressive panorama I’ve seen of Mars yet, made from images released by NASA on August 27. Put it at full screen and look around. It’s just like being right there, but with oxygen and air conditioning. The size of Mount Sharp—which is 12 miles (20 kilometers) from…

Sifteo Game Cubes Now Freed From Their Laptop Shackles

A year after they were officially released to consumers, Sifteo’s game cubes are finally no longer tethered to your computer. Now you can enjoy this unique take on portable gaming, which has players re-arranging multiple tiny displays to solve puzzles and complete missions, wherever you’re willig to tote its base station. https://gizmodo.com/these-little-cubes-of-fun-interact-with-each-other-usin-5829899 The original cubes,…

Whoever racks up the most Virgin Atlantic miles between now and August 7 2013 gets a free trip to SPAAAACE. [TechCrunch]

FriendsWithYou Blows Up “Happy Rainbow” in Hong Kong

FriendsWithYou has a knack for creating adorable color-loving characters, which are very often brought to life in the form of over the top vibrant inflatables. Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval, founders of FWY, just launched their first exhibition in Hong Kong titled, Happy Rainbow. The 16-piece exhibit varies from a forty-foot interactive bounce house, to…

Ryan Gosling’s monster movie with Christina Hendricks might be the best thing ever

Ryan Gosling is making a science fiction movie with Christina Hendricks and monsters? This could be the most universally appealing film ever created! The beloved actor and hardbody, Gosling, will be making his directorial debut in the film he also wrote, called How to Catch a Monster. According to Wired the movie is self described…

Apple Has Decided We Can’t Track Killer Drones With Our iPhones

Drones are being used by militaries to quietly attack targets, and little is reported about it because of how little manpower is necessary to carry out such an operation. So an iPhone app like Drones+—which sends you a notification every time a drone strikes—sounds like a good idea as far as government transparency goes. Unfortunately,…