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Back to the Future Trilogy Will Stream Exclusively on Amazon Prime In October

Are you ready for October 21, 2015? That’s the date that Marty McFly arrives in the future — at least according to the second Back to the Future movie. But if you’re planning on watching the trilogy to celebrate, you’ll only have one streaming option: Amazon Prime. Starting October 1st, Amazon has the exclusive rights…

Get To Know The Incredible Starships of Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Trilogy

The third book in Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, Ancillary Mercy, comes out next week. Need a refresher course in the ships and personnel of her thrilling space-opera universe? We’ve got an exclusive infographic from Orbit Books. Here’s the complete infographic, which explains the relative sizes and strengths of the three different classes of ships…

Video: Making a handmade glass bottle from sand is so hard

The concept is easy enough to follow: find sand, melt the crap out of it at over 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, and then watch sand turn into glass. But when you want to do something with that molten glass like say, make a glass bottle, it gets so much harder. You have to juggle so many…

A Chart Showing How the Way America Uses Its Land Changed Over the Last 60 Years

This chart from the USDA shows just what’s been going on in the American landscape over the last six decades. Part of the takeaway is what has changed—the rise of cities and we’ve stopped grazing so much of the forestlands—but it’s also just as notable for what hasn’t changed. Top image: 1932 photo of ranger…

A movie’s first and last scene, compared side-by-side (NSFW)

We’ve seen film editor Jacob T. Swinney juxtapose the first and last shot of a movie before. Now he’s back again, comparing how 70 more movies open and close. Obviously there may be some vague-ish spoilers in some of the closing shots and a few of the scenes in this cut are NSFW but it’s…

Japan’s Ultra-Poisonous Pufferfish Holds the Key to the Pain Killers of the Future

Fugu, the Japanese pufferfish that’s a luxe delicacy but also courses with neurotoxins more poisonous than cyanide, might help scientists gin up pain-killing drugs in the future. For killer pain, a killer fish might be the solution. A dish that’s as risky as it is fancy, fugu must be specially prepared by a licensed chef…

The Agents of SHIELD Are Laying The Groundwork For Captain America’s Next Movie

When Agents of SHIELD began, its first season revolved around building up towards the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Now there’s another Captain America movie coming out next spring, and we can already see how Agents of SHIELD is laying some track down for it. Spoilers ahead… Last night’s season premiere of Agents…

Getting Stuck Inside This Tiny Ball Was Part of Each NASA Astronaut’s Training

This ball is a ridiculous Health and Safety mockup, that never actually made it off-planet. It’s basically the worst-shaped spacesuit that was ever invented. 1980: Margaret Rhea Seddon, Kathryn D. Sullivan, Judith A. Resnick, Sally K. Ride, Anna L. Fisher, and Shannon W. Lucid clustered around a personal rescue enclosure prototype. Image credit: NASA The…

Here’s What That All-Nighter is Doing to Your Brain

Skipping a night of sleep to work on a project or study for an exam is something many of us have done at one time or another. But what does sleep deprivation actually do to the brain? A new study shows that all-nighters are not without neural consequences—some of them potentially longterm. As you put…

Last-Minute Stockpiling Only Makes Disasters Worse

When a hurricane takes aim at the coast or a blizzard looms in the forecast, something strange comes over us. We swarm into grocery stores, stripping the shelves bare of canned goods and staple foods. Lines stretch all the way around the supermarket, and it’s like Black Friday on the produce aisle, with people arguing…

A Brief History of the Brutal and Bizarre World of Fraternity Hazing

In theory, the tradition of hazing has vanished from the college campuses of America. National fraternal organizations have banned it. At least 38 states have outlawed it. From coast to coast, university officials smugly assure worried parents that their campus is free of hazing. But shielded by vows of secrecy, many chapters carry on this…

Samsung just announced prices for its Gear S2 smartwatch, the twisty-turny circular bezel one running the company’s own Tizen wearable software. If interested, you’ll be parting with $300-$350 for the S2 and the S2 Classic. They’ll be available in stores and online on October 2.

Here’s Why The First Patient To Receive Penicillin Didn’t Survive

Antibiotics are something that, today, are taken for granted. This wasn’t always the case. The first patient to get antibiotics shows us how an incredibly minor injury can go bad, and how the road to antibiotic use wasn’t smooth even when scientists knew it worked. The first person to get penicillin wasn’t the first patient…

The New Version of OS X Arrives Today, and You Should Probably Update

OS X El Capitan is officially arriving on the interwebs today, complete with a pretty new background picture, and a boatload of new features. If you’ve got a compatible Apple computer (which you probably do), you should get ready to download. https://gizmodo.com/hands-on-with-apples-os-x-el-capitan-tiny-tweaks-make-1714635091 The best news about El Cap is that it’s free, and your MacBook…

11 Things You Can Do in OS X 10.11 El Capitan That You Couldn’t Do in Yosemite

Apple’s latest OS X 10.11 software is out of beta and available as a free upgrade for your Mac later today. To help you find your way around the latest release from the coders in Cupertino, we’ve compiled a guide to the key features that are new this time around (besides some speed and performance…

A 6-Feet Tall Inflatable Jabba Is the Perfect Lawn Decor For Any Holiday

You might look at this six-feet tall inflatable Jabba the Hutt and see the perfect way to decorate your front yard for Halloween. But look harder and you’ll see it’s actually perfect for any holiday or celebration—be it Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, a wedding, or the arrival of a new baby. $170 might sound a…

How The Blade Runner Sequels Will Hand Off From Harrison Ford to Ryan Gosling

Two new Flash videos reveal a major new villain, and a major new ally. Drew Goddard further talks up where Sinister Six could go. Chloe Bennett discusses transforming from Skye into Daisy on Agents of SHIELD. Plus what’s to come on Arrow, more on Alien: Paradise Lost, and clips from The Martian. Spoilers Get! Blade…

To Make Robot Hands More Like Ours, MIT Built These Softer, Smarter Fingers

It’s easy to forget how amazing the dexterity and anatomy of our own hands are–until you learn how difficult they are to replicate for machines. MIT has made big strides in robotic hands this year, and now it’s published a new one. This week at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Bianca Homberg,…

Disappearing Graphene Circuits Could Make Temporary Electrical Devices

Imagine electrical circuits that you could print off and use for a few hours before they melted away and stop functioning or changed their function. A spy’s best friend, they could become reality thanks to a new kind of electric circuitry printed on graphene. The idea of electrical components that self-destruct is nothing new. We’ve…

Those All-Nighters You Pull May Not Be as Harmless as You Think

As you put the finishing touches on your paper, you notice the sun rising and fantasize about crawling in bed. Your vision and hearing are beginning to distort and the words staring back at you from the monitor have lost their meaning. Your brain … well, feels like mush. We’ve all been there. That debilitating…