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Guy Upgrades Nerf’s New 70 MPH Rival Zeus Blaster To Be Fully Automatic

Nerf’s new Apollo and Zeus Rival blasters are some of the most innovative additions to the toy line in decades. And while they can fire foam rounds at an impressive 70 MPH, there’s still room for custom upgrades as YouTuber LordDraconical demonstrates by making the Zeus fully automatic. Just pull the trigger and less than…

Is The Prometheus Sequel Hitting The Brakes on Neil Blomkamp’s Alien 5?

Could a member of Rogue One’s cast be a character from the original trilogy? The Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon reveals Rocket Raccoon’s origin. Gotham casts another Batman villain—with a twist. Plus, J.J. Abrams on piecing together what we’ve seen of The Force Awakens, and a look at The Last Kingdom. Spoilers! Neil Blomkamp’s Alien…

Speedo and Misfit Team Up For a Swimming-Focused Fitness Tracker

Misfit’s button-sized Shine fitness tracker is already waterproof to a depth of over 160 feet, so swimmers don’t need to take it off while training. But since accurately measuring laps is different than measuring steps, Misfit has teamed up with Speedo to create a new version of the Shine that’s customized to track underwater activities.…

Warner Bros. is developing a Carl Sagan biopic. They’ll have the help of Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow, who is going to be a producer on the film. [The Tracking Board]

In the Antarctic, a Tiny Aurora Shimmers in the Night Sky

At the very southernmost point of Earth is Concordia Station, a joint French-Italian inland Antarctic research station with isolation, long stretches of darkness, and low oxygen levels that allow research into the adaptation of human psychology and physiology. Despite all this, it is beautiful. This photo was taken by Doctor Beth Healey, a European Space…

Important PSA: No, You Can’t Take Your Batarangs Through Airport Security

See? This is why Batman has to be Bruce Wayne, multi-billionaire. He has to be able to afford the Batplane because you lose all credibility once the TSA is patting down your utility belt. These four batarangs were seized by the TSA last week in Boise (yes, Boise. No, we don’t know what the Dark…

Hack Amazon’s Dash Buttons to Do More Than Order Stuff

Amazon’s Dash buttons are $5 Wi-Fi enabled portals of pure consumerism — at least, if you use them how Mr Bezos would like you to. Or, if you’ve got a little programming skill, you can hack them to do almost anything. https://gizmodo.com/you-can-now-buy-those-stupid-great-amazon-dash-buttons-1720886109 In a post on Medium, Edward Benson details how the Dash buttons work,…

Well, At Least the Minority Report TV Show Looks Great.

In a new featurette, the cast and crew of Fox’s new Minority Report earnestly explain how the show takes the premise of the movie forward. They’re certainly committing a lot of resources to getting the look right. The one thing no one seems to be explaining in this video is how the show can have…

Drones Stress Out Bears Just As Much As Humans

Flying RC drones is hugely fun, but also endlessly stressful: at any time you’re liable to chop someone’s hand open, or crash your $1000 toy into a power line. As it turns out, humans aren’t the only ones who get stressed by nearby UAVs. According to research published in Current Biology, black bears have a…

Want to try Microsoft’s (surprisingly OK) new Edge browser, with committing yourself to Windows 10? Well, Microsoft has new Virtual Machine builds of Windows 10 available for free, complete with Edge — probably easier than having to downgrade an entire computer. [Microsoft] Contact the author at [email protected].

Farewell, Dione: Cassini Makes Final Flyby of Saturn’s Fourth Largest Moon

Cassini’s epic mission to Saturn is coming to a close with a spectacular finale of daring flybys and swooping encounters. The beginning of the end happened today with the last targeted flyby of Dione, the icy moon of towering cliffs and dizzying canyons. Dione against the backdrop of Saturn in blue, green, and infrared light…

Google Hangouts Has a Gorgeous New Home On the Web

Google Hangouts has been a depressingly central part of my life for years now, but the web interface has always felt a little hacked-together. Today, all that changes, with a redesigned interface, and a dedicated homepage for Hangouts. The new URL follows Google’s normal naming convention: hangouts.google.com. The new homepage works like an expanded version…

This Carpenter Bee Can’t Sting You, But He’s Certainly Giving You the Eye

He looks like a bumble bee, but this is Xylocopa virginica, the Virginia Carpenter Bee. While females have a stinger, the males don’t, but they do step to other males who invade their turf, watching over females and young. “Carpenter” comes from the bees’ nesting habits: they tunnel into wood to lay eggs. Photo credit:…

What the Oval Office Looks Like Empty

The Oval Office has a very pretty floor! You’d never know it based on most photos of the White House’s most famous non-square-shaped room, but the president spends his days walking on a Reagan-era design. It’s a heck of an improvement over the wood-grain linoleum of the Johnson years. The rare photo above was taken…

The Incredible DiY Cabins of the Tisza River in Hungary

One of the strangest places in Hungary lies beside the Tisza River in a village called Gergelyiugornya. Hugged by a bend in the river, it’s a relatively narrow, woody flood basin area packed with small cottages that show an incredibly wide variety of architectural designs and creativity. Walk with me in the shade of the…

Solving an “Unsolvable” Math Problem

Until recently, there were just 14 known convex pentagons (nonregular, five-sided shapes with outward-pointing angles) that could “tile the plane” (be arranged with flush sides on a flat surface, with no gaps or overlaps). But last month, some thirty years since the 14th was discovered, a 15th was identified. The convex pentagon in question and…

How Did the Bicycle Evolve?

The quest for a human powered, stable, fast and energy efficient vehicle has taken us a long way. Let’s see how it all started. 1790s – The beginning The first reference to a two-wheeled vehicle driven by one rider was a toy-like simple machine, with just two wheels attached to a rigid wooden frame. The…

The Bologna Stone Was a Glowing Mystery for 400 Years

The Bologna Stone was discovered in 1603, at the base of a dead volcano near Bologna. When treated with heat, and exposed to sunlight, it would glow for hours—sometimes days. It took 400 years to figure out why. In 1603, Vincenzo Cascariolo was digging in the volcanic rock near Bologna, Italy. The man was a…

Bezos-Owned Newspaper Not So Sure That Working For Bezos Could Be That Bad

The Washington Post, a newspaper and online media outlet owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is really skeptical of claims that working at Amazon could be so bad. “Is it really that hard to work at Amazon?” the paper asks. After the New York Times’ withering story about terrible working conditions at Amazon was published…

The Heart-Eating Hippie Who Admitted “I Am a Cannibal” When He Was Arrested

“I have a problem. I’m a cannibal.” These matter-of-fact words, uttered by 22-year-old “Satan cultist” Stanley Dean Baker, chilled the California Highway Patrol officer who arrested him in July 1970. And it wasn’t long before that horrifying statement was proven to be completely true. The particulars of Baker’s crime, which was discovered just as the…