John Coster-Mullen was driving his truck to a warehouse in Oshkosh, Wisconsin when he told me that he owns uranium. He’d been talking on the phone for about hour, and I hadn’t been able to ask a single question about the project that has consumed a quarter century of his life—the reverse-engineering of America’s first…
China claims to have successfully tested a hypersonic aircraft capable of reaching speeds in excess of Mach 6, or 4,563 miles per hour. The cutting-edge vehicle has the potential to penetrate U.S. missile defense systems and be refitted to include a nuclear warhead.
The Star Wars films may be about a bunch of warriors, smugglers, and monarchs fighting for the fate of the galaxy, but it’s also about how good they look while doing it. That’s thanks in part to their iconic poses. Every Star Wars character has a preferred stance for how they hold their weapon of choice pre-combat.…
Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's weekly round up of all things fun, collectible, and frivolous. San Diego Comic-Con is but a distant memory at this point, but thankfully there’s still plenty of toy news to be had. Lego’s still pumping out new sets, Jell-O’s trying its hand at making edible toys, and we’ve got some fun…
Until the Super Soaker came along in 1990, water guns hadn’t changed much in over a century. But the Super Soaker was 28 years ago, and a group of German engineers and designers think it’s finally time for water guns to evolve again. They’ve created the self-filling Spyra One that fires quick bursts of water instead…
Hundreds of companies and thousands of individuals, many of them researchers and engineers prominent in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence, vowed on Wednesday never to apply their skills toward the creation of autonomous killing machines.
The Olympics are supposed to be a series of competitions that test the physical capabilities of the competing athletes. But increasingly, it seems like it’s become a competition over which athlete brings the best gear: be it highly-engineered running shoes, swimsuits, or sleds. So why shouldn’t track and field…
Joerg Sprave has finally built an elastic-powered weapon that even the burly slingshot master can barely handle when the trigger’s pulled. It’s a handheld trebuchet (a type of catapult) that flings circular saw blades for hundreds of feet, and it looks almost as terrifying to yield as it is to be in the weapon’s…
Star Wars cosplayers of the world take note: Joerg Sprave, the internet’s favorite slingshot-designing mad scientist, has come up with a clever way to simulate blaster fire in real life. Instead of employing dangerously powerful lasers that will get you kicked out of a convention faster than you can reload, his…
Up until the 20th century, the use of bone daggers among the Papuan males of New Guinea was commonplace. Many of these daggers were forged from the femurs of large birds, but some were made from the bones of humans. New research shows which of the two materials provided for a superior dagger, demonstrating that, for…
China’s defunct space station Tiangong-1 will soon plummet toward Earth, likely this weekend. You will almost certainly not be harmed in any way by it—the odds of it striking an individual person are worse than winning the lottery or being struck by lightning. You should not worry about it.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual address to the country’s Federal Assembly today, showing off some impressive new weapons in the process. One of the concept videos even showed a nuclear strike using multiple warheads against the United States. The video depicts Florida, to be exact—the site of…
In New York next month the toymakers of the world will be showing off everything the kids in your life will be begging you for later this year. But ahead of Toy Fair 2018, Nerf has given us a sneak peek at a couple of new blasters it’s introducing, including one that helps solve the most annoying part of waging a dart…
There may be at least half a million pieces of man-made junk orbiting this planet. Tiny pieces can travel around 10 kilometers per second, far faster than a bullet. The International Space Station has had to adjust its orbit just to avoid the stuff. People are rightfully concerned about what to do with all this…
A million Russian artillery shells helped scientists discover the Higgs boson. And all over the world, remnants of World War II weapons are built into the most mysterious experiments in physics.
In the mid-1990s, physicists needed tons of a metal strong enough to withstand the massive magnetic fields of the house-sized…
Archer Lars Andersen doesn’t post a lot of videos to his YouTube channel. But when he does, it’s to show off a mind-melting new trick he’s mastered, like getting arrows to change direction mid-flight so that he can hit targets hidden behind obstacles that he can’t actually see.
Amateur life-risker Joerg Sprave has successfully built custom slingshots capable of firing everything from bowling balls, to Christmas trees, to lethal Lego bricks. His latest creation, a slingshot that can launch full-size swords, is as ludicrous-sounding as it is awesome to see in action.
When people fantasize about being ninjas, they’re not day-dreaming about sneaking up on their enemies; it’s all about the sword play. The Slow Mo Guys are no exception, and realized that playing around with a katana sword would result in some spectacular slo-mo footage.
In preparation for this week’s UN Convention on Conventional Weapons in Geneva, Switzerland, the Future of Life Institute has released a disturbing sci-fi short that shows what might happen if we fail to place an international moratorium on autonomous killing machines.
The US Air Force’s scientific research wing is giving Lockheed Martin $26.3 million “for the design, development, and production of a high power fiber laser,” which it expects to start testing on a tactical fighter jet in four years. Sounds cool and certainly futuristic, but the jury’s still out on whether these…
![The Final <i>Fantastic Beasts </i>Sequel Trailer Teases a Surprising Character Reveal [Updated]](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--WTZMrAnR--/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_180,q_80,w_320/gtqx9kjtqkahumsgj1pg.png)
