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One of the most unique environments on earth exists in a seldom-visited corner of northern California. Lava Beds National Monument is home to over 700 caves, some of which are full of rare ice formations or play home to solitary biomes like this fern cave. They also allowed a tribe of Indians to make one…
Privacy took a blow last week when the NSA got permission to keep operating a massive dragnet. Here’s some better news: As of today, federal agents should have a harder time using Stingrays to spy on cell phones. Today, the Department of Justice issued a new policy that requires federal agencies to get a search…
It’s a special day, and I’m not just talking about Force Friday Eve: It’s my birthday! I’ve known for years that I share my birthday with a few interesting entities like Charlie Sheen. But there’s one thing I did not know I shared a birthday with until today: 20 years ago, a little company named…
Sure, sand art is amusing—and maybe even mesmerizing for a few minutes. But the DIY effects wizards at Shanks FX have a new video showing how sand art can be used to mimic dramatic landscapes on film—like an evening sandstorm on Mars. As Shanks FX shows in this new video, you can add new backgrounds…
It’s probably not surprising, given how many notorious inmates get hitched when they’re behind bars, but it’s definitely stomach-turning: Colorado theater shooter James Holmes, recently sentenced to life without parole, gets tons of fan mail. According to the Associated Press, prosecutors shared 200 pages of mail sent to Holmes before and during his trial for…
“Spontaneous unanimity has never been so effortlessly achieved as it was on this year’s judging panel.” Ouch. That’s a quote from the judges behind this year’s Carbuncle Cup, a competition to name the worst building of the year in the UK run by the architectural magazine BDOnline. These judges, who range from architects to critics…
When 60,000 critically endangered saiga antelope dropped dead in central Kazakhstan in June, it had to have been a major bummer for the veterinarians who had just arrived to study the herd. Those wildlife vets have since become detectives, trying to unravel an Agatha Christie-worthy puzzle. Now they think they have a culprit, but it’s…
It’s a common misconception that the best blogs in the world are the Gawker Media blogs and PerezHilton.com/nicki-minaj. But that’s just plain wrong. It’s hard to believe, but there’s actually a better blog out there…………… And it’s not Fusion.net, lol, sorry Felix Salmon! Written by certified life coach and definitely not a bot Elena Petrova,…
After months—if not years—of bellyaching over slow speeds and shaky stability, Google finally announced an array of improvements to Chrome that could improve the lives of millions. The company says the browser will now offer users “a faster and more efficient web.” Well, Google certainly couldn’t make it slower or less efficient. The latest version…
Here’s a glimpse of the process of how an NHL arena turns a concrete slab into an official ice hockey rink. It’s footage from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, a place that’s hard enough to get water (let alone ice). The process of putting the ice rink together is quite quaint, it involves string…
Interactive fiction writing is a pretty niche market, but it’s one that we can’t seem to get enough of. Imagine how many more hours of Choose Your Own Adventure-style entertainment our kids could get lost in, if we could just build robots to write these stories. Guess what? We can. That’s right: Researchers at the…
The saddest Star Wars news revealed today isn’t that you’ll have to wait until midnight to get your hands on all the new toys. It’s that Pottery Barn is making this awesome Millennium Falcon bed (complete with a dashboard full of controls in the nose cone) but only in kid sizes. When will some companies…
Why do we seek out challenging experiences in the outdoors? And why does the pain, suffering and risk make them more rewarding? We talked to a leading sports psychologist to find out. After a disappointing defeat on Grand Teton last year, Scott, Issac, Ryan, and I were determined to return and climb this mountain. But…
Have you ever p-phubbed? You know, snubbed your partner by checking your phone during your date? Or leaving your iPhone out within reach while you’re on the sofa snogging? Now two researchers say there’s strong evidence that your p-phubbing is wrecking your relationships and making you depressed. The term phubbing became wildly popular in Australia…
Flash floods are one of the most powerful and therefor most dangerous things you can encounter outdoors. In this terrifying video, a group of hikers in Maui’s jungle is swept away. “The weather the past few days in Hawaii had been rainy on and off,” Renee Lusano tells us. “We started the drive to Hana…
This is so much fun to watch. Hell’s Club by Antonio Maria da Silva of AMDS Films takes so many of your favorite characters from different movies and blends them all together into one coherent scene in a fictional club. The editing is really, really well done! And it’s great because you see the same…
The Monsanto House of the Future sat in the heart of Disneyland for a decade, giving people a peek at the homes of tomorrow. The house was built in 1957 and torn down in 1967. But now people of the 21st century can get their very own walk-through, even if it’s just on YouTube. The…
We think in binaries: plant/animal, day/night, edible/disgusting, safe/dangerous. Breaking the world into discrete chunks helps us make rapid decisions about how to behave, but can also make us uneasy when we’re faced with things that don’t easily fit into one of our mental boxes. In a new article at Nautilus, Stanford neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky explains…
There are no cars in the Star Wars universe—at least as we know them—but Hot Wheels makes a strong case for the next three sequels to consider swapping spaceships for hot rods. Because Kylo Ren’s Hot Wheels character car actually looks way cooler than his spaceship does. The vehicle’s cockpit draws inspiration from Kylo Ren’s…
No country likes flexing its numbers in intimidatingly perfect choreographed coordination more than China. So to celebrate the 70th anniversary of WWII ending in Asia, China held a striking military parade to show off their military might, marching down drones and missiles and aircraft and soldiers and all kinds of war machines as some way…
