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The Middle East is roasting right now. Last week, an unprecedented ‘heat dome’ descended over a vast region from Dubai to Beirut, and there’s no sign of it breaking anytime soon. Last Friday in the Iranian city of Bandar Mahshahr, the air felt like 165º F (74ºC). As The Washington Post notes, this is the…
Thursday’s debate between Republican candidates for President is must see TV. But if you’re a cordcutter who doesn’t subscribe to traditional TV, you’re sadly out of luck. The highly anticipated debate is co-hosted by Facebook, but the only legal way to watch it live is on Fox News. It almost seems like a no-brainer that…
A single tweet tore the jewelry-wearing faction of the Internet apart after the image above went out with the caption, “After my nineteen years of living I have now realized that you are supposed to take the plastic part off.” Holy shit. Debate is still raging over whether the plastic earring back should be removed—some…
Here’s an absolutely stunning video that shows our Moon fly by and cross the face of our Earth. The detail is incredible, the size difference is dramatic, and it’s just lovely to see the phenomenon happen from outside Earth. We see the Moon streak the sky every night, this is what it looks like from…
Even a seasoned race fan can have a hard time knowing what position every single car on a track is in. So starting this past weekend the Verizon IndyCar Series introduced giant LED numbers on every car indicating its current race position, and other metrics fans might be interested in. The two-digit panels—positioned on both…
Nichelle Nichols, the iconic Lieutenant Uhura from the original Star Trek, will be continuing her lifelong partnership with NASA by taking a ride on their airborne research platform. Nichols will be the first non-essential personnel to ride along with Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) this September.
Thanks to Obama’s Clean Power Plan announced earlier this week, each state in the US has been charged with plotting a way to a cleaner energy future. While the goal for the entire country is to reduce carbon emissions from power plants by a third by 2030, as you can see from this map, some…
Security researchers scared the shit out of Android users last week when they revealed a vulnerability that let hackers control your phone with a single text. In a session at Black Hat, Google’s Adrian Ludwig just explained exactly how it’s being fixed, calling it the biggest software update in history. He seems pretty chill about…
Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas just fired the country’s top prosecutor Harald Range. This came in the wake of a public battle over how Range was handling a treason investigation launched against journalists who released government documents about a surveillance program. The German justice ministry has been investigating two journalists from Netzpolitik.org on a possible…
No board game is more effective, and more efficient, at tearing apart families and friendships than Monopoly. And with USAopoly’s new Back to the Future edition, you’ll be fighting before you even roll the dice as players attempt to lay claim to the DeLorean, hoverboard, or Nike powerlace sneakers tokens. The other three tokens—Einstein, a…
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has confirmed what many pundits have been claiming since last week: Investigators agree that the flaperon discovered on Réunion Island belongs to Malaysia Airline Flight 370, which disappeared in March of 2014. The piece of a jet’s wing that washed up on a remote island off the coast of Madagascar…
Today’s headlines are triumphantly declaring that India’s government walked back its sweeping ban of internet porn sites. But that’s not quite true—for all intents and purposes, online porn is still banned in India. Let’s take a look at the devil in the details. Following widespread condemnation of a ban on 857 pornographic websites, the government…
Here’s a perspective the #CecilTheLion outrage didn’t consider. That of the people of Zimbabwe who live alongside the dangerous predators. The New York Times is running an excellent op/ed from just such a human.
In a tweet, YouTube has made it known that you’ll no longer see the odd “301+” view count on videos. It’s the end of an era. As we’ve reported before, YouTube displays the 301+ view count when a new video is acquiring views very quickly. As the image in the tweet embedded below illustrates, it’s…
Hillary Clinton is still the frontrunner for the Democratic 2016 presidential nomination, but she’s by no means secure—and, according to the FBI, neither is her email. The FBI is investigating the security of Clinton’s controversial private email system. As Secretary of State, Clinton chose to use her personal email address to communicate, a move that…
How many times do we have to say it? San Francisco, stop pissing on your city. A streetlight fell down Monday night in the city’s Nob Hill neighborhood, narrowly missing a driver. The streetlight was old, officials said, but its metal base was also heavily corroded. Corroded by pee. Public urination is such a problem…
A shotgun is obviously the more satisfying approach, but researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have found a simpler way to knock drones out of the sky—by targeting their onboard gyroscopes with nothing but sound. Inside every drone is an electronic gyroscope that’s constantly keeping track of the craft’s orientation, tilt,…
While the brass in Washington continue to bicker overthe consequences of allowing vaginas into open combat roles, two women have quietly completed the second, creatively-titled “Mountain Phase” of Army Ranger School. A third female soldier will have the opportunity to start the course again, a process known as “recycling.” All three women are West Point…
Like, wow. Because so many of us are pummeled by light pollution and the daily grind of living in a city away from the clouds up in the sky, we rarely get to see it take the shape of different monsters and beings and creatures. Here’s a short video from Mike Olbinski called The Chase…
Robotic arms have been around for decades now—but even though we humans like to compare these machines to our own bodies, robotic arms and hands are very, very limited when it comes to dexterity. According to a pair of MIT engineers, the key to making robotic hands more like our own is teaching them how…
