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When most of us imagine scientists, we picture white lab coats, sparkling work benches, and tidy, controlled experiments. We do not tend to imagine accidentally exchanging saliva with dead animals or gluing oneself to a large carnivore. But such is the nature of field work, a romantic-sounding activity that, in reality, is a bit like…
Here’s a fun surf video of Tommy Witt surfing on his longboard and pulling fun tricks that make him look like he’s not even surfing but just riding the waves with his own two feet. The board kind of just disappears into the wave and it leaves him looking like he’s just standing there, on…
For your consideration… Things that are pranks: Reprogramming hitchBOT to sound like HAL from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey Taking hitchBOT to Mount Rushmore and leaving him on Teddy Roosevelt’s moustache Making hitchBOT a real boy through magic and/or sorcery Auditioning hitchBOT for the lead role in a buddy comedy opposite David Spade Things that…
Placentas are amazing organs, and we’re learning that they do so much more than simply manage the movement of nutrients and wastes between mother and fetus. In this month’s issue of The Scientist, placenta expert Christopher Coe explains its other roles, including hormonal regulation, iron storage, and immune system training. Contact the author at [email protected].
Remember that adorable (horrifying?) four legged snake fossil that made such a sensation last month? Well, not everyone’s tickled pink about it. Brazilian officials suspect the fossil was stolen from their country, and if it was, they’d like it back, thank you very much. The controversial leggy snake in question, Tetrapodophis amplectus, hails from the…
I guess it’s cheating a little to say that Battletoads is a new release this week—but it is, alongside 29 Rare games in the absurdly nifty Rare Replay collection. Are you dipping into some nostalgia this week, or getting through the summer lull in some other way? Come tell us about it in this week’s…
We’re getting a lot of tips about a widespread cellular coverage outage in the southeast for AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon customers. Local news stationsare reportinglarge outages in Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville in Tennessee, as well as parts of Alabama and Kentucky. Sprint has confirmed that it’s experiencing problems in Kentucky: We are aware of impacts…
A vibrator’s basic job is really quite simple, so long as you’re using it as a sex toy instead of unclenching a charley horse or working out some lower back pain. Vibrators are supposed to rapidly stimulate sexually sensitive sensory neurons. That’s it. They could look like anything. But until recently, they often looked like…
It’s our most visible alteration of the planet, easily seen from space: the millions of lights added to our cities due to our fear of the dark. We need them to keep our cities safe. Or do we? A series of studies on crime have revealed that we probably don’t need as many city lights…
This is horrifying. Two cranes were trying to restore a bridge when they both collapsed into the nearby neighborhood. The cranes were holding a big chunk of the bridge when they fell, so that smashed into the ground as well. Homes and shops along the river were destroyed and 20 people were hurt. Thankfully, no…
Sixty years ago, 14-year-old Stephanie Bryan vanished while walking home from school in Berkeley, Calif. Two months later, her belongings were uncovered in an Alameda basement. Suspicious, police made the 300-mile trek to the homeowner’s vacation cabin … and found Stephanie’s body stashed nearby. Burton W. Abbott was a married 27-year-old who was studying accounting…
Giving fans a full two months to hunt down the entire collection before Halloween arrives, Lego has finally revealed that its Monster-filled Series 14 Minifig collection will officially be available starting on September 1. The new collection includes classic monsters like Frankenstein (rocking out on a guitar), a witch, a skeleton, a vampire, and a…
In 2100, Earth’s climate will have changed. But what will that feel like in your everyday life? Now, a high school student working with an atmospheric scientist has extrapolated some answers from climate data, and found that New York City’s climate will be like Oklahoma City’s in less than a century. A study published today…
Three ladies from Chechnya scammed ISIS fighters online and got ‘em good. Let John Oliver tell the tale: The three young women persuaded ISIS fighters to send them money, promising they’d journey to Syria for marriage—only to block the accounts once payment was received. Stone cold—and a better smackdown of ISIS’ social media recruitment than…
#?&%! Why do some URLs look like cuss words in comic books? We have the answer. As you probably know, URLs (uniform resource locators) are basically “addresses” for websites. Type one into your browser, and you’re instantly reading news, watching videos, scheduling sketchy tête-à-têtes, and so on. That’s why URLs were originally supposed to be…
If you love baseball, subscribing to MLB.tv is a nobrainer. For $20 a month, you get on-demand access to any game over the internet. It’s amazing. Now the NHL is teaming upwith the super innovative media department behind the product, which could end up producing some incredible new viewing experiences for fans. MLB Advanced Media…
This is a fun watch, just to see how far we’ve come as little nuggets of nothing to the big dumb bipedal idiots we now are. There’s been a lot of funky things we lost along the way—hair and a tail, come to mind—but I guess we’re better off for it. Anyways, watch the video…
We knew that something really good would eventually come from this Beats-Apple deal. Last month Dr. Dre finally put The Chronic online for streaming for the first time ever at Apple Music. Now Apple Music will be streaming the world premiere of his new album, Compton: A Soundtrack, this Thursday at 6pm PST, a day…
The original Clippa replaced the Leatherman hanging off your belt with an ingenious but near-invisible multi-function hair clip. And now there’s a new version of the tool that swaps a serrated edge for a metal file, and a bottle opener for a hex wrench. At just $10 the new Clippa, designed by Monkey Business’s Yaacov…
We knew Microsoft’s vision of one operating system across its hardware would be gracing the Xbox One in time, and now we’re more certain when that will be happening. During its Gamescom press conference, Microsoft announced Windows 10 would be available for Xbox One in November. November when? We still don’t know, but it’s better…
