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For the first time, scientists have pinpointed where our galaxy stands amongst thousands of other galaxies in our home supercluster. The new map shows beautiful feathery strings linked together with the Milky Way galaxy placed on the edge of the newly named Laniakea supercluster, home to 100,000 other galaxies. We’ve seen the Milky Way in…
Facebook is down (again)! Who knows for how long? Honestly it’ll probably be back by the time you read this post. But just in case, here’s a Facebook-like experience to get you through. A compilation of ice bucket fails! Someone’s cute baby! An ad for a t-shirt with your name on it! Opinions about politics!…
Watch out 432 Park Avenue. There’s a new super skyscraper slated for 125 Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan, and this new tower will be tall. It will be eye-catching. And it will be expensive—so expensive, they’re building three floors just for maids. NY YIMBY just revealed leaked renderings for 125 Greenwich Street, and while the…
Roman ruins. Byzantine villages. Umayyad architecture. The relics of the Hittites, Assyrians, Arabs, Mongols, Mamelukes, and Ottomans. Syria has some of the most remarkable cultural history in the world—and now,National Geographic reportsthat Syrians are using archaeological first aid to save it. In a report from Andrew Curry today, we learn that a coalition of preservationists…
Filmmaker Mark Mazurcreated these series of videos celebrating the little moments that make summer the best season of the year. And yeah, maybe summer it’s almost over, but despite all the nights I spent soaked in sweat trying to get some sleep, I will definitely miss it. June July August SPLOID is a new blog…
External hard drives are essential; the cords they come with are a pain. And finally, after watching its competitors go wireless one by one, Western Digital has joined the party. My Passport Wireless does away with cords, and adds a nifty built-in SD card slot as a nice little bonus. The My Passport Wireless also…
The next episode of Sailor Moon Crystal isn’t the only things fans of the Sailor Senshi have to get excited about this weekend: Viz Media have just announced that they will be streaming the first four episodes of their new English dubbed remaster of the original Sailor Moon anime back-to-back Friday evening! Viz media are…
The U.S. Air Force and its allies have been regularly dropping humanitarian aid packages in support of towns and communities besieged by ISIS. On August 31st a USAF photographer captured this stunning image of Capt. Erica Stooksbury, of the the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, prepping her C-17 Globemaster for a relief mission over Amirli, Iraq.…
The ruthless killers of ISIS are wreaking havoc in the Middle East, aided in no small part by U.S. military weaponry the group has hijacked from the Iraqi army. But according to one Harvard law professor, there’s an easy fix to our own weapons being used against us: kill switches. In a column for Scientific…
The United States is one of the richest countries on Earth. But according to a new report, thousands of American children go to bed hungry each night. In fact, one in five American households with children are food insecure — meaning that they have difficulty consistently providing food for all members of their family during…
Some of the most haunting images of the U.S. were captured from 1935 to 1945, as the country emerged from the depths of the Great Depression and rallied for World War II. A team from Yale has collaborated on one of the most visually stunning interpretations of the era, called Photogrammar: 170,000 photos from the…
American car design reached its experimental, optimistic zenith in the post-WWII era. Yet for every car built, hundreds of sketches and concepts were destroyed, the designers who penned them working in corporate anonymity. This new documentary works to bring these aging designers and their beautiful concept work back into the spotlight. American Dreaming is the…
What Dyson’s vacuums are to sucking up dirt in your home, Troy-Bilt’s new TB2MB Jet Leaf Blower is to blasting debris—and possibly toddlers—off your driveway. Using a specially-engineered mixed-flow fan, it’s able to generate wind speeds up to 130 miles per hour, which will send leaves, dirt, and other crap you don’t feel like picking…
A danger is lurking in the bucolic mountains of Switzerland: the alpine lake tsunami. Yes, it’s a real thing, and yes, it has happened before—many times, according to unsettling new geological research. Like a tsunami in the ocean, a lake tsunami is the result of an earthquake under the water. Rocks and sediments might shift,…
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We want Groot! The movie-going mobs have spoken and are clamouring for a little tree-person of their own. So here’s a look what can you get to currently scratch your Groot itch – and some fan made creations that are awesome enough to inspire you to make your own. Header Image Credit: Pseudofolio on Tumblr…
Twelve-year-old Brad O’Neal imagined how cool it would be to BASE jump with a motorbike from the ground instead of a cliff, as most people do. The idea kept taking shape inside Brad’s head until the day he decided to bring it to life. This video shows what happened that day: SPLOID is a new…
The latest crop of spambots on Instagram are employing a trick even slimier than just buying fake followers: They’re stealing profiles. As The Verge reported today, some Instagram users are getting followed by their bot doppelgängers, profiles made up entirely from their ripped-off images. This goes down because Instagram bot makers are lazy (not to…
Your gadgets contain tiny specks of precious and rare earth metals—we rely on these dust-sized particles, which are so small they’re often not recycled because the cost of recycling outweighs the value of the metals. But according to the American Chemical Society, the overall value of these minute materials is massive. In a report published…
While the Hue lights from Philips are capable of producing more than 16 million shades of colored light, flipping between functional white light and playful colored light can be a bit of a pain. And while the native app’s scene selections feature can help to partially alleviate this issue, Philips has just unveiled another option:…
