We’ve taken a lot of strange journeys together at io9 this year. And hopefully, we’ve learned some stuff along the way — including some stuff you’d probably like to unlearn. Here are all of the most popular io9 posts from 2013, in science, pop culture and general weirdness.
Top image: Grand Canyon, photo by Erin Whitaker.
Science You Can Use
Americans – why do you keep refrigerating your
eggs?
Wine tasting is bullshit. Here’s why.
The 12 cognitive biases that prevent you from
being rational
Let’s just debunk every flu-vaccine myth in one
fell swoop, shall we?
Why Does Coffee Make You Poop?
Why You Always Wake Up Early After a Night of
Drinking
A mysterious law that
predicts the size of the world’s biggest cities
Pop Culture We Love
The Best and Worst Science
Fiction and Fantasy Movies of 2013
10 Book Series So Addictive, You Never Want Them
to End
10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Star
Wars: Return of the Jedi
The New Anime Series You Absolutely Need to Be
Watching
The first new Godzilla movie footage is
monstrously awesome
The Best Science Fiction and
Fantasy Books of 2013
15 People Who Have Kicked Batman’s Ass
10 Novels That Are More Action-Packed Than Most
Summer Movies
20 Science Fiction Moments That Will Make
Absolutely Anyone Cry
10 Decent Movies That Were Doomed by Unfair Memes
The Strange, Secret Evolution of Babylon 5
The Best and Worst Television
Moments of 2013
Startling Science
The 18 Most Futuristic
Predictions That Came True in 2013
Temporary tattoos could make electronic telepathy
and telekinesis possible
This tiny, wearable patch makes you invisible to mosquitos
Meet Prince Rupert’s Drop. It’s about to blow your
mind.
Scientists ‘freeze’ light for an entire minute
Here’s what Pangea looks like mapped with modern
political borders
What the Death of the Sun Will Look Like
If Earth Had a Ring Like Saturn
The Most Incredible
Historical Discoveries of 2013
Astronomers discover a massive asteroid that could
hit us in 2032
Crows could be the key to
understanding alien intelligence
8 Incredible Facts You May Not Know About Human
Evolution
7.7 magnitude quake in Pakistan just created a new
island
Meet the scientific accident that could change the
world
10 mindblowingly futuristic technologies that will
appear by the 2030s
15 Uncanny Examples of the Golden Ratio in Nature
Brain-to-brain interfaces have arrived, and they
are absolutely mindblowing
An ‘alternative universe’ will eventually destroy
ours, says Higgs researcher
Rants and Dissections
Star Trek Into Darkness: The Spoiler FAQ
Daenerys’ whole storyline on Game of Thrones is
messed up
The 50+ Greatest Tweets about Ben Affleck’s
casting as Batman
The 100+ Best Tweets about last night’s Game of
Thrones
How the Oscars proved Hollywood is killing the VFX
industry
I still don’t want to see
Zack Snyder’s take on Wonder Woman
The Most Important Scenes from Man of Steel (As I
Remember Them)
All the Game of Thrones Fan Theories You
Absolutely Need to Know
Why can’t any recent Sherlock Holmes adaptation
get Irene Adler right?
How one man’s lies almost destroyed the comics
industry
The 12 Worst Things in the Star Wars Expanded
Universe
The Biggest Mistakes,
Blunders and Bad Ideas of 2013
Holy Crap WTF
A Map of the Weirdest Sex
Laws in the United States
The World’s Most Awkward Taxidermy
The Strangest Tradition of the Victorian Era: Post-Mortem
Photography
This
is a video of a dolphin masturbating with a decapitated fish
https://gizmodo.com/this-is-a-video-of-a-dolphin-masturbating-with-a-decapi-1463711897
IBM’s Watson computer has parts of its memory
cleared after developing an acute case of potty mouth
China’s brand-new abandoned cities could be
dystopian movie sets
Behold the HORRIFYING robot baby that was too
creepy for Twilight
8 Ruined Cities That Remain a Mystery to This Day
13 Places on Earth People Believed Were Entrances
to Hell
11 works of sexology that will blow your mind
(with science)
Freakishly realistic
telemarketing robots are denying they’re robots
The 11 Most Sexually
Depraved Things the Roman Emperors Ever Did
Astonishing Photos
The Most Amazing Science
Images of 2013
Photos of the Amazing and Gruesome World Under a Microscope
The First Image Ever of a Hydrogen Atom’s Orbital
Structure
The largest photo ever taken of Tokyo is zoomable,
and it is glorious
Unbelievable “nail houses” around the world
9 of the Most Fascinating Abandoned Mansions from
Around the World
This is a picture of the lightest substance on
Earth
The Weirdest and Fiercest Helmets from the Age of
Armored Combat
Iconic Black and White Photographs, Colorized
The Strangest and Most Tragic Ghost Towns from
Around the World
This is Awesome
This Terrifying Raptor Chase Is the Most Traumatic
Prank of All Time
Greatest Wedding Photo In the History of the World
Precise measurements reveal that this is the
world’s fluffiest bunny
Calvin & Hobbes and Dune is a surprisingly
great combination
Two-Sentence Horror Stories are actually pretty
chilling
Gay marriage in the year 100 AD
All the Evidence that Time Travel is Happening All
Around Us
How 19-year-old activist Zack Kopplin is making
life hell for Louisiana’s creationists
Students describe their
theses in a single self-mocking sentence
Science fiction and fantasy
stories get funny clickbait headlines
Artist drew himself and his
cat in 100 different cartoonists’ styles
Great Moments in Epic
Fandom
Old Spock battles New Spock in the greatest car
commercial ever
Sansa Stark’s actress adopted her real-life
direwolf
R2-D2
spotted in Star Trek Into Darkness
George R.R. Martin: This is what the Iron Throne
REALLY looks like
You know that newfound Van Gogh painting has the
TARDIS in it, right?
Truther mockumentary asks: Was the destruction of
the Death Star an inside job?
Stunning Behind-the-Scenes Photos Show Iconic
Movies in a New Light
This musical reprise could
have made Frozen even better
Viral Videos
Watch what happens when you wring out a washcloth
in space
This girl ages into an old woman before your eyes
without you noticing
This physics grad student made a mind-blowing
Bohemian Rhapsody cover
David Attenborough Narrates Miley Cyrus’s VMA
Twerk-formance
A Moonrise Unlike Any You’ve Ever Seen
The most incredible thing you’ll watch today is
this video of sand [UPDATE]
Watch this woman’s face shapeshift with a simple
trick of the light
A zombie-bitten father tries to save his infant
daughter in this bittersweet short film
This astounding video just took projection-mapping
to the next level
Porn Porn Porn
First Look at Game of Bones, the X-Rated Version
of Westeros [SFW!]
The Greatest Science Fiction Porn Movies of All
Time: 1992-2001 [NSFW]
The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy
Porn Parodies [NSFW]
Unused storyboards show how Alien could have been
more “pornographic”
