The Future Is Here
We may earn a commission from links on this page

The Biggest Stories on io9 in 2013

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement
Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

IBM's Watson computer has parts of its memory cleared after developing an acute case of potty mouth

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

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

Advertisement

This astounding video just took projection-mapping to the next level

Advertisement

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"