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This is horrifying. Professor Hideyuki Sawada of Kagawa University demonstrated this rubbery nightmare today that can imitate human speech. It's only a matter of time before someone tries to have sex with it. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5821019&view=rss&microfeed=true I love David Byrne. The guy is a total geek. He makes great music. He rides bikes. What's not to like? Well, his prognostication abilities, for one. [Gizmodo] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5820715&view=rss&microfeed=true This is Stardust, NASA's comet hunter about 312,000,000 kilometers from Earth. Yesterday, they ordered her main engines to burn at full throttle until they consumed all the available fuel, and then turned off her radio. But why? More »
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We've got an exclusive video clip from FX legend Steve Johnson's archives featuring the angelic underwater alien puppets of James Cameron's The Abyss. Listen as Johnson describes with disbelief how Gale Anne Hurd and Cameron decided to hire a "23-year-old-moron" to design the alien puppet that the entire feature hinged upon. And watch the practical creatures swim across your screen. More »
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Pi is perhaps the most beloved number in the world. People devote an entire day to celebrating it; enthusiasts memorize it to hundreds of thousands of places; and it's even pretty useful for calculating the properties of circles and spheres. But pi hides some very important mathematical truths. Put another way, pi is just wrong. So wrong that physicist Michael Hartl says it's time to lose pi in favor of a new symbol: tau. We asked him to explain why pi has to go. More »
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The most famous philosopher of the Victorian age, Herbert Spencer, coined the term "survival of the fittest", tried to apply the concepts of evolution to human society, and was described by Charles Darwin himself as "twenty times my superior." He was also a shameless hypochondriac, a sadistic prankster, and liked to dress in a one-piece suit that made him look like a bear. More »
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Are we at the dawn of a new Ice Age? Has someone discovered a long-forgotten Nazi weather-control weapon to use on us? Maybe. Here are some mutant weather stories that will make the American snowpocalypse seem like no big deal. More »
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Science fiction, pop music, and reality are chock full o' artificial intelligences that can carry a tune. Here's an entire roster of fantastic singing she-bots who can croon circles around The Rock-A-Fire Explosion. More »
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With the threat of today's protests looming in Egypt, on Thursday Egyptian authorities cut the nation off the internet. No online communication could pass in or out of the country. We investigated whether a similar lockdown could happen in America. More »
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Yesterday Facebook rolled out a new ad system where people's updates get converted into "sponsored story" ads fed to their friends. But this is hardly the first time advertisers have tried to feed us ads stealth-style. More »
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There's nothing cooler than power-armor. All of a sudden, your plain human body has a super-strong shell, and you're stronger than an army. But what happens when the armor changes you? Here are a bunch of heroes who found out. More »
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Almost two millennia before the rest of humanity entered the industrial age, the Greek inventor Hero invented the steam engine, wind-powered machinery, and theories of light that couldn't be improved for centuries. And then he invented some really crazy stuff. More »
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Neo might be returning to the big screen, according to the original spoon-bender, Keanu Reeves himself. Reeves just spilled the beans on the Wachowskis' plans to make two more Matrix movies! Update: It's a hoax. More »
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Last week, drunk scientists discovered how to make superconductors run faster when they accidentally spilled wine on an experiment. Often science and serendipity often go hand in hand. Here are more accidental discoveries that changed the world. More »
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Bane! Even the name sounds ominous. He's been confirmed as the villain of Christopher Nolan's third Batman film, but now people are wondering just who this wrestler-masked guy is. We've got you covered with our complete guide to Bane. More »
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The villains of Christopher Nolan's third Batman movie will be Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman, and... Bane, a 1990s 'roid freak who shattered Bruce Wayne's spine in the Knightfall crossover. Anne Hathaway will play Selina, while Tom Hardy will play Bane. More »
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Enjoy being in cars but hate the hassle of watching the road and holding the steering wheel? The road train autopilot system could bring us cavalcades of remotely driven cars. More »
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Sometimes your unfriendly neighborhood juvenile delinquents will use your petunias as a mosh pit and your birdbath as a commode. Should this be the case, it may be wise to invest in these fiery lawn ornaments. More »
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Imagine if you crossed Cheech and Chong's 1970s stoner masterpiece Up In Smoke with the gadget-enhanced asskickery of Batman Begins. Sounds like it could never work, right? But Seth Rogen's Green Hornet proves that it does. And it's surprisingly awesome. More »
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In late December I attended Berlin's Chaos Communication Congress, an annual hacker conference where speakers reveal the latest in high-tech deviousness. Straight from CCC, here are ten ways hackers will subvert your computer, phone, bank card, and life in 2011. More »
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Though DVDs have been consumer-grade tech for years, it wasn't until yesterday that scientists announced they were certain why they worked. Now we know that burning a DVD is really more like freezing it. More »
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In 1967, model-making kit manufacturers Revell ran advertisements for "the wildest, way out prize ever awarded in any contest." What was the prize? Your own 19-foot-long prototype of a Gemini capsule. The winner also got a guitar! More »
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Could this be the biggest year ever for fantastical movies? It certainly looks like it. The calendar is bursting with films about aliens, weird creatures, superheroes and magical worlds. Here's our complete guide to 2011's science fiction and fantasy films. More »
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Did you miss io9's 1980s-style Firefly intro, (now with more awesome), or Simon Tam's new TV-doctor drama? Don't worry — we've got the best of 2010's original video content, tributes, and the most deranged collection of Found Footage right here. More »
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We've rounded up every wonderful and horrible clip, from a year's worth of television watching. Island flushing, bow ties, vampire newscasts and twisty head sex — it's all on our list. See the best, and the worst, of 2010's TV. More »
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It's hard to believe how much the world has transformed in the past decade — but our handy infographic tells the whole story. Click to enlarge! More »
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This was a year of hard lessons. Movie attendance and ticket sales fell. Television shows struggled and died. Book publishers faced an electronic future. And through it all, some great works of the imagination thrived. What did 2010 teach us? More »
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For decades, militaries have weaponized Christmas songs, symbols, and sentimentality for psychological warfare and propaganda purposes. Here are some bizarre tales about ersatz Christmas cards during World War II, controversial Christmas trees, and decking the halls in the Colombian jungle. More »
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This stunning video of a Martian sunset was captured by the Mars Rover Opportunity. Although most movies code the Martian color scheme as red, the sunset shines blue. Find out why. More »
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A single finger bone found in this Siberian cave led to an amazing discovery. Early humans and Neanderthals co-existed with another humanoid species called Denisovans. And many present-day humans carry genes that prove our ancestors had children with Denisovans, too. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5715516&view=rss&microfeed=true We've got an exclusive clip from the new Family Guy: It's A Trap! Star Wars special, in which Vader Stewie reveals the new Death Star's going to have free wi-fi! Watch over 9 minutes before it's out on DVD. More »
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The only things we'll be thinking about this weekend are light cycles, Quorra's glowing latex outfit, and bio-digital jazz, man. Want to know more about the Tron: Legacy back story, special effects, and what the filmmakers told us? Start here. More »
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In the 1980s, science fiction ruled over everything. Most of the biggest movies and books of the decade were scifi, and cyberpunk became the era's pop aesthetic. Here's how the 1980s changed the genre forever. More »
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What exactly is the half-life of celebrity? A new field called culturomics has the answer. Using the largest linguistic database ever created - Google Books - culturomics experts track things like "lexical dark matter," and how long fame really lasts. More »
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Maid Cafes are a tradition in Tokyo's otaku-centric Akihabara neighborhood. People say they're a romantic version of strip clubs: Instead of lapdances, you buy innocent displays of affection. How does it feel to pay for puppy love? I found out. More »
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Hiding in the shadows between the colors we see everyday are weird, impossible shades, colors that you shouldn't be able to see and generally don't...unless you know how. Here's a simple guide to seeing impossible and imaginary colors. More »
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Over the past 13,500 years, humans in what is now America were subjected to dramatic climate changes: an ice age ended, rain increased, and vegetation changed completely. Now archaeologists say these peoples evolved new technologies to deal with it. More »
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You know Neville Page as the creator of the Cloverfield monster, plus many Avatar creatures. But now, he's the guy who helped recreate Tron, and bring the Green Lantern Corps to life. He talked creatures and weird inspirations with us. More »
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Recently I was invited to, and attended, a lightsaber fight in a park. The organizer supplied the entire battle with lightsabers from her own collection. I took the opportunity to ask her opinion on the best online saber sources. More »
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Earlier this year, we spent one hot summer day at New Mexico's infamous Plaza Blanca landscape watching Jon Favreau, Harrison Ford, and Daniel Craig make their alien abduction Western mash-up. Here's what we learned. Plus two new behind-the-scenes images! More »
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