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This weird, simple, math sequence is also known as the Audioactive Sequence, presumably to make it sound less goofy than 'speak-n'-spell.' It is that simple, and it is that funny. More »
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This strangely-named theorem has a rarefied theoretical background, arising from a perfectly round ball covered with perfectly fine hair. Despite that, it has real-world applications, including the ability to build gold nanowires — and finding the one spot on earth where there is no wind. More »
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Beware nut allergists! If you pick up people in high-class bars that have real mixed nuts, be sure to use protection! Doctors have documented a case of a 20-year-old woman whose nut allergy was triggered after her partner had eaten the nuts just before they had been intimate - making the Brazil nut the world's only sexually-transmitted food. More »
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Crazy people (who are technically scientists) show readers how to make a beard of bees to impress their friends or perhaps kill themselves in the least dignified way possible. More »
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There's a theory that involves every cool buzzword in physics. This theory links the dark energy in the universe with the way photocopies degrade over time. Find out how a loss of information may drive energy creation. More »
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Human swimmers would probably have a tough time swimming in saliva, though nobody knows for sure. But now scientists have confirmed that microbes do. Believe it or not, this settles years of debate. More »
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There's a large subfield in physics devoted solely to seeing how stuff behaves when it's squashed through other stuff. Those in that field may want to adopt 64 as their magic number, because it seems to be the percentage at which the behavior of matter changes in a peculiar way. More »
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Ever wonder if what you smell is what everyone else smells? Science does, too. And the answer could be no. More »
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Explore the complicated forces of breakfast cereals and bar snacks — and find out why Brazil nuts always rise to the top of shaken jar of nuts. More »
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As a group, animals are disgusting. It's really a shame we're one of them. But while we only display mating behavior on specially requested internet videos or unused sections of libraries, they have sex in front of biologists. The biologists, of course, can't keep their mouths shut and tattle all the animals' dirty dealings to us on nature shows. The only way to get some of this stuff out of one's head is to pass it on, so here are the animal kingdoms' top ten bizarre mating behaviors. More »
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Are humans the only animals that can appreciate beauty? Stories about painting elephants and chimps have convinced some that we are not the only species with a developed sense of the aesthetic. But doubts remain regarding whether these animals are truly creating art or simply trained performers. A Japanese scientist has approached the question from a different angle by testing whether pigeons can learn human aesthetics — using children's paintings. More »
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Unforgiving sun, punishingly hot days, freezing nights, no water, and a name like Death Valley keep people away from this ultra-dry section of California. Those who do venture there notice that sometimes, in some places, rocks just move. They don't do it a lot, and they never do it when anyone is watching. Make no mistake, though, they do it. They leave behind long, even grooves in the packed dust to prove it. More »
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The blackbirds that fell out of the sky on New Year's Eve in Arkansas were brought to the National Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison, Wisconsin. After examining the bodies, officials say they've determined a cause of death. More »
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This week, 5,000 blackbirds fell from the skies over Arkansas, followed by 500 more in Louisiana. And now it's happening in Sweden too. You've got to wonder what the hell is going on. We'll explain. More »
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And that is a scary, scary thing. A very old textbook shows how noses were re-shaped in the late fifteen hundreds. More »
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It's not certain whether this invention is cool or sad, but Instructables has directions on how to build a machine that lets you record your own point of view as you go through the world, and watch that POV simultaneously. More »
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The harder they're hit, the stronger they are. They stop bullets and let people walk on custard. They're non-newtonian fluids. More »
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Mysterious lights are seen at sunset and during the night. They reappear again and again, in all kinds of weather conditions, causing no damage. What could they be? Have you seen them? More »
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What did you do this morning? Benedetto Bufalino and Benoit Deseille got up and continued their project of transforming phone booths into fish tanks. Why? Because. That's why. More »
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The phrase, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach," just got a whole new meaning. A recent study suggests that gut flora could influence an animal's choice of mate. More »
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In a series of beautifully ugly (and tenuously legal) Russian kids' books, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meet "Space Hunter," a crab-faced alien with dreadlocks. They fight at first, but the creatures later reconcile and enjoy poorly drawn pizza together. More »
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The dark side of the Moon is home to mysterious highlands that have baffled scientists for decades. It turns out Earth's gravity created them, back when the lunar surface floated on a magma ocean. More »
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Or, to put it in non-sensational terms: A boa in a pet store in Tennessee has reproduced asexually. And its offspring have a bizarre genetic makeup that scientists have never seen before. More »
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Pick any large set of random data you like. Look at the first digit of all the numbers. You're going to see a lot of ones. It's not just a coincidence. It's the law. More »
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Ligers are the offspring of a male lion mating with a tigress, and they are known to be enormous (see picture) and tremendously fierce. It's unclear why combining male lion DNA with female tiger DNA results in a creature who is much bigger than either species. But sometimes the results can be deadly, as a volunteer at the Wagoner County wildlife sanctuary in Tulsa, Oklahoma, learned yesterday. More »
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Aliens are hot, and Naoto Hattori knows it. That's why the 32-year old New York-based Japanese artist draws them with such grace and beauty. People love his work so much that it's being shown all over the world, from Rome to California to Tokyo. See below for more provocative alien portraits by this man with an interplanetary aesthetic. More »
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We couldn't be more excited about Batman: The Dark Knight... or more sick of Warner Bros.' marketing campaign for the movie. When it was just sky-writing planes over Comic-Con and "Jokerized" dollar bills, we were sort of amused. But when Warner started baking Joker-cakes, we got indigestion. A gallery of weird schwag and a rundown of crazed marketing, after the jump. More »
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Since 2004, actor Cameron Bright has played four versions of the same freaky alien kid. You may remember him from Stargate, Ultraviolet, X-Men 3: The Last Stand, or The 4400. When a script calls for a "bizarre child with a powerful blank stare," he must be the only actor they phone up. Here are some highlights from his career as Weird Alien Kid. More »
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