Late at night, I tend to flip through the channels just to see what's up. If there's a good movie on, I might watch part of it—and recently, I stumbled on Iron Man 3. I know what you're gonna say—that's a terrible superhero movie. But I disagree. Fantastic Four, now that's a terrible superhero movie. […]
For one to understand the song "Freelance," a curious and thrilling disco proposition from Chaz Bear—the soul, sweat, and engine behind the recording outfit Toro y Moi—it's best to think of it as a stack. The song is a sum assembled of intricate strata, a swirl of licorice keys and AutoTune with a heart of […]
What is temperature? This question comes up quite a bit—especially in introductory science courses. The most common answer is something like this: Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the particles in an object. When temperature increases, the motion of these particles also increases. It's not a terrible definition, but it's not […]
Rejoice, Aqua Teen Hunger Force fans: That caustic early-'00s Adult Swim sensibility you loved is on its way to Hulu. This time, though, it'll have feathers. Yesterday Marvel revealed it will be bringing four new shows to the streaming service—all animated, all aimed at adults, all from well-known creators, and all starring comic-book characters who […]
You and your favorite cheese—whether it's cheddar, Wensleydale, or a good aged goat brie—have something in common: You’re both home to a constantly evolving menagerie of microbes. The bacteria inside you and your fermented dairy live together in a community called a biome, growing and changing in response to their environments. And they adapt to […]
Happy New Year! We're back at it, with more thrilling game news. Some Blizzard alums are joining Marvel's slate of developers, a competitive player is not getting what they deserve, and big corporate shakeups roil the international market. So, really, about the same as 2018. Let's get to it. A Group of Former Hearthstone Devs […]
If Jonathan Rothberg has a superpower, it’s cramming million-dollar, mainframe-sized machines onto single semiconductor circuit boards. The entrepreneurial engineer got famous (and rich) inventing the world’s first DNA sequencer on a chip. And he’s spent the last eight years sinking that expertise (and sizeable startup capital) into a new venture: making your smartphone screen a […]
There’s teamwork—NASA putting people on the moon, for instance, or the Mighty Ducks triumphing over Team Iceland—and then there’s teamwork. A gelatinous sea creature called a salp knows this better than anyone, forming long chains of neurologically connected individuals that work together for the greater good. That is, eating and not dying. A new study […]
Games like Onimusha don't get made anymore. The underrated 2001 Capcom classic is somewhere between an arcade brawler and Resident Evil. Creeping slowly through rooms with fixed, often askew camera angles, sword drawn, the samurai protagonist hacks his way through hordes of undead demons, solving small puzzles and soaking in the ambience. It's slow, stiff, […]
Imagine a world without grapes. Someday greenhouses like the one above may be our last defense against such a fate. Beneath the glow of high-voltage lamps, dozens of crop samples grow at the Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York. Here, Cornell University scientists crossbreed domesticated crops with their wild ancestors to propagate superhardy strains […]