Okay, so, don’t freak out or anything, but Earth’s atmosphere is escaping. Ridiculously slowly, I should say, and there’s no concern that it’ll happen at any point soon. We’re talking billions of years before it’s gone. MinuteEarth breaks it all down in this handy video, but it’s pretty much a problem of our hydrogen and helium trying to get the heck out of here whenever they can.

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2. Fishing derby insists on lie detector tests for winners (SportsGrid)
3. Sanditon RP so popular that Twitter mistakes accounts for spam (The Daily Dot)
4. Maddow takes ABC to task over Benghazi non-emails (Mediaite)
5. Would you like a little cocaine with your calzone? (Guy Code Blog)
6. Doctor Who finale pictures are just the thing to tantalize you (The Mary Sue)
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(Title pic via Reddit)

We don’t know a lot about the Google-built media player, other than the fact that Google made it, and it’s a media player, but the device’s FCC filing does reveal one interesting tidbit: The model number is H2G2-42. Yeah, you’re not seeing things, it’s absolutely a reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Someone has a sense of humor, or we’re getting a really awesome media player at some point.

When I say “we don’t know a lot about the Google-built media player,” I mean we literally know next to nothing else about it. The test report just says it functions as a media player, so take from that what you will. What is strange, however, is that it’s not built by any of Google’s normal partners for such things, but Google themselves.

It’s entirely possible that we’ll never actually see this out in the wild. It is, after all, just an FCC filing. Google’s no stranger to filing stuff and then shelving them. On the other hand, the Hitchhiker’s Guide reference could mean that it’s actually how Google views this player — a sort of all-knowing, ever-useful gadget. I won’t speculate further on the matter, but I’d love for that to be the case.

(FCC via TabletGuide.nl, Engadget)

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If you haven’t played Team Fortress 2, you should really go do that. The team-based shooter video game’s found a kind of longevity that publishers and developers that aren’t Valve dream about. TF2‘s received numerous updates over the years, dropped to being a free-to-play game, and even added a third faction of robotic enemies. Community-made items have appeared in various packs over time, but their latest update is the first that’s been 100% made by the community.

Titled Robotic Boogaloo, the update features a slew of robotic items and hats, because of course it has hats. Okay, well, the 57 items included in the update are reskinned versions of old hats, but that’s beside the point. The whole thing, including the comic and website hub, came from the community.

According to Jake “The Heartsman” Harold, one of the major folks behind the community push, they had a whole lot of leeway when it came to what they could do:

“We started off creating items before things were official, then when the update got picked up, we started working on the site, reworking the video, and making the comic,” he said. “The only brief we had from valve was ‘No promo remakes, limited time items or weapons.’ Other than that, we had near enough total freedom.”

Valve’s promised they’re not done creating updates of their own, however. “This doesn’t mark the end of Valve-produced TF2 updates, by the way,” says their official blog post. “As far as we’re concerned, there’s plenty of room for both to happily co-exist.”

(Team Fortress 2 via Polygon)

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If you weren’t already aware, the Sun’s been seeing a whole lot of action of late. Like, it’s still being the Sun, but it’s also putting out incredible X-class solar flares, complete with coronal mass ejections. The latter doesn’t necessarily require the former, though, and that’s where we find ourselves at currently. Thanks to a couple of coronal mass ejections yesterday, there’s a good chance we’re going to get some geomagnetic storm activity over the next few days.

Coronal mass ejections can send “billions of tons of solar particles” out from the Sun into space, and sometimes these are directed at Earth. This doesn’t affect humans, thanks to our atmosphere, but it can cause issues with technical equipment. This is especially true for anything in the path of the CME out in space, like satellites.

The first CME, which erupted from the Sun at 5:24 AM EDT on May 17th, has already come and gone without much fanfare. A second CME that erupted around 10 AM EDT yesterday, however, is expected to hit the Earth tomorrow, May 19th, and bump us up into what the Space Weather Prediction Center calls a “Geomagnetic Storm category G2 (Moderate)” level of activity.

What does that mean for us down on the ground? Some “high-latitude power systems may experience voltage alarms” and “long-duration storms may cause transformer damage,” but not a whole lot of possible interruptions for the majority of us. There is a good chance we’ll get an awful impressive aurora showing out of it, though.

(via NASA, Space Weather Prediction Center)

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Hollywood and the film industry at large are notoriously wary of spilling the beans about, well, anything. They’d rather not confirm anything. Teasing up until the very last minute is more their style, as everyone that follows entertainment news is well aware. The further away from release, the more likely this kind of winking is to happen. These guidelines apparently do not apply to Joss Whedon.

Speaking with IGN at ABC’s upfront event, Whedon was asked specifically whether the brother/sister duo he’d previously mentioned were, in fact, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Because he’s Joss Whedon, he went ahead and both confirmed the two as well as gave some insight into why they’re being included:

You know, they had a rough beginning. They’re interesting to me because they sort of represent the part of the world that wouldn’t necessarily agree with The Avengers. So they’re not there to make things easier. I’m not putting any characters in the movie that will make things easier.

So, yeah. There you have it. This could all change between now and the actual release of Avengers 2, but as of right now, we’ve got ourselves some mutants. Well, maybe. There’s a good chance their background will be altered slightly, or just not mentioned, in order to not conflict with the ongoing X-Men movie franchise.

(IGN via MTV Splash Page, The Mary Sue)

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One of the issues that people have with J.J. Abrams on both Star Wars and Star Trek is the idea that he’s going to end up confusing the two somehow. What, exactly, does that mean? It’s hard to say, but Official Comedy’s taken a stab at what they think must be going on with J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Wars.

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In a move that’s going to have them receiving curses from a very vocal minority of people, Nintendo’s now going to profit from user-generated videos that people upload to YouTube. As in, all those really sweet Let’s Play videos that people upload to show off their wicked skills? Yeah, Nintendo’s going to get the whole pie on that, not just a slice.

Essentially, Nintendo’s been issuing content ID matches to various videos of a certain length. This means that they get all the advertising off of that video. To be clear, this is totally within the company’s rights: Just because you bought a game does not necessarily mean you purchased broadcast rights, but that’s a whole different can of worms. Point is, they can do this, but the murkier question is whether they really should.

Here’s what Nintendo had to say on the matter, according to BBC News:

In a statement, the firm said the move was part of an “on-going push to ensure Nintendo content is shared across social media”.

“We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube,” the company added.

“That is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property.”

So…you’re somehow doing this people a service by gobbling up any revenue from these videos, which the users made, simply because it includes your intellectual property? Not cool, Nintendo. Not. Cool.

(via BBC, image via FaruSantos)

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(Title pic via Reddit)

Batman: Arkham Origins is set to launch October 25th, 2013, and this recently dropped teaser shows off some impressive CG, a grizzled Batman, and a really, really cool take on Deathstroke. Between you and me, Deathstroke’s definitely in my top five when it comes to DC, so I’m pretty excited that he’s been getting a lot of love lately. Young Justice, Arrow, and even his own ongoing for a bit there in the New 52 come to mind. This teaser him battling with a younger Batman is just gravy.

This isn’t gameplay, mind, but consider me cautiously optimistic.

(via The Mary Sue)

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It wouldn’t be an inaccurate statement to say that the prospect of a Zombieland show over at Amazon initially piqued the interest of pretty much everyone here. Like, the movie, but a show? Sign us up! Or so we once foolishly thought. That was before the pilot dropped and shattered every dream we had about seeing Columbus and the gang in a new series. Amazon Studios apparently agreed, as they’ve officially passed on the show.

How bad was it? Well, I can’t exactly speak for the rest of the Internet, but it definitely came across as pretty flipping awful. Pilots are basically meant to sell a series, and the one for Zombieland instead made me feel bad for liking the movie so much. Like, real bad.

Rhett Reese, part of the creative team from the movie and pilot, isn’t exactly thrilled at this development:

Our Zombieland series will not be moving forward on Amazon.Sad for everyone involved.

— Rhett Reese (@RhettReese) May 17, 2013

I’ll never understand the vehement hate the pilot received from die-hard Zombieland fans.You guys successfully hated it out of existence.

— Rhett Reese (@RhettReese) May 17, 2013

The Internet might have hated this out of existence, but it’s not like the pilot gave us a whole lot to work with. You’re already immediately losing points for not being able to bring back the original cast. While this is a totally understandable move — those actors doing a series like this isn’t easy to coordinate — the response should have been expected. Because of this, the rest of the pilot needed to be spectacular.

It was not.

(@RhettReese via Nerd Bastards)

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Apparently, today is the day that I share with the Internet my deep and abiding love of the 1971 Steven Spielberg movie Duel. Based on a Richard Matheson short story, Duel is a simple, bare bones flick — okay, fine, it is arguably a 90-minute long car chase scene — that is as gripping as movies come, pitting an everyman travelling salesman against a killer tanker truck that by all rights should have a higher place in the pantheon of menacing movie villains.

As Dennis Weaver’s salesman is harassed, chased, banged around, and nearly killed by the Darth Vader of big rigs, there is some truly dangerous driving on display at every turn. This, of course, is why it works so well when our buddies over at Slacktory recut the movie, replacing most of the audio with that of a driver’s ed filmstrip from 1949. The result is pure genius, as well as a great way to watch pretty much all the important parts of Duel in just under four minutes. 

(via Slacktory)

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Summer is on its way, which means it’s just about time to start converting your sick leave into three day weekends for the coming months. How to make sure your boss doesn’t call your bluff, though? Well, today brings us a small good thing — a veritable litany of excuses not to use when taking a sick day. A British healthcare provider’s survey of 1,000 employers and 1,000 employees has turned up some of the world’s lamest excuses for not being able to come into work, including gems like “My fish is sick” and the just-vague-enough-to-be-troubling “I’ve injured myself during sex.” 

Here are some more of our favorite excuses from the survey conducted by Benenden Health.

My dog has had a big fright and I don’t want to leave him

I am hallucinating

My new girlfriend bit me in a delicate place

I drank too much and fell asleep on someone’s floor – I don’t know where I am

I’ve had a hair dye disaster

I’ve been bitten by an insect

I’ve injured myself during sex

Of course, the study offered some helpful hints for those of you looking to make the most of the summer by calling in sick. For examples, the employers surveyed said they were less likely to question a sick day if it involved some sort of intestinal distress, because really, who wants to go into detail on that. (Notably, I assume the same principle would apply for the “I’ve injured myself during sex” excuse) This point confirms once and for all that calling in sick with anything but “food poisoning” or something along the same lines is a fool’s errand. If you make that rookie mistake, you deserve whatever fate befalls you.

Especially if you go with the “my dog has had a big fright” line. The only thing sadder than that being an excuse is it being a real reason you need to stay home.

(via The Telegraph, image via flickr)

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I’m a big fan of “The Elements” by Tom Lehrer. You might not know the name, though you really should, but you’ve likely heard the song at some point. It’s literally just Lehrer singing the elements on the periodic table while playing the piano. It’s great, and no other song about the periodic table has ever come close to dislodging it from the cockles of my heart. Enter AsapSCIENCE’s new periodic table song.

Lehrer fiddled with the order of the elements to conform to the meter of the tune, but AsapSCIENCE has gone and done the whole thing in order. They’ve even included the elements that were named after Lehrer’s song came out in 1959, so it’s more accurate for the modern day. Check it out:

Also, here’s Lehrer’s song for comparison:

And it wouldn’t be right of us to not include an Animaniacs song here, since AsapSCIENCE’s song so clearly owes a debt to the show:

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With all the hubbub surrounding the landing of the Curiosity rover, folks tend to forget that it’s not the only device operating on the planet. The Opportunity rover’s still kicking up there, for example, and it’s hauling butt to get the job done. It’s been hauling so much butt, in fact, that on Thursday it broke NASA’s 40-year-old record for total distance traveled on a world other than Earth.

That record, until this week, was held by the Apollo 17 Lunar Roving Vehicle. According to JPL, astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt drove their buggy a total of “22.210 statute miles or 35.744 kilometers” in 1972. That’s a pretty significant distance, and it’s taken Opportunity nine years to break it.

Specifically, they received transmission that Opportunity had moved a further 263 feet. That may not seem like much, but it’s part of a push from an area the rover’s been working in since 2011. That 263 feet pushed the rover’s total distance since landing in January of 2004 to 22.220 statute miles — 35.760 kilometers. It’s going to keep going, so it certainly seems like the little rover will hold the record for some time.

It’s also worth noting that this is just NASA’s record. Soviet Union’s Lunokhod 2 holds the international record of 23 miles — 37 kilometers — from its Moon excursion in 1973.

(via NASA, image courtesy of NASA/JPL)

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If you’re not great at doing math in your head, you’re in pretty good company around these parts. In general, too — an estimated 20% of otherwise healthy adults regularly struggle to do basic arithmetic without showing their work. Don’t give up hope, though! A new treatment being studied at Oxford University could make you better at doing math in your head for up to six months at a time — and all you have to do is put on what looks like a steampunk gimp mask and let someone deliver electrical shocks to your brain!

Don’t worry, though — the shocks aren’t strong or painful, producing at their strongest just a tiny fraction of the power of one AA battery. Subjects in the study, led by Oxford’s Roi Cohen Kadosh, were given math questions while being subjected to either real or fake electrical shocks that fluctuated in power. The study kept the shocks going for five days, during which the 25 test subjects also received mathematics lessons. While the two groups started off equally skilled, by the end of five days of training and shock therapy, the subjects who were being jolted were two to five times faster at processing their lessons, and better at retaining them, too.

The results seemed to stick, too. After six months, researchers called the subjects in for a second study in which the previously shocked participants remained about one third faster than their colleagues in the control group. Brain images taken during the study show the brains of subjects in the experimental and control groups even looked different.

It’s not yet understood how the therapy improves math skills, though researchers hypothesize the short, sharp shocks may help to synchronize neuron firing and thus improve performance. Further research will show if the therapy can translate to broader benefits. In the meantime, though, the team behind the work urged people not to shock their brains on their own, no matter how bad they are at math.

More sage advice we’ve never heard.

(via Science, image courtesy of Roi Cohen Kadosh)

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Using just LEGO and Bionicle pieces, builder Robiwan Kenobi has crafted the LEGO answer to any problem – the LEGO Swiss Army knife. The contraption features a LEGO blade, saw, toothpick and what looks to be a screwdriver arm, all of which fold in and out of the body, just like a real Swiss Army knife. The only thing it won’t do is actually cut anything, but come one — how often do you use a Swiss Army knife for that?

Robiwan (not his real name, probably) has been working on the knife since a 2010 prototype. Now that he’s satisfied with the final design, though, he’s lobbying LEGO to release the pieces he used in a proper kit so folks can build their own LEGO Swiss Army knives right out of a box. Because let’s face it, we just can’t all be this creative.

If you want to throw your voice behind the effort, check out the profile page for the project, and maybe one day, you can build a LEGO Swiss Army knife of your very own. Just, you know, don’t try to open any packages with it. That has the potential to be frustrating and embarrassing.

(via Technabob, image via Robiwan Kenobi)

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Like so many of you, I’ve lost count of the nights I’ve found myself sleepless, lost in thought, wondering if the universe will ever see fit to grace our small, grey lives with a follow-up to Shaq-Fu. Well, that which we didn’t dare dream has come to pass, brothers and sisters. Shaquille O’Neal’s media company, Mine O’Mine, has registered the trademark for a little something called “Shaqfighter.” Let us give thanks.

Not to be outdone by Barkley, Shut Up And Jam: Gaiden 2, Shaqfighter looks like it could be the long-awaited spiritual successor to Shaq-Fu, one of the most singularly terrible games of the ’90s. For those of you too young to remember, Shaq-Fu was a fighting game in which Shaq gets pulled into another dimension and has to save the world by fighting evil mummies and zombies and also a cyborg using the combined power of martial arts, basketball, and being Shaq. It is rather famously exactly as good as it sounds. Here’s a taste for the uninitiated:

Yet despite being really astonishingly terrible, Shaq Fu remains fondly remembered in certain circles (okay, probably just by me) where folks have been clamoring for a modern update of the game for years (again, this is probably just me).

While it has yet to be seen if Shaqfighter will mark the return of Shaq Fu — not to be confused with Shaq’s sophomore rap album Shaq Fu: Da Return – we do know from the filing that the Shaqfighter trademark pertains to a video game, and we’re willing to wager it’s not a puzzle game. You know, because of the word “fighter” in the title.

For now, the names sound similar enough that we’re going to err on the side of being unreasonably excited for this news until it’s demonstrated that we should feel otherwise. At that point: Crying. Soooo much crying.

(via The Escapist)

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Yesterday, we were almost giddy over the news that you can now green screen Arrested Development‘s Tobias Funke (doctor, actor, and the world’s first analrapist) into any video through the promotional magic of the new InsertMeAnywhere tool. We were so excited at this development, though, that we actually may have missed one of the other awesome uses for InsertMeAnywhere — putting the many faces of Tobias Funke to work in video games. Capcom didn’t miss a beat, though, and their supercut of Tobias guest-starring in a number of classic Capcom games has officially won Tobias Funke green screens. Well, it’s won Round One, anyway.

(via Capcom)

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There are two kinds of people here at the Geekosystem office: Those that can’t wait for Pacific Rim to come out on July 12th, and those that can’t wait but are kind of tired of hearing about from the other employees. I’m in the first camp, so here’s the latest and greatest Pacific Rim trailer to tide us all over until then.

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Well, folks, EA’s finally gone and dropped their Online Pass program. In case you weren’t aware that this was a thing, the publisher was essentially holding multiplayer and similar video game features behind a gate that was meant to help promote anything but used game sales. That’s dead and gone, at least going forward. That said, the fact that EA’s officially discontinued the Online Pass so close to Microsoft’s next-gen console reveal is worrisome.

There’s been constant reports and rumors from all sides that the next Xbox will somehow curb used game sales, though Microsoft’s supposedly claimed this is not the case via a leaked memo. We won’t really know for certain until they unveil everything on May 21st, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that this will definitely be one of the talking points.

This all stems back to an email received by GamesBeat from John Reseburg, EA senior director of corporate communications:

“Yes, we’re discontinuing Online Pass,” EA senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg confirmed to GamesBeat in an e-mail. “None of our new EA titles will include that feature.”

The claim is that they’ve heard feedback from folks and decided to do away with it, but I don’t know if I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt here. EA’s not exactly know for kind gestures, but it’s hard to say if the program had any real impact. They might well have been cutting off an ineffectual program at a time where always-on requirements have become a hot topic.

(GamesBeat via Gamasutra)

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(Title pic via Reddit)

BBC Books recently put out a set of 11 re-released novels to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. We hosted a giveaway where we let 15 readers pick the book of their choice, and six of the fifteen of you picked The Silent Stars Go By by Dan Abnett. You all made an excellent choice. I read it, and had the chance to talk to Abnett about the book.

The Silent Stars Go By is an 11th Doctor Christmas story featuring companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams. It begins — as so many Doctor Who tales do — with the TARDIS appearing somewhere other than where the Doctor was trying to put it. When the Doctor tries to take the Ponds to Leadworth for Christmas 2011, they wind up on a strange and rather cold planet.

They soon learn that the world is populated by Morphans who are trying to terraform a new world, but something is stopping them. Each year is colder than the last, and there’s something in the woods attacking villagers. The Doctor learns that a young girl has gone missing, and he won’t let a little thing like being imprisoned by Morphans stop him.

This book absolutely feels like an episode of Doctor Who. There’s a sense of danger that’s tapered with humor and a general sense that everything will be alright. The Christmas episodes are some of the best there are, and The Silent Stars Go By fits right in with them.

I was fortunate to be able to chat with the author about the book, his work on Guardians of the Galaxy, and even Winnie the Pooh.

Glen Tickle: Where does the book fall in terms of the timeline of the 11th Doctor? In the book Rory mentions they were trying to get back to Christmas 2011, any correlation to that year’s Christmas special “The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe”?

I guess it must fit around there. I was trying to be specific yet simultaneously vague. I guess that’s the hard part about writing tie-in novels… you want them to be canonical yet the canon might shift around you. I certainly think Silent Stars feels in continuity.

Obviously this was written well before their return in a recent episode, but why did you choose the Ice Warriors as The Doctor’s opponent in the story?

I’ve always loved the Ice Warriors. I love the “races” that the Doctor battles against… Cybermen, Sontarans, Silurians etc. I think it’s amazing the Ice Warriors are considered a top ten monster yet they have only appeared three or four times and the last time was during the Second Doctor’s tenure. In the Sixties!

I asked to be allowed to bring them back, and it took the BBC ages to approve my outline… because they were considering bringing them back on TV last season. When they decided it would be this season instead, they gave me the go-ahead.

Was there much input from the BBC or Steven Moffat with the book, or are they more standalone entities?

“The Beeb” [BBC] and, this Stephen, approves everything we do on the books. Hence the long wait for the Ice Warriors approval.

Do you have a particular favorite Ice Warrior story?

My fave ice warriors story would probably have to be the very first one in the Troughton Era, though the new version screened recently was very cool indeed, and I am very fond of their appearances in the two Jon Pertwee “Peladon” stories.

You mention in the book’s introduction that your Doctor was Jon Pertwee, what was your favorite story of his?

Jon was my fave because he was the Doctor I first started watching. I would choose “Carnival of Monsters,” which is a wonderful story, with a great trope of a concept well applied, and the Drashigs scared me silly. Plus, a plesiosaur and Katy Manning! What more could you want?

Since he’s the current Doctor, do you have a favorite Matt Smith story?

I wrote Matt’s Doctor because they asked me too, just as I wrote David Tennant and Sylvester McCoy stories – because they were the incumbent Doctor at the time (I’ve actually written more Seventh Doctor stories in terms of comics and audios than any other doctor.)

I was actually a little apprehensive coming in to the Silent Stars, because David’s Doctor had been my fave of the new Whos, and I’d written quite a bit of his character. Once I’d started in on the novel, I found I loved Matt’s Doctor and his relationship with Rory and Amy. As a result, my favourite Matt Smith story must be his very first episode. Beautifully done. The Doctor’s Wife also blew me away.

Since you also write on Guardians of the Galaxy, is there any chance we’ll see a Galaxy/Who crossover like the recent Who/Star Trek IDW comic?

I hope so! I wrote IDW’s Ghosterbusters/Star Trek/Transformers/GI Joe cross over for them. So I obviously have the necessary dorsal muscles (as Owl might say to Pooh) to pull it off.

[Editorial note: I would very much like to see a Doctor Who/Winnie the Pooh crossover now. If anyone at the BBC is reading this, please make that happen. Thanks. -- Glen]

Which Doctor Who book would you recommend someone read if they’re not familiar with the universe?

Uhm… mine? Is that a trick question? Seriously, any of the 11 representations being published for the anniversary… and anything by Terrance Dicks, the master (of DW books!).

[Second Editorial note: Abnett is right. Silent Stars is wonderful, and would make a good introduction for someone not familiar with Doctor Who since it doesn't rely on a lot of prior knowledge, and focuses more on the story of the Morphans than on the Doctor and his companions. Also, Terrance Dicks is great. -- Glen]

Are there any other classic monsters you’d like to see brought back into rotation?

Zygons. And Draconians. And Ogrons.

We’ve already seen set photos from the 50th showing a Zygon. Any chance Draconians or Ogrons could pop up as well?

Draconians and Ogrons? One can only hope!

Is there anything in this, or any of your other Doctor Who stories that you think would be impossible for Steven Moffat to pull of on television? The show pulls off some unbelievable things, but with a book or comic you can literally do anything.

Moffat and the previous showrunner Davies were both amazing. We Who-fans owe them both so much it would be churlish to be critical… but if I had a chance, I’d tell a story more slowly, over three or four episodes, with tension and build. Not so frenetic. Hey, that’s just me. Old School Who.

Would you prefer to see the show get back to taking a few episodes to wrap up an adventure? Besides some two-parters there haven’t been many multi-episode stories for any of the last three Doctors.

I certainly think it would be very interesting to try that for a change. There was always something very chilling and atmospheric about the pacing of “old” Who, with the tension of the multiple cliff-hangers and the development of the plot. Sometimes they were TOO long, with a feeling their were padded to fit the length, but generally it really worked.  Maybe it should be tried out now and then as a literal change of pace.

Any guesses or inside info on who Clara really is?

I wish I knew!  I’m sure we’ll find out!

I’d like to thank Mr. Abnett for taking to time to chat about his book, and Christine Melanson from BBC Books for her help is setting up the interview and book giveaway. The Silent Stars Go Byis available now, and it matches the tone of the show and Matt Smith’s Doctor perfectly.

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There are disadvantages to factory farming. The crowded conditions lead to health risks for the animals. As a result, they’re given antibiotics which can lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Oh, and also sometimes there’s foam that makes pools of hog poop explode. Farmers don’t know the cause of the foam, but they think they may have a solution, but it’s not a very good one.

The mystery foam started appearing in 2009 in some of the pits beneath hog farms that capture the animals’ waste, and no one really knows why. The foam is dangerous because as the waste breaks down it emits gases, which get trapped under the foam which has been seen to grow to be up to four feet thick. This build up of gases like methane can lead to explosions. It’s also really disgusting.

By September of 2011 there were at least six such explosions that killed more than 1,500 animals and one factory worker. An explosion in 2009 lifted a barn a “couple of feet off the ground” according to University of Minnesota researcher David Schmidt as seen in this video. It’s a little over a half hour long, and has incredibly disgusting photos of the foam itself. It’s safe for work, but gross enough that I didn’t want to embed it.

This isn’t a new problem, but it still persists and is worth pointing out. Earlier this year there was a fire while workers were welding in an empty hog building. It’s believed that a spark from the welding penetrated the foam and ignited the gas underneath.

The cause of the foam may be that farmers are feeding the animals the leftover distillers grain from the production of corn ethanol. That practice started around the time the foam began appearing, so there’s some correlation there. Poop from animals fed that grain has a higher fatty acid and fiber content, which might be creating conditions ideal for foam.

So far the only solution to the problem seems to be treating the affected tanks with monensin — an antibiotic. At least it’s not an antibiotic that’s used in medicine for humans, but it’s still not ideal to be blindly throwing antibiotics at things. Although monensin works, it’s not even clear why. It’s believed that it affects the microbial content of the waste enough to break up the foam.

This story is funny because it’s about explosive poop-foam, but it’s also pretty horrifying because that foam is a real problem. The only solution for which appears to be using more antibiotics without even understanding why.

(via Mother Jones, image via Lollie Dot Com)

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At one point or another, all of us have been part of an audience that also contains one person who apparently missed the memo that they are part of an audience and just starts chatting away on their phone or checking on on Facebook while it’s pretty clear there is a play or movie happening right in the very theater they are sitting in. Plenty of us have wanted to just grab that person’s phone and throw it across the room, because it seems like the only rational response to a world gone mad, or at least exceedingly rude.

Last night, National Review Online writer Kevin Williamson lived out our collective dreams and did exactly that, tossing the phone of a fellow audience member into the wings of a small outdoor theater. Part of us wants to call Williamson a hero, but polity brings us up short on that point. The cure for rudeness shouldn’t be more rudeness, and grabbing someone’s phone is likely to land you in some legal trouble or a fistfight, depending on the demeanor of the person whose phone you just threw. It’s just bad behavior all the way around, and though it’s tempting to, we can’t condone any of it.

To avoid future unpleasantness, we’ve taken the liberty of putting together this brief guide to when it’s okay to use a cell phone — or any of our other legions of digital devices — when you’re in a theater:

Has the event you’re attending specifically encouraged you to use your cell phone during the performance to engage with other interactive elements of the show, build publicity around it, or for some other reason? If this is the case, great, go wild using your cell phone in a theater and enjoy the show.

Now, with that fairly recent development out of the way, is it fine to use your phone, tablet, 3DS etc. while you are in the audience of a play or movie at any other time?

“Not even real quick? Like, I just want to see what time it is and if anyone’s commented on the picture I posted of my lunch, because it was a very good lunch.”

Nope. Not okay.

Once more, for the folks in the cheap seats: DO NOT USE YOUR DIGITAL DEVICE IN THE THEATER. It makes everyone else in the audience so furious that we want to grab it and do this.

Some of us will even do it, too.

And when they do, everyone else in the audience is doing this in their heads.

So please, don’t use your phone in the theater. Then we can all get along and have a great time together.

(via Gothamist)

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You may recall a certain Pikachu-branded Nintendo 3DS XL that hit North America earlier this year. I say “you may recall,” because it’s highly unlikely that you actually got your hands on one. As if taking this scarcity as a challenge, Nintendo’s going to release an Eevee-branded 3DS XL that’s even more limited. Like, you enter a lottery for the chance to even buy one. Yeah, that kind of limited.

How limited? Well, it’s only coming to Pokémon Centers in Japan, the places that just sell Pokémon merchandise. That’s not it, though. Folks have to enter into a lottery between now and June 3rd just for the chance to buy it. Even then, it’ll cost them 18,900 yen — about $184.

This exists thanks to Nintendo and the Pokémon Company teaming up to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Centers, which first opened in 1998. It’s pretty unlikely that we’ll see this outside of Japan, so here’s hoping you don’t really have to catch ‘em all.

(Pokemon via Polygon)

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On a recent expedition, researchers from Imperial College London discovered an ancient fossil from Earth’s cambrian period that had never been seen before. The long lost relative of animals like lobsters and scorpions had one clear connection to both of those animals — a set of arms ending in scissor-like pincers. The appendages instantly reminded team members of the iconic character of Edward Scissorhands, and thus, Kooteninchela deppi – the first fossil creature named in honor of actor Johnny Depp — was born.

Living in warm, coastal waters approximately 500 million years ago, paleontologists think that Kooteninchela deppi would have been a predator or scavenger, using its scissored hands and the long spines that adorned them to either grab unsuspecting prey or to poke around in the soft dirt of the seafloor searching for animals living in the sediment that it could pull free and gruesomely devour. Oddly enough, if you believe the tabloids, Johnny Depp has been seen by reliable sources engaging in that exact same behavior, so maybe the connections are more than skin deep.

Or maybe they’re not. David Legg, who worked on the study as part of his PhD, said that the inspiration for the name was instantaneous:

“When I first saw the pair of isolated claws in the fossil records of this species I could not help but think of Edward Scissorhands.”

Which is the best reason we’ve ever heard to name a fossil after Johnny Depp. However, since it’s also the only one we’ve ever heard, maybe take that with a grain of salt.

(via Imperial College)

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Sure, the Watson Supercomputer is pretty great at Jeopardy!, but IBM thinks it’s time to branch out. They’re going to be giving software developers access to Watson with a goal to “launch an ecosystem where Watson is a service and you build applications around it,” said CEO Ginni Rometty. Could Watson soon challenge — and probably dominate — Siri?

What makes Watson so good at answering questions on Jeopardy! is that it was designed to have an unprecedented level of understanding of conversational language paired with the ability to quickly search for relevant data. As we start to rely on things like Siri, Google Now, and other voice-recognition systems, that type of computing can have a real advantage. Hopefully they’ll make it work so you don’t have to put your queries to Watson in the form of a Jeopardy! answer, but I think we can live with that if we have to.

IBM has already worked with doctors to have Watson help in cancer diagnosis, but opening it up to the software development community in general can have interesting results. Watson’s strengths lend themselves very well for search-based applications, but we’re expecting a wide range of software.

It’s not clear how widely IBM will be making Watson available, or when it will occur, but we’ll be keeping an eye on it. What would you like to see Watson work on next?

(via Business Insider, image via John Tolva)

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For some species of social spiders, it seems the family that lives together, kills together. A recent study in the journal Animal Behavior shows that young spiders who live with alongside their older siblings grow up big and strong, at least in part because they’re dining on the leftovers brought home by their older siblings.

It turns out that your kid brother eating the last half of a sandwich you brought home and put in the fridge is not a phenomenon unique to humans. In Australia, huntsman spiders wait until nightfall to go in search of prey, and usually eat on the road. Sometimes, though, they’ll drag the remains of a particularly juicy kill back to their “retreats,” where they live alongside hundreds of siblings. When an easy meal like that presents itself, the younger spiders aren’t shy about helping themselves to a better feast than they could find on their own.

Since food sources for young spiderlings are generally limited, having a big brother or sister bring back a doggie bag can mean the difference between a young spider getting a meal and not. According to the study, young spiders that lived alongside older siblings were between 7 and 17 percent heavier than spiderlings who didn’t have the benefit of older siblings

This discovery could help to settle a longstanding debate among researchers about why certain spider species live in colonies of arachnids from many generations. In the meantime, the fact that Australian spiders live in huge spidery colonies has settled any remaining question as to whether everything is more terrifying in Australia. The answer, of course, is yes it is.

(via Cornell, image courtesy of Linda Rayor)

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What do you do when you get dumped? If you’re anything like us, you drop the needle on some of your favorite sad music and feel some feels. A new study shows that listening to sad music really can help you deal with a breakup. Some people might try to tell you to listen to something more upbeat to cheer yourself up, but forget those people. You’ve got science on your side, mopey.

The study was published is the Journal of Consumer Research and was co-authored by Dr. Stephen Palmer of the University of California-Berkeley who said, “Like a sympathetic friend, music, movies, paintings, or novels that are compatible with our current mood and feelings are more appreciated when we experience broken or failing relationships.”

When subjects in the study were purposefully agitated they tended to prefer to listen to angry music, but when they were told to think back to an emotional time in their life like a breakup they preferred sad songs. The preference for sad music was stronger when the subject’s experience was something more personal like a failed relationship than just something disappointing like losing a game of Star Trek Catan to Rollin.

What’s everyone’s go-to sad song? Here’s mine:

(via Telegraph, image via Ray MacLean)

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