The doctor who made notes on cocaine as he was dying from an overdose onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The doctor who made notes on cocaine as he was dying from an overdose

There has been a lot of eerie experimentation over the years, but few experimental journals touch Edwin Katskee's diary. Katskee decided that he would go ahead and test the effects of cocaine. He took far too much, and then documented his own overdose.

For years the medical profession handled "pain management" by providing straps to hold a conscious surgical patient down. Then it handled pain management by, for the most part, stopping the flow of gas to an unconscious surgical patient just before it killed them. Cocaine changed that. It became the first widely-used local anesthetic, and so could numb people without knocking them senseless. It wasn't too long, however, before doctors noticed that cocaine too had dangerous side effects.

Exactly what the side effects were, and what they were at different levels of dosage, was still a fuzzy area to doctors in 1936. Edwin Katskee decided to change that, and ended up as one of the more ghoulish cautionary tales in experimental medicine. Katskee was a proctologist,who worked with local anesthetic. He gave himself a large injection of cocaine, intending to document the symptoms of the drug. The injection turned out to be a fatal overdose. During the course of that overdose, Katskee wrote his symptoms and thoughts on the walls of his office. He was found dead, surrounded by his notes, the next morning.

The writing on the wall was in no particular order, although some people were able to put the scribbles in sequence from neatest to sloppiest handwriting. The first note seems to be, "Eyes mildly dilated. Vision excellent." Things got worse from there, then briefly better, when Katskee wrote, "Now able to stand up," and "Partial recovery. Smoked cigarette." Later there are warnings to other doctors, and to himself. In one spot on the walls he wrote, "Results will be recorded in Rx books! Have a university and college [illegible] any findings. They better be good because I am not going to repeat the experiment." The last word he wrote was "paralysis." He probably died soon afterwards.

Katskee's notes, as scattered as they were and without proper timekeeping, did not prove useful. His example might be more so.

[Via Mad Science Museum, The Milwaukee Journal]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The doctor who made notes on cocaine as he was dying from an overdose

The Weirdest Science Stories of 2013 onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The Weirdest Science Stories of 2013

From human head transplants to magnets that prove gay marriage is wrong to potty-mouthed supercomputers, 2013 was truly a bizarre year for science and those purporting to be scientists. Here are 25 of the weirdest stories of the past year.

Scientists say it's possible to blow up the Sun. On purpose . As if we didn't already have enough to worry about, a pair of scientists warned that it's theoretically possible to deliberately detonate the Sun. Called an "artificial supernova," this event could represent a new existential risk to the human species. Or maybe, these guys don't know what the hell they're talking about.

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A Nigerian grad student used magnets to 'prove' gay marriage is wrong. Chibuihem Amalaha, an award-winning student at the University of Lagos, claimed he "disproved" gay marriage through science — and he used the power of magnets to do so. His "groundbreaking" work was backed by the university.

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This ancient Egyptian statue slowly turned all by itself. There's a statuette in a Manchester Museum display case that's slowly rotating — completely on its own — over the course of the day until it's facing the opposite direction. It might be the curse of Neb-Sanu — or perhaps something much simpler.

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Living cockroaches can now be controlled with a mobile app. A company called Backyard Brains will sell you a DiY kit that allows you to hook a living cockroach up to your mobile phone and control its movements with electrical impulses. This will be the first consumer version of the technology behind things like the robo-rat, and not everyone is happy about it.

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IBM's Watson computer had parts of its memory cleared after developing an acute case of potty mouth. It all started a couple of years ago when IBM's Watson was given access to the Urban Dictionary. In an attempt to help Watson learn slang — and thus be more amenable to conversational language — the machine subsequently picked up such phrases as OMG and "hot mess." But at the same time it also picked up some words fit only for a sailor.

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Yes, this is exactly what it looks like.

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A neurosurgeon said we have the technology to perform human head transplants. An Italian neuroscientist said that human head transplants are possible using currently available medical techniques, and he's setting up a project to prove it. Dr. Sergio Canavero, who works for the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, published his proposal in the medical journal Surgical Neurology International. He's calling it the "Head Anastomois Venture," or HEAVEN — the "first human head transplantation with spinal linkage."

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Behold the carnivorous caterpillar. It is one of the more than 20 species belonging to the genus Eupethecia believed to reside exclusively on the Hawaiian islands. As you may have already gathered from the GIF up top, members of this insular clade tend to sport some rather scary-looking appendages.

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This deadly lake lures animals to their deaths and petrifies them. Tanzania's Lake Natron is the most caustic body of water on Earth and that makes it a terrifying, if eerily beautiful, place.

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A dolphin was filmed while masturbating with a decapitated fish and we now know what an exploding whale looks like. Warning: Graphic.

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Scientists engineered glow-in-the-dark sheep and pigs. A team of researchers at the Animal Reproduction Institute of Uruguay genetically modified sheep to express a peptide called green fluorescent protein (originally isolated from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria), or "GFP." The resulting transgenic sheep glowed green when exposed to ultraviolet light. The same thing was accomplished just a few weeks ago with pigs in Hawaii.

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A new skyscraper unexpectedly generated a solar beam that fried cars. A skyscraper under construction in London is reflecting concentrated sunlight onto the streets. The beam is so hot that it's "melting cars" and popping tiles right out of the ground. For passersby, it's like standing in the glare of a giant magnifying glass.

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Hikers discovered a very strange 'natural' trampoline in Quebec, while an elk discovered that a normal trampoline is no place for an elk.

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New "footage" of Bigfoot. After five years of research, a group calling itself the Sasquatch Genome Project released footage of what it says is a female Bigfoot sleeping in the woods. And yes, this is the same group that published the Bigfoot genome in a journal they themselves founded.

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This past year was not a good one for frogs and armadillos who chose to hang out at rocket launch sites.

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An absolutely massive Louisiana sinkhole devoured whole trees in seconds flat. In the Southern Louisiana town of Bayou Corne, a monster is growing. For over a year now, a colossal sinkhole – which, when last measured, spanned a grotesque 24 acres – has been wreaking havoc on not only local residents (who have been forced to evacuate), but the environment under which it lurks, as this recently captured footage makes shockingly clear.

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Scientists grew teeth from human urine inside the kidneys of mice. A study put out this past September showed that stem cells extracted from urine can be turned into rudimentary tooth-like structures, and the researchers did so by growing the teeth inside the kidneys of mice.

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A giant blob was found floating off the coast of Cuba. In July, a human-sized pinkish blob was discovered floating near the surface of the Caribbean. The Cuban divers who found the thing had no clue what it was. Their photos eventually reached the hands of a marine biologist at Brown University, and she thinks she knows what it is: a mass of teensy eggs.

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Super-realistic telemarketing chatbots started to deny that they're robots, but the real story turned out to be just as bizarre.

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A Jägermeister pool party in Mexico turned to panic after organizers poured four buckets of liquid nitrogen into the water, sending eight to the hospital and leaving one partygoer in a coma.

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As if to further reinforce the stupidity of the Lone Signal project, this mind-boggingly absurd GIF was just sent on a 17.6 light-year journey to Gliese 526 in hopes that it'll get picked up by an extraterrestrial civilization. Yes, really — this is how we're going to say "hello."

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A freak ice tsunami crunched homes in Canada. The whole thing only took 15 minutes, but by the time it stopped over two-dozen homes and cottages were either seriously damaged or completely destroyed. An arctic wind blowing across Duphin Lake near Winnipeg, Manitoba, created this bizarre phenomenon in which rapidly forming ice moved inland along Ochre Beach.

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A preliminary analysis showed that a tiny alien-like skeleton found in the Atacama Desert belonged to a human child, though an independent report reached a different conclusion — that it was a discarded fetus.

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A "lost" tortoise was found alive in storeroom after 30 years. Manuela the red-footed tortoise was believed to have made her grand escape back in 1982. Her owners, the Almeida family of Rio de Janeiro, had been preoccupied with a home renovation at the time; Manuela, they surmised, had slipped unnoticed through a door left open by some careless workers. They thought Manueala had escaped. They thought they would never see her again. They were wrong.

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PETA protests cyborgs

A new DiY science kit, "Backyard Brains," teaches kids about neuroscience and biotech by helping them dissect cockroaches -- and then use… Read…

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onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The Weirdest Science Stories of 2013

These Monkeys Always Give Birth to Twins – How Do They Do It? onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com These Monkeys Always Give Birth to Twins – How Do They Do It?

Unlike all other primates, clawed New World Monkeys almost always give birth to twins. But why? It turns out these animals have a unique set of adaptations that make it possible — and could prove useful to humans as well.

We spoke to the lead scientist of the new study to understand how it all works, and how the discovery may someday benefit people having twins or more.

Ovulation and Twins

Callitrichines, or clawed New World monkeys, are a subfamily of New World monkeys native to Central and South America, which includes marmosets, tamarins, lion tamarins and Goeldii's monkeys.

Callitrichines are well known for their diminutive stature: The monkeys generally weigh only 116 to 600 grams (4 to 21 ounces)! They also have claw-like nails, from which they get their common moniker. The animals typically live at the edges of the forest, where they feed on gums, fruits and insects.

What really makes this group of primates unique, however, is their propensity for multiple births, which occurs because they ovulate multiple ova in each reproductive cycle. In the wild, callitrichines almost always give birth to fraternal twins (which can have different fathers), though people have also documented cases of triplets. Kjersti Aagaard, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, has studied the reproductive habits of these monkeys. She told io9 that in captivity, triplets and quadruplets are quite common.

In fact, the only callitrichinae species that's known to produce singleton births is Goeldi's monkey (Callimico goeldii). Researchers think this species had an ancestor that twinned, but that the trait was "reversed" in C. goeldii, for whatever reason.

In humans and other primates, giving birth to multiples is often difficult — both in terms of the energy expended on the birthing process, as well as child rearing. On top of this issue, such pregnancies come with various complications, including premature births, low birth weights and cases where one twin restricts the growth of the other. How do callitrichines get around these problems?

Dominant and Suppressed Females

"From a social perspective, alloparenting is the most prominent adaptation that allows them to successfully rear multiple offspring," Aagaard said. Clawed New World monkeys live in small, territorial groups, consisting of a dominant female, a few males and a few subordinate females. The dominant female is the only one that reproduces — the other females are all reproductively suppressed, either through behavioral means or the physiological suppression of ovulation.

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In the wild, all adult members of the group share responsibility in raising the dominant female's offspring, including the babies' fathers. In captivity, juveniles also help to take care of their younger siblings. "It's the 'whole village' approach, where this entire troupe or extended family of monkeys rear the young," Aagaard explained.

In addition to this social strategy, there are also biological adaptations that help make multiple births successful for the monkeys. "It turns out that the callitrichines are very good at building a 'good foundation to the house,' or a stable placenta," Aagaard said. In human pregnancies, only a fraction of a month goes by before the embryos start growing. By comparison, the monkeys spend almost a third of their gestation time developing the placenta, and only then do the embryos grow. This delayed fetal growth makes sure that the placenta is ready to handle the demands of multiple children.

Interestingly, most callitrichines are hematopoietic chimeras, which means that the twins share placental circulation and exchange blood stem cells throughout gestation. In humans, sharing the blood circulation in a placenta can be a problem, because it often leads to one twin hogging all the blood, but this isn't an issue for callitrichines due to their carefully developed placenta. What's more, this exchange strengthens the bonds in a group — adult males cannot tell which twin they actually fathered, so they help raise both twins equally.

One of the big mysteries surrounding callitrichinae is why these unique traits developed. For a long time, researchers believed it had to do with the monkeys' tiny bodies. For example, one theory proposed that the animals' diminutive size increased their risk of predation — having multiple babies helps ensure that at least one will survive to adulthood. That is to say, the small size came first, followed by multiple births.

But researchers hadn't looked at the genetic bases for callitrichines' body size, birth weight or habit of obligate twinning, to back up the theory. The recent sequencing of the common marmoset genome allowed Aagaard and her colleagues to do just that.

The Evolutionary Order

The team began by investigating 63 candidate genes, which previous studies have suggested might be involved at some level in releasing multiple eggs or controlling growth and body size. They compared those marmoset genes against those of other mammals, including other callitrichines, non-callitrichine New World monkeys, humans and sheep (which also frequently twin), to identify "nonsynonymous substitutions," or mutations that can lead to biological changes.

After some "deep sequencing," they found four growth factor genes that are likely strongly involved in callitrichine twinning (GDF9, BMP15, BMP4, and WFIKKN1). Importantly, these callitrichine-specific mutations were not present in C. goeldii, the only clawed New World monkey that doesn't twin. Some of the genes have also been implicated in sheep that frequently twin.

"From most of the mutations we see across the New World monkeys that we were able to look at, it looks as though they are tightly regulating growth and trying to make smaller growth rates in utero," Aagaard said. "We also think that there's more evidence for regulating growth early on across all New World monkeys, and that the twinning adaptation was able to capitalize on those restrictions to growth."

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Aagaard and her colleague's proposed model of callitrichine evolution. Credit: Harris et al./PNAS.

According to the researchers' theory, genes that regulate the speed and extent of growth in utero were selected early on in the New World monkeys' evolutionary history, which laid the groundwork for twinning and a diminutive size. With the growth-regulating genes in play, twinning mutations popped up, followed by a developmental growth delay that protects multiple fetuses (and allows more time for placental development), a decrease in overall body size and another mutation that "refined" the diminutive size.

Aagaard thinks that further investigations into the marmoset's genome could someday benefit people. For one, researchers could try to use genetic techniques to determine populations with a higher heritability of twinning. And second, they could further explore the genetic basis of callitrichine's unique adaptations, in hopes of finding ways to similarly reduce complications occurring in multiple births in humans.

"The really interesting thing is how these marmosets invest in placental growth," Aagaard said. "We know that some of the genes are good for growth but not all of them, so we need to understand them better in order to come up with better strategies for people."

Check out the full study over in the journal PNAS.

Top image via tomosuke214/Flickr. Inset marmoset image via jidanchaomian/Flickr.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com These Monkeys Always Give Birth to Twins – How Do They Do It?

Make a prediction about 2014! onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Make a prediction about 2014!

What will 2014 bring? Will all our mail really be delivered by robots? Will the new Planet of the Apes finally deliver an image more iconic than Charlton Heston yelling at a statue? Do you have a prediction about what the year has in store for you personally? Tell us your predictions about the year ahead.

Since it's the last day of 2013, this leaves us just one final day where 2014 to officially qualifies as the future. So let's make some short-range predictions about the upcoming year before the clock runs down.

Pictures too, please!

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Make a prediction about 2014!

Kentucky is about to host the world's first Ninja Throwing Star Range onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Kentucky is about to host the world's first Ninja Throwing Star Range

"Ninjas" and "Kentucky" are two nouns that very rarely manage to show up in the same sentence. But all that's about to change when the first indoor throwing star range opens in the Bluegrass State this coming spring.

According to the delightful official website, the Ninjas Throwing Star Range will feature 500 types of shuriken to toss at targets, a blowgun range, and even a sake bar for those 21 and older. It's actually going to open in my hometown of Lexington, and this is blowing my fucking mind. Lexington was completely lame when I was growing up, and the fact that it's about to have a place where you can legally practice ninja skills both makes me incredibly proud and intensely bitter that the coolest place I had growing up was the mall that contained two videogame stores.

[Via RocketNews24]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Kentucky is about to host the world's first Ninja Throwing Star Range

Is Batman Vs Superman adding Denzel Washington as another superhero? onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Is Batman Vs Superman adding Denzel Washington as another superhero?

There are new behind-the-scenes photos from Days of Future Past and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. True Blood is recasting a character following an actor leaving due to "creative direction." Steven Moffat promises a "new direction" for Doctor Who. Plus, a new look at Star Wars: Rebels' villain. Spoilers now!

Fantastic Four Versus X-Men

Correction: The Motley Fool article that had previously claimed that this film was actually being planned, has since been corrected to clarify that it's pure speculation. It's a guess, nothing more. [The Motley Fool]

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Batman Vs Superman

The previous rumor that Denzel Washington was being considered for Lex Luthor has been replaced by a rumor from Nuke the Fridge that he's being considered for John Stewart/Green Lantern for the movie instead. Grain of salt and all, and bear in mind this movie's already stuffed full of superheroes. [Comic Book Resources]

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Amazing Spider-Man 2

Here's the video from Spider-Man's appearance on Good Morning America. [Coming Soon]

And here are some new photos of Jamie Foxx's Electro. [Comic Book Resources]

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Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Here are new photos from the movie, via Empire magazine. More at the link. [Coming Soon]

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X-Men: Days of Future Past

Here's a little behind-the-scenes photo. Check out the shades on James McAvoy. [Comic Book Resources]

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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

In a similar vein, here's a behind-the-scenes photo of Andy Serkis in full motion-capture suit. [Slashfilm]

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True Blood

Luke Grimes has left the show, and the character of James is being recast. While an HBO spokesperson has said that he left "due to the creative direction of the character," a source told TV Line:

He initially joined the show because he wanted to work with [his Forever co-star] Deborah Ann Woll. But when he started reading the scripts for Season 7, he was disappointed to learn that they were going in a completely different direction with James.

[TV Line]

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Doctor Who

Steven Moffat's promising a new tone and direction when the show returns, saying that this was something that he and Russell T. Davies always agreed on. He said that when he first started, they both thought that it was time to "kick a lot of stuff out," and that it's time to do that again:

It changes all the time, and it's keeping ahead of the audience in a way. All shows age and they all age sort of in the same way. You learn how to do it, you get really slick at it, and then you think you're really, really slick at it and everyone's started to yawn. And you think 'oh God, we're really slick at this but everyone knows what we're going to do'.

So now we've got to actually get a bit raw at it and do it in a different direction. It happens on every show – you get good at it and 'good at it' is the enemy in the end.

[Cult Box]

We've also got official confirmation that Peter Capaldi will keep his Scottish accent, with a BBC spokesperson saying:

The decision for Peter Capaldi to have a Scottish accent as the Doctor was a creative decision and it was not part of his contract.

That seems to be a response to the rumor that retaining a Scottish accent was part of Capaldi's contract. A "show insider" is quoted as saying:

But Peter is best at acting in a Scottish accent and he was delighted when he found out he could play the part with his own voice. It gives his character a stronger identity as well.

[Life, Doctor Who & Combom]

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Sleepy Hollow

No fear that Sleepy Hollow's going to be adding a dense mythos any time soon, as executive producer Alex Kurtzman said:

We actually see it as a slow burn, so this season is really going to be focused on the characters that we've set up and what parts they play in what's beginning to unravel. As the series progresses, we'll absolutely be opening everybody's minds up to what's really going on there. We have to be very careful about how we do that because part of the fun of the show is that you are with the secret few who know what's really happening and the rest of the world doesn't. We don't want to let that vibe go.

[TV Guide]

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Outlander

Here's a new promotional photo from the upcoming series. [SpoilerTV]

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Star Wars: Rebels

Photos of the action figure of the new villain, the Inquisitor, have been released. The Inquisitor will be a Jedi hunter in the employ of the Galactic Empire, and he's a tall dude with a interesting new double-lightsaber thing. [Coming Soon]

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The Originals

Here's the synopsis for episode 1.10, "Casket Girls":

TAKING BACK POWER — As the French Quarter prepares for its annual celebration of the Casket Girls Festival, Cami (Leah Pipes) suffers through as Davina (Danielle Campbell) attempts to free her of Klaus' (Joseph Morgan) mind compulsion. Elijah (Daniel Gillies) and Marcel (Charles Michael Davis) form an unlikely alliance as Klaus sets his plan in motion to get Davina back. Once it's known that Davina is missing, Sophie (Daniella Pineda) gets in on the hunt to track her down. Meanwhile, Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin) is forced to make a tough decision after receiving an unexpected phone call, and Rebekah (Claire Holt) sets her own plan in motion when she enlists the help of someone from Marcel's past. Jesse Warn directed the episode written by Charlie Charbonneau and Michelle Paradise (#110).

[SpoilerTV]

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Lost Girl

Episode 4.11 will be called "End of the Line," and here's a short description:

Bo narrowly escapes a vengeful Fae's attack; a visit surprises Kenzi; Bo questions feelings for someone she loves.

[SpoilerTV]

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Bitten

Here are the titles and synopses for the first three episodes:

Episode 1.01 - Summons

Elena, bitten and turned into a werewolf, flees to Toronto, but is pulled back to upstate New York when an all-out war between rogue mutts and her Pack family begins.

Episode 1.02 - Prodigal

At Stonehaven, Elena tracks the killer Mutt while avoiding the advances of Clay Danvers; haunted by her own past as a killer, Elena is desperate to get back to her human life.

Episode 1.03 - Trespass

Old chemistry resurfaces as Elena and Clay work together; Elena threatens the Mutt leading to the change as they fight him in his wolf form.

[Spoiler TV]

Additional reporting by Charlie Jane Anders and Emily Stamm

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Is Batman Vs Superman adding Denzel Washington as another superhero?

Here's why Google is building a robot army onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Here's why Google is building a robot army

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For the past couple of weeks, we've all been wondering why Google bought Boston Dynamics, the company that makes those creepy Big Dog and PETMAN robots for the military. This comes after the company announced a project to eliminate death, and after building a secret installation out of cargo crates on a barge in San Francisco Bay. It's as if Google is in the early stages of building a city state.

Historically, city states like Athens in ancient Greece were contained within physical walls, anchored to one location. But their tentacles of influence might reach far and wide, just as the Greek culture that bloomed in Athens is said to have Hellenized many parts of the Middle East. And what are the main ingredients of a city state? It must have a ruling elite of course, much as a corporation does in its various executives and VPs. It must have a shared ideology, hopefully one that's boastfully vague — sort of like Google's motto "Don't be evil." Perhaps most importantly, it must have an army and an economy.

If you think of Google's Mountain View campus as a city state, and all its satellite campuses as colonies, then it was kind of inevitable that the company would raise an army. Already, it has a culture within its walls that is as strong as any city-state's. Googlers across the globe share common values, types of work and meals. They exist within a social hierarchy as clear-cut as any caste system in ancient Greece (though Google doesn't have slaves, which is nice). And they've even taken on a state-like role in defending U.S. assets against Chinese hackers.

But recently, Google's cultural goals have gotten a little more pronounced. They're not just out to make great web services like search, maps, and gmail. They're making driverless cars and funding Ray Kurzweil's efforts to eliminate human death. It's almost like the company is trying to build its own religion, based on vaguely environmentalist and Singulatarian ideas. They're acting less like a company, whose goals are entirely economic, and more like a city-state, whose goals include ineffable things like quality of life.

Google's robot army reminds me of novels like Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age or Marge Piercy's He, She and It, where companies form city-states that occasionally go to war with each other. In He, She, and It, the company/city makes its living from selling software, but has to build cyborg soldiers to defend its walls against hostile takeovers. And in Diamond Age, corporations create islands devoted to pursuits like recreating the Victorian age. The companies in these novels no longer just economic entities. They are cultures, conducting social experiments and propagating belief systems that won't lead directly to profit.

These days, Google reaches into almost every corner of our lives in the West — it shapes the way we see the digital world. Those of us whose culture comes from the internet are already living in a Googlized world, just as people beyond Greece lived in a Hellenized world back in the 300s BCE. It makes sense that this city-state corporation known as Google now has the ability to wage war in the real world as well as cyberspace.

Though Google's leadership may believe its acquisition of Boston Dynamics will help usher in a future of AI robots, it may actually be ushering in a future that looks more like history than The Matrix. We may be witnessing the return of the city-state, led by corporations rather than governments. Inside Google's walls, this transformation might be Utopia. Outside — well, we don't have to worry about outside. We'll have the robots to protect us against that.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Here's why Google is building a robot army

The greatest newspaper correction ever written (49 years too late) onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The greatest newspaper correction ever written (49 years too late)

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In 1920, rocket scientist Robert Goddard wrote up an article postulating how we could use rocket fuel to launch a ship into space — perhaps even all the way to the moon. His ideas did not meet with a warm reception in the media, where he was roundly mocked. 49 years later, Apollo 11 took-off to the moon, triggering The New York Times' to print the greatest newspaper correction ever to run.

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This correction has everything: scare quotes, an elaborately roundabout slam on rocket scientist Goddard's high school education, and, notably, no reference at all to Apollo 11's launch to the moon that had occurred just the day before, spurring the correction in the first place. The correction, printed in the July 17, 1969 edition of The Times reads:

A Correction: On Jan. 13, 1920, "Topics of the Times," an editorial-page feature of The New York Times, dismissed the notion that a rocket could function in a vacuum and commented on the ideas of Robert H. Goddard, the rocket pioneer, as follows:

'That Professor Goddard with his 'chair' in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to something better than a vacuum against which to react—to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."

Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th Century and it is now definitely established a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.

Thanks to commenter mwhite66 who brought the correction to our attention, noting in response to this post on the responses Goddard's ideas received more than 80 years ago that: "The New York Times retracted their 1920 editorial stating that rockets couldn't work in a vacuum because there was nothing to push against. In July 1969, when Apollo 11 flew to the moon."

Top image: Apollo 11, NASA

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The greatest newspaper correction ever written (49 years too late)

Heat maps reveal where you feel emotions in your body onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Heat maps reveal where you feel emotions in your body

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Emotions are as much physical as they are mental, and it appears that people from a wide range of cultures feel their emotions in the same places on their bodies. This map shows where those places are — from the blush of shame, to that warm lower-belly feeling in love.

According to Gemma Tarlach, writing in Discover:

More than 700 participants in Finland, Sweden and Taiwan participated in experiments aimed at mapping their bodily sensations in connection with specific emotions. Participants viewed emotion-laden words, videos, facial expressions and stories. They then self-reported areas of their bodies that felt different than before they'd viewed the material. By coloring in two computer-generated silhouettes — one to note areas of increased bodily sensation and the second to mark areas of decreased sensation — participants were able to provide researchers with a broad base of data showing both positive and negative bodily responses to different emotions.

It's important that the researchers sampled such diverse populations, because that helps to eliminate cultural biases in how people interpret their feelings. Particularly remarkable is the way some emotions look similar, such as pride and anger. Also, you'll see that love is the only emotion (other than happiness) that includes a warm glow between the legs — wonder why that might be?

Read the whole article at Discover

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Heat maps reveal where you feel emotions in your body

This spidery spacecraft will be the first to soft-land on a comet onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com This spidery spacecraft will be the first to soft-land on a comet

The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft is preparing to wake up in January from a nearly three-year-long hibernation period as it prepares for a close encounter with Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

If all goes well, Rosetta should reach its destination in August and, after a couple of months in a mapping orbit, the probe will deploy a spider-like lander called Philae on the surface in November. That will be the first time anything has soft-landed on a comet.

Philae has a ream of scientific instruments on board, most notably a drill that can penetrate as far as 20 centimeters (eight inches) into whatever lies below it. It can then pick up the samples and analyze them right on sight. This will allow the lander to learn more about what the comet's surface and subsurface are made of, ESA says, and to figure out how its nucleus is constructed. (You can read more technical details here.)

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Artist's impression of Philae, the lander from the Rosetta spacecraft, descending to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in November 2014. Credit: ESA–J. Huart, 2013

A big concern, of course, is keeping Philae anchored on the low gravity of the comet (as was covered extensively in this past Universe Today story).

"As Philae touches down on the comet, two harpoons will anchor it to the surface; the self-adjusting landing gear will ensure that it stays upright, even on a slope, and then the lander's feet will drill into the ground to secure it to the comet's surface in the low gravity environment," ESA wrote.

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Artist's impression of the Rosetta spacecraft releasing its lander, Philae, above the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in November 2014. Credit: ESA–C. Carreau/ATG medialab

But first comes Rosetta's reactivation. ESA is so excited about this forthcoming milestone on Jan. 20 that it's inviting the public to send in videos where people tell the spacecraft, essentially, to wake up after 31 months of hibernation. (The campaign is called "Wake Up, Rosetta", and more contest details are here.)

What's cute is that the official Rosetta Twitter account (@ESA_Rosetta) will become more exciting then as well. The last update, from Dec. 3, simply says "still sleeping" (as most of the updates do.) In response to someone asking the account to write something else this summer, the Twitter response was laconic: "A sleeping probe cannot tweet."

But keep your eyes peeled even after the landing. Rosetta plans to stay with the comet as the icy body moves closer to the solar system, watching as the sun's heat changes its surface. Read more about the mission here.

This article originally appeared at Universe Today.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com This spidery spacecraft will be the first to soft-land on a comet

Classic Sci-Fi and Fantasy Films That You Can Watch on YouTube onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Classic Sci-Fi and Fantasy Films That You Can Watch on YouTube

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The year is ending and things are winding down — but maybe you're still stuck at work, repairing arcane electrical equipment or drafting memos that nobody will read. For you, our downtrodden comrades, we present the ultimate distraction: Classic SF movies you can watch in their entirety on YouTube.

The Lost World, 1925

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Metropolis, 1927

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Things To Come, 1936

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Modern Times, 1936

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The Green Hornet, a 13-part Universal movie serial, 1940

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Rocketship X-M (also known as Expedition Moon), the first outer space adventure of the post-World War II era, 1950

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The 12-part Buck Rogers movie serial from 1939, edited into a feature film entitled Planet Outlaws, 1953

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Invaders from Mars, 1953

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Cat-Women of the Moon, an independent sci-fi movie from 1953

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Project Moonbase, 1953

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Killers from Space, 1954

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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, 1954

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A British television adaptation of George Orwell's 1984, broadcast on BBC Television in December 1954

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It Conquered the World, 1956

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Invasion of the Saucer Men, 1957

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From The Earth to The Moon, 1958

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Quatermass and the Pit, a 6-part serial, 1958

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Attack of the Killer Brains: Fiend Without a Face, 1958

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Plan 9 from Outer Space, 1959

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The Wasp Woman, 1959

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Reptilicus, 1961

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The Last Man on Earth, based on the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, 1964

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Mad Max, 1979

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Brave New World, a television adaptation of Aldous Huxley's iconic book, 1980

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Saturn 3, 1980

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The Quiet Earth, 1985

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onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Classic Sci-Fi and Fantasy Films That You Can Watch on YouTube

The U.S. has designated six sites for testing commercial drones onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The U.S. has designated six sites for testing commercial drones

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After a rigorous 10-month selection process, the FAA has announced the six U.S. states that will host sites for testing commercial-built drones. It's an important next step for developing the rules and standards under which drones will fly in U.S airspace.

The Federal Aviation Administration received 25 proposals from 24 states for the research and testing of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). The agency considered a number of criteria, including geography, climate, location of ground infrastructure, research needs, airspace use, aviation experience, and risk.

The six sites chosen include Alaska (University of Alaska), Nevada (State of Nevada), New York (New York's Griffiss International Airport), North Dakota (North Dakota Department of Commerce), Texas (Texas A&M University), and Virginia (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)).

Each institute will focus on particular research goals. For example, Griffiss International will investigate the impact of drones on air traffic congestion, while Texas A&M will develop standards for testing drones' airworthiness.

Once the tests begin, pilots will be notified through announcements about where the test drones are being flown.

The FAA explains more:

Each test site operator will manage the test site in a way that will give access to parties interested in using the site. The FAA's role is to ensure each operator sets up a safe testing environment and to provide oversight that guarantees each site operates under strict safety standards.

From the start, the FAA recognized it was important to have requirements ensuring that privacy and civil liberties are protected at the test sites. Among other requirements, test site operators must comply with federal, state, and other laws protecting an individual's right to privacy, have publicly available privacy policies and a written plan for data use and retention, and conduct an annual review of privacy practices that allows for public comment.

Test site operations will continue until at least February 13, 2017.

Image: Tyler Olson/Shutterstock.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The U.S. has designated six sites for testing commercial drones

What's the most adorable creature in all of fiction? onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com What's the most adorable creature in all of fiction?

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Nibbler. Pikachu. The Adipose. This Futurama alien, Pokémon, and sentient fat-thing from Doctor Who are just three of the many, many hyper-cute character that lurk in movies, TV shows, anime and more. But what's your pick for the emperor of adorability?

As an MST3K fan, I have to choose NummyMuffinCoocolButter, if only because the evil scientist Dr. Forrester created it to be the cutest creature in the universe, effectively enslaving everyone who saw it by compelling them to ignore everything else in order to properly fawn over it. This w would allow Forrester to take over the worl, but of course, Forrester himself fell for NummyMuffinCoocolButter's pink, fuzzy charms first. The Earth was again saved — but not before TV's Frank graced us with this haunting song:

Give us your picks in the comments, and make sure you include pics, of course. How else are we going to judge the cutest of all?

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com What's the most adorable creature in all of fiction?

"Thanks Safeway": A Fake Trailer Comparing Downsizing to Alien Attack onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com "Thanks Safeway": A Fake Trailer Comparing Downsizing to Alien Attack

Losing your job due to corporate downsizing can feel pretty apocalyptic — and one employee of supermarket chain Dominick's captures that feeling perfectly in this video, made after Safeway closed 72 of its Chicago-area Dominick's stores.

The video went up on Dec. 27, and caused enough of a stir in the local media that its creator, Steve Yamamoto, got suspended from his job — losing just one day of work before he was laid off, but also possibly losing three weeks' severance pay.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com "Thanks Safeway": A Fake Trailer Comparing Downsizing to Alien Attack

Why Matt Smith's Doctor "Deserved Better" onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Why Matt Smith's Doctor "Deserved Better"

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Matt Smith has been one of the most engaging actors ever to play that ageless time traveler on Doctor Who — but if he'd been given better, weightier material to work with, he might have been the best Doctor of all, argues a new article in The Atlantic.

It's hard to argue with any of the cogent analysis in Ted B. Kissell's essay, which points to the problems with Matt Smith's stories that we've all noticed over the years. Smith's Doctor is a swaggering bully who loves to make shouty speeches about his own greatness. He withholds information from his own companions for no good reason. He cheats death (and any other sort of consequences) on a regular basis, thanks to handy reset-buttons and magic-wandery.

A couple of choice quotes:

The entirety of Season Six is when Moffat's fascination for plot twists and open-ended mysteries (in our house, we describe this unfortunate tendency as "plotty-wotty") took over the show, and the whole product suffered....

There are just never any consequences for any main characters in Moffat'sDoctor Who. Every apparent sacrifice, tragic loss, or moral compromise is invalidated by some kind of reset button, with no physical or psychological cost. The "loss" of the Ponds was so nonsensical that it doesn't even count. They got to live full lives together in the past, but the Doctor could never go back and see them again? It's insulting. Why not have the two of them make a meaningful sacrifice and actually, you know, die? Whose feelings is Moffat trying to spare here?

The main point that Kissell drives at is that Smith would have been a better lead actor if he'd had to play real consequences, instead of having a pocket full of Get-Out-of-Jail-Free cards. I don't have much to add here — except that maybe we should have more villains who have goals of their own, unrelated to the Doctor. The best villains have their own desires and objectives, and the hero just happens to get in their way.

Anyway, the whole essay is depressing, but worth reading. [The Atlantic]

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Why Matt Smith's Doctor "Deserved Better"

How smoker's breath saved this caterpillar's life onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com How smoker's breath saved this caterpillar's life

Wolf spider's reaction towards caterpillars fed a nicotine-rich (top) and nicotine-free (bottom diet). Courtesy of Sagar Pandit.

Next, the researchers decided to discover how the hornworms were utilizing the nicotine. In a previous study, they found that a gene that's normally expressed in the caterpillar's midgut, CYP6B46, isn't as active in hornworms that are fed plants with suppressed nicotine production. This seemed a good place to start, so they created N. attenuata plants that are able to silence the caterpillar's CYP6B46 gene. Sure enough, caterpillars with the silenced gene became very attractive to spiders.

The Important Role of the CYP6B46 Gene

Further work showed that the gene is able to take some of the nicotine in the caterpillar's midgut and transport it to the hemolymph (its blood). Nicotine, Baldwin explained, works by attacking the acetylcholine receptor, which "drives the neuromuscular function of all animals on the planet." What's more, there are no acetylcholine receptors that are resistant to nicotine, meaning that caterpillars aren't necessarily able to eat tobacco because their receptors are resistant to

nicotine. "The way the caterpillar handles the nicotine is that it poops it out," he said. The work with the CYP6B46 gene shows that the hornworm doesn't poop out all of the nicotine — it transports 0.65 percent of the nicotine it ingests into its blood.

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But how does blood laced with nicotine help the caterpillar? The researchers figured that M. sexta must exhale the nicotine through their spiracles, which are small respiratory holes they breathe through — the nicotine warns the spiders that the caterpillar is toxic. To see if this was true, "we glued little nicotine trapping devices on the spiracles and then took them off after the spider caught the caterpillar," Baldwin said. The devices showed that the tobacco hornworms were puffing out nicotine from their spiracles when the spiders attacked. "Normally, it would work as a type of toxic halitosis, or bad breath."

Interestingly, this defense doesn't work for all predators. The scientists discovered that the big-eyed bug Geocoris pallens, another major predator in the N. attenuata field, wasn't deterred by the caterpillar's nicotine-rich breath. Baldwin thinks this may be the case because the bugs only feed on the hornworms' hemolymph, which has very low levels of nicotine. The spiders, on the other hand, eat the caterpillar's nicotine-loaded gut. Still, the study is the first documented case of a "toxic bad breath" and an animal being able to use its exhalation as a signal that it has eaten something poisonous, he said.

The research also highlights how important field studies are for determining what individual genes do. "We've discovered the function of the gene CYP6B46 in the caterpillar because of a spider in the field," Baldwin said. "This shows that nature is an important laboratory for discovering gene function."

Check out the full study in the journal

PNAS.

Top image via Danny Kessler. Inset images via Pavan Kumar and Danny Kessler, respectively.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com How smoker's breath saved this caterpillar's life

He Played Missile Command for Nearly Three Consecutive Days onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com He Played Missile Command for Nearly Three Consecutive Days

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Earlier this year, Victor Sandberg broke Missile Command's all-time world record—a mark that had stood since 1982 and was believed to be unassailable. This weekend, he shot for another goal most thought unreachable. In the end, it was.

Sandberg didn't make it to 100 hours of gameplay on a single credit—which would have been 16 hours longer than what George Leutz did with Q*Bert back in February. He made it 71 hours and 41 minutes before faltering. That is 19 minutes short of three full days of play.

However, Sandberg, of Sweden, looks to have put Missile Command's all-time mark away for good: His final mark was 103,809,990. It would take someone who not only has completely mastered Missile Command, as Sandberg has, but also has enough stamina to play at that level for almost three days with only fleeting power naps to recharge.

We carried Sandberg's pursuit of the record yesterday through his livestream. That feed has been replaced with a stream of his final 24 hours in the game. There's also a helpful translation of all the things Victor says in Swedish at the end of each level.

His last level—his 10,432nd—plays at 23:25:28.

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com He Played Missile Command for Nearly Three Consecutive Days

Want to close the gender gap? Give men paternity leave. onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Want to close the gender gap? Give men paternity leave.

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One of the biggest problems for young families is dividing up childcare duties. Women still get saddled with the bulk of the work, which can cause stress and undermine their careers. But many countries have found a solution to the problem: paternity leave. More freedom for men has meant more for women too.

Photo via Imgur

Writes Liza Mundy in a fascinating story in The Atlantic:

While paid paternity leave may feel like an unexpected gift, the biggest beneficiaries aren't men, or even babies. In the long run, the true beneficiaries of paternity leave are women, and the companies and nations that benefit when women advance. In October, the World Economic Forum released its latest global gender-gap report, showing that countries with the strongest economies are those that have found ways to further women's careers, close the gender pay gap, and keep women—who in most nations are now better educated than men—tethered to the workforce after they become mothers. One strikingly effective strategy used by the highest-ranking countries is paternity leave, which, whatever else it may accomplish, is a brilliant and ambitious form of social engineering: a behavior-modification tool that has been shown to boost male participation in the household, enhance female participation in the labor force, and promote gender equity in both domains.

In Quebec, Canada, a 2006 program created a province-wide paternity leave that lasts 5 weeks. As a result, in 2010, 80 percent of fathers took paternity leave — up from 10 percent in 2001. This has created a new social norm, according to economist Ankita Patnaik, who has studied the Quebec program. She told Mundy that "families felt they were wasting something" when fathers didn't take time off. "Now dads might feel bad for not taking leave—your baby loses this time with parents." Interestingly, paternity leave sets household changes in motion that last for years.

According to Mundy:

The policy has achieved many of the hoped-for long-term outcomes, chief among them more fluidity in who does what around the house. Previous studies found that fathers who take paternity leave are more likely, a year or so down the road, to change diapers, bathe their children, read them bedtime stories, and get up at night to tend to them. Patnaik's study confirmed this; looking at time-use diaries, she found that men who were eligible for the new leave—whether or not they took it—ended up spending more time later on routine chores like shopping and cooking.

As a result, women felt that men were taking more responsibilities with childrearing and were less likely to suffer from depression. More importantly, they returned to their previous jobs in much higher numbers than they did before the 5-week paternity leave program. So the labor inside the home and outside is more evenly shared between the father and mother.

Paternity leave is a social experiment whose goals appear to have worked far better than anyone could have hoped.

Read more in The Atlantic

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Want to close the gender gap? Give men paternity leave.

The Biggest Stories on io9 in 2013 onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The Biggest Stories on io9 in 2013

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

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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

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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

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

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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"

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The Biggest Stories on io9 in 2013