Offbeat

Right, but when I spray people with DNA in McDonald’s I get arrested. And they call that justice. McDonald’s and other Rotterdam businesses have begun the integration of a new type of criminal deterrent – DNA spray. Each location’s spray carries a unique DNA marker, which is squirted in the form of an undetectable mist, only visible under a UV ...

It all started so innocently. A simple linguistic evolution. Geckus led to geek which eventually led to gleek and all of the numerous off roads. It wasn’t until the 1950s that the word geek became a part of culture, but geeks have always existed, even if the word didn’t. Flowtown created this helpful flowchart infographic to show the evolution of ...

When you walk around your house with your cat in your arms and she decides to have one of her random freak-outs, inevitably jumping out of your arms, your heart skips a few beats. What if she lands wrong? What if she injures her leg? What if she shatters her hip? What if she splinters her organs with bone fragments? ...

This impressively geeky guy, who could either be a Finnish gentleman or Moe from The Three Stooges, I haven’t quite decided yet, shows off his impressive VCR collection in this video, which has a play time long enough to rank well into the scale of creepy. Featuring an over-abundance of awful green screen effects and background music from the soundtrack ...

Featuring a grand total of zero points of articulation, one of the most iconic images of sci-fi film history is now available in “inactive” figure form. Capable of spurring evolution amongst your other action figures, the 6.75″ monolith is made of “semisynthetic, organic, amorphous, solid materials.” In other words, plastic. But don’t get too excited just yet, the Monolith Action ...

The Malling-Hansen Writing Ball was originally unveiled in 1867, featuring a keyboard layout which has long since been buried in the depths of time. Did you know that QWERTY keyboards were originally designed to deter typewriter users from overburdening the keyboard with speedy typing, which would, in turn, jam the keys? But who cares. The star of the show is ...

You’re not going to believe what might be lurking inside of your PS3. I’ve been wondering why it hasn’t been running right. As it turns out, the PS3 makes an excellent bed for a pet rodent (and probably premature babies as well). Though we highly recommend you take out all of the innards first. Hit the jump to see why.

I don’t care how big or small the thing is, I still won’t be able to solve the damn thing. Evgeniy Grigoriev beat his own previous record of 12mm by creating this homemade fully-functioning 10mm-across Rubik’s Cube, which comfortably earns the honor of smallest Rubik’s Cube in the world. Perhaps even cooler, a 3D-printing company named Shapeways lets you buy ...

If you’re unfamiliar with potassium chlorate, don’t feel bad. I was too before I heard about this. Potassium chlorate is a strong oxidizing agent that reacts violently with sugar, any sugar, including gummy bears. Man, what is with gummy bears and our apparent hate for them? We’re always doing something to torture our gummy comrades. When potassium chlorate meets gummy ...

It took a team of engineers and a massive battalion of supporters 69 days to pull 33 Chilean miners from nearly half-a-mile beneath the Earth’s surface. How long will it take you? Chilean design firm Root33 created this flash game adaptation which brings gamers through the process of Plan B. If you understand Spanish, biographical information about every miner is ...