• Wheels Down on Mars. Now It’s Time to Reinvent America, Says Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Why NASA should abandon a manned mission to Mars
• How mobile phones will pioneer future space technology
• The implications of overpopulation are terrifying. But will we listen to them?
• Woo hoo! First pictures from the new set of Arrested Development
• US Olympian aren’t too thrilled about Fox news either
• Take a Cue from the Olympics to be the Best Business Athlete
• Why the Sikh temple shooting got less coverage than the Aurora massacre
• Why Do So Many Murderers Have Three Names?
• The Moral Significance of Sex Workers and People With Disabilities
• From Damn Interesting: Better Call Sol
• New type of chemical bond may form in extreme magnetic fields of stars
• How Big Is Infinity? An Animated Explanation from TED
• Probably should: Please turn on two-factor authentication
• The Science of “Breaking the Seal”
• 25 Behind-the-Scenes TV Photos That Will Mess With Your Mind
• Website: https://www.ilooklikebarackobama.com/
• Video: Animals Acting Like Sharks Week

Finally, a recording still for the ages: In 1996, just months before he died, Carl Sagan recorded this message to future colonists living on Mars.

• Pareidolia: A Bizarre Bug of the Human Mind Emerges in Computers 
• How text messaging became a humanitarian technology
• The internet as a hive mind
• How Mat Honan had his digital life dissolved by hackers and multiple security flaws
• France has backed away from it’s three strikes downloading law
• John Birmingham on the real cost of Curiosity
• From a NASA contractor: a conceptual video of the Dream Chaser space vehicle
• The ‘spray on’ skin that heals wounds
• The perfectly legal ‘heist’ of $95,000 from a bank
• House cats kill more critters than thought
• Returned to Family: Outlaw Ned Kelly’s Remains, 132 Years After His Death
• Trojan’s PR stunt: hands out 10,000 dildos today from hot dog carts
• From NPR: Dean Norris On Playing Good In ‘Breaking Bad’
• Prometheus (2012) – Calvinball Mythology and the Void of Meaning
• 21 links between unexpectedly shared TV universes
• Tumblr: People Dying Like Marion Cotillard

This also looks interesting: aupcoming HBO documentary called About Face that speaks with former supermodels and talks about plastic surgery and the business of beauty.

• In 1970, a NASA director wrote this letter answering Why Explore Space?
• Worthwhile read: an unexpected meeting with the inventor of the first programmable computer
• Also, visit the very first web page from more than 20 years ago
• Reddit harasses a teen  who may have faked her own cyber-bullying
• Thirty Is Not The New Twenty: Why Your 20s Matter
• Sad news: Tig Notaro Has Breast Cancer
• The Criminalisation of Mental Illness in Black America
• A 74 year-old car buff is selling off his antique car collection, says he wasted his life and would rather have had a wife
• Meanwhile, a New York neighborhood had a proper funeral for a 1982 Honda Civic
• Swiss sheep will warn shepherds of wolf attacks by SMS
• UK Kindle eBook sales have overtaken Amazon UK print sales
• How the BBC crushed NBC and brought Olympics coverage into the future
• Editorial: So, bumbling Boris Johnson is lovable and funny? Well, have I got news for you
• Video: Olympic Stadium sings “All You Need is Love”
• Plus: 10 hours of Ping Pong

Also, here’s the trailer for Zero Dark Hour, the new film from Hurt Locker director Katherine Bigelow about the events of SEAL Team Six and the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Slightly underwhelming, but I’m still looking forward to it.

With two prior DUIs, David Wheaton led cops along highways around western and northern Houston, at one point reaching 92 mph, the official limit for the micro-vehicle. Eventually Wheaton drove all the way to his driveway, where police arrested him without fuss.
via

• Today’s rhetorical question: A prequel to The Shining: ‘Wholly unnecessary’?
• The curious case of the blind man who can still see
• I need to keep better track of Australian billionaire Clive Palmer, he wants to clone a dinosaur for a Jurassic Park-style resort
• Bruce Lee on transformation
• DARPA and NIH to fund ‘human body on a chip’ research
• Energy Efficiency: New Drywall Building Material Can Cut Buildings’ Energy Consumption by 40%
• Abraham Lincoln Scrawled This Astonishing (Seven Word) Note To Save a Soldier’s Life
• This YouTube video could help cure Vertigo
• What Aurora Victims Might Face if James Holmes Pleaded Insane
• Answered: Do Olympic/Competitive Swimmers Pee in the Pool?
• A Glossary: of ‘carny’ slang
• Cooking Mama: Breaking Bad edition
• Visualised: the business of Bond films
• Tumblr: Go Cook Yourself

Also, Google Maps is teaming up with NASA to add street view of the Kennedy Space Center. Awesome.

Vintage Photos of Soldiers Kissing Loved Ones Good-bye

• Oh hell no… Rush Hour 4 Confirmed
• Oh hell yes… Unbaby.me replaces baby photos on Facebook ‘with awesome stuff’
• “Terminated”: Pepper-Spraying UC Davis Cop
• Editorial: Are the Boomers screwing the Millennials?
• White people with dreadlocks: Fearless fashion choice or co-optation by the privileged and clueless?
• The Story of Steve Jobs: An Inspiration or a Cautionary Tale?
• Looks to be interesting: Apple v Samsung case
• Interesting: Failing at Geek Feminism
• The speeding up of SETI’s hunt for aliens
• Is exploring Mars worth the financial investment?
• Crown Prosecution Service will attempt to persuade a jury that images of fisting should be classified as “extreme pornography”
• At the Olympics: 8 Badminton Stars Booted for Playing to Lose
• Recounted: The Time They Used a Cigarette Lighter to Light the Olympic Torch
• 35 Modern Words Recently Added to the Dictionary
• Today’s web-based game: Organ Trail

• How “The Power” Literally Rocked the House
  

  On July 5, 2011, the 39-story “Techno-Mart” mall in Seoul, South Korea shook for ten minutes, causing a two-day evacuation and an investigation. The cause of the tremors? Seismic experts concluded that “The Power,” a dance hit by the band Snap!, simply rocked too hard.

• Mitt Romney to Announce VP Pick Via Smartphone App
• Sad: Pianos are increasingly more likely to end up at the dump
• NY Times profiles the life of a drone pilot, the guy that waits for a kill shot 7,000 miles away
• A black momma with a white baby’s open letter to Louis C.K.
• How Being Wired to the ‘Net Poses an Existential Threat
• An Editorial on: Being too ‘plugged-in’ and tools to help get your life back.
• Advice from 1821 on How Imagination Can Save Us From Information Overload
• Nielsen Sued For Billions For Allegedly Manipulating TV Ratings Data (also, fuck Nielsen)
• On: What Does a Killer Think? and the latest research on mass murderers
• Haha, oh you (America): Man Charged With Illegally Feeding Alligator (That Bit Off His Hand)
• 13 People Who Don’t Know What ‘Literally’ Means
• Twitter account: @JamesHolmesDies

Asperatus clouds over Scotland via The Cloud Appreciation Society

• Olympic opening ceremony: Ai Weiwei’s review
• South Korea’s Im Dong Hyun:the ‘blind’ Olympics world record setting archer
• There Are Four Olympic Athletes Without Countries To Represent
• The Greatest Chris Brown Album Review of All Time: ‘No Stars Ever’
• Music Labels Won’t Share Pirate Bay Loot With Artists
• Computer confirms: All music sounds the same these days
• Strong evidence that a real name policy would fail to improve comment systems
• The New York Times is Now Supported by Readers, Not Advertisers
• Celebrities and their Unnecessary Public Apologies
• From Forbes: “The porn industry as I knew it is dead. And it appears a new industry has arisen.”
• Heath Ledger’s Joker was probably inspired by Tom Waits (gets an automatic yes from me)
• Where Did John Wayne Get His Walk?
• Ancestry.com Claims Obama Is Descendant of John Punch, First Enslaved African-American
• Mitt Romney follows up insulting London with straight-up racism in Israel
• Horror Hospital: The Most Shocking Photos And Testimony From The Dawood Military Hospital Scandal (warning: very graphic)
• Fall, Mortality, and the Machine: Tolkien and Technology
• Climate change study forces sceptical scientists to change minds
• The 50 Best Socially Awesome/Awkward Penguin Memes

• Yet to watch the Olympics opening ceremony, but I like Warren Ellis’ tweet-report version
• Plus, Danny Boyle’s programme introduction for the ceremony’s concept
• An interview with Alison Klayman, director of Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
• Can Creativity be Automated?
• Editorial on how Writing is Acting
• Brian Lewis Saunders made self portraits for each drug he took
• Library of Congress’ map collection is basically a map-porn hub for enthusiasts
• 3 Really Long Wars and 3 Really Short Wars
• Video: Yeah, being in a dust storm would be pretty mental
• The sport science of table tennis is pretty wack too
• Mashable’s 25 Twitter Accounts That Will Make You Smarter

Also, this. Just cause.

Celebrity Make-Unders via my modern met

• In 1989: a couple set out for a 18-month road trip and 23 years later, they’re still going
• Nostalgia: The making of Warcraft I
• via individual atoms: Researchers observe chemical reaction on the quantum level
• Scientists create basis for quantum processor chip
• Scientists also achieve single photon transmitter for quantum computing (thanks science)
• Force of Habit: Stress Hormones Switch Off Areas of the Brain for Goal-Directed Behaviour
• Whoa: US House of Reps overwhelmingly pass Federal Reserve Audit Bill
• The insane junk-food diets of high-endurance Olympians
• 9 of the Coolest Secret Subway Stations in the World

And then er… yeah, Russia.

• It’s ALIVE! First ever software simulation of an entire organism
• iPv4 addresses: The UK is predicted to run out sometime this weekend
• Meet: the ‘bots’ that edit Wikipedia
• Ha! Good Luck! YouTube urges it’s users to start using their full names when commenting
• At the Olympic opening ceremony: The US will probably not ‘dip’ it’s flag and here’s why
• Will London Really Erase Banksy’s New Olympics Art?
• Damn! Some unlucky guy dropped a $77,000 bottle of Connac
• Sometimes, sometimes a man’s gotta track down The Big lebowski filming locations
• Christopher Nolan’s farewell letter to the Batman franchise
• Trivia: Why we don’t consume dairy products from mammals that aren’t cows
• Infographic: How the internet shat all over the music industry
• Is it a subconscious fear of space exploration and the universe that explains NASA’s budget cuts?
• How networks try to trick viewers into thinking their awful shows are critically adored (spoiler: lying)

Also, a downward lighting negative ground flash: at 7,207 images per second. Awesome.