Randall Munroe

Comic. [Person 1 talking to a person with shoulder-length hair and a person with a white hat.] PERSON 1: I would never get an electric vehicle. Sure, they sound great, but what do you do if the battery runs out of charge? [caption] I felt pretty silly when someone finally explained tome that EVs are rechargeable.

Electric Vehicles

xkcd.com/3214/

Comic. [Two people looking at a board with apparent formula (3.1.3.1)/(3.1.2.1)] PERSON: Do mammologists think these are hard? I mean, this one just evaluates to 3/2. [caption] Mathematicians encounter dental formulas

Dental Formulas

xkcd.com/3213/

What if you floated upwards 1 ft every second? YouTube video by xkcd's What If?

What if you floated upwards 1 ft every second?

What the latest What If? video in collaboration with
@minuteearth.bsky.social!

youtu.be/oTzW-mTQd5w

4-panel comic: Astronomers asking researchers from different departments to help them identify the “little red dots” in JWST images: (1) Entomologists [Person 1 behind easel that is black with red dots on it, looked at by Person 2 with shoulder-length hair.] PERSON 2: Clover mites. (2) Computer Scientists [Person 1 behind easel that is black with red dots on it, looked at by Person 3 with beanie.] PERSON 3: Stuck pixels. (3) Dermatologists [Person 1 behind easel that is black with red dots on it, looked at by Person 4 with ponytail.] PERSON 4: Cherry angiomas. (4) Graphic designers [Person 1 behind easel that is black with red dots on it, looked at by Person 5 with short hair.] PERSON 5: No, those are vermillion, or maybe jasper. Can I see your color settings?

Little Red Dots

xkcd.com/3212/

Comic. PERSON 1: I got 10,000 amp service and put each outlet on its own 500 amp breaker, so I never have to worry about overloading a circuit again! PERSON 2 with ponytail: Clever. PERSON 1: Oh, that reminds me–Do you know where to buy cords that don’t catch fire?

Amperage

xkcd.com/3211/

4-panel comic. (1) [Person with white hat talking to another person.] PERSON 1 with white hat: As Sherlock Holmes said, When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. (2) PERSON 2: What about the possibility that you forgot to eliminate a possibility? Or that you eliminated one incorrectly? Both of those remain, too. (3) PERSON 1: You’re being pedantic. It’s just a general rule for deduction. PERSON 2: But it’s a *bad rule*. (4) PERSON 2: How often have you thought, “I can’t find this thing, and I’ve searched the whole house. The only place I haven’t looked is the car, so it *must* be there.” PERSON 2: ...And then it’s never in the car. PERSON 1: *It’s never in the car!*

Eliminating the Impossible

xkcd.com/3210/

Comic. [Person is sitting at a desk with a laptop, turned toward voice coming from off-panel.] VOICE FROM OFF-PANEL: I got you the ingredients for dinner tonight. Oh, and the plums in the fridge drawer are for my yogurt tomorrow; you should just leave them. Be back later! PERSON’S THOUGHT BUBBLE: Oh no. [caption] Help. It actually happened. I shouldn’t. But how can I not!?

Plums

xkcd.com/3209/

4-panel comic. (1) [Two people in a room with bed and nightstand. One person points at something on ceiling.] PERSON 1 with short hair on top of head: What’s that device? PERSON 2 with ponytail: Part of the supernova early warning system. There hasn’t been a Milky Way supernova in over a century. Astronomers don’t want to miss the next one. (2) [Person 2 sits on bed.] PERSON 2: 20 years ago, we set up a supernova alert system using neutrino detectors. It should give us a few hours’ advance notice. (3) PERSON 2: If it ever goes off, every astronomer on Earth will scramble to point their equipment at the sky. PERSON 1: Oh, Ok. So is that a detector? Or some kind of telescope? (4) PERSON 2 [leaving]: Fireworks launcher. I *refuse* to sleep through a supernova. PERSON 1: I think I’ll spend the night at my place instead.

SNEWS

xkcd.com/3208/

Comic. Bad Map Projection #216: Zero Declination. A cylindrical projection distorted so that up is *magnetic* north. Distorted map with red arrows around the edges pointing different directions.

Bad Map Projection: Zero Declination

xkcd.com/3207/

4-panel comic. (1) [Person 1 unrolls carpet outdoors while Person 2 with short hair pulls cart full of more rolls.] (2) [Continuing uphill.] (3) [After going over a bump that takes them downhill, both people catch carpet roll that’s falling off the cart.] (4) PERSON 2: You’re *sure* we started installing the wall-to-wall carpet on the right side of the wall? PERSON 1: The other end of the room *must* be getting close by now.

Installation

xkcd.com/3206/

What if you made a jetpack using rifles? YouTube video by xkcd's What If?

What if you made a jetpack using rifles?

What the latest What If? video in collaboration with @minuteearth.bsky.social!

youtu.be/IdlQsjq5vKo

Comic. [Person with ponytail pointing to diagram on wall as she talks to two other people, one with short hair.] PERSON 1: The high carbon content of the skeleton indicates that the individual lived less than 12.6 billion years ago, after the first round of stellar nucleosynthesis. [caption] Cosmologist carbon dating

Carbon Dating

xkcd.com/3205/

Comic. [2x2 chart. Top left quadrant: seem like dinosaurs x are dinosaurs. Silhouettes of dinosaurs stegosaurus, triceratops, tyrannosaurus, velociraptor, and long-neck dinosaur. Top right quadrant: seem like dinosaurs x are not dinosaurs. Silhouettes of mosasaur, quetzalcoatlus, dimetrodon, plesiosaur, and pteranodon. Bottom left quadrant: don’t seem like dinosaurs x are dinosaurs. Silhouettes of penguin, egret, ostrich, pigeon, falcon. Bottom right: don’t seem like dinosaurs x are not dinosaurs. Silhouettes of squirrel, stapler, plant, person, and bicycle.]

Dinosaurs And Non-Dinosaurs

xkcd.com/3204/

Comic. [Over dark background, a five-pointed pentagram-style star orbits around a white circle with a smaller orbit.] [caption] Space news: Astronomers have found the first known system with a main-sequence star orbited by a five-pointed one.

Binary Star

xkcd.com/3203/

Comic. [Person talking to person with black hat.] PERSON 1: Historically, it refers to a ceremony to predict the weather using a rodent. But nowadays people often use it to mean “a time loop experienced by one person.” PERSON 2: …What. [caption] Easily our weirdest holiday.

Groundhog Day Meaning

xkcd.com/3202/

Comic. Conjecture: It’s possible to construct a convincing proof without words, pictures, or content of any kind. Proof: [empty box] [caption] Proofs without words are cool, but we can go further.

Proof Without Content

xkcd.com/3201/

You are being misled about renewable energy technology. YouTube video by Technology Connections

Let's do this.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9...

Comic. [A chemical formula trailing off the right side] C1076 H1080 Ac1067 Ag1069 Al1075 Am1026 Ar1075 As1070 At1047 Au1069 B1071 Ba1070 Be [caption] The approximate chemical formula for the universe

Chemical Formula

xkcd.com/3200/

3-panel comic. (1) [Three small arthropods on ocean floor.] ARTHROPOD 1: Now that we’re multicellular, what are your plans? I’m gonna evolve little legs and swim around with them! ARTHROPOD 2: I’m gonna evolve sharp pincers and use them to crunch stuff! ARTHROPOD 3: I’m gonna evolve glands to make string from my butt and use it to construct elaborate geometric nets hundreds of times my size to catch other animals. (2) [Silence] (3) ARTHROPOD 1: *Dude.* ARTHROPOD 2: Can you *please* just be normal about this? ARTHROPOD 3: *What??!*

Early Arthropods

xkcd.com/3199/

4-panel comic. (1) [Person 1 approaches Person 2 (with ponytail), sitting at desk with a laptop.] PERSON 1: Do you have an extension cord with prongs at both ends? Can I borrow it? PERSON 2: *NO!!!* (2) [Person 2 throwing up her hands.] PERSON 2: No one should *EVER* buy or make those! They start fires, destroy equipment, and risk electrocuting you or grid workers! PERSON 1: OK, OK, I get it. (3) PERSON 1: Can I just borrow a regular cord, then? PERSON 2: Sure. Here. [Person 2 hands cord to Person 1.] PERSON 1: The prongs aren’t important. I just thought they’d help anchor it to the wall. PERSON 2: Wait, what are you– (4) PERSON 1: I need it to help hold up the top half of the reflector for this plutonium core that I’m– PERSON 2: *AAAAAAAA!!!!* [Person 2 screams with hands on head as Person 1 walks away.]

Double-Pronged Extension Cord

xkcd.com/3198/

Comic. [Person pointing to graph on wall, addressing two people – one with close-cropped haircut, one with shoulder-length styled haircut – seated behind a desk.] PERSON: By lowering the planned satellite orbit, we can reduce the size of the launch vehicle required. We can reduce costs further by eliminating the satellite entirely in favor of an aerial platform. Some equipment could be moved to a ground-based facility, reducing required aircraft time. Additional savings could be… [caption] I’m trying to get NASA to build a shed in my backyard.

Cost Savings

xkcd.com/3197/

Comic. My experience seeing the Northern Lights: [Graph: x axis is increasing time, y axis is increasing aurora coolness, going from visible glow on the horizon, color only visible in photos -> sheets and pillars of light, colors faintly visible -> “oh wow, it’s getting really bright now.” -> spectacular ribbons of color spanning the sky and illuminating the landscape. Graph shows dips and peaks over many hours with the topmost peeks for only around 5 or 10 minutes.] [caption] Aurora tip: If you get good views of the aurora, keep watching the sky; you might suddenly get great ones.

Aurora Coolness

xkcd.com/3196/

How long would you survive with no DNA? YouTube video by xkcd's What If?

How long would you survive with no DNA?

What the latest What If? video in collaboration with
@minuteearth.bsky.social!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3oL...

Comic. [Two people floating with objects surrounding them.] PERSON with ponytail: You know, NASA and Roscosmos actually originally named it The *International Station*, but a translation issue led someone to accidentally transcribe the formatting.

International Station

xkcd.com/3195/

Comic. Standard 16-Part Epoxy. [Epoxy applicator with multiple labeled chambers in different colors: resin; hardener; filler, softener; rosin; stuff that bonds permanently to skin and nothing else; stuff that will turn white and crack over a few days, for decorative appearance; placebo; minced duct tape; acetone Fragrance; powdered bar magnets; polyethylvinylesteracetate; 2-polyethylvinylesteracetate; salt and pepper to taste; blood sample from the Gorilla Glue gorillas; stuff that bonds to every known material except yours]

16-Part Epoxy

xkcd.com/3194/

Comic: Common Sailing Rigs. [18 boats with different sail types, labeled.] Lateen; Bermuda rigged sloop; Ketch, Gaff rigged sloop; yawl; schooner; Ketch-rigged Gaff; Kloop-rigged sketch; bunkbed rig; Flettner rig; Oops, all Spinnakers; keel rig; kite rig; longsail rig; deckhand obliterator; offset rig; mastless rig; unclassifiable chaos rig.

Sailing Rigs

xkcd.com/3193/

4-panel comic. (1) PERSON 1 with ponytail: The inspection revealed a few problems. Looks like your planet needs an alignment. PERSON 2: Oh? (2) PERSON 1: Yeah, your magnetic axis is 400 miles off-center from your rotational one. PERSON 2: Is that bad? (3) PERSON 1: The unbalanced magnetic field could cause radiation anomalies over the South Atlantic. Have you noticed any spacecraft equipment failures in that area? PERSON 2: There *have* been a few, actually. (4) PERSON 1: We can give you a loaner planet while yours is in the shop. Is a gas giant OK? PERSON 2: I’d *really* prefer a solid surface. PERSON 1: Sorry, it’s all we have. But it’ll just be for a few days.

Planetary Alignment

xkcd.com/3192/

Comic. [Two adults, one with short light hair, walking with a child with spiky hair.] PERSON: Oops, I forgot to say “rabbit rabbit” on January first! CHILD: Why do you do that? PERSON: Just a superstition. CHILD: What’s a superstition? PERSON: It’s a way to train yourself to feel like any bad thing that happens is your fault.

Superstition

xkcd.com/3191/

I Tried to Be the Government. It Did Not Go Well. My five-month quest to monitor the weather, track inflation, and inspect milk for harmful microorganisms

if you want a long read that involves udders, a hot air balloon, and some extremely dubious data on egg prices, the story I’ve been working on for the last few months where I tried to single-handedly take on every government function myself is now online! www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

Comic. [Person looking at giraffe with disconnected leg segments attached by strings.] [caption] While tensegrity is rare in the animal kingdom, a few species, such as Buckminster’s Giraffe, are known to employ it.

Tensegrity

xkcd.com/3190/