Things We Saw Today: Creepy Morse Code-like Dunes on Mars

NASA’s HiRISE camera snapped a really neat photo of some dunes on Mars that look like the dots and dashes that make up Morse code. Though likely not a message (come on, let’s be real), the code spells out: “NEE NED ZB 6TNN DEIBEDH SIEFI EBEEE SSIEI ESEE SEEE !!” Any lizard people care to translate? (via Gizmodo, image via NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

• In other space news, University of California Santa Cruz astronomers have discovered clouds of water on a planet outside of our solar system–a major first, as no other planets outside our solar system have shown any similar signs. (via Huffington Post)
• Speaking of stellar events, Lin-Manuel Miranda took his final bow as the lead in Hamilton, then promptly cut his hair off. His final bow was epic in and of itself, but leave it to Miranda to find new ways of surprising folks. (via The Daily Dot)

Summer Games Done Quick, a video game speed running charity event recently took place, and featured this robot who beat Super Mario Bros. 3 in two seconds. By having their robot spam up to 6,000 button presses a second, speedrunners total_, ais523, dwangoAC and TASBot (actually a modified Nintendo R.O.B. robot) were able to exploit a glitch that sent them right to the end of the game in record time. (via Kotaku)

• One of the cornerstones of the Pokémon games lies in trading Pokémon you’ve captured. This is something that Niantic Labs realizes quite well, as they’ve announced that Pokémon Go will soon allows players to trade captured Pokémon with each other. Now about player versus player battles… (via The Verge)
• LEGO recently unveiled a 4,080 piece LEGO set based on Cinderella Castle at the Disney’s Magic Kingdom and Tokyo Disneyland. It’s a big ol’ honkin’ set, one that’s sure to keep your kid (or you) busy for a while. Oh, and the interior is fully designed and pretty darn detailed, too! Nice. (via CBR)

Hella stuff. What’d you see today, pals?

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Jessica Lachenal

Jessica Lachenal is a writer who doesn’t talk about herself a lot, so she isn’t quite sure how biographical info panels should work. But here we go anyway. She's the Weekend Editor for The Mary Sue, a Contributing Writer for The Bold Italic (thebolditalic.com), and a Staff Writer for Spinning Platters (spinningplatters.com). She's also been featured in Model View Culture and Frontiers LA magazine, and on Autostraddle. She hopes this has been as awkward for you as it has been for her.

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