Eric Limer

Why Counterfeit Ketchup Is Exploding in New Jersey

In a warehouse in New Jersey, some messy, weird stuff went down. There was an explosion, but not just any explosion: a counterfeit ketchup explosion. No, nobody was trying to sabotage the illicit shipment, there’s some science behind it. Admittedly there are some other questions here? Why counterfeit ketchup? The plan was to put cheap,…

Stratospheric Space Jumps, Reasons to Not Pre-Order Surface, Incoming iPad Minis, and More

If you haven’t been living under a rock, you know a lot went down this week. If you have, well boy do I have a treat for you. We’ve got jumps from edge of space, face transplants, insane desktop computers, an impending Apple apology, the dish on pre-ording Microsoft Surface, and did I mention a…

Watch These Dry Ice Bubbles Turn Into Swirling Alien Planets

It doesn’t take a genius to realize dry ice is awesome, and with Halloween right around the corner, you’re bound to be seeing a lot of it. But did you know dry ice bubbles can be used as a practical effect to make whirling, churning alien planets? https://gizmodo.com/if-you-build-one-thing-this-week-make-it-a-shoulder-la-5339419 Like all good practical effects, the premise…

Surface pre-orders have now sold out, despite our sage advice. [Engadget]

This Crazy-Looking Spaghetti Monster is a Heart Made Out of Glass

Think you’re prone to heartbreak? Be glad you don’t have one of these glass ones. Models like this, which show the heart and its surrounding tendrils that reach out to the lungs, as well as all kinds of other vascular maps of brains and other body parts, are made by Farlow’s Scientific Glassblowing in a…

Too Bad This Apple-Samsung Fanboy Peace Treaty Isn’t Real

The smartphone fanboy wars seem both ridiculous and eternal. It’s like everywhere you go on the Internet, a simple statement of preference—even one that isn’t pig-head and disparaging—can serve as the flash point for a fanboy skirmish. Isn’t it about time we signed a peace treaty? https://gizmodo.com/the-apple-vs-android-fanboy-wars-in-one-gif-5951243 This agreement was written up for CNN by…

Does Anyone Actually Want an E-Ink Smartphone?

E-ink is great for eReaders because it doesn’t draw a lot of power, has good contrast, and works great in direct sunlight. But reading is a very specific application. Would anyone want an e-ink phone? Would you? [ArmDevices.net via Slashgear]

What It Looks Like to Learn Quantum Physics

You probably don’t know much about quantum physics beyond the fact that it’s really complicated. Allow us to add to your pseudo-knowledge a little more; this is what it looks like to learn it. Granted, if you are actually learning quantum physics, all these scrawled characters actually represent meaningful ideas, whereas for most of us,…

The Greenest Street in America Is Paved With Smog-Eating Cement

Cars create a lot of pollution, but one in Chicago doesn’t just give them free passage; it also cleans up after them. This street’s special pavement actually feeds on smog. The two-mile stretch of Cermak Road and Blue Island Avenue, now being billed as “the greenest street in America,” is paved with something called photocatalytic…

Surgical Attack Tool miniFlame Joins the Big Happy Cyberweapon Family

We already know about the state-sponsored malware triplets Flame, Gauss, and Stuxnet, but now a new one is rearing its little head. Dubbed as “miniFlame” by Kapersky Labs, it’s a lot less cute and more dangerous than it sounds. https://gizmodo.com/meet-flame-the-massive-spy-malware-infiltrating-iran-5913779 Also known as “SPE” and “John” by the attackers who use it, miniFlame was probably…

Is This a New Sony Nexus Phone?

At this point it seems pretty certain that LG is going to be putting out a Nexus phone, but it may not be Google’s only dancing partner. A few pictures that popped up over at the XperiaBlog show what’s purported to be a Sony Nexus phone, the Nexus X. https://gizmodo.com/clear-shots-of-the-lg-nexus-phone-its-still-sparkly-5950837 There have been rumors that…

This Is What It’s Like to Photograph the Wreckage of Fukushima

The nuclear disaster at Fukushima was a horrible tragedy for all involved, and like its precursor Chernobyl, it left behind a hollow husk surrounding it. Photographer Donald Weber, who also documented that most famous nuclear aftermath in Ukraine, traveled to the Fukushima buffer zone, to capture what he could. VICE went with him, and made…

BATS: Wolfwrangler

BATS are a five-piece math-rockish band from Dublin who are not nearly famous enough for their amazing debut album Red in Tooth and Claw, which features what is no doubt the best song about the Higgs Boson ever. “Wolfwrangler” is the first single off their upcoming sophomore effort The Sleep of Reason, and man is…

NASA Is Working on a Nasal Spray to Keep Astronauts From Throwing Up in Space

Red Bull may be sending dudes to jump from the stratosphere, but NASA’s still out there doing stuff too. It’s not quite as flashy as livestreamed sky-diving, by NASA is currently working on a fast-acting, anti-nausea nasal spray. Talk about technology we could all benefit from. It turns out that over half of astronauts develop…

What Would It Take For You To Go Sky-Diving From the Stratosphere?

Surely by now you’ve heard someone say “Man, with balls that big, I’m surprised Felix Baumgartner even fit into that capsule.” You can’t deny it, he’d need some serious balls jumping from the stratosphere is just as insane and frightening as it is awesome. https://gizmodo.com/space-jump-full-video-supersonic-awesomeness-5951621 But maybe some you of think “frightening” and “insane” is…

This Antique Japanese Ladle Could Shoot You in the Face

Normally, if you’re thinking about what kind of weapons you can find in the kitchen, you immediately think of the knives. It turns out ladles can be formidable too. At least, they can be when they’re also guns. The single shot kitchen impliment here dates back to around the 1850s. In addition to serving as…

Report: iPad Mini Prices Leak and Point to Eight Different Models

With all the iPad Mini rumors that have been swirling around, the one thing we’ve been missing is info on price. Now, according to a leaked screenshot from Mobile Geeks, we have a potential price point we can sweat over and scrutinize: 249 Euro, or $320 US, for an 8GB, Wi-Fi only iPad Mini. https://gizmodo.com/the-single-biggest-question-about-the-ipad-mini-5949150…

This Jumpy Font Has Had a Few Too Many Cups of Coffee

There are all kinds of fonts out there, but they pretty much all have one thing in common: they’re rigid. Typode, on the other hand, has its characters defined by coordinate so they can skew, stretch, twist, and do all kinds of neat-looking, hard-to-read tricks. The idea behind Typode, aside from looking cool, is that…

Are Your Future Passwords Hidden In the Jiggling of Your Eyeballs?

Eye scanners have always been one of the security devices people think of when they think “high-tech” and “high security.” But they’re not perfect yet, some can be fooled with contacts or even pictures, but new pushes into detecting your personal eye jiggle could change that. The eye-movement system, being developed by Oleg Komogortsev, of…

One of Gizmodo’s Apple-Hating Apple Fanboys Makes It Onto Saturday Night Live

Last night, Saturday Night Live ran a little sketch pairing off some tech pundits with Foxconn workers over complaints about the iPhone 5, and we were lucky enough to be one of the tech-whiner targets. In an all-too apt lampoon of how first-world-problem-y whining about the iPhone 5 is, our own fictional Dennis Metcalf got…