Esther Inglis-Arkell, Author at Gizmodo

How you depend on relativity every day, without knowing it

Special and general relativity help us see time, space, and energy in strange new ways. That strangeness seems to remove the theories from our everyday experience. Despite their exotic appeal, Einstein’s famous theories are part of our everyday life. Find out how you depend on special and general relativity to find your way around. The…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 18

Astronaut does an experiment with candy corn in space

Don Pettit, on the international space station, swiped everyone’s candy corn – for science! In this video, with candy corn, water, and oil, he shows how soap molecules clean people’s clothes. Then he pigs out on the candy corn. Soap molecules are a collision of two kinds of molecules. One is polar, meaning it has…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 18

10 Animals that Dance Better than the Penguins in Happy Feet

Penguins with their darling little tuxedo-like feathers may steal the show in the CGI dance movie Happy Feet II — but there are animals out there that put on way better displays than a little tap dance. Find out about the animals that strut their stuff better than a few ice-hopping leopard seal snacks. Top…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 18

This holiday, give your favorite Special Forces soldier a three hundred dollar balloon

Soldiers trapped in the jungle may need to summon help. To do this they need no radios, no signal flares, no high-tech GPS. They just need a simple (but expensive) balloon. We can all recognize members of the Special Forces when we see them. They’re the ones who walk in slow motion to dramatic music,…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 17

Hear a chorus of electric fish

So what do you get when you put together a tank full of black ghost knife fish, some audio equipment, and a bunch of crazy people? A fish chorus. Black ghost knife fish, which would totally be an awesome name for a band, use electricity to pick up information about their surroundings. If sensors convert…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 17

You shouldn’t build a liquid nitrogen bomb – but here’s how to do it

There’s a simple way to make liquid nitrogen cause an explosion. To be clear, this is something you shouldn’t do. But there are tons of people doing it! Some of them in pools. Find out the easy way to do it, and why you should always set a liquid nitrogen bomb off where there is…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 17

How physicists revealed the unexpected color of a 47-million-year-old moth

Though fossils can reveal many things about the paleolithic world, they can also lie. Case in point: The blue-tinged fossils of an ancient ancestor of the forester moth (pictured). For years, scientists believed these fossils meant the 47 million-year-old moths had blue wings. But a new analysis by physicists has revealed that the truth is…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 16

The lost lake that was rediscovered by lasers and genetics

Twenty-two thousand years ago, a lake was formed, burst its dam, and washed away. Recently, two sciences came together to re-discover this short-lived chunk of water. Find out how even a brief rush of water and rock left genetic and geological traces that were picked up millenia later. Sometimes the sciences get all in a…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 15

Why an omniscient foe will always lose a game of chicken

Find out how omniscience can let one opponent make a chump of another in one paradoxical game but get completely trounced in another. Game theory at its weirdest, folks. So you’re down on planet Mrrfrrglebrox wearing your lovely red shirt, seeking out new life and new civilizations. You come across a being called Zentarr. Zentarr…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 14

A Gifted Man pretty much gives up the ghost

It’s been pretty clear that A Gifted Man has been itching to switch seats from ghostly love story to straight-up medical drama from the beginning. In the latest two episodes, the show finally slides its second butt cheek off the stool of the supernatural and makes a break for pure medicinal soap opera. The episode…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 12

Here’s why doctors always whack you in the knee — no, it’s not what you think.

Yes, yes, reflexes. But why the knee? And what would it mean if your knee didn’t jerk. Find out why you are beaten with a rubber mallet as part of a medical check-up. There are plenty of tests doctors do that live in infamy; especially when it involves telling a patient to cough. Only one…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 11

Why does sugar shoot sparks?

We’ve all heard about getting sparks from a lifesaver, especially a wintergreen one, but in reality you don’t need a brand name to make sparks. All you need is a lump of sugar and the willingness to subject it to an untimely death. Find out how and why to get sparks from sweetness. The bakers…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 11

Ten (Pseudo) Scientific Theories About the Mona Lisa’s Smile

The Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, is possibly the most well-known piece of art in the world. One of the reasons why people wax rhapsodic over the painting is the tiny hint of a smile on the woman’s face. That fascinating expression has launched a thousand silly theories. Find out about the physics, the…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 11

The tiny genetic tweak that gives mice super strength

An inhibitor in your body might be sapping your strength, taking away your endurance, making you feel cold, and giving you diabetes. When scientists eliminated it, they unlocked the key to super strength in both mice and worms. Find out what’s in your body that’s making you weak. Your worst enemy could be floating around…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 11

Killer solar flares are physically impossible, says NASA

Although we are ramping up to a high in solar activity, there’s no reason to look at the sun with fear and horror. NASA has announced that a killer solar flare is a physical impossibility. The eleven year cycle of high solar activity could do a little damage, like altering the upper atmosphere through solar…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 11

See electron tweezers at work

We already have optical tweezers, which allow tiny quantities of matter to be held and manipulated by beams of light. With electron tweezers we might be able to grab hold of single atoms. A team observing how small quantities of metal behaved as they were transitioning from solid to liquid noticed something funny happened when…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 10

What magnetized the moon?

The earth has naturally occurring magnetized rocks appearing, in part, because of its moving internal core which gives it a massive magnetic field. The moon has no such core, but it too has magnetized rocks. Planetary scientists believe, though, that the moon has its own ways of creating magnets. The internal motion of the earth’s…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 10

The Unilluminable Room of George Tokarsky

In the house that math built, there are many rooms. The Unilluminable Room is one of the strangest. How do you build a room that is guaranteed to have one spot of complete darkness? Here’s the weird solution to this 26 year mystery. Imagine a room where all the walls are covered in floor-to-ceiling mirrors.…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 10

The acousto-optical effect that uses lasers to see sound

If you’ve ever sat in a sound “dead zone” in a movie theater or concert, you know what it’s like to be at a loud event where everything sounds muffled and distorted. Luckily, lasers may soon put an end to these dead zones. The UK’s National Physical Laboratory has figured out how to use lasers…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 8

Loxodromes, rhumb lines, and the problem of sailing into infinity at the North Pole

Want to know how to get from New York to London? Set a course 73 degrees east of north and just keep going. Congratulations, you’re on the express loxodrome. Loxodromes are also known as rhumb lines. A rhumb is a path that will take you from one point of the earth to another if you…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Nov 7

Esther Inglis-Arkell

How you depend on relativity every day, without knowing it

Astronaut does an experiment with candy corn in space

10 Animals that Dance Better than the Penguins in Happy Feet

This holiday, give your favorite Special Forces soldier a three hundred dollar balloon

Hear a chorus of electric fish

You shouldn’t build a liquid nitrogen bomb – but here’s how to do it

How physicists revealed the unexpected color of a 47-million-year-old moth

The lost lake that was rediscovered by lasers and genetics

Why an omniscient foe will always lose a game of chicken

A Gifted Man pretty much gives up the ghost

Here’s why doctors always whack you in the knee — no, it’s not what you think.

Why does sugar shoot sparks?

Ten (Pseudo) Scientific Theories About the Mona Lisa’s Smile

The tiny genetic tweak that gives mice super strength

Killer solar flares are physically impossible, says NASA

See electron tweezers at work

What magnetized the moon?

The Unilluminable Room of George Tokarsky

The acousto-optical effect that uses lasers to see sound

Loxodromes, rhumb lines, and the problem of sailing into infinity at the North Pole

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