Esther Inglis-Arkell, Author at Gizmodo

This Is The Tiniest Fight On The Planet

The CSIRO gives us a scanning electron microscope image of the world’s smallest battle to the death. Are you not entertained?! The above fight is one we rarely get to see, because both combatants are just under one millimeter in size. Facing us is a two-spot spider mite, which some of you will recognize as…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Crazy-Ass History Of A Boring-Ass Chemical

You now might use saltpeter if you want an old stump in your yard to decompose faster, but for a millennium it was the cause of wars, massacres, and great grassroots scientific efforts. It changed the history of the world. Saltpeter, or saltpetre, is also known as potassium nitrate. It’s simply a potassium atom, a…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Field Cameras Catch Deer Eating Birds—Wait, Why Do Deer Eat Birds?

Deer aren’t the slim, graceful vegans we thought they were. Scientists using field cameras have caught deer preying on nestling song birds. And it’s not just deer. Herbivores the world over may be supplementing their diets. When researchers in North Dakota set up “nest cams” over the nests of song birds, they expected to see…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Would You Kiss An Electrified Woman?

In the 1700s, scientific demonstrations involving electricity were all the rage. A physics professor came up with a saucy twist called “Electrifying Venus,” where he took a young, pretty woman from the audience, electrified her, and then invited men to kiss her. As crazy as it sounds, the public was ravenous for demonstrations of the…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

How To Use A Condiment To Get Away With Murder

We’ve all seen an intrepid investigator spray down a crime scene with luminol and turn off the light, and a seemingly innocent room glows blue, illuminated by the leftover traces of gore. This is usually a sign someone was horribly murdered in that room. But in reality it’s also possible that they got into a…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Here’s a Cat That’s Not a Cat (Or Is It?)

This animal is a fossa. At first it closely resembles a cat. But when you look a little closer, close enough to look at its DNA . . . it’s still pretty confusing. The fossa is the top carnivore in Madagascar. It is six feet long from nose to tail, sixty pounds, and moves with…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

A Brain Injury Could Make Your World Look Like This

This is how someone with hemianopsia sees the world. The sight is not due to eye damage. It’s due to a brain injury that literally blanks out one half of everything they look at. The complicating factor is that sometimes, the patients don’t even realize that they can’t see. A stroke does damage to the…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Why Adults Are More Likely To Be Hit Hard By The Measles Than Children

The recent measles outbreak has everyone taking another look at “childhood” diseases. Why are these diseases, relatively mild in children over five, so often devastating to adults? An infectious disease expert talks to io9 about possible explanations for why these viruses hit us hard when we should be at our healthiest. Top image: Associated Press…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Grand Central Station Is Radioactive

Behold, the miserable relic of a toxic era! Its denizens scurry through it, unaware or unable to avoid the poison it gives off. Seriously, though, Grand Central Station gives you a dose of radiation when you go through it, thanks to the granite used to build it. Radiation is a part of the natural world,…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Let MIT Show You How To Be A Murderous Mary Poppins

Remember being enchanted as a kid when Mary Poppins poured out medicine of different colors from the same bottle? This video from MIT lets you pull the same “magic trick”! Only instead of medicine, it’s bleach. At first, I didn’t know why this video charmed me so much. It’s just cabbage water as a pH…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

How Scientists Have Made Bullets Out Of Light

Light bullets are not the deadly things their names make them out to be. They are, however, decidedly weird. To make a light bullet, researchers have to make a pulse of laser light that is continuously re-focusing itself. The Solitary Wave When you turn on a flashlight, or even a laser beam, and shine it…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

How Parisians Did “Guillotine Chic”

The Revolution and the Terror devastated French society, and then receded. In their place they left a weird, chaotic society with a very strange form of chic and an even stranger form of fashionable lady. The French Revolution was kickstarted by food shortages, but political change failed to supply people with bread. Wars against foreign…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

How Radiation Nearly Broke Physics

It was the heady days of the early 1900s, and radiation was all the rage. Researchers had just found a kind of radiation called “beta decay,” and they discovered that it did something that seemed to smash one of the basic tenets of physics. Here’s how the lowly neutrino saved the entire field. At the…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

One Of The Hazards Of The 1700s Was Death By Rouge

The late 1700s were not known for their long life-expectancy. One of the many sources of death, at the time, was a nasty little thing with the incongruously pleasant name of “cinnabar.” We’ll show you how fashion trends combined with chemistry to kill people off. No one puts on make-up for their health. In the…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Mohs Scale Covers Everything From Diamonds to Double Entendres

Geologists do it according to the Mohs Scale of Hardness. There. That’s your “hardness” joke for the post. Now down to business, with the hardest (and softest) scale there is. In 1812, people had just about given up trying to make various precious elements using alchemy, and resigned themselves to scratching what they could out…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

You Can Make Beer More Alcoholic By Freezing It

If you have a freezing day, a powerful desire to get drunk as quickly as possible, and a bunch of beer, here’s a way to increase the concentration of alcohol in your brew. Learn about jacking. Yes, it’s called that. In the old days, people were even more interested in getting drunk than we are…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Everyone Thinks Breaking The Rules Gets Things Done. They’re Wrong.

If you think that breaking free of the system, disregarding the rules, and thinking outside the box will fix everything, you join a celebrated crowd — 90% of whom are completely wrong. In real life, rules really weren’t made to be broken, and there are significant benefits to those who follow them. A Useful Narrative…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

This Doctor Taught His Medical Students To Be Body Snatchers

Andreas Vesalius was disappointed with his medical education. He figured out new ways to educate himself — ways that often involved a shovel, a set of duplicate keys to a graveyard, and his own students. Born in Brussels in the early 1500s, Andreas Vesalius was an ambitious young man who wanted the best from his…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Why The Aardvark May Be The Strangest Creature On Earth

The aardvark looks like a few other animals — the anteater, the armadillo, the pig — but it’s closely related to none of them. It may be one of the world’s few unique creatures. Nature is inventive and therefore crowded. If one design proliferates, it spawns variations of itself, which is why weasels can be…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

In the 1800s, Courts Tried to Enforce Partnerships With Dolphins

This weird-looking thing is an Irrawaddy dolphin, which lives in the brackish water at the mouth of large rivers. It’s too slow to catch its own food. This limitation led to a lot of dolphins being the basis for legal disputes, as late as the 1800s. The Irrawaddy river winds its way through Myanmar, giving…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Esther Inglis-Arkell

This Is The Tiniest Fight On The Planet

The Crazy-Ass History Of A Boring-Ass Chemical

Field Cameras Catch Deer Eating Birds—Wait, Why Do Deer Eat Birds?

Would You Kiss An Electrified Woman?

How To Use A Condiment To Get Away With Murder

Here’s a Cat That’s Not a Cat (Or Is It?)

A Brain Injury Could Make Your World Look Like This

Why Adults Are More Likely To Be Hit Hard By The Measles Than Children

Grand Central Station Is Radioactive

Let MIT Show You How To Be A Murderous Mary Poppins

How Scientists Have Made Bullets Out Of Light

How Parisians Did “Guillotine Chic”

How Radiation Nearly Broke Physics

One Of The Hazards Of The 1700s Was Death By Rouge

The Mohs Scale Covers Everything From Diamonds to Double Entendres

​You Can Make Beer More Alcoholic By Freezing It

Everyone Thinks Breaking The Rules Gets Things Done. They’re Wrong.

This Doctor Taught His Medical Students To Be Body Snatchers

Why The Aardvark May Be The Strangest Creature On Earth

In the 1800s, Courts Tried to Enforce Partnerships With Dolphins

Artemis 2 Live Updates: Humanity’s Epic Return to the Moon 🔴

NASA’s Artemis 2 Mission Blasts Off

Disney’s Robot Olaf Dying Is the Funniest Thing to Happen in 2026

Kia’s EV3 Is Headed to the US This Year With Up to 320 Miles of Range

This Is the Way to Lego’s April Releases

Group Pushing Age Verification Requirements for AI Turns Out to Be Sneakily Backed by OpenAI

Amazon Facilities in Bahrain Hit Again as Iran Follows Through on Threat, Report Says

Why the PS6 Handheld Will Matter More Than the PS6

DNA Study Casts Even More Doubt on Shroud of Turin’s True Origin

Sam Witwer Is Ready for Maul’s Moment

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

You Can Make Beer More Alcoholic By Freezing It