Esther Inglis-Arkell, Author at Gizmodo

Measure the Width of Your Hair With a Laser Pointer!

I love learning new things to do with a laser pointer. (Usually I just blind people. That gets old.) This cool short video shows you how to measure the width of a human hair. This three-minute video, enlivened by footage of one scientist yanking the hair out of another scientist’s head, shows you how to…

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What’s The Difference Between Guilt And Shame?

Shame and guilt are often used interchangeably, but they’re not the same. There are people who are prone to guilt, and people who are prone to shame, and there are major psychological differences between the two groups. So what’s the difference? Guilt is an internal emotion. It’s the general unpleasantness that you feel when you…

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How To Distract People Into Accepting Propaganda

Propaganda is all about seizing your attention and your will. It turns out, though, that a few moments of distraction can actually enhance the effectiveness of some types of propaganda. Here’s how distracting people can be as good as convincing them. Propaganda is meant to put across a single point, relentlessly and clearly. It’s meant…

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Science Conclusively Determines The Best Kind Of Slapstick

There’s an old adage about humor: Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. Nobody’s that interested, and the frog dies. It turns out that some people really are that interested. Here’s a quick experiment that tries to figure out, scientifically speaking, which sort of slapstick is funnier. Frog Image: Ren West Lambert Deckers and…

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10 Villains You’ve Never Heard Of (Who Are Smarter Than Lex Luthor)

Everybody obsesses about the Joker and the Green Goblin because they’re ultra-famous — but sometimes the smartest villain is the one who flies beneath the radar. And some of the cleverest villains just didn’t get the benefit of a big franchise. Here are 10 lesser-known villains who could outthink the famous baddies any day. 10.…

Books & Comics Esther Inglis-Arkell

Meet the “Queen of Hysterics” Who Was Freud’s Early Muse

Proving that fame isn’t a good measure of success, Marie “Blanche” Wittman, became known both locally and historically as the Queen of Hysterics. Her “medical demonstrations” were a kind of medical reality show — one that inspired the work of Sigmund Freud. But the story begins with a man named Jean-Martin Charcot. Given, an appointment…

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What Do You Find Out When You Put An Alligator On A Treadmill?

When you come across a paper on “alligator kinematics,” it’s time to pay attention. Somewhere, at some time, a scientist wanted to find out deep secrets of evolution and decided the best way to do it was putting an alligator on a treadmill. Crocodilians have two ways of getting around on land. There’s a sprawling…

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This is How You Literally Feel Other People’s Pain

How many times have you seen someone receive a painful blow and doubled over yourself? People seem to have the ability to feel a kind of phantom pain when we see others getting hurt. What’s the neurology behind sympathy pain? A Tale of Two Primates At the University of Parma, in Italy, Giacomo Rizzolatti was…

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What Is An Ionocraft And How Dangerous Is It To Make One?

You may have heard about “lifters” or “ionocrafts,” in science fiction stories discussing fake worlds, or on message boards discussing the real world. They exist in both worlds, but they’re only really practical in one. How An Ionocraft Works Electrons are slippery little things, but most of the time the atoms in the air have…

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The Real Reason Why Meetings Are Boring And Unproductive

Ever come out of a meeting knowing that no person there has the slightest bit more information than they went in with? Of course you have. There’s a documented reason why this is very likely to happen. Scientists asked a group of people to meet together and discuss the resumes of people they were going…

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You Have a Painkiller Six Times Stronger Than Morphine In Your Saliva

Right now, you are walking around with a mouth full of extremely powerful, untested pharmaceuticals. Your saliva contains opiorphin, a painkiller that’s about six times more powerful than morphine. After so many decades spent prodding lab rats, one would think that there is nothing more to be discovered about the horrid little things, or how…

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Pressure on the Testicle Creates Bizarre Phenomenon of “Referred Pain”

In 1933, two doctors got together and decided to stack weights on one of their genitals. Precisely which one is never mentioned. What is mentioned is the little-known phenomenon as “referred pain.” We have, in the past, talked before about a little body quirk known as “referred itch.” Sometimes, when you scratch or pinch one…

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Are Implanted False Memories Permanent?

The 1980s saw psychologists discovering a lot of “repressed” memories in patients. As it turned out, they weren’t so much memories as inventions. Are all those patients stuck with false memories of Satanic abuse and alternate personalities forever? In 1973, the book Sybil took the world by storm. A pioneering psychiatrist took a very troubled…

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This Is the Best “Scientists vs. Toad” Video You’ll Ever Watch

Compared to videos of cats playing the piano and hamsters eating burritos, a video entitled “The Neuroethology of a Toad” might not get your attention. But this video is definitely worth your time — if only to see scientists pranking a toad. The video is the first of a three-part series that shows us an…

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Why the Pigeonhole Principle Is One of Math’s Most Powerful Ideas

The Pigeonhole Principle is a really simple concept, discovered all the way back in the 1800s. It has explained everything from the amount of hair on people’s heads to fundamental principles of computing. Here’s how it works. The Pigeonhole Principle Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet was a man with a lot of names and a lot…

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The Bacteria That Got Spread Throughout The US By Military Testing

Have you ever heard of serratia marcescens bacteria? Today they are a cause of hospital infections. In the 1960s, they were secretly sprayed across Washington, San Francisco, and New York. In 1977, a few unsavory facts came to light about the bacteria. Apparently, about 10 years earlier, the Special Operations Division of the Army’s Chemical…

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The Secret Messages That Fooled The Inquisition

Giovanni della Porta was an Italian polymath and scientist back in the 1500s, when agents of the Inquisition were locking people up, including his friends. When he needed to get messages to them, he came up with an ingenious solution that involves writing secret codes inside an egg. della Porta came up with a method…

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A Mental Condition Can Make People Seem to Spew Ticker Tape

Some people’s entire lives are closed captioned. Whenever the people around them speak a word, they can see it spewing on a tape, like ticker tape. Here’s what it’s like to live in a world where the subtitles are always on. Synesthesia is a relatively common phenomenon. About four percent of the world’s population confuses…

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The Science Of How Eyes Glow In The Dark

When we see animals’ eyes in photos, nature films, flashlight beams, and headlights we see them shining back at us — but human eyes only glow bright red in photos. What causes the shine? What causes the color? The glow of red human eyes is a little like the glow of the moon. It’s the…

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The Many Disturbing “Awareness During Anesthesia” Studies

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, doctors began wondering if people ever became aware while under anesthesia. They started doing post-operative interviews to find out. Then they took it one step further, and tested whether people could learn under anesthesia. Check out the results. Awareness During Anesthesia Awareness during surgery is so terrifying that…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Esther Inglis-Arkell

Measure the Width of Your Hair With a Laser Pointer!

What’s The Difference Between Guilt And Shame?

How To Distract People Into Accepting Propaganda

Science Conclusively Determines The Best Kind Of Slapstick

10 Villains You’ve Never Heard Of (Who Are Smarter Than Lex Luthor)

Meet the “Queen of Hysterics” Who Was Freud’s Early Muse

What Do You Find Out When You Put An Alligator On A Treadmill?

This is How You Literally Feel Other People’s Pain

What Is An Ionocraft And How Dangerous Is It To Make One?

The Real Reason Why Meetings Are Boring And Unproductive

You Have a Painkiller Six Times Stronger Than Morphine In Your Saliva

Pressure on the Testicle Creates Bizarre Phenomenon of “Referred Pain”

Are Implanted False Memories Permanent?

This Is the Best “Scientists vs. Toad” Video You’ll Ever Watch

Why the Pigeonhole Principle Is One of Math’s Most Powerful Ideas

The Bacteria That Got Spread Throughout The US By Military Testing

​The Secret Messages That Fooled The Inquisition

​A Mental Condition Can Make People Seem to Spew Ticker Tape

The Science Of How Eyes Glow In The Dark

The Many Disturbing “Awareness During Anesthesia” Studies

30 Unpublished Poems From Iconic Greek Philosopher Discovered in Cairo

Lucid Recalls 4,000 Gravity SUVs for Faulty Seat Belts That May Not Actually Work During a Collision

Ninja Blast Max Hits Its Lowest Price and Now One of the Cheapest Portable Blenders Worth Buying

The ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Sequel Is a Beautifully Executed Dystopian Nightmare

Antibiotics Turned This Woman’s Limbs Into an Unsettling Horrorshow

Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2026 Bundle at 97% Off With Premium Coding Certification Included, a Complete Learn-to-Code Package

Shark PowerPro Reveal Plus Cordless Vacuum Drops to an All-Time Low, Selling Faster Than Dyson at a Fraction of the Price

The First Trailer for ‘Widow’s Bay’ Welcomes You to a Creepy Horror Comedy

What the New Starbucks ‘Widely Recyclable’ Label Really Means

LEGO Star Wars R2-D2 Quietly Hits a Record Low, Expanding Beyond the Millennium Falcon Deals for a Limited Time

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?

The Secret Messages That Fooled The Inquisition

A Mental Condition Can Make People Seem to Spew Ticker Tape