Esther Inglis-Arkell, Author at Gizmodo

Extract Money From People Using the Ambiguity Effect

Are you comfortable with uncertainty? Are you willing to take money from those who aren’t comfortable with it? Then I have just the rigged game for you! Make money from people’s uncertainties with the Ambiguity Effect. Here’s a quick game. I have a jar full of ninety marbles. There are thirty red marbles for sure,…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

For the Most Enjoyable Weight Loss Ever, Head to the Equator

Ever wonder what the easiest way to lose weight is? Here’s the one simple trick you need. Go to the equator. There, the planet is trying to throw you into space so much that you weigh less than you do anywhere else. If you need confirmation that you are on a big, whirling space rock…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Stinky Twin Study We’ve All Been Waiting For

Do you smell like your twin? One study actually went to the trouble of finding out. The study looked to see if non-cohabitating twins have the same body odor. Does genetics play a role in how we smell? The study got sets of twins who lived separately from one another to sweat themselves up and…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Most Useful Animals on Earth Died Thousands of Years Ago

Many animals have been useful to humankind. Dogs have hunted with us. Horses have carried us around and plowed our fields. Cats have … I don’t know. It’ll come to me. In any case, perhaps the most useful animals in the modern world performed their service by dying thousands of years ago. These animals are…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Here’s What We Learned from a 75-Year-Long Study of “Emotional Health”

When it comes to long-term scientific observation, you can’t do much better than the Grant Study. Started in the 1930s, researchers with the study tracked the emotional health of male subjects from college age into their nineties. Here’s what they discovered. There’s no such thing as a perfect study. George Vaillant’s study, known as the…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

This Device Was One of the Most Amusing Failures in Physics

A little perpetual motion device called the Feynman-Smoluchowski Rachet, also known as the Brownian Ratchet, was an early attempt at defying the laws of thermodynamics. It failed, but it was an entertaining failure. Marian Smoluchowski was an experimental physicist in the late 1800s, which meant, unfortunately for him, he was leaving physics right at the…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

What Happens to Swampman in a Transporter?

In science fiction, there was always something I worried about. What are the philosophical implications of a transporter? It turns out, someone worried about that before me, and came up with Swampman. Don’t get me wrong, I love the future, but ever since I started watching Star Trek there was something that worried me. Whenever…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Many Creepy Experiments That Involved Staring At People

Do you like being stared at? Neither does anyone else. We know that for sure, because psychologists have done many experiments on the subject — many, many creepy experiments. When Psychologists Stare Science is meant to test what we take for granted, but some tests are more glorious than others. While some interns get to…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Taking this Simple “Wug Test” Reveals a Lot About Your Brain

This is a wug. I thought it was lonely, and so I got it a cute companion. So, I had one wug, and now I have two […] Please fill in the last word of that sentence. Go ahead and say it out loud. What you just pronounced reveals a lot about how the brain…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

How an Odd Property of Acid Created Self-Healing Iron

An odd quirk of iron led, eventually, to the first self-healing materials. An iron bar, dipped in strong acid, was just fine. Dipped in weak acid, it was eaten away to nothing. Here’s why a diluted acid will succeed when a strong acid fails. The Industrious Michael Faraday Michael Faraday spent the first half of…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

How Radiation in Smoke Detectors Keeps You Alive

Radiation so often gets a bad rap. Obviously, no one wants to swallow a chunk of uranium, but some radiation isn’t just harmless, it can keep you alive. Hopefully, most of you are sitting not-too-far from a piece of decayed plutonium right now – your smoke detector. Many of us have reason to fear plutonium.…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

How One Man Beat The Mackworth Clock

The Mackworth Clock is a famous test that was used to assess the vigilance of radar operators during World War II. Can you notice when a clock jumps one second ahead? but one man “hacked” the test, getting an unheard-of score. Years later, he explained his hack — and brought up a major flaw in…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Sleep Experiment Tribute To A Clockwork Orange

Professor Ian Oswald had a long and distinguished career in sleep research, discovering what happened, mentally and physically, while we sleep. He contributed much to society. But he garnered a little bit of infamy for one particular experiment… It was early in his career, and it wasn’t cruel, but it does resemble a scene in…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Questionable Parenting Science: The Tickler

For some people, parenting is a dream. For others, an obligation. For scientists, parenting is an opportunity. And if that opportunity requires them to wear a mask and do scientific tickling, that only makes it better. Clarence Leuba was a psychologist and professor. In 1933 he had two advantages over the other psychologists around him…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

You Might Be Talking to a Cyranoid and You’d Never Know

Did you talk to your boss today? Did you chat with someone on the bus or have a terse exchange with a barista? Maybe you did. But maybe they were cyranoids, and you were actually talking with whoever put words in their mouths. Odds are, you would never know. The Attack of the Cyranoids Even…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

These Tests Can Prove Whether You Are in the Fourth Dimension

A famous astronomer, Johann Zöllner, came up with a number of different tests designed to show that a person has the power to go into four-dimensional space. See if you can pass one! Johann Zöllner has an optical illusion and a crater on the moon named after him, and he didn’t get either by being…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

How Well Would You Fill Out Forms During a Plane Crash?

Believe it or not, this actually has been tested out, and by no less an institution than the United States Military. Learn about a fear experiment that should have led to a lot of “discharged with sincere apologies,” notes on service records. Hey, ever wondered what mortal terror would do to your ability to remember…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Anti-Racism Exercise That Taught Kids to Be Racist

In 1968, Jane Elliott was teaching a class of 8-year-olds, and one of them asked why “that King” had been shot, referring to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Elliott was unsure how to explain the context of what happened to elementary school children in Riceville, Iowa, so she made up an impromptu exercise.…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

All Oliver’s Stupid Decisions Come to a Head on Arrow

Oliver Queen has many good qualities – strength, aim, the ability to seduce foxy evil ladies. But we all know that his brain is the equivalent of a bunch of earthworms tied in a knot, and he feels the consequences of that in this episode, entitled “Deathstroke.” We start out with a good example of…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

All the People Who Were Frozen and Woke Up In the Future

Captain America, the hottest member of the Greatest Generation, is returning to the big screen this Friday. Steve Rogers may feel all alone in the modern world, but he’s not alone in fiction. Here’s a list of the greatest fictional characters who have been frozen, and woke to a strange new world. Philip J Fry…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Esther Inglis-Arkell

​Extract Money From People Using the Ambiguity Effect

For the Most Enjoyable Weight Loss Ever, Head to the Equator

The Stinky Twin Study We’ve All Been Waiting For

The Most Useful Animals on Earth Died Thousands of Years Ago

Here’s What We Learned from a 75-Year-Long Study of “Emotional Health”

This Device Was One of the Most Amusing Failures in Physics

What Happens to Swampman in a Transporter?

The Many Creepy Experiments That Involved Staring At People

Taking this Simple “Wug Test” Reveals a Lot About Your Brain

How an Odd Property of Acid Created Self-Healing Iron

How Radiation in Smoke Detectors Keeps You Alive

How One Man Beat The Mackworth Clock

The Sleep Experiment Tribute To A Clockwork Orange

Questionable Parenting Science: The Tickler

You Might Be Talking to a Cyranoid and You’d Never Know

These Tests Can Prove Whether You Are in the Fourth Dimension

How Well Would You Fill Out Forms During a Plane Crash?

The Anti-Racism Exercise That Taught Kids to Be Racist

All Oliver’s Stupid Decisions Come to a Head on Arrow

All the People Who Were Frozen and Woke Up In the Future

Cursor’s New Tool Lets Users Delegate to a Team of Coding Agents

Nvidia Needs to Remind Itself What PC Gamers Actually Want

Iran Says It Hit Oracle Facilities in UAE

‘Invincible’ Season 4 Is Doing Right By Debbie

Artemis 2 Day 2: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

New Theory Says We’ve Been Overcomplicating the Big Bang

Marvel Might Have Finally Dealt With One of the Most Hated ‘Spider-Man’ Characters Around

China Is Trying to Grow New Forests in This Notorious Mega-Desert. It’s Working

RAM Prices Are Threatening the Viability of the Raspberry Pi and Single-Board Computing

Michael B. Jordan’s First Post-Oscars Film Looks Way Cuter Than ‘Sinners’

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?

Extract Money From People Using the Ambiguity Effect