Esther Inglis-Arkell, Author at Gizmodo

Arrow Guides Us Through The Stages of Grief, And Gives Us Deadshot

People have to adjust to a lot of things in “Suicide Squad,” Arrow’s most recent episode. Most of those things are unpleasant, so we see people embodying all the different stages of grief. Guess who’s best at Acceptance? Denial After seeing Slade Wilson making one eye do the work of two when flirting with his…

Television Esther Inglis-Arkell

These Amazing Science Books Deserve To Become Documentaries

Thanks to Cosmos, astronomy has a great series to communicate the wonder of space to the public. But what about the other sciences? How can we get a new generation hooked on science in general? Here are some brilliant nonfiction books about science, that absolutely must become documentaries or TV series. These are grouped by…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Carl Linnaeus Debunked A Rumored Hydra Corpse

Anyone who thinks that a certain level of scientific genius imparts dignity might want to take a look at this incident in the life of Carl Linnaeus. He was a polymath, the father of modern biology, and also a hydra inspector for hire. Carl Linnaeus has an entire classification system named after him. That’s fair,…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Real Experiment That Determines How You Should Split The Check

At the end of every dinner with friends comes that awkward moment when you have to split the check. This moment has caused so much consternation that a trio of scientists took real groups of people out to dinner to figure out how it should be done. The Unscrupulous Diner’s Dilemma Say you are a…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Has Naive Cynicism Become A Literary Problem?

Naive cynicism is a cognitive bias, and a particularly tough one to argue against. It’s blamed for all kinds of trouble in the real world. Could it also be a problem when creating fictional worlds? Naive cynicism basically means we tend to think that other people suck far more than they actually do. It’s at…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Clap If You Believe in the Tinkerbell Effect

The Tinkerbell Effect spans multiple scientific disciplines, including economics, but perhaps its most dramatic demonstration is in psychology – where it literally makes people see things. There are multiple Tinkerbell Effects, but they all get their name from the scene in the stage play of Peter Pan during which Tinkerbell is dying and the audience…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Do yourself a favor and read Einstein’s paper on special relativity

One of the most famous concepts in science was introduced in a paper with the uninspiring title, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.” A little reading can give you the basics of relativity, right from the source. In 1905 Albert Einstein rearranged the universe. That is well-known. What’s relatively unknown is the title of the…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Twist people’s minds to make them think disgusting words are nice

Words don’t just convey a meaning, but a feeling as well. Pleasant words like “ice cream” make us feel happy, while unpleasant words like “toe jam” make us feel queasy. But there is a way to make people experience bad words as good, if only briefly. In one particular experiment, dealing with subliminal words, subjects…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The first official “chaos machine” is easy to make

Do you want to make a truly chaotic system? It’s not as hard as you think. In fact, you could probably set up the first official chaos machine ever made in your shower. The Butterfly Effect, before it was a movie, was a phenomenon discovered by Edward Lorenz. A professor of meteorology at MIT, Lorenz…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The legend of the mathematician and the baker

There is a legend in the mathematics community that centers around Henri Poincaré, the famous mathematician, meting out sweet, sweet justice to a dishonest baker. Perhaps it is untrue, but when you read about it, you’ll wish it were. If anyone tells you about how food was better in the good old days, don’t listen.…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

“Attentional blink” causes you to forget what’s in front of your eyes

Sometimes, when taking in new information, your eyes blink. Sometimes your mind does too. This special “blink” might explain why you sometimes get half-second amnesia, and forget what you’ve just seen. The experiment sounds simple. A group of subjects are shown a series of cards, or computer images, most of which have numbers on them.…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Why I refuse to watch movies without spoilers

I love spoilers. Or, more accurately, I demand spoilers. And I don’t understand why you don’t. Let me explain to you what you’re missing out on. I hate reviews that mention they are “spoiler free.” This isn’t because I think reviews should have spoilers in them. It’s because, by mentioning spoilers at all, they screw…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

In the future we could use plants to mine the Earth for us

In the future we might not need humans, or even robots, to go down into the Earth and hack out chunks of metal. With a little work, plants might be able to do the mining for us. Which is good news, because mining for metals is tiring and dangerous for a human body. It requires…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Would you remember a pretty face?

There’s a good chance that even if you picked a pretty face out of a lineup, you wouldn’t remember it seconds later. Even if you thought it was the most memorable face in the world. We are almost never paying as much attention to things as we think we are. This comes up time and…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Special relativity creates its own optical illusion

Special relativity is best known for letting us know that, as a person’s velocity increases, their perception of time slows down. It also creates an interesting little optical illusion that can make objects moving in a straight line appear to twist and turn. Visualization of special relativity by Joseph Choi Einstein’s theory of special relativity…

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The Gudjonsson test can discover how suggestible you are

Put enough pressure on someone and they will often change their story, even in crucially important situations like police interrogations. The question is, how much pressure is “enough”? The Gudjonsson suggestibility scale helps people find out. Gísli Hannes Gudjonsson was a professor of forensic psychology, and so was fascinated with the idea of memory, and…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

There is a scientific reason why it always rains on weekends

If you are in the northeastern United States, it’s likely that your weekend traffic makes it rain on Saturday and Sunday. In fact, most of us help control the weather in some way. Here’s how you are making the sun shine, or bringing on a thunderstorm. If you are in the northeastern United States, and…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

How to (ethically) blind someone in one eye

In the early 1800s, a scientist called Charles Wheatstone knew that the slight difference in the image seen by the left eye and the right eye was what gave people depth perception. He wondered, though, what exactly would happen if he showed each eye radically different things? He imagined that the mind would blend those…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The word game that reveals peoples’ anxiety and depression

Depression changes people’s feelings. It might also change their thoughts, or more specifically, it may make them pay more attention to these thoughts. Psychologists have noticed that a particular word game, a game that evokes the Stroop Effect, seems to have a peculiar impact on people with depression. The Stroop Effect is quite a well-known…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Why we hold grudges about little injuries but forgive big ones

Why do people forgive the guy who burned their house down, but still hate that one relative who had a nasty tone while thanking them for a birthday present? Here’s why we nurse grudges about small things, but forgive the big ones. We seem to have a kind of pettiness built into our nature. We…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Esther Inglis-Arkell

Arrow Guides Us Through The Stages of Grief, And Gives Us Deadshot

These Amazing Science Books Deserve To Become Documentaries

Carl Linnaeus Debunked A Rumored Hydra Corpse

The Real Experiment That Determines How You Should Split The Check

Has Naive Cynicism Become A Literary Problem?

Clap If You Believe in the Tinkerbell Effect

Do yourself a favor and read Einstein’s paper on special relativity

Twist people’s minds to make them think disgusting words are nice

The first official “chaos machine” is easy to make

The legend of the mathematician and the baker

“Attentional blink” causes you to forget what’s in front of your eyes

Why I refuse to watch movies without spoilers

In the future we could use plants to mine the Earth for us

Would you remember a pretty face?

Special relativity creates its own optical illusion

The Gudjonsson test can discover how suggestible you are

There is a scientific reason why it always rains on weekends

How to (ethically) blind someone in one eye

The word game that reveals peoples’ anxiety and depression

Why we hold grudges about little injuries but forgive big ones

Labubus Might Be Labu-Bust After Pop Mart Posts Record Share Loss

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

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?