Esther Inglis-Arkell, Author at Gizmodo

How do you charm a worm?

Well, the obvious way to charm a worm is to tell it that it looks a little like Ryan Gosling, but you have to get it out of the ground first. And worm charming is a way to do just that. Many people have seen birds tapping on the ground to sound out worms. And…

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How to use fat to make yourself into a submarine

When humans finally give up on this world and return to the sea, we’re going to have to learn to dive deep. To do that, we may need to borrow a few genes from the humble copepod, and pack ourselves with fat. The copepod is a tiny, shrimp-like creature. The trouble with being a tiny,…

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Futurama shows us the softer side of Mom

So far on Futurama, Mom has succeeded as a business leader only by cheating people. In this episode, she gets a lot better… and a lot worse. “Leela and the Genestalk” meanders a bit, and it doesn’t have the best lines of the series, but it has a point. Better than that, it has several.…

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What’s the best umbrella term for both humans and intelligent aliens?

One day, we’re going to make friends with intelligent creatures from another world. And we won’t want to keep calling them “aliens,” because they’ll be living among us or we’ll be living among them. So what do we use as a term to describe both intelligent aliens and humans. What do we all call ourselves?…

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James Garfield Was the Only U.S. President to Prove a Math Theorem

The Pythagorean Theorem has been proved many times, and probably will be proven many more times. But only one proof was made by a United States President. Five years before James A Garfield was elected president, he came up with a proof that involves a simple sheet of paper and some scissors. Before President Garfield…

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Did an apple really fall onto Isaac Newton’s head?

A few weeks ago I wrote about famous science urban legends. I left one out, because I thought it was too obviously a myth to be worth putting on the list. Turns out, it actually happened. https://gizmodo.com/10-urban-legends-about-famous-scientists-834494406 What’s the most simple-minded science urban legend you could ever come up with? Here’s a hint, it’s been…

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What happened the night Niagara Falls stopped flowing

In 1848, the people around Niagara Falls got treated to their own big-budget disaster movie special effect. One night the river simply ran dry. Find out why, and what people did about it. The trailers and posters for most disaster movies include things like the ripped-off head of the Statue of Liberty, a tidal wave…

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The first female physician, and the thousand-year campaign against her

Trotula of Salerno has been the subject of a smear campaign lasting roughly one thousand years. Possibly. Or possibly she never existed. In the 11th century, Salerno was the place to be if you wanted to be a physician. It had what some claim is the world’s first real medical school. It had hospitals and…

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Why did they mock Robert Goddard’s dream of space flight?

Robert Goddard was one of the pioneers of rocketry. But during his lifetime, he was either mocked or ignored. And sadly, he died before he could be applauded for the visionary he was. But why did people think space flight was so impossible? If you’ve ever heard of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, you already…

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Müllerian mimicry helps prey train their predators

We’ve heard about harmless animals “camouflaging” themselves by imitating deadly animals. Müllerian mimicry doesn’t work that way. Instead, deadly animals form an alliance and train their predators. Maybe. On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, but its ideas were available to a certain subsection of the public well before that. Charles Darwin discussed…

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Did Newton get Newton’s rings wrong?

If you’ve ever seen strange concentric ring patterns show up when two panes of glass are pushed together, you’ve seen Newton’s rings. Most people see them as evidence of the wave nature of light. Newton, however, did not. You’ve most likely made a set of Newton’s rings by accident. Perhaps you’ve set down a lens…

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The Quantum Zeno Effect actually does stop the world

Zeno of Elea was a Greek philosopher who suggested that if you could slice time into small enough increments, the world would freeze in place. It turns out that he was right — at least, from a quantum mechanics perspective. University of Texas physicists George Sudarshan and Baidyanath Misra offer evidence of the Zeno Effect…

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The setting Sun is one big optical illusion

There are kinds of knowledge that open up new ways of looking at the universe, and make you feel relief at the expansion of possibility. And there are kinds of knowledge that make you mad. This is the second kind of knowledge. This quick QI clip has Phil Jupitus trying to absorb the knowledge that…

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We join Bender, and his ass, on a sentimental journey

As Futurama winds down, we take this episode to look back at all the good times it’s given us. And we do it with Bender’s ass as a motivation. If there’s one problem with this episode, it’s that the climax comes too early. Leela and Fry are making a delivery of weapons on a gang…

Television Esther Inglis-Arkell

Why history has forgotten the man who discovered protons and electrons

Today we have positive and negative charges in an orderly binary system. We owe that orderliness to its original discoverer — Charles Du Fay. If he hadn’t stepped in, we might have been calling charges by their colors. Charles Du Fay was a scientist in the early 1700s, when people were first playing with electricity…

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A Van de Graaff generator can snuff out a candle with “electric wind”

A Van de Graaff can make the flame of the candle flicker. It does this by generating an “electric wind.” A Van de Graaff is a metal ball set on top of a rotating loop of belt. At the bottom of the loop is a comb that is kept positively charged. As the belt moves…

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Why hyperventilating people breathe into paper bags (but shouldn’t)

You’ve seen plenty of movies and TV shows where a person hyperventilates and is given a paper bag to breathe into. Can wood pulp actually help with hyperventilation? And why do so many doctors want the practice to stop? The paper bag as a medical device features in everything from old Looney Toons cartoons to…

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The King Who Peed Blue

Just when you think you can’t learn anything from the royal baby coverage, you uncover a rare metabolic disorder in the baby’s namesake. Learn why porphyria can drive you mad, and make your urine blue. There’s a new King George on the horizon, and while listening to coverage of it, I learned a little something…

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The mysterious Abney Effect twists colors

When it comes to colors, physics is easy. Physiology is hard. This is why the Abney effect is still debated. We know that it can turn blue into purple and orange into red, but we’re not sure why. William de Wiveleslie Abney was a chemist and physicist who got a lot of scientific work done…

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The psychological syndrome that mimics Joker venom

Anyone remember the Batman animated series episode that had the Joker dosing people with venom that forced a creepy smile onto their faces and drove them insane? Turns out you don’t need the venom. The smile alone may drive people crazy. Professor Makoto Natsume at Osaka University practices psychiatry as well as teaching it. He…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Esther Inglis-Arkell

How do you charm a worm?

How to use fat to make yourself into a submarine

Futurama shows us the softer side of Mom

What’s the best umbrella term for both humans and intelligent aliens?

James Garfield Was the Only U.S. President to Prove a Math Theorem

Did an apple really fall onto Isaac Newton’s head?

What happened the night Niagara Falls stopped flowing

The first female physician, and the thousand-year campaign against her

Why did they mock Robert Goddard’s dream of space flight?

Müllerian mimicry helps prey train their predators

Did Newton get Newton’s rings wrong?

The Quantum Zeno Effect actually does stop the world

The setting Sun is one big optical illusion

We join Bender, and his ass, on a sentimental journey

Why history has forgotten the man who discovered protons and electrons

A Van de Graaff generator can snuff out a candle with “electric wind”

Why hyperventilating people breathe into paper bags (but shouldn’t)

The King Who Peed Blue

The mysterious Abney Effect twists colors

The psychological syndrome that mimics Joker venom

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