Robbie Gonzalez

Smoking Is Even Deadlier Than We Thought

Smoking is bad for you. You know this! Now, a long-term study of close to a million people has broadened our understanding of the harmful side-effects of smoking, and the results suggest tobacco is even more dangerous than previously believed. Photo Credit: Ferran Jordà | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 “A substantial portion of the excess mortality…

15 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Blood

Does menstrual blood really attract bears? Why does blood look blue in your veins? And why were the first blood transfusions performed with animals? Here are 15 facts, historical and biological, you probably didn’t know about blood. Photo Credit: Steve Koukoulas | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 1. A lot of people think that deoxygenated human blood…

Physics Valentines (And Anti-Valentines), For Those You Love (And Hate)

The staff of symmetry has created a fun set of physics-themed Valentines to share with the people you love. And because ours is a universe that contains both matter and antimatter, they’ve created a complementary set of anti-Valentines, for the people you love to hate. My favorite Valentine/anti-Valentine pair appears above. The cards are designed…

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? According to Jinzi Huang, co-author of a recently published study that examines how “hard candy bodies dissolve in laminar high-speed water flows,” approximately 2,500.

How To: Win Impressively At Gameshows Using Simple Maths

Here’s a fun clip from BBC Two’s collegiate quiz show University Challenge. Host Jeremy Paxman asks the contestants what day of the week it will be 100 days after Monday. A player named Binnie responds quickly: “Wednesday.” Paxman’s face contorts. “How did you know that?” he asks, astonished. “Modular arithmetic,” Binnie replies, matter-of-factly. What’s wonderful…

Watch A Time-Lapse Of Rio De Janeiro Shot At 10K Resolution

Even if you don’t have an ultra-HD display, you’re going to want to watch this. “10328×7760 – A 10K Timelapse Demo” is a straightforwardly titled demo reel created by Los Angeles based photographer Joe Capra. You may be wondering why you would even watch a video shot at 10K resolution. A lot of people have…

The Hyperviolent Trading Cards That Inspired Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!

In 1962, Topps released a controversial trading card series that depicted the gruesome annihilation of “much of Earth’s population” by Martian forces. The set was called “Mars Attacks.” Many parents, unsurprisingly, hated it. Some three decades later, it inspired the Tim Burton film of the same name. “They were pretty violent,” writes Ron Kretsch over…

Try Your Hand At This Surprisingly Difficult Matchstick Puzzle

Matchstick puzzles (aka toothpick puzzles) typically involve adding to, subtracting from, or rearranging an initial configuration of matchsticks to create another, target configuration of matchsticks. Some of these puzzles can get rather complicated. This matchstick puzzle is more straightforward than most, but still quite challenging. Sunday Puzzle # 19: Six Matches, Four Triangles Using six…

SpongeBob Spoofs 50 Shades Of Grey

The new SpongeBob SquarePants movie scored a big, $15-million opening Friday, and is projected to pull in $55-million over the weekend. We’re not saying the film’s success had entirely to do with this spoof on 50 Shades of Grey, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt, right?

Leonardo da Vinci’s Hand-Written Resume Will Make You Feel Inadequate

Today, Leonardo da Vinci is renowned for being one of the Renaissance’s most illustrious polymaths – but back in the late 15th Century, the artist, inventor and all-around genius still had to job hunt like the rest of us. And yes, his resume was… intimidating. “Before he was famous… Leonardo da Vinci was an artificer,…

Can You Die From Sleep-Deprivation?

The short answer? Yes, total sleep deprivation can almost certainly kill you. What’s less clear is how it does it. Before we get to the experimental and hypothetical ramifications of total sleep deprivation, let’s pause briefly to address the much more pressing and pernicious issue of poor sleep hygiene, the long-term effects of which can…

Texas Boy Suspended For ‘Threatening’ Classmate With The One Ring

A fourth grader named Aiden Steward was suspended Friday, after school officials determined he had threatened to use his magic ring to make another boy disappear. Here are the particulars, from The Odessa American: His father, Jason Steward, said the family had been to see “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” last weekend.…

You’ll Have To Think Like A Pirate To Solve This Week’s Puzzle

Pirates, of course, are notoriously greedy – but they’re also incredibly shrewd. And don’t forget, they’ll kill you, if given the chance. Sunday Puzzle #18: A Puzzle For Pirates This week’s puzzle was proposed by reader William Murray. It’s a classic puzzle, and comes in a variety of forms, but the version I’ve included here…

Is There Another Version Of You, Out There In A Parallel Universe?

Is there more than one of you out there, somewhere? In a fascinating piece over at Medium, astrophysicist Ethan Siegal waxes mathematical, cosmological, and philosophical on multiverse theory, and its implications for all the iterations of you that may or may not exist: …would it be possible that there’s a Universe out there where everything…

Luminous Fruits & Veggies, by Radu Zaciu

Photographer Radu Zaciu hollowed out ordinary fruits and vegetables and replaced their insides with light bulbs. His photo series, “The Light Inside,” captures what these everyday edibles look like with their new, luminous cores, revealing the structural subtleties in their pulp, their skin, their leaves, and their fractal florets. All images featured by kind permission…

Watch What Happens When You Stick Buckyball Magnets In A Blender

Buckyballs are the small, spherical, ridiculously fun, neodynium magnets that last year were recalled for posing “a substantial risk of injury and death to children and teenagers.” Here’s what happens when you combine a hefty lump of these high-powered magnets with a high-powered blender. [Blendtec via Laughing Squid]

A Baleen Whale Skull Conducts Sound ‘Like An Acoustic Antenna’

Researchers used computer models and high-powered simulations to confirm that whales’ skulls have evolved to act “like an acoustic antenna,” amplifying and transmitting low-frequency sounds (hypothesized to be important in long-range communication) toward the ears. Above: Left lateral view of the skull bones in a fin whale, via Cranford and Krysl Erin Blakemore describes how…

For Patients with Parkinson’s Disease, Expensive Placebo Works Better

In a recent study, an “expensive” salt solution was shown to to be significantly more effective at managing the symptoms of patients with Parkinson’s disease than an “inexpensive” one. The salt solutions were identical placebos. Scientific American’s Karen Hopkins summarizes the study’s design and findings: To examine whether the perceived cost could be a factor,…

David Duchovny Hopes To Return As Denise Bryson In Twin Peaks

First X-Files, now this. The new Twin Peaks is set to premiere some time in 2016, and members of the original cast are slowly signing on for the show’s return. Will David Duchovny reprise his role as DEA agent Denise Bryson? “Seems like it,” Duchovny told the L.A. Times, in response to a question tacked…

The Tobacco Smoke Enema: A Dubious 18C Method For Reviving The Drowned

Via “A new method of relieving such persons as are thought to be suffocated, or drowned,” a hopefully titled document published in 1748 by French physician Jean-Jacques Bruhier, comes what today seems a pretty hopeless method of relieving such persons as are thought to be suffocated, or drowned, namely: the tobacco smoke enema. By kind…