Robbie Gonzalez

IBM Will Use Watson To Battle Brain Cancer

No longer content with dominating at Jeopardy and serving up gourmet fusion dishes from food trucks, IBM’s Watson will soon commit its supercomputer powers to fighting cancer. The goal: See whether Watson can use patient’s genomic data to recommend treatments for glioblastoma, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer. Image Credit: IBM Research IBM will…

NASA Has Recovered 7 “Precious” Particles From The Solar System’s Birth

It’s been years since researchers overseeing NASA’s sample-return Stardust mission first reported that the spacecraft had retrieved traces of cosmic dust – the tiny, interstellar particles that make up stars and planets. This week, they announced the net haul of their cosmic catch: Seven particles. SEVEN. https://gizmodo.com/stardust-probe-sifts-through-the-remains-of-a-collision-5762349 Together the particles weigh just 3.1-trillionths of a…

This Great Horned Owl Is Either Really Stoned Or Defending Its Young

(Yeah, it’s the latter.) “She was ‘staring me down’ because she had eggs to protect,” said Dennis Demcheck, the USGS employee who snapped the photo of a female Great Horned Owl nesting in a Live Oak tree in southwest Louisiana. Via The U.S. Department of the Interior: @USGS was in the area to study the…

It’s possible that cat domestication has been around a lot longer than we thought. A newly discovered burial site suggests that Ancient Egyptians were burying – and, archaeologists suspect, domesticating – cats as early as 3800 B.C. That’s 2,000 years before the earliest known evidence of cat domestication in Egypt.

Humans’ Sense of Smell is Far More Precise Than We Thought

There is an oft-referenced factoid, reproduced everywhere from websites to textbooks, that the human nose can distinguish between 10,000 smells. But a recent investigation has revealed this under-investigated figure to be off. Like way, way, way off. Photo Credit: talkingplant via flickr / CC The actual figure? “On the basis of the results of psychophysical…

The Perfect Shoe Says A Lot About Humanity’s Imperfect Evolution

Hitoshi Mimura is regarded as one of the best shoe designers on Earth. Formerly of Asics, “the god of shoes” went solo some years back, and began crafting custom footwear for world-class athletes on a consultation basis. Mimura, and his shoes, are legendary. So what’s his secret? Photo via Hi. In a word: metrics. In…

The Evolution Of The Bicycle, Beautifully Animated

Loving this wonderful 90-second short from the folks at Visual Artwork. Through a series of beautifully animated transitions, it highlights the evolution of the bicycle, from the wooden horse to the modern racer, and the mechanical differences between each iteration of this iconic mode of transportation. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow’s bike designs look…

Why You Should Care About The Plan To Break Up California

California is the most populous state in the US, a fact some believe makes it ungovernable. The Six Californias Initiative would seek to make things more manageable by dividing the state into six parts. But what effect might this division have? How would each new state compare, demographically, to the other now-55 states? How might…

Sleep Loss Could be Ruining Your Brain

Bad news for people who’ve made a habit of pulling all-nighters. New findings out of the University of Pennsylvania are the first to show that long-term sleep deprivation can lead to the loss of brain cells — possibly resulting in permanent brain damage. Photo Credit: ArneCoomanns | CC The news should come as especially worrisome…

Here’s What A Sunset Looks Like From The South Pole

A setting sun looks a little different 90 degrees south of the equator – and it’s one of the last the South Pole will see for the next six months. Photo Credit: Chet Waggoner | Photo Used with Waggoner’s kind Permission This mesmerizing photograph was captured by Chet Waggoner on March 17. “This is approximately…

Atmospheric re-entry, as seen from the ISS

One of the more stunning space-shots we’ve seen in some time, this photograph of a JAXA HTV-4 spacecraft was taken from the ISS during the delivery vehicle’s return to Earth. Strange to think how the most otherworldly photographs are often of our home planet. Keep scrolling for the full image, with details from Mika McKinnon.…

Do dogs experience joy? You be the judge.

How anyone can watch this video and not be convinced that dogs experience complex emotions is beyond me. The video, which is currently flirting with pole position on the front page of reddit, shows a pitbull having the time of its life on a bed that is usually off-limits. Its owners aren’t home, but they’ve…

There’s something strangely satisfying about watching water roll uphill

This is no optical illusion – the water droplets you see here are actually rolling uphill. But how? What you’re looking at is a unique demonstration of the ever-fascinating Leidenfrost effect. Named after 18th Century German doctor Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost, the phenomenon occurs when liquid comes into contact with a surface that is much, much…

Actually, Haunted Winchester Mystery House Does Not Allow Overnight Stays [Corrected]

Correction 01/31/19: According to a representative of the establishment, “The Winchester Mystery House has had no past or future plans to allow guests to stay overnight at the estate.” Please stop asking them if you can. io9 regrets the error. Oh man oh man. One of the most infamous haunted residences in the world, the…

A meticulous analysis of celestial accuracy in Goodnight Moon

Because “technically correct” is the best kind of correct. What begins as a simple observation that it takes the bunny in Goodnight Moon an hour and ten minutes to go to bed (did you ever notice the clock in the bedroom?) turns into a highly entertaining, full-blown astronomical analysis, in this post by Burrito Justice.…

New Zealander Changes Name to Longest Allowed by Law, Goes the Distance

A man from Dunedin, New Zealand shall henceforth be known as “FULL METAL HAVOK MORE SEXY N INTELLIGENT THAN SPOCK AND ALL THE SUPERHEROES COMBINED WITH FROSTNOVA.” At 99 characters, it is the longest legally allowed by the country’s Department of Internal Affairs. Mr. Frostnova’s name change reportedly comes five years after he lost a…

Holy crap, these bionic arms look just like Doc Ock’s

Designed by German engineering firm Festo, these claw-tipped, artificially intelligent arms were designed to mimic the utility and movement of an elephant’s trunk – but the resemblance to Dock Ock’s writhing limbs is just uncanny. Festo, the same firm that brought us the mechanical seagull, calls the bionic elephant trunks “Dynamic Handling Assistants.” (How benign-sounding!)…

Watch this impersonator sing “Let it Go” in TWENTY-ONE Disney voices

We know, we know. There’ve been enough covers of Frozen’s “Let it Go” by this point to play out from now until eternity. But voice-impersonator Brian Hull’s may just be the most impressive of them all. Watch him sing Frozen’s theme song in the voices of 21 Disney and Pixar characters. He totally nails it.…

A sobering reminder of the risks inherent to space exploration

Via YouTuber Fabio Baccaglioni comes a solemn compilation of rocket launch failures, from the early days of space exploration to present. That it’s just shy of 32 minutes long is a testament to something that can’t be overemphasized: getting to space is hard. It’s grueling, it’s dangerous, and, as we all know too well, it…

This fascinating auditory illusion transforms normal speech into music

Turn your speakers on and listen up – it’s experiment time. Sometimes, the only thing separating speech from music is repetition, and the speech-to-song illusion proves it. In an outstanding feature published over at Aeon, Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis – director of the music cognition lab at the University of Arkansas – explores why humans so…