Comment of the Day: Cowbird Edition

Today’s comment of the day comes directly from a bird’s worst nightmare. In response to today’s post on the nesting habits of brood parasite, the cuckoo finch, commenter Aloicious shares this even darker tale on the habits of another brood parasite, the Cowbird: https://gizmodo.com/why-the-cuckoo-finch-is-called-a-brood-parasite-1374279193 When a Cowbird parasitizes a nest, it’ll pierce one egg and…

The one truly outstanding scene in the Revolution season premiere

Last year, Revolution got everybody’s attention with an intriguing premise. What if all our electricity was sucked away by nanotechnology? Its second season premiere gave us political baggage and daddy issues — but we’re hoping the show will look a lot more like this scene. After her mother Rachel let somebody die last season so…

We learn best from unjust punishment

We shouldn’t punish people for accidents. What purpose would that serve? But one study suggests that it would actually be a very effective practice. Here’s why we might want to be Draconian in our punishments. Image by Ronald Sumners via Shutterstock If someone was trying to help you, but screwed up, what would you do…

This uncanny orb is a miracle of glass-blowing

This stark sphere looks like a collection of metal filaments — but it’s actually the work of glass-blower Nancy Callan, who set out to create something that looked monochrome and machine-like. A new exhibition of Callan’s glass work also includes some superhero-inspired bee-stingers. Callan’s new exhibition at the Concept Art Gallery in Pittsburgh pairs her…

American Horror Story’s new opening sequence is pretty gross. Hooray!

WARNING, do not watch American Horror Story Coven’s new title sequence alone! Anyone else getting really, really excited to have The Jessica Lange Show back? Plus, hooray for horror! We can’t wait — PS, your titles are disgusting and I almost wretched when the lynch drawing twitched. YIKES.

A mysterious fire transformed North America’s greatest city in 1170

One thousand years ago, in the place where St. Louis, Missouri now stands, there was once a great civilization whose city center was ringed with enormous earthen pyramids, vast farmlands, and wealthy suburbs. For hundreds of years it was the biggest city in North America. Then a mysterious fire changed everything. https://gizmodo.com/9-ruined-cities-that-remain-a-mystery-to-this-day-1239294825 Illustration by Bill…

What’s the biggest missed opportunity in science fiction history?

Science fiction’s past is full of possibilities that never quite materialized. Movies that didn’t get made. Crossovers that didn’t happen — like the Doctor Who/Star Trek: Enterprise crossover that was talked about. But what’s your most tantalizing “might have been” from science fiction history? https://gizmodo.com/the-doctor-who-star-trek-crossover-that-never-was-5199817 Please include a picture or some kind of audiovisual indicator…

Pentagon invests $10M to make this scary robot silent and bulletproof

Boston Dynamics has just received a serious injection of cash to upgrade its Legged Squad Support System (LS3) pack mule. The challenge now is to make it quieter and resistant to small arms fire. Yeah, about that… The LS3 is currently capable of hauling 400 pounds of supplies over 20 miles on a single tank…

The real explanation for this “Bat Toad” picture is even freakier

At first glance, this appears to be a cane toad cosplaying as the Caped Crusader. Or maybe Darth Vader. This “Bat Toad” image, snapped at a remote guard station in Peru, has been making the rounds for the past couple days. But what’s really happening here? According to Phil Torres at Peru Nature, the original…

Listening to Richard Feynman explain rubber bands will make your week

Need a pick-me-up? A little Feynman ought to do the trick. A couple days ago, Jason Kottke posted this video of Richard Feynman explaining rubber bands in the ridiculously engaging way that Feynman explains thing, and now it’s making the rounds online. We wanted to take the opportunity to remind everyone that the clip is…

NASA has just made an incredible discovery about water on Mars

A recent analysis of Martian surface soil samples shows that it contains about 2% water by weight. This is fantastic news for future colonists of the Red Planet. According to a series of NASA papers just published in the journal Science, each cubic foot of the fine Martian soil contains about two pints of liquid…

Listen to what our ancestors’ language sounded like 6,000 years ago

Linguists have recently reconstructed what a 6,000 year-old-language called Proto-Indo-European might have sounded like. This language was the forerunner of many European and Asian languages, and now you can listen to what it may have sounded like. Photo by Horus Neo Ikon Epifanes Over at Archaeology magazine, Kentucky linguist Andrew Byrd does a dramatic reading…

Habitable moons beyond our solar system? Astronomers say it’s possible.

Astronomers believe that hidden deep within the wealth of data collected by NASA’s Kepler mission are minuscule signatures confirming the presence of exomoons. With such a promising discovery on the horizon, researchers are beginning to address the factors that may deem these alien moons habitable. Above: Artist’s conception of an Earth-like exomoon orbiting a gaseous…

Godborn author Paul S. Kemp discusses antiheroes and whiskey

The Godborn is the second novel in the Sundering series, which is reshaping the Forgotten Realms and bringing back a number of classic Realms characters. Author Paul S. Kemp revealed antihero Erevis Cale’s true origin and favorite bourbon. When we last saw Erevis Cale, he was trapped in a hell dimension. The Godborn, which will…

The official atomic weights of 19 elements have just been changed

Time to update all your periodic tables. https://gizmodo.com/minimalist-periodic-table-brings-simplicity-to-the-elem-1108039094 https://gizmodo.com/damn-this-periodic-table-is-beautiful-510648468 In their ongoing effort to keep things as mind-numbingly precise as possible, The International Union of Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the U.S. Geological Survey announced yesterday that the atomic weights of 19 elements have been officially and oh-so-incrementally changed. Via USGS: The standard atomic weights of…

The Most Absurd Courtroom Scenes from Science Fiction and Fantasy TV

There’s a reason so many science fiction and fantasy shows feature trials. Legal battles can be used as an allegory, or a way to expose important issues. But sometimes, these stories just go off the deep end. Here are the most ridiculous trials from science fiction and fantasy television. Both writers and viewers love a…

Try googling “Google in 1998” and see what happens. Yep, Google becomes a time machine. Nifty! [via Ben Greenman]

The Original Floor Plans From The Very First Doctor Who Episode

Exactly 50 years ago, television history was being made — the BBC managed to create an alien time machine inside the cramped confines of Lime Grove studio, for Doctor Who. And now, you can see the floor plans of that challenging set, thanks to director Waris Hussein. It’s kind of a miracle that Hussein, who…

First trailer for Disney’s Frozen is funnier than we expected

Disney’s next animated movie, Frozen, is half an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen story — and half a running gag show, thanks to a CG snowman. Not sure how to feel about this one. Thank goodness, some of the jokes are funny. Unfortunately we do not understand the story whatsoever. But this is…

How a children’s cartoon destroyed Japanese agriculture

Back in the 1970s, there was a popular anime on TV in Japan called Araiguma Rasukaru, about a kid and his adorable racoon sidekick. Based on the popular Disney movie Rascal, it was a huge hit. And it led to one of the worst invasive species events on the island in recent history. Over at…