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Today Is the Most Common Birthday of the Year For Americans 

Happy birthday! How did I know? Because humans are pretty predictable when it comes to having babies (also, data). In 2006, The New York Times published a simple table graph ranking every day of the year by how many babies were born on a particular day. The dataset included children born in the United States…

Food and science have always had a significant overlap. The Guardian has a series of articles summarizing all the advances being made in the growth, production, cooking, and eating of food. All of it together will blow your mind.

Latest Amazon Prime Perk: Members Can Read The Washington Post for Free

The Washington Post announced today that Amazon Prime members will get free, unlimited access to the newspaper’s National Digital Edition for six months, a $60 deal. After the half year is up, folks can still ride the Prime wave with a discounted subscription rate: Usually, the Post’s digital service is $9.99 per month, but Prime…

Why Captain Kirk Is Still One of the Greatest Space Heroes Of All Time

James T. Kirk owes a lot to his space opera forebears, characters like Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and the Lensmen: He wears a cool uniform, has a fancy ray gun strapped to his hip, flies the fastest ship in the galaxy, and has a weird alien sidekick. Yet the character of Kirk has outstripped his…

Why Do People Take Selfies In Emergencies?

When a United Airlines flight made an emergency landing this summer due to medical situations on board, as the oxygen masks fell down, some passengers’ phone cameras went up. But psychologists say the instinct to snap a selfie in a near-death experience isn’t all narcissism—it’s also about survival and self-preservation. The ‘Survival Selfie’ Our friends…

The Best Hidden Changes in iOS 9, in GIFs

The latest version of Apple’s mobile OS launched to much fanfare and showy new features. Side-by-side multitasking! A creepily efficient digital assistant! But the longer I use iOS 9, the more I’m noticing the tiny changes that make everything just a little bit better. https://gizmodo.com/ios-9-smarts-security-and-a-better-siri-1709837924 The most noticeable change is to the fast app-changer. Double-tap…

Xerox’s Printable Memory Labels Can Store Data to Combat Counterfeits

Remember when we thought that hologram stickers were an effective way to stop the proliferation of counterfeit products? Xerox now believes it has a far superior solution with a new type of printable electronic label that has encrypted memory built right in. Using technologies licensed from a company called Thinfilm, the labels can contain as…

The Many, Maddeningly Convoluted Lives Of Hawkgirl

Comics are infamous for their sometimes convoluted plots: perhaps none more so than DC’s “Hawk” Heroes. We’ve already covered the fluctuating origins of Hawkman, but with his superhero partner Hawkgirl making her TV debut in Legends of Tomorrow, it’s time to delve into the maniacally convoluted history of Hawkgirl. https://gizmodo.com/the-10-hilariously-confusing-origins-of-hawkman-1451537031 The Golden Age When she…

Even though watchOS 2 got the green light to launch today with iOS 9, that’s not going to happen thanks to a software bug. Apple gave TechCrunch a statement saying the bug was significant enough to put the watchOS update on hold, but that it would be released shortly. iOS 9 is still go to…

AT&T Is Improving Its “Unlimited” Data Policy, But It’s Still Technically Throttling

AT&T has finally altered the way it handles subscribers with grandfathered unlimited plans on the network. The company is still—technically—throttling them, but now rather than slowing data down at 5GB, AT&T will let unlimited plans’ usage soar to 22GB before applying any brakes. There are a number of things that could’ve led the company to…

Revel In This Surreal Short Where Flowers Are Coming For Us All

Anthophobia is one of those shorts that manages to create a whole world in just a few shots and very little dialogue. There’s a revolution coming, and we are on the wrong side of it. Everything director Valentin Petit uses in this short — the music, the cuts, the blocking — creates a creepy atmosphere.…

Battle of the Superzooms: Canon G3X vs. Sony RX10 Mark II

A while back, camera makers decided that people want to zoom in really, really far. More recently, they also realized people want great image quality and advanced controls. (Who’da thought!?) Here are new two cameras that do both. Let’s see which is worth your hard-earned dollars. The Competitors Sony’s RX10 Mark II and the Canon…

Vibrator Company to Offer “Donald Discount” During Debate Tonight

Whether you love the Donald, hate him, or merely find him perplexing, he’s certainly a whiz at stimulating debate. Now he’s inspired vibrator-makers Crave to offer a 50% discount on all their designs, but ONLY while today’s primary debate is raging. Use the code TrumpTrump at checkout to turn their negative feelings about the candidate…

Tim Cook Explains How He Decided to Come Out

Tim Cook appeared on Stephen Colbert’s new Late Show last night, and Colbert roasted Apple’s CEO with his usual charm. The clip above is one of the more serious exchanges from the segment. Colbert asks Cook about the company’s evolving social agenda, and specifically about how Cook updated the company’s position with regards to charity—he…

Politiwoops Is Still Dead, But You Can Read Millions of Politicians’ Deleted Tweets in a New Archive 

When Twitter unceremoniously killed Politiwoops, the Sunlight Foundation-founded site that compiled politicians’ deleted tweets, we lost a valuable tool for political transparency. It sucks, but here’s a silver lining: You can still access the archive of politician saying stupid shit on social media. The Open State Foundation has made the complete Politiwoops archive available by…

This Chameleon-Like Material Could Let Robots Camouflage Themselves In Real Time

A new chameleon-inspired “e-skin” that changes color the longer and harder you press on it could help engineers design wearables, prosthetics, and robots that are better at sensing pressure and temperature—just like human skin can. Published last month in the journal Nature Communications, the Stanford University research paper describes the stretchy, colorful polymer. Aside from…

Sap-Sucking Sea Slugs Have a Ruthless, and Intriguing, Survival Technique

Sap-sucking sea slugs do exactly what they sound like they do: They go up to seaweed and suck the sap out of it, and they do it fastidiously. But it’s the way that they do it that makes them so unusual. Each sap-sucking sea slug has a whole row of teeth, but it doesn’t use…

This Cricket Courts His Mate During Sex by Tapping Her With Tiny Penis Drumsticks

Like so many other crickets, a Roesel’s bush cricket sings to attract his mate. But his courtship doesn’t stop once a female finds him. As they have sex he’ll use a pair of tiny drumsticks on his genitals to show her he’s the rhythm master she wants to father her young. The structures are called…

iOS 9: Everything You Need To Know

iOS 9 is arriving today. But what we saw on stage at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference this spring was more than just a yearly update to Apple’s mobile OS. It’s a glimpse at how Apple’s operating systems are being unified as it builds out new devices and platforms. iOS has never mattered more. Hello,…

Choo Choo Crash Bang! The Golden Age of Juvenile Trainwrecking

In mid-20th century America, a heartwarming Rockwellian drama played out in living rooms every Christmas Day. Presents were opened, and the room became a happily confused welter of ribbons and wrapping paper, punctuated with all manner of shiny new toys. A radiantly cheerful fire crackled in the fireplace. The air was filled with the sounds…