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This is a real photo of different types of food cut into identical cubes

My eyes mislead me. Even though this photo looks so perfect that it must be CGI’d or digitally manipulated, it’s not, it’s completely real. Artists Lernert and Sander took raw food—you can see meat and seafood and fruits and vegetables—and cut them into perfectly identical cubes and laid them out to form a perfect grid.…

Lovers of grainy portrait-orientation livestreams, rejoice! The Meerkat for Android app is out of beta and downloadable on the Google Play Store. That means Meerkat has beaten Periscope out of the Apple walled garden, although Windows Phone and Blackberry users might still be left in the cold for quite some time. Contact the author at…

Watch a musician play every instrument in a 70-person orchestra at once

This is great. Ben Morfitt cleverly and hilariously recorded a video of himself playing every instrument of a 70-person orchestra at the same time. It looks like he’s conducting an entire orchestra of musicians but it’s really an expertly edited cut of 70 versions of himself playing all at once. It was all filmed in…

A Weird New Supercooled Material Crystallizes and Glows When Touched

Perhaps you’re familiar with the strangeness of supercooled water: It stays liquid well below water’s freezing point until you give it a whack, and bam, it suddenly turns into solid ice. You’re probably less familiar diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) derivatives, which has similar but also odder properties. In a new study, scientists introduce DPP8, one particular derivative…

Moby Also Has a Plan to Fix California’s Water Woes

While most celebs are making headlines in California’s drought for their unnaturally green and fragrant lawns, a few public figures have stepped up to offer real solutions for the state. William Shatner explained his enthusiastic if somewhat unrealistic plot to siphon water from Seattle. Now Moby’s issued his own idea to save California. A Courage…

Watch A Hilariously Awful, Never-Before-Seen Horror Film With Adam West

Nearly fifteen years ago, Corey Feldman and Adam West appeared in Seance (a.k.a. Killer in the Dark), a so-bad-it’s-funny horror film made for just a million dollars. The film was never released, but now the whole thing is online for our chuckling pleasure. Here are the details from the YouTube page: “Seance” (aka Killer in…

Did You Know There Is Such A Thing As Gold Acid?

If you want to find out what’s unusual about chloroauric acid, look at the “Au” in the middle. It indicates that this is an acid made using gold. We’ll tell you why people make this acid, and how it can hurt you. Gold is tough to make into an acid because it’s tough to dissolve.…

In Netflix Show Between, A Plague Kills All Adults In A Quarantined Town

“It has been confirmed that no one over 22 is left alive.” In the trailer for Netflix’s upcoming show Between, a plague sweeps through the small town of Pretty Lake, killing everyone over a certain age and forcing the young survivors to live in quarantine, without adult supervision. Between was created by filmmaker Michael McGowan…

Four Myths About Robotic Coworkers, Debunked

It’s a robot nerd lovefest at RoboUniverse 2015, and it’s great to be surrounded by other folks decidedly pro-robot. But some naysayers are less keen on sharing space with soulless gizmos. Know this: Misconceptions about robotic companions are aplenty. Brian Benoit, Senior Product Manager at manufacturer Rethink Robotics, gave a presentation at RoboUniverse called “Making…

Real Plants And Fungi That Look Like Something From The Monstrous Manual

The Earth is a weird, weird place and there are some weird, weird organisms living on it. Just take a look at these members of the plant and fungal kingdoms, which sometimes look like something dreamed up for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Monkey Face Orchid (Dracula simia), lives on the side of mountains in…

This Goo Accurately Paints Patterns on Your 3D-Printed Creations

If you try to describe 3D printing to someone, you can’t help but channel a little science fiction. “You put designs in this machine, which then just like…makes it.” I’m convinced that its the great-great-great-grandfather to the oft-referenced Star Trek replicator. Luckily, I already like my tea Earl Grey and hot. But almost every new…

Your New Favorite Journal: Medical Problems of Performing Artists

Published studies include: “Physiological assessment of bagpipers: a preliminary study of cardiopulmonary parameters”; “Music Performance Anxiety in Young Musicians: Comparison of Playing Classical or Popular Music”; and “Foot and Ankle Pain and Injuries in Elite Adult Irish Dancers.” Per the journal’s website: Medical Problems of Performing Artists is the first clinical medical journal devoted to…

These Pitches For Low-Key Marvel Movies Are Perfect

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a big place, one in which characters can go from fighting evil aliens hellbent on destroying the city to sharing some shawarma in a blink of the eye. Even so, many of the best parts of these stories happen off-screen (at least so far). Which is why we were so…

What Science Fiction Or Fantasy Character Deserves More Recognition?

Samwell Tarly is no one’s favorite Game of Thrones character. Sure, he can’t fight and he’s kind of a coward, but he’s the only person in Westeros to have killed a White Walker, and he’s very possibly the smartest person in the Night’s Watch, which is going to be far more useful than swords in…

First Supergirl Trailer Really Does Feel Like An SNL Parody

Oh no, someone took the Black Widow SNL sketch and turned it into a real series. CBS just released its first trailer for the Supergirl show and it is so depressingly paint-by-numbers we had to list the cliches off. But halfway in, it gets better. https://gizmodo.com/snl-hilariously-skewers-marvels-idea-of-a-girl-superhe-1701853744 This is depressing. Why must this big, awesome female-led…

What’s the Craziest Computer Bug You’ve Ever Encountered?

System errors and software glitches appear without warning to mess with our workflows. If you work in tech, it’s often on you to fix ‘em. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen? Our EIC Annalee Newitz shared a story of a friend whose library software randomly decided to order 10,000 books in Russian. The friend was…

Science Literacy Isn’t As Bad As The Statistics Make It Look

Read the catchy one-line statistics that circulate in the headlines and on social media and you’d be forgiven for thinking that public understanding of science is in a sorry state. Truth is, it’s not as bad it appears — a misconception fueled by the bad survey. A few months back, we heard that 80% of…

The US House Just Voted to Stop the NSA’s Bulk Data Collection

As key provisions of the Patriot Act are about to expire in June, Congress is in a big hurry to figure out how to reform surveillance. The House just overwhelmingly voted in favor of the USA Freedom Act, a bill that’ll limit the NSA’s bulk data collection. Unfortunately, it may not be able to fix…

Limitless The TV Show Is Basically Limitless The Movie, But With Cops

Okay, so we knew from the start that the CBS spinoff of Neil Burger’s Limitless would be a police procedural, but the first look trailer shown at CBS’s Upfronts presentation doubly confirmed it: This is Limitless, right down to the presence of Bradley Cooper, complete with added procedural fun times. https://gizmodo.com/limitless-will-be-turned-into-a-police-procedural-for-t-1682512070 The series, which follows…

Video: A tour of an abandoned asylum is the eeriest thing

Yeesh. Project Senium took a tour of an abandoned asylum and seeing the decay and emptiness and mess is quite unsettling. And then imagining the stories the walls could tell and then thinking about the people who walked through the halls and then having to convince yourself that ghosts aren’t real sure makes your spine…