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The Physics of Why You Get Confused When You Reverse a Car

Driving forwards is easy. Reversing is… weirdly much trickier. This video from Minute Physics explains why you shouldn’t feel dumb about it—because it’s all down to physics working against you. Drive forwards and you turn the wheels right there with you at the front, changing the direction you travel in with the rear wheels simply…

Uber Claims to Have Scaled Back Use of Its ‘God View’ Tool

In November, it came to light that Uber employees were able to track its riders using a “God View” tool. Now, in a letter to Senator Al Franken, the company has explained that it’s scaling back the use of the tool. https://gizmodo.com/report-uber-can-track-any-customer-using-its-god-view-1660525110 In last month’s report, Buzzfeed reported that Uber’s top New York executive, Josh…

Oil Paintings That Look Like They Came Straight Out Of Futuristic Lab

Beautiful in their own right, these works of art from artist Atsushi Koyama look very much like illustrations for how to manipulate a holographic design table. A lot of precise hand and eye coordination is involved. Koyama’s work here is so precise that it’s hard to imagine that they’re oil paintings and not computer-generated blueprints.…

Google’s 2014 Top Searches: Robin Williams, World Cup, Ebola, and More

Here’s your 2014 Google Zeitgeist, better known as the last 12 months in Google Search. The company does this every year, and it’s always fascinating because search sheds light, however disappointingly, onto what the heck people on earth are thinking about. Because when you want to know more about something, you Google it. As with…

This Cantilevered Library Design Is Terrifyingly Brilliant

If a hurricane ever happened to hit downtown Calgary, I think I’d rather stand out in the open than hide under the cantilevered main floor of this proposed library design, in case the whole thing fell over. But apocalyptic design flaws aside, this failed proposal for Calgary’s central library is incredibly clever, and I’m slightly…

Meet the Spiky Shelled Sea Snail Named After The Clash’s Joe Strummer

After discovering new deep sea snails with spiky shells, researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute named one of them (on the left above) A. Strummeri after Joe Strummer, singer for the Clash. Speaking with the Santa Cruz Sentinel, lead researcher Shannon Johnson explained that the name was based in more than just a…

Don’t Spend $30,000 On This Stupid Diamond-Covered Apple Watch

Hey, rich people: you know that $5,000 Apple Watch you already had your eye on? Forget it. This one is better, in every quantifiable way. More diamonds. Bigger price tag. An extra side order of diamonds to go with your diamonds. Oh, and you can even pay for it right now. The diamond-encrusted digital timepiece…

These cool animated optical illusions never get old

I never get tired of Brusspup’s Amazing Animated Optical Illusions series because I love making my eyes feel dumb and in turn making myself feel even dumber. It’s always good to humble yourself with optical illusions. Especially optical illusions that seem to be animated to move but are actually just well designed images. The lines…

120 days of apartment renovation in a single time-lapse video

I’ve always liked watching home improvement shows because the idea of rebuilding and renovating and creating with your own hands is so interesting to me. But this time lapse of an apartment being completely remodeled is better than any of those TV shows because it scrunches 120 days of work into one video. I’d advise…

Pennsylvania And Washington Lead The Nation In Bigfoot Sightings

‘Tis the season for year-end stories wrapping up the cultural and political goings-on of 2014. So why not … “The Year in Bigfoot“? CityLab went through the submissions sent to the admirably user-friendly website run by the nearly 100-year-old Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, crunching the numbers like leaves under suspiciously large, hairy feet. The results,…

Denmark Is The Latest Country To Claim The North Pole As Its Own

Although you might think that the North Pole is nothing but a barren wilderness populated only by polar bears and Santa, a surprisingly large number of countries are getting surprisingly bitchy about who owns it — mostly because of the oil underneath. Today, Denmark added its name to the list. https://gizmodo.com/canadas-getting-ready-to-claim-the-north-pole-as-its-o-1475643608 In case you’re not…

The beautiful process of making a Beretta shotgun is hypnotizing

Here’s a short film by Ancarani Studio that shows the process of making a Beretta shotgun. It’s an artistic take on the process so shots are dolled up and it’s not like every Beretta gun comes with its own birth movie but I love seeing how futuristic robots and old fashioned human craftsmanship work together.…

Bursting with stars: Markarian 209, a blue compact dwarf galaxy, is captured in the middle of an intense burst of star formation, as seen in the light blue cloudy region in the top right corner. The dominant population of stars is under 3 million years old, compared with our 4.6 billion year-old sun. [Hubble/ESA]

This Inflatable Jacket Uses Air To Keep You Warm

In a sense, every piece of clothing uses air to keep you warm: fleece, or wool, or down feathers trap air, and keep your body-generated heat from escaping into the nasty cold outside world. But NuDown’s jackets want to take that a step further, giving you an inflatable jacket that’s basically like wearing an air…

Italy’s Boot-like Shape Is Unmistakable When Seen From Space

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station recently captured this glorious panoramic night-time shot of Italy. Yup, that’s Italy all right. A higher resolution image of the top photo can be found here. Here’s an annotated image to help you get your bearings on this unconventional easterly perspective: NASA’s Earth Observatory blog explains: Some of the…

A Mind-Blowing Explanation Of Existentialism In The Terminator Films

It’s no accident that Sarah Connor’s famous dictum that there is “No fate but what we make” closely resembles Jean-Paul Sartre’s first principle of existentialism, that “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself.” As philosophy grad student Ro Smith explains in the above video (and accompanying essay), the Terminator films are…

The Smartest Satire Leaving Netflix is the Teen Comedy Saved! 

Netflix is losing a bunch of great movies next month, including classics like 12 Angry Men. That’s fine; Netflix changes movie rosters all the time, and we’re getting Mean Girls back in the new year. But before it goes away, I recommend watching the second-best teen comedy that came out in 2004: Saved! Jena Malone…

After The Snow Day Went Extinct

As Diane watched the early morning bustle of the delivery ships, she lamented the loss of the snow day. Sure, they didn’t need it any more with snow shuttles and Thermex clothes, but it was a nice tradition. Plus, she’d had one hot toddy too many last night and hadn’t come close to finishing her…

The cute rolling ball droid in the new Star Wars is a real robot not CGI

Perhaps the best part about the new Star Wars trailer was seeing BB-8, the adorable rolling ball robot in the new Star Wars movie, bounce and roll itself across the screen. It looked so familiar and so cute and so perfect as the new movie’s answer to R2-D2. And the best thing about it? BB-8…

Is There Any Environment On Earth That Spiders Can’t Live In?

They can cartwheel their way through the desert, snag themselves a live fish twice their size, and trick prey by carefully constructed giant spider effigies (made out of leaves, dead bugs, and nightmares). Is there anywhere spiders can’t thrive? https://gizmodo.com/and-now-lets-all-watch-this-spider-do-some-cartwheels-1571900268 http://animals.io9.com/fish-eating-spiders-are-everywhere-1593387772/+riamisra https://gizmodo.com/these-spiders-build-statues-of-spiders-out-of-leaves-an-1505937330 Arachnologist Greta Binford joined us to take questions about spiders, including one on…