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How a desert cat uses its super ears to hunt birds in mid-flight

This footage of a desert cat taking out a bird in mid-flight is another impressive reminder of the astonishing power of natural evolution. The small but agile caracal uses 20 muscles —in three distinct groups—to independently control each of its ears, which act as supersensitive parabolic sound antennas. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome…

Amazon Now Has a Create-Your-Own 3D-Printing Store

Amazon has just opened a new 3D Printing Store, which allows customers to customize and then purchase “more than 200 unique print-on-demand products.” http://www.amazon.com/b?tag=gizmodo08c-20 Customer can take their pick from a wide variety of products to tweak: from cufflinks to credit card holders, iPhone cases to… err, custom bobbleheads. The amount of customization available on…

These Light Paintings Show How Wi-Fi Swirls and Shifts Around You

Ever wondered how the Wi-Fi signal varies around your house or workplace? Well, a new project by Luis Hernan combines signal strength sensing with light painting to show you just that. As part of a project for his PhD in Architecture and Interaction Design, Hernan has created what he calls a Kirlian device: it’s an…

This Mexican beauty is the perfect burger brunch to cure a hangover

A toasted English muffin stuffed with seasoned grass fed beef and pork sausage patty, whipped avocado cream, crispy chile ancho rubbed carnitas, purple cabbage slaw and smoky grilled pineapple butter. Get two sunny side up eggs on the side and some fries and you’ll have the perfect brunch. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome…

Is Cannibalism Unhealthy or Just Awful?

If, say, a human ate another human in an apocalyptic scenario, would it be unhealthy? Or gross? Or just generally awful? It would, in fact, be all kinds of bad. Allows us to explain how. Unhealthy For the Devourer Depending on what parts are eaten (the most infected include the brain, spinal cord, bone marrow…

A New Pure Lithium Battery Could Double Your Phone’s Life

Virtually all of your gadgets tote lithium ion batteries—but while they’re the best you can hope for at the moment, new engineering means that pure lithium batteries are now a possibility, and they could double the life of your phone. All batteries have three basic parts: an electrolyte to provide electrons, an anode to discharge…

Two new mysterious giant holes found in Siberia, scientists puzzled

Scientists have found two new mysterious giant holes in Siberia, like the one that appeared in Siberia two weeks ago. The new craters are smaller than the first but they share a similar structure. Scientists are still puzzled by the origin of these formations. Here are all the details: https://gizmodo.com/mysterious-hole-discovered-in-siberia-1605872539 Crater of Antipayuta This hole…

Watson’s First Consumer Role: Helping Military Vets Become Civilians

The USAA has announced that it’s recruiting IBM’s Watson for its first-ever consumer-facing application—and it’ll help military members transition back into civilian life. The supercomputer will help the USAA—essentially the insurance and financial services firm that helps military and their families—to advise those leaving the military about the transition from military to civilian life: finding…

Nope, this isn’t how NASA gets ready to roast a chicken. In fact, this image shows its engineers testing the sunshield for the NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The size of a tennis court, it folds up like an umbrella—so has to be tested extensively to make sure the five layers of thin membrane can…

Report: Apple Is Buying Talk-Radio App Swell For $30 Million

A report by Re/Code suggests that Apple is buying—and swallowing whole—the talk-radio app Swell for $30 million. The report suggests that according to “multiple sources” Apple will take control of the start-up, currently funded in part by Google Ventures, very soon. For those unfamiliar, Swell is an iOS app which compiles podcasts and other shows…

First Mockingjay Trailer Shows Off Julianne Moore As President Coin

Both Julianne Moore and Game of Thrones’ Natalie Dormer enter the world of the Hunger Games with this trailer for Mockingjay, Part 1. It’s all-out war as Katniss steps into her role as the symbol of the rebellion. It’s bittersweet to see the late Philip Seymour Hoffman in this trailer as Plutarch Heavensbee, and this…

Someone Finally Built the Ultimate Urban Bike

The road to building a dream bike is fraught with potholes—it’s easy to throw together a bunch of wacky ideas into a build and end up with something very far from perfect. This is not one of those bikes. This is Horse Bicycles‘s “Merge,” a collaboration with Pensa Design Studios, who set out to build…

Brand New Avengers 2 Props Reveal Ultron Mark One

Today, Marvel is displaying a whole slew of props from Avengers 2 — including Ultron’s Mark One (the body he cobbles together for himself before attacking Earth’s mightiest heroes) and Captain America’s cracked shield. The top image (from Comic Book Movie) allegedly shows the first ever suit the James Spader-voiced killer robot builds for himself.…

Propaganda Posters From The Dawn Of Star Wars‘ Galactic Empire

When the Empire rises in the wake of Revenge of the Sith, it doesn’t merely want to rule the Galaxy with an cybernetically enhanced fist; it also wants to win hearts and minds. So the Star Wars: Rebels team developed propaganda posters for the fledgling Galactic Empire. A missive that comes with these posters, which…

The Battered Bastards of Baseball Is the Best Netflix Original Yet

You’re well within your rights to obsess over House of Cards, or Orange Is the New Black, or maybe even Lilyhammer if it’s been a particularly rough month. But the best Netflix original isn’t a TV series. It’s a documentary. Specifically, it’s The Battered Bastards of Baseball. It’s possible (likely?) that I’m very specifically conditioned…

This Could Be the Greatest Advance in Water Balloon Technology Ever

Shut up about your high tech super soakers, because Bunch O Balloons is about to take water fights to the next level. Just look at it! You can fill like a zillion balloons all at once, and then DRIVE YOUR ENEMIES BEFORE YOU. If you’ve ever had to reload your balloon ammo supplies in the…

What Was The Most Exciting Surprise Or Biggest Letdown Of Comic-Con?

They’re rolling up the spacewalks in the San Diego Convention Center, and it’s a great moment to take stock. What panels, exhibitions or other events were especially great? What stuff failed to meet your expectations? If you were at Comic-Con, we want to hear from you! Top image: Joe Crawford/Flickr.

Watch What Happens When You Dip a Cheeseburger in Acid

This video will let you see scientists do to a cheeseburger what Judge Doom did to that cartoon shoe in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. They dunk the cheeseburger in hydrochloric acid and see what happens. It’s not an explosion, but it’s a pretty good show all the same. Hydrochloric acid is what’s swishing around your…

Report: Amazon’s Taking Square Head-On

9to5Mac has obtained some convincing evidence that Amazon’s working on its own credit card swipers, aiming its sights at incumbent Square for payments-on-the-go. Because if you’re not going to buy from Amazon, at the very least they can handle the money. The internal Staples documents highlighted by 9to5Mac indicate that the Everything Store plans to…

Secret Tunnels in Warfare Are Less of a Threat Than You Think

Israeli troops claim that they have discovered more secret tunnels that Hamas is using to get into the country. Though the tunnels sound terrifying, military strategy experts say they have little value when it comes to battlefield results. Image via Israel Defense Forces In the Washington Post this weekend, history professor Gerard Degroot explains that…