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A scientifically accurate Santa Claus would horrifyingly destroy Earth

Merry Christmas! Happy holidays! Santa Claus isn’t *spoiler alert* real! And that’s actually a good thing. Because if Santa Claus was real and scientifically accurate, he would travel the world so fast that he’d basically become a flaming meteor that would destroy the world and crater the Earth. Claus himself would then turn into ground…

This Week’s TV: Will the Person of Interest team lose another MVP?

This week’s must-see TV is the fall finale of our favorite network show, Person of Interest. And they’re hinting that one of the show’s heroes may quit the POI team. Watch clips from the Robot Chicken Xmas special, and John Oliver’s guest spot on Rick and Morty! Plus learn how Sherlock Holmes created forensic science!…

New research: Great white sharks are surprisingly similar to humans

A new genetic study on great white shark’s hearts has found that these animals are strikingly similar to humans. More than zebrafish, in fact, which is now widely used to “study cancers, neurological diseases and blood disorders” because of their similitude to humans. Cornell University’s professor Michael Stanhope—the lead author of the paper published in…

Report: Windows Phone 8.1 Will Finally Have a Notification Center

The Verge reports that Microsoft is gearing up to ship Windows Phone 8.1. The new OS, which will apparently be detailed at the company’s BUILD conference in April, will finally (FINALLY) add a notification center as well as a Siri-like personal assistant. According, to the Verge’s Tom Warren, the new notification center will have two…

The Best Reason to Join Google+ (Or Else!)

Have you signed up for Google+ yet? Have you?! Or have you been cowering in the closet, whispering empty reassurances to yourself as it slowly but surely closes in. There’s only one place this can all be headed: Enter Google Blackmail. OK so College Humor’s take on the future is (probably) not accurate, but the…

This is a 2,400-year-old baby bottle. This recently discovered terracotta pig was used as a toy and a baby bottle by the Messapii people of what is now southern Italy. These vessels, called guttus, had narrow necks and small openings from which liquids could be poured slowly, even in drops. The beautifully preserved artifact was…

Award-winning images of some of the world’s smallest life forms

These macroscopic images of living creatures from the Olympus Bioscapes competition are a view of nature at its tiniest. One of the cool things about photography using microscopes is the way it turns some of the most everyday objects on their head. Check out some of the other contest winners and honorable mentions below, and…

Photoshop Parody Ads Show the Depressing Truth About Filtered Beauty

In a new series of incisive Photoshops, artist Anna Hill uses the image editing techniques that are ubiquitous in mainstream advertising to turn herself into a model. The resulting parody ads don’t market make up or clothes, but instead, the image-perfecting power of Photoshop itself. This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve seen an artist…

Watch China’s Chang’e 3 land on the Moon!

This weekend, China became the third country in history to put a spacecraft on the Moon with the soft-landing touchdown of its Chang’e 3 probe and deployment of the Yutu rover. Here now for your viewing pleasure is the footage of its picturesque lunar arrival. https://gizmodo.com/chinas-change-3-rocket-launch-is-one-of-the-sexiest-y-1474782565 https://gizmodo.com/heres-what-chinas-yutu-rover-is-doing-on-the-moon-1483746967 The video lasts six and a half minutes…

Behold the Monstrous Beauty of This Year’s Coolest Microscopic Images

Mouse brains! Bat embryos! Hungry algae! Today, Olympus unveiled the winners of the tenth annual BioScapes photography competition, which showcases the best photography captured through light microscopes. The top ten were chosen from a mind-boggling 2,100 entries. What’s really cool about BioScapes is how drastically imaging technology has improved since the competition began. These shots…

Amazing photo of severed hand surgically attached to an ankle

Medicine is amazing but sometimes it can look like the darkest corners of Stephen King’s brain. This is exactly the case: Chinese doctors saved a man’s severed hand by attaching it to his ankle, creating some impossible anatomy in the process. Xiao Wei—an industrial worker in Changde, China—suffered a dramatic accident in which his hand…

These incredibly vivid color photos of Antarctica were taken in 1915

Early last century, Australian photographer Frank Hurley participated in a number of expeditions to Antarctica. He visited the polar continent six times from 1911 to 1932 — but his 1915 trip with Sir Ernest Shackleton proved to be the most memorable. These are the photos he took after their ship became hopelessly trapped in the…

You Can Now 3D Print a Fully Functional Speaker

There’s no doubt that 3D printing is going to play a huge part in the future of manufacturing, especially now that researchers at Cornell University have managed to print every component of a fully functional speaker—including the cone, the wiring, and even the magnet. Because plastic is used for the speaker cone—which is heavier than…

Christopher Lee returns with a new heavy metal Christmas carol classic

Oh, man. Christopher Lee is so old, you guys. Which is partially why it’s so wonderful that’s he’s still churning out awesome holiday music like this new heavy metal cover (with accompanying metal lyrics!) of “Jingle Bells” titled, of course, “Jingle Hell.” The other reason is that his singing voice is still amazing. https://gizmodo.com/christopher-lee-has-just-released-two-heavy-metal-chris-5970586 You…

Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs Might Have Blasted Life to Mars

The massive asteroid that slammed into Earth some 66 million years ago is often—and understandably—considered a vicious killer. But new research into the cosmic effects of the impact suggest quite the opposite. That deadly asteroid might have actually blasted life throughout the solar system. As a team of researchers argue in the latest issue of…

The Greatest Innovation in Oreo Dunking Since Milk

Oreo might be trying to push its snack-sized mini cookies with this utterly brilliant way to dunk, but there’s no reason this hack can’t work with full-sized Oreo cookies as well—or any reasonably-sized cookie, for that matter. You’ll of course need access to a clean french press, but the other components—milk and cookies—should be easy…

The 4K Content Charge Is Being Led By… Amazon

Amazon has even more original content coming in 2014, and all of it is going to be shot in 4K. So many pixels (if you have an ultra high-def TV, that is). https://gizmodo.com/these-are-the-original-pilots-amazon-is-going-to-make-i-510264617 While many movies and some shows are already shot in 4K, Amazon actually plans to deliver 4K content. It has already produced…

Make a silver crystal Christmas tree

Now that we’re closing in on Christmas, it might be time to do some arts and crafts. Leave the popcorn stringing to other people and pull out copper wire and some nice silver nitrate, so you can make a sparkling silver crystal Christmas tree. Silver nitrate is a fairly simple molecule. One silver atom is…

Happy Monday. Have some moth “protuberances.”

Above: A moth, shown here deploying its “relatively large protuberances.” Just imagine those things wriggling their way up your nostrils and tickling the backs of your eyeballs. As RAIJU points out in the comments, these protuberances are in fact the pheromone-dispersing androconial organs of a male moth. The technical term is coremata (from the Greek…

These Amazing Artificial Islands and Archipelagos Rule the Waves

More than 70 percent of the surface of the Earth is covered by water: oceans, seas, rivers, and lakes. Sometimes humankind just can’t get enough dry land to set foot on, so we create artificial islands for our needs. Here are nearly 40 examples of this effort, from an ancient crannog to a modern rocket-launching…