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Why Do We Get Motion Sickness?

The majority of the population will at some point have to contend with that dreaded icky feeling of spewing their guts as they ride in a train, plane or automobile. But why do we get motion sickness, and is there any way we can stop it? In fact, it’s a result of our senses coming…

Just Look at What Saturn’s Moons Do To Its Rings

Saturn’s moons do more than just orbit the planet: they interact with its rings, too. In this image, you can see the moon Prometheus’ gravitational field gently sculpting the planet’s F ring. Over on the left, you can also just about make out some ripples at the edge of the Keeler gap, which are in…

This Amazing Life-Size, Air-Powered Lego Car Hits 20mph

What happens if you take 500,000 pieces of Lego and 256 pistons, then hand them over to Steve Sammartino and Raul Oaida? This fully functioning, life-size, air-powered Lego car is what. With four orbital engines powering the massive lump of plastic bricks, the vehicle can hit speeds of up to 20mph. Styled to look like…

A Very Scanner Christmas

When you hear that Robin Rimbaud, aka Scanner, has recorded a cover of “White Christmas,” perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is surveillance audio of Santa making his annual sleigh ride — a sound art version of the Official NORAD Santa Tracker. Scanner made his name — that name — early on by…

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: 88 Minutes of Soul Train

Put on your finest velour leisure suit and kinkiest disco boots, we’re going dancin’ down memory lane with this incredible supercut of Soul Train’s iconic dance line. Who knows, you might even recognize an earlier you in the crowd.

Beautiful woman in bikini turns into Santa Claus in reverse Photoshop

Well played. Ad agency Victors & Spoils poked fun of mass media’s tendency to turn normal humans into plastic Barbie and Ken dolls through their abuse of Photoshop by, well, using Photoshop in reverse. That is, they took a viral photo of a girl in a bikini that had been heavily altered and added more…

Watch the visual effects reel of Thor: The Dark World’s prologue

If you watched Thor: The Dark World, you surely remember the epic sequence that kicked off the movie. The opening battle did a great job in setting the tone and looked absolutely incredible. Blur Studios, the shop who did the visual effects for the prologue, lifts the curtain a bit to reveal how they made…

Insane bike trick seems to murder the laws of physics

We no longer live on Earth, my friends. We’re in some weird world where people can do the impossible. Do you want to fly? You should try. Do you want to spin in the air in both directions? I think you can. Because this insane Superman double backflip bicycle trick destroys everything that should be…

Listen to Wil Wheaton read from Warren Ellis’ horrifying love story

We’ve got an exclusive clip of Wil Wheaton reading from Warren Ellis’ Dead Pig Collector, out today. You may know Ellis from his Transmetropolitan comics, or from his latest novel Gun Machine. He knows how to write blood and guts and make you love it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GBCDOE0?tag=gizmodo08c-20 Here’s the blurb on the book, which you can…

Visit the edge of space in a capsule powered by a helium balloon

Talk about taking balloon rides to the next level. This concept capsule could eventually take a crew of eight people to a height of 98,425 feet (30 km). From there, passengers would be able to see the curvature of the Earth — and even the blackness of space. https://gizmodo.com/that-moment-when-a-high-altitude-balloon-ventures-a-lit-1357411210 Conceived by the Paragon Space Development…

At Christmas, this town builds a Giant Yule goat and then torches it

We all celebrate the holidays in our ways. Some of us with friends and family, some of us with food and drink, and, in a small town in Sweden, with constructing a 40-foot tall Yule Goat out of straw and then burning it the ground. Today, we looked at some of the more alarming faces…

Multi-Winged Planes Are Aviation History’s Most Amazing Failures

Aircraft makers tried a lot of different designs before settling on the two-winged planes and jets we’re familiar with today. Inventors toyed with the idea of a multi-winged aircraft — often fashioned from incredibly complicated structures — before discarding it. Here are some of their most amazing failures. The Philips Multiplanes from 1904, 1907 and…

The Haunt trailer has a magical radio that talks to the dead

Well this is a new one — check out the trailer for Haunt. A movie about a couple of kids and a wacky box that allows them to speak to the dead. Children, when will you learn? The dead have nothing good to say. Looks like your classic “Don’t go sticking your nose in dead…

Stabilized video of lunar buggy ride is even cooler than the original

There are few things more amazing than watching humans driving a lunar rover. I mean—these guys came in a spaceship from another planet to drive a goddamn buggy on the bloody Moon. The only way to better that video is to stabilize it. For comparison, here’s the original: I’m loving this trend of stabilizing shaky…

Sneak Peek: Tonight, Person of Interest shows us the birth of a hacker

In this exclusive clip from tonight’s mid-season finale for Person of Interest, we are treated to a classic “birth of a hacker” scene from computer mastermind Finch’s past. We’ve also got the scene in the form of a comic book from DC Entertainment — also an io9 exclusive. I love watching young Finch as his…

How being “Bummed and Ugly” helped Alice Sola Kim find Philip K. Dick

Science fiction writer Alice Sola Kim has a terrific personal essay over in Buzzfeed about how she discovered Philip K. Dick when she was 15. And even though you can be totally well-adjusted and fall in love with Dick’s vision, being “bummed and ugly” helped her get into his work. Honestly, you should just go…

This Is What 400,000 Hours of TV News Looks Like

Ever wonder what places get the most attention in American news? The answer is more striking than you might think. This geography of U.S. attention is beautifully illustrated in a new animation that maps the geographic subjects of U.S. television news broadcasts over the span of four-years. It’s kinda sparkly. The stunning visualization was put…

Hilarious video shows everyone Arnold Schwarzenegger has ever killed

It’s Ahnold. It’s 28 minutes long. It’s every kill he’s ever made in movies. It’s amazing. It’s everything the Internet was ever created for, really. From popping up in TV series like the Streets of San Francisco to becoming a star in Conan and Terminator to all time classics like True Lies and even post-gubernatorial…

Could a Smartphone Cholesterol Sensor Convince You Not to Supersize?

One day you might be able to make a more informed decision when the cashier asks if you’d like to supersize your fries. Researchers at Cornell University have developed an accessory for your smartphone called the smartCARD that actually lets you measure your cholesterol in mere minutes. Short for ‘Smartphone Cholesterol Application for Rapid Diagnostics’,…

Want to know about the future of drones in America? Here’s the official US Federal Aviation Administration report on how they plan to integrate UAVs into US airspace over the next few years. [PDF]