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The Smell of Peanut Butter Could Diagnose Alzheimer’s

On the heels of the recent discovery thataccelerometers could be used as indicators for Alzheimer’s disease comes yet another potential diagnostic tool, one that most of us already have in our pantries: peanut butter. Alzheimer’s often impacts the olfactory cortex first and, as such, compromises our sense of smell, specifically in the brain’s left hemisphere.…

Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle! We’re used to judges quoting Star Trek in their judicial opinions — but a judge gets extra credit for quoting both Trek and the Tom Swift novels. And did you know Taser originally stood for “Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle”?

The Moto X Is $100 Cheaper On Amazon Right Now

The best Android phone for most people is 50% off on Amazon right now on AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Here’s the Gizmodo Review. It’s even better after the recent update to the camera. Moto X [AT&T] | $100 Moto X [Verizon] | $100 Moto X [Sprint] | $80-$100 Get in touch with Shane on Twitter…

What ever happened to the “advanced civilization gone barbaric” story?

It used to be a mainstay of science fiction: the story where we visit a barbarian society that turns out to have been highly technologically advanced in the past. You saw this story all the time on Doctor Who and Star Trek, and in the pulps. And now, it’s more or less vanished. What happened?…

Google Maps Adds Multiple Destinations, Events, and Reservations

Getting to one destination and then having to input your next destination manually? Who has the time? Years of your life have been wasted with this arduous task. But now, finally (or, rather, once again) you can add multiple destinations all at once in Google Maps. You simply type in your first destination, hit the…

Beautiful art celebrates anatomical oddities

As fans of all things medically weird and anatomically odd, we’re all about this eldritch illustration by Chicago-based artist Cloey Zikmund. Equal parts creepy and cute, the piece draws its inspiration from the unique collection of specimens housed at the Museum Vrolik in Amsterdam. Check out more of Zikmund’s work on her tumblr, or do…

33 People Hiding in This Iconic Photo of Gettysburg Who Aren’t Lincoln

Thanks to a discovery made by one Lincoln-loving professor from North Carolina, the subjects in this classic photo taken at Gettysburg have been called into question. Is that really Lincoln? Or is that other guy Lincoln? And most importantly—what else might be lurking in those creased sepia shadows? Fortunately, you all were more than happy…

Sympathy for the pickup artist on Person of Interest

Except for some insane action with Root, this episode of Person of Interest was like getting a TMI report from your college-age cousin about his dorm room sexual exploits. Stalking doesn’t have to be bad, OK? Seriously, Person of Interest, we didn’t need to know you felt that way. So the number this week was…

Listen to a brain seizure turned into music

Yikes, this is all kinds of creepy. Stanford scientists recently took the EEG signals from a person experiencing a convulsive seizure and converted them to tones that fell within the acoustic spectrum of the human voice. The results will send chills up your spine. The scientists/artists responsible for this “piece” are Josef Parvizi and Chris…

This Wild Wallpaper Turns Your Home Into a Natural History Museum

Ever had the urge to turn your home into a life-sized curiosity cabinet? Would you love to surround yourself with full-scale lions, oversized insects, and realistic depictions of human skeletons? Do you often construct your own personal Night At The Museum-style fantasies? If you’ve got a taste for the strange but are a bit short…

Shooting Challenge: Government Shut Down

We’ve all heard, the U.S. government is shut down. And to celebrate the absurdity, we’re going to photograph things that are closed, abandoned, and if you’re really clever, shut down specifically because of the government. The Challenge Take a photo of something that’s closed, abandoned, or generally shut down. It can be directly related to…

How did Mark Sheppard steal last night’s Supernatural without appearing?

Seriously, how? See for yourself. This was an entirely Mark Sheppard-less season opener… and still the one standout scene involved Mark Sheppard. Mostly because you can just imagine the look on his face. Spoilers ahead… I do not have much to say about Supernatural’s ninth (!) season opener. I feel like this is the tenth…

MacPaint In Your Browser Lets You Relive The Macintosh’s Best Feature

If it wasn’t for artists who embraced the company’s computers, Apple might not have survived to release the iPod. And were it not for MacPaint, the simple (by today’s standards) bitmap-based painting program included with the original Macintosh, those artists may have never fell in love with Apple in the first place. But if you’re…

Amazing Hand-Tinted Photos of Egypt from the late 19th century

In the late nineteenth century, Western archaeologists and tourists were fascinated by the ruins of ancient Egypt. Here are some of the incredible photos they took, which were hand-tinted in the fashion of the day. This is like meta-history, where we look back on an historical method of looking back at ancient history. Temple of…

American Horror Story’s Evan Peters On His Latest Monster: A Frat Guy

We’ve seen American Horror Story’s Evan Peters play a school shooter, greaser, a hippie — and in our exclusive interview with the actor he revealed his next role, a frat brother! Will the tumblr fans still love him when he’s chugging beers with the witches of New Orleans? Most likely. Check out what Peters had…

This Life-Size Dr. Who Lego Dalek will Exterminate You!

Lego builder Elephant Knight recently showcased his impressive life-size Lego Blacktron Dalek from Dr. Who at BrickCon Seattle. Unless you’re a Whovian, a pepper shaker covered in candy dots, armed with a plunger and an eggbeater may not look too terrifying, but at 5′ 4″ tall, this thing is a lethal weapon! Daleks are unstoppable,…

A supercut of people terrorized by things that turned out to be cats

Cats are evil, man. They wait until a serial killer sneaks inside your house. After you’re nervous, they jump out at you — scaring you briefly, but then giving you a false sense of security, letting you be murdered more effectively. The evidence is here, in this supercut of the countless times cats have psychologically…

Floating Touchscreen Displays Keep ATM Screens Invisible To Others

If this next-generation display technology developed by Asukanet ever goes past the concept stage, the days of huddling over an ATM display to block your balances from prying eyes could be over. With a viewing angle of just plus or minus 20 degrees, the Aerial Imaging Plate has a very specific sweet spot that ensures…

17 Jobs That Robots Were Supposed to Have Stolen By Now

Robots are stealing our jobs. Again. In fact, they’ve been stealing our jobs in one way or another since the dawn of the industrial revolution. But when the economy’s in the toilet, our fear of robotic workers reaches new heights. And that fear was well reflected in the early 1980s — a period of double-digit…

Even a Choir Can’t Make YouTube Comments Less Horrible

YouTube: you know it as a land where even the most adorable video of a puppy can devolve into a thread of racist, sexist, homophobic gobbledygook in an instant. But would it help if the site’s notoriously awful comments were sung by an angelic choir? In theory, a nice melody and a little harmony might…