Latest

The Oddest-Looking Musical Instruments on Earth

Most musical instruments look a little weird, if you stare at them for long enough. When aliens finally make contact, they’ll be confused by our habit of gripping wood and metal structures and throttling sound out of them. But some devices are odder than others. Here are the strangest musical instruments of all. The Contrabass…

Adidas’s New Smart Soccer Ball Tells You Everything About Your Kicks

Tech in sports typically revolves around maximizing performance in some nebulous and difficult-to-fact-check way. But Adidas has been doing some very cool stuff, like MiCoach biometric tracking, and now it’s got something new and actually kind of great in theory: a soccer ball that tells you what its doing. The new smart ball from Adidas…

Bartending robot mixes (and remixes) crowdsourced drink recipes

Start the first summer holiday off with a cool drink, courtesy of these three robotic arms. MIT Senseable City Lab, Coca Cola, and Bacardi have teamed up to bring you the Makr Shakr, an experiment in digital manufacturing and yummy beverages. Users can interact in real time with the Makr Shakr, by inputting a cocktail…

What Do You Do in the Awkward Time Before You Meet an Online Date?

Online dating is great! You can meet people you otherwise would never encounter that share your interests and just might end up being the one. But the anonymity factor makes it just as easy to flake on someone when it comes to meeting IRL as it is to click on his or her profile to…

Will your job still exist a generation from now?

We all currently live in a system where we get paid for our labor and exchange that payment for goods and bits of information. But what sort of economic system are we going to have in another 20 years, after more improvements in computers and robotics? Will your current job even still exist? Top image:…

The Science of Non-Alcoholic Beer

“Blasphemy! A crime against nature!” Yes, many people feel the same way about non-alcoholic beer as they do about decaffeinated espresso. “It’s just wrong and what’s the point” is the thinking. Yes. Yes, you’re very cool. Now shut it. While it may not be your drink of choice, there are plenty of very valid reasons…

Beautiful Prints From Iconic New Yorker Artist Adrian Tomine

Adrian Tomine has a talent for capturing the strangeness and beauty of life in a city, from creeping Brooklyn gentrification to the subway-borne Missed Connection. His frequent illustrations for The New Yorker have always made me wish I could own a larger print—in fact, a copy of his iconic post-Hurricane Sandy cover hangs in our…

Can you spot every detail in this Simpsons theme park concept art?

Universal Studios has revealed their concept art for a real life Simpson’s theme park. And this tiny Springfield includes Moe’s, Krusty Burger, Duff Beer, Lard Lad Donuts and a Kwik-E-Mart. Fantastic. Filmthrasher has the official press released and concept art from the proposed park which will be built in Universal Orlando near the pre-existing Simpson’s…

A Clever Plastic Brace Turns Long-Stemmed Flowers Into Their Own Vase

Florists around the country, pay attention. If you’re looking for a value-added reason for people to buy a dozen roses from your shop, then find a way to get this brilliant Crown Vase put into production and include one with every bouquet. Designed by Lambert Rainville, a student at the Royal College of Art, the…

Microsoft and YouTube just told us that they’re working on an official YouTube app for Windows Phone together. The app will be released in “the coming weeks” (and will have ads).

What’s an “Ugly” Building, Anyway?

The Carbuncle Cup is the annual U.K. award for the ugliest buildings in the country. Above you can see some of this year’s nominees, submitted by readers of the Guardian. It’s fun to point out a blight on a skyline! But there’s also a problem: ugly isn’t a great way to discuss architecture. Was the…

If your brain were a computer, how much storage space would it have?

The comparison between the human brain and a computer is not a perfect one, but it does lend itself to some interesting lines of inquiry. For instance: what is the storage capacity of your brain? https://gizmodo.com/is-it-time-to-move-past-the-idea-that-our-brain-is-like-5974883 The answer to the first question – how much storage space is there inside the average human head? –…

Your Alchemy Project for the Weekend

It always pleases me when I find science projects that I haven’t done yet. This one, which allows people to use a couple of kitchen ingredients and a few pennies to make copper plating, seems especially promising. Just a little vinegar and you can feel like an old-fashioned alchemist. Isn’t it nice when something that…

Butterflies remember a mountain that hasn’t existed for millennia

Geology is what we look to when we want enduring monuments. Rock and metal outlast anything made of living tissue. Or do they? In another example of science getting poetic, it seems that a symbol of ephemera — a butterfly — provides evidence of a mountain long turned to dust. Monarch butterflies are some of…

Illuminated Literature For $80 Is Your Deal Of The Day

Best Buy’s deal of the day is Barnes and Noble’s NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight for only $80. That’s $30 off the next best offer and perhaps more importantly, $40 less than Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite (with ads). Reviewers across the board, including Gizmodo’s, think very highly of this Nook, and it would also make a…

This Walking, Driving, TRANSFORMING RC Car Can’t Get Here Fast Enough

Here’s another look at Kenji Ishida’s absolutely phenomenal self-transforming RC car, this time being tested outdoors to make sure it’s as awesome as it can be. And it looks like it checks out. In car mode it doesn’t exactly tear down the street, but we’re assuming Kenji isn’t putting the pedal to the metal for…

Why Publishers Are Always Looking For The Next Old Man’s War

Many of us have been reading science fiction for years, and we bring all of that weight of experience and knowledge to every new book we read. But to keep growing, science fiction has to reach readers who know nothing about the genre — so publishers need to find good “entry level” books, says Tor…

Are Cassettes the Best Music Format for Toddlers?

As many of us do, I recently ended up in a Facebook conversation about parenting or music. In this case, it was about both conversational mainstays: Namely, how do you allow a child in 2013 to decide to listen to something of their choosing? “I’ve been thinking lately about the downside of having a digital-only…

Ask biologist Marlene Zuk anything you want about human evolution

Marlene Zuk is an evolutionary biologist, and the author of the new book Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet, and How We Live. It’s a cogent and funny look at common myths about human evolution. Today she’s here from 12-1 PM Pacific Time to talk to you about evolution. You can read…

Universal’s Simpsons Land Theme Park Includes Krusty Burger and Moe’s

A few years ago Fox and Pepsi had a contest where the winner would get their own real-life version of The Simspons’ house. But taking things about a million steps further, Universal Orlando is adding the entire town of Springfield to its theme park—at least the parts that fans really care about. Opening this Summer,…