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Spider lives in woman’s ear for five days, everyone on the planet winces in unison

The notion of spiders clambering into our orifices while we sleep may sound like the purview of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, but for a one “Ms. Lee” who visited China’s Changsha Central Hospital yesterday, it was a shudder-worthy reality. https://gizmodo.com/publishers-destroy-scary-stories-to-tell-in-the-darks-a-5881462 Straight from the Hunan province, a photograph of an arachnid curled up…

I Was a Teenage Hacker

Twenty-four years ago today, I had a very bad day. On August 8, 1988, I was a senior in high school. I was working my after school and weekend job at Safeway as a cashier, when the store manager suddenly walked over and said I better stop ringing up customers and talk to my mother…

Take Your Meds Or This Ultra-Expensive Pillbox Will Guilt You Into Remembering

It’s staggering to see how many pills seniors have to take every day, but not as overwhelming as the ridiculous number of organizers they can buy to help them remember which pill is taken when. And at the top of the heap is this $250 pill sorting contraption that actually needs to be programmed with…

iOS 6’s New Wi-Fi Plus Cellular Will Keep You Connected

If you have an iPhone, hopping on a wi-fi network is good when you want to connect to an AirPlay device, or wi-fi based storage device, or save some battery. But if the actually internet connection is really crappy or non-existent, that means you’re essentially cut off from the world (unless you’re trying to talk).…

15 Current Technologies We’ll Still Be Using in 2030

Back when I was growing up in the 1970s, we fully expected that, by 2012, we’d all be driving flying cars to our condos on the moon where robotic butlers awaited, ready to bring us the cure for cancer from the bathroom first-aid kit. How’s all of that working out? Sure, we now have faster,…

This Mars Rover Play Set Is Your Explore-Mars-Yourself Deal of the Day

When NASA goes to Mars, they really. Go. To. Mars. NASA has pulled out all the stops for the Curiosity Rover’s recent decent to the surface. They aired the landing at Times Square and had William Shatner voice a promo video. They got Gizmodo reporters covering the landing live, and the coverage hasn’t stopped yet.…

Why look for life on Mars when you can make life on Mars?

Biologists who study extremophiles are dramatically expanding our sense of just how amazingly resilient microorganisms can be — insights that have serious implications in our search for extraterrestrial life. At the same time, these hardy microbes are also inspiring synthetic biologists to create their own strains of life, that might be capable of living in…

Ask Bas Lansdorp, founder of the Mars One Project, about his plans to put humans on Mars by 2023

Bas Lansdorp has big plans for Mars, not to mention the human race. By 2023, the Dutch entrepreneur intends to colonize the Red Planet in the first of a series of one-way human missions. It’s all a part of Mars One, a project he founded, and one that he hopes will soon become a “global…

First Color 360-Degree Panorama Sent By Curiosity Rover Shows No Sailors Fighting In the Dance Hall

Curiosity’s day 3 on the Gale Crater, Mars. All systems are running as expected. There is no sign of sailors fighting in the dance hall, cavemen or any freaky show, and here’s the first natural 360-degree color panorama image to prove it. It’s a clear day on Mars. You can see Mount Sharp ahead of…

It’s official: The origins of Doctor Who are becoming a TV movie

There have been rumors for a while that the BBC was going to make a biopic about the creation of Doctor Who for the show’s 50th anniversary. There’s plenty of scope for a drama there — as the show’s first ever director Waris Hussein told io9, the show’s first creators were considered outcasts and upstarts…

Leather Strap Packing Tape Really Classes Up Your Moving Day

Even though you might have to salvage the boxes from your local grocery store, and they’ll probably be emblazoned with Rice-A-Roni and Chiquita Banana logos, you can still ensure the next time you move is a classy affair with these upscale rolls of fake leather strap packing tape. Swanky. Each 98-foot roll is printed with…

The Toilet is Obsolete: How Science Is Redefining Waste

Today more than ever, politicians, engineers, researchers and citizens are actively seeking out ways to reduce our production of waste — everything from industrial byproducts, to old and outdated electronics, to human excrement. It’s no mean task, but it’s one that is becoming increasingly possible, in light of recent advancements in fields ranging from chemistry…

The Best Fan For Your Desk

It’s hot. You’re at work. Both of those things suck. Yet you can fix one of them if you put the perfect compact fan on your desk. Finding the right one is tricky—a cool breeze is a given—but you want something that’s quiet and controlled enough to not disturb your office neighbors, and compact enough…

Powdered Beer and Soda Makes Roughing It Not So Rough

Contraptions like the SodaStream let you mix up your own carbonated beverages at home, but the devices are far from portable. And carrying a six-pack or bottle of soda when camping is extra weight you don’t need. Thankfully an enterprising gent named Pat has created a powdered beer and soda alternative that can be hydrated…

Supposedly extinct snail is not dead yet

The Oblong Rocksnail hasn’t been collected in more than 75 years, and in 2000 was declared extinct thanks to habitat loss. Surprisingly, the snail has been rediscovered, but is still under severe threat. The Leptoxis compacta specimen was discovered by University of Alabama PhD student Nathan Whelan, who was kayaking down the Cahaba river in…

New clips from The Odd Life of Timothy Green show the problems with raising a dirt baby

A childless couple grows their perfect son in the backyard after getting drunk, writing down all the qualities they would want in a kid, and burying their thoughts in the garden. Then when a little boy appears in the living room — instead of freaking out that they grew a monster — they decide to…

A Perfume-Spraying Phone Is Definitely How Samsung Can Out-Innovate Apple

Apple is convinced that Samsung are just a bunch of shameless copycats, but as this patent shows, Samsung went and conjured up an innovation Apple didn’t have the foresight to do themselves: make a phone that sprays perfume. Yes, perfume. When the scentphone market blows up in 2020, it’ll be Apple having to defend itself…

We don’t talk about the woman with no arms in the woods

The latest issue of Apex Magazine is out, and it includes Genevieve Valentine’s fantastic story “Armless Maidens of the American West.” Valentine’s story takes place in a small town, with a diner and a golf course… and a mysterious woman with no arms, out in the woods. Valentine shows us how the presence of the…

Meet the big brain at Google who may just have invented the internet as we know it. OH, JUST THAT? [Wired]

Why the guillotine was the first “egalitarian” execution tool

You’ve probably seen the guillotine in historical epics and Dickens adaptations. But were you aware that it struck a blow for egalitarianism in more than one way? The French believed the guillotine’s angled blade was both a scientific and social innovation. Here’s why. Most of us know the basics of the guillotine – it’s a…