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We all missed the greatest eBay auction of all time

This honor goes to “Mummified Cat Slam Dunking A Mummified Bird,” which up until recently was for sale for a discount $750 buy-it-now price (via Geekologie). Because if there’s anything that distinguishes you as an individual of taste and distinction, it’s a barf-out effigy of Bastet schooling Horus on the basketball court. Semi-Related: The Sphinx…

JK Rowling’s New Book Is a Total Disaster on the Kindle (Updated)

JK Rowling’s new book The Casual Vacancy—her first for adults—is a pretty big deal in the publishing world. So is the Kindle. And that is why it is so very funny and great that the Kindle version of the ebook seems to be a woefully misshapen train wreck. So this is obviously a file formatting…

Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field Lives On

The rule of thumb for following Apple is that if you want to know what Apple PR’s official line is, you just need to read the top-tier Apple apologists like John Gruber and MG Siegler. They’re pretty much operating as unpaid Apple spokesbots. Apple briefs these guys, but instead of having the balls to do…

New comet will fly by in 2013! And it could be brighter than the Full Moon

Russian astronomers using the International Scientific Optical Network’s (ISON) telescope have discovered a comet that’s scheduled to make its closest appearance to Earth in December of 2013. Called C/2012 S1, it’s expected to be the brighest visitor to our solar system in the past century — a comet that’ll be considerably brighter than Hale-Bopp (1997)…

12 Greatest Time Travel Effects from Movies and Television

Time travel is a great concept — but how do you show it happening? This weekend’s Looper picks a pretty simple way of showing gangsters jumping through time, but we’ve also seen kids in time-traveling spaceships, portal-jumping bandits, and a hot tub that lets you relive your past. Here are 12 of the best scenes…

The US Military Has Designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as Enemies of the State

Documents released by the US Government under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed what we’ve more or less known all along: The government really freaking hates Julian Assange. So much so that it has deemed him an enemy of the state. The information comes from an investigation into an Air Force cyber systems analyst…

Spies Like Us: We’re All Big Brother Now

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign took a tumble last week with the release of a hidden-camera video recorded at a fundraiser in Florida. In it, Romney dismisses nearly half the country in a set of statements some pundits are calling the worst things a modern presidential candidate has ever said. http://gawker.com/5943968/it-would-be-helpful-to-be-latino-and-other-blowhard-things-romney-was-caught-saying-on-a-hidden-camera The words—boneheaded, indiscreet, and un-presidential—might…

A sneak peek at the next issue of China Miéville’s comic book Dial H

Here’s an exclusive first look at next week’s issue of Dial H, the DC Comics series from Kraken and Railsea author China Miéville, artist Mateus Santolouco, and the legendary Brian Bolland (on cover art). This issue delves further into the history of the mysterious dial that can transform its user into bizarre superheroes. Dial H…

18 Stupid Uses of Carbon Fiber

Carbon fiber is one of mankind’s greatest engineered materials. And because it’s lighter and stronger than most metals, it has revolutionized everything from the aerospace industry, to auto racing, to artificial limbs. And while its distinctive woven appearance makes it even more appealing, that doesn’t make it ok to use everywhere. Even a cracked back…

Instagram now has more daily mobile users than Twitter, according to comScore. A win for the Hefe filter. [Mashable]

What’s the Worst Children’s Toy You’ve Ever Seen?

Brio train sets, Playmobil Pirate ships, and Duplos—these are all really awesome toys we played with as kids. But what about the bad ones? For example, this “video girl Barbie” who has a camera in her cleavage and a screen on her back. Or Baby Alive, a doll that actually pees. What are the worst…

Should we eliminate the human ability to feel pain?

In yesterday’s Daily Explainer we told you all about pain — why it exists, how it works, and how scientists are trying to quantify its effects. Though pain has clearly served an important evolutionary purpose, not everyone is convinced that we still need it. A growing number of forward-looking thinkers are suggesting that we need…

Apple Maps Works Great—If You Get Directions First

Trouble with Apple Maps? Being led down the wrong road, or worse, down roads that don’t even exist? Don’t worry! All you need are some good ol’ fashioned Apple Maps directions to set you straight. https://gizmodo.com/17-people-apple-maps-has-already-horribly-misled-5944897 It’s possible that this parody from Jest is a whole lot funnier if you haven’t upgraded to iOS 6…

Woman Grows a New Ear on Her Arm, Has It Attached to Her Head (Warning: Graphic)

Yep, this happened. Doctors at Johns Hopkins have attached a new ear to a patient that was grown on her own forearm. It’s a medical first, and a heartwarming-if-a-little-yucky story. In 2008, Sherrie Walters was diagnosed with aggressive basal cell cancer, and had to have part of her ear, skull, and ear canal removed. But…

Take Out a Brick Wall With the Handheld Jackhammer the Size of a Baby

It usually takes a pretty hefty tool to knock out a brick wall, demolish a concrete staircase, or pulverize a tile shower stall during a bathroom renovation. It’s a job for the pounding chisel tip of a demolition hammer or a jackhammer—a tool big enough to require its operator, as The Far Side once suggested,…

World’s Thinnest External Drive Squeezes Half a Terabyte Into a Third of an Inch

ADATA is touting its new HE720 as the world’s thinnest external hard drive. The company has managed to squeeze 500 GB of storage and a speedy USB 3.0 connection into a brushed metal enclosure measuring in at a mere 8.9 millimeters thick—or just over a third of an inch. Just a few days ago Toshiba…

Scientists Discover Iron Man Found by Nazis Is of Extraterrestrial Origin

No, it isn’t the plot for the next Indiana Jones movie: According to a research paper published on the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science, scientists have discovered that an Iron Man sculpture found by a Nazi expedition in Tibet is of extraterrestrial origin. The Nazi archeologists found the Iron Man in a remote region of…

Hooray, an optical illusion of a building filled with giant spiders

For hilarious and sadistic kicks, German designer Friedrich van Schoor created this projection mapping installation of an entire building story occupied by two automobile-sized spiders. Oh, to be a fly on the wall confused passerby when these eight-legged monsters began scampering. You can watch how van Schoor created this piece in the above video. Incidentally,…

Opera singer grows algae on her face by feeding it with her breath and then the audience eats it

No, what you’re looking at is not some kind of lost prop from an old Alien movie. Rather, it’s part of an After Agri performance that was showcased at the recently concluded Digital Design Weekend at the V&A. During the art-piece, the head-mounted, face-clinging device was worn by an opera singer who used her breath…

Google launches underwater Street View, blows everyone’s goddamn mind

Google has rolled out some damn impressive additions to its ouvre of street-viewable locales over the last few months, including Kennedy Space Center, the Amazon Rainforest and Antarctica, but this may be the most spectacular of them yet. Working in collaboration with The Catlin Seaview Survey, the company has released a collection of underwater panoramic…