Measurement

The Gizmodo Monday Puzzle: How Well Can You Spell?

This week's teaser challenges you to find patterns in how we name our numbers.

Science Jack Murtagh Jun 12

Marco Rubio Reminds You to Adjust Your Clock on Sunday With Renewed Push for Permanent Daylight Saving Time

Congress voted the Sunshine Protection Act down the first time. The clock is ticking—and springing forward on Sunday.

Politics Nikki Main Mar 10

International Time Keepers Scrap The Leap Second

The as-needed adjustment has caused decades of tech disruption. Now, by international vote, it's in its final years.

Tech News Lauren Leffer Nov 21

De Bethune’s $93,500 Timepieces Now Come With Custom, Robot-Powered Calibration

A robot arm and a practice watch help this luxury timepiece keep accurate time.

Gadgets Andrew Liszewski Nov 8

One Benefit of Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Fewer Cars Hitting Deer

Switching our clocks twice a year has some major drawbacks.

Biology Ed Cara Nov 2

British Government Wants to Bring Back Imperial Measurements

The plan was ridiculed online as a desire for old white guys to return to the 1970s.

Tech News Matt Novak Sep 17

Kuwait Records Hottest March Temperature Ever Amid Dust Storms and Locusts

It’s freaking hot in Kuwait right now. On Thursday, the country recorded a temperature of 112.3 degrees Fahrenheit (44.6 degrees Celsius). That’s the hottest temperature the country—and the entire Arabian Peninsula—has ever seen in the month of March. The extreme heat reading came from the Mitribah weather station in the northwest part of the country,…

Earther Dharna Noor Mar 25

Senators Launch Latest Salvo in Forever War Over Daylight Saving Time

The Senate might just finally do away with Daylight Saving Time (DST) clock shifts, ridding America of the twice-a-year impositions on everyone’s sanity and standardizing time at the moment after the clock jumps forward on March 14 this year. Of course, similar proposals have regularly flamed out over the years, so take that with a…

Tech News Tom McKay Mar 10

Scientists Vote to Redefine the Kilogram [Updated]

Update 11/16/18: As expected, scientists have voted to dethrone le grand k in favor of measuring the kilogram based on the value of Planck’s constant. It’s sad to see the metal hunk go, though surely it’s for the best. The next question is whether we Americans will ever figure out the metric system. Read the…

Tech News Ryan F. Mandelbaum Nov 6

Your GPS Probably Overestimates Distance

Ever thought your GPS system said you’d gone further than you expected? A new study dives into the statistics behind the satellite-based positioning service—and finds that overestimates in distance are inevitable based on the way measurements are currently made. A team of researchers from the University of Salzburg in Austria have been looking at how…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Nov 16

A Woman Wore Her Fitbit During Sex and Replicated a Classic Experiment

Redditor noveltysin wore her Fitbit while she had sex, and shared the resulting graph of her heart rate with the world. Check out how well her graph matches the heart rates in Figure 1 of the classic 1956 paper Physiological Responses During Coitus. She doesn’t include foreplay, so start your comparison at “period B” in…

Tech News Diane Kelly Aug 11

How Early Astronomers Managed to Measure Cosmic Distances

The solar system, let alone the Universe, is too big to measure by any conventional means. So how the hell did early astronomers manage to do it without all the fancy kit scientists now have at their disposal? In this video, Crash Course describes how the Universe got measured—from the Ancient Greeks figuring out the…

Space & Spaceflight Jamie Condliffe Jul 17

What Good is Measuring an Erection?

You may have noticed some news around these weird sounding devices that measure “arousal”. They don’t. But they do measure changes in penile shape, and as such, can give users a rough estimate – in a non-invasive way – of how much blood is flowing into the penis during erection. Image: Diane Kelly How does…

Tech News Diane Kelly May 21

A Magnetic Field Detector 1,000 Times More Efficient Than Those Before

Measuring magnetic fields with accuracy is important, whether it’s for geological exploration or medical imaging. Now, a team from MIT has developed a new laser-based magnetic field detector that’s 1,000 times more efficient than previous examples. One way to measure magnetic fields is to shine laser light through synthetic diamonds with nitrogen vacancies—points where a…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Apr 7

This is Officially The Best Unofficial Unit Of Measurement

We have all kinds of odd measurements. Some are official, and some are colloquial. Some colloquial measurements are pure gold — and a “pisan zapra,” is one. Informal measurements can tell us a lot about a culture. Today, we seem to be pretty rushed. People take a “breath,” or a “minute.” (A “minute” counts as…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Jan 28

Why Are All Your Credit Cards The Same Size?

Money comes in every size, shape, and color imaginable. But your credit cards — though they may be remarkably different in how they work — are probably remarkably consistent in terms of size. Why is that? Keller Easterling, an architect and professor at Yale, joined us today to take questions about the role of infrastructure…

io9 Ria Misra Dec 18

These Scientists Rebuilt Lab Equipment Out Of Legos — And It Works!

You might be forgiven for thinking that what you’re seeing here is a very well-constructed toy. But it’s also a fully operational watt balance, the tool that’s used to set the standard measurement of a kilogram. Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology designed and built the fully-functional, though toy-based, watt balance, and…

io9 Ria Misra Dec 10

‘Butt’ is an actual unit of measurement

The imperial system is a funny thing. Like, really funny. So funny that there is actually a unit of measurement for wine (or whiskey) casks called a “butt.” That means if you fill the barrel up, you technically have a buttload of wine—though you’d probably just call it a full butt. Are you laughing yet?…

Tech News Adam Clark Estes Aug 15

Google Maps Update Lets You Measure Distances (or Aimlessly Doodle)

Ever try measuring the straight-line distance between two points on Google Maps? You had to hold some object or appendage up to the little scale, then eyeball-measure the distance on your screen. What a mess. No more—a new update puts the task a right-click away. Also, you can doodle with it. This new feature is…

Tech News Bob Sorokanich Jul 9

Mount McKinley Has Shrunk By 83 Feet

North America’s highest peak, Mount McKinley, has shrunk by 83 feet according to new data acquired by US geographers. The Alaskan mountain was last officially measured in 1952 and found to stand 20,320ft tall, but the new official figure means it now measures just 20,237ft. The measurement—recorded in 2012 but now published—was taken using Interferometric…

Tech News Jamie Condliffe Sep 13

Measurement

The Gizmodo Monday Puzzle: How Well Can You Spell?

Marco Rubio Reminds You to Adjust Your Clock on Sunday With Renewed Push for Permanent Daylight Saving Time

International Time Keepers Scrap The Leap Second

De Bethune’s $93,500 Timepieces Now Come With Custom, Robot-Powered Calibration

One Benefit of Permanent Daylight Saving Time? Fewer Cars Hitting Deer

British Government Wants to Bring Back Imperial Measurements

Kuwait Records Hottest March Temperature Ever Amid Dust Storms and Locusts

Senators Launch Latest Salvo in Forever War Over Daylight Saving Time

Scientists Vote to Redefine the Kilogram [Updated]

Your GPS Probably Overestimates Distance

A Woman Wore Her Fitbit During Sex and Replicated a Classic Experiment

How Early Astronomers Managed to Measure Cosmic Distances

What Good is Measuring an Erection?

A Magnetic Field Detector 1,000 Times More Efficient Than Those Before

This is Officially The Best Unofficial Unit Of Measurement

Why Are All Your Credit Cards The Same Size?

These Scientists Rebuilt Lab Equipment Out Of Legos — And It Works!

‘Butt’ is an actual unit of measurement

Google Maps Update Lets You Measure Distances (or Aimlessly Doodle)

Mount McKinley Has Shrunk By 83 Feet

No Fooling, ‘Spaceballs 2’ Will Hit Theaters April 2027

I Regret to Inform You That the Artemis II Astronauts Are Having Lots of Screen Time

The First ‘Maul: Shadow Lord’ Reactions Are Most Solid

‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 3 Is Doing What You Hoped

Wearables Are Getting Very Messy

Trump Wants to Start Privatizing TSA in Latest Budget Proposal

Lost Warship From Battle of Copenhagen Found After 225 Years

These One-of-a-Kind Objects Are in the Wrong Museums

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

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