Psychology

Why Do People Believe in Pseudoscience?

It’s difficult to change someone’s mind if they have anything like a strong opinion on the risks of vaccination, or the usefulness of orbs and essential oils in the treatment of late-stage liver cancer. But if you’re ever going to stand a chance of doing so, you’re going to need to wipe the rage-spittle off…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Why Do We Forget?

To live is to forget—account numbers, names, the precise locations of keys and wallets, friends from childhood, peripheral characters from prestige TV shows, inside jokes, past ambitions, U.S. history, much else. Goldfish with guns: that’s the human race. But every frailty, we know, serves some larger adaptive purpose. So it is worth asking, as we…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

The Psychology of Faking Your Own Death

Why would anyone fake their own death? Some seek a departure from royalty, a career as a pirate, or a quiet life after taking down the Third Reich. Usually, they’re chasing an escape from bankruptcy or bad marriages. But for some, it may seem that staging their own death is the only way to feel…

Human History Janet Burns

Why Do We Remember Some Dreams but Not Others?

If you’ve ever woken up on the brink of a heart attack, drenched in sweat and convinced you’ll never live down the shame of sprinting nude through downtown Pittsburgh, you know that some dreams are more memorable than others. Most dreams, in fact, seem totally unmemorable—at least in the sense that we can’t remember them.…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Would Perfect Memory Be a Burden or a Superpower?

The ability to remember every moment of your life sounds like an amazing proposition, but for the very few people who actually have this ability, it comes at a cost. Known as Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM), or hyperthymesia, the condition—such that it is—was first chronicled by University of California-Irvine neurobiologist James McGaugh in 2006.…

Human History George Dvorsky

Do Dogs Forget Their People?

Let’s say your long-term relationship totally implodes. Browsing for a new apartment, or a therapist that takes your insurance, you hear your dog bark in the other room—and realize, with a start, that it’s not actually your dog. Once you’re all moved out, the dog will be out of your life, too. Stewing in self-pity…

Human History Daniel Kolitz

The EU Copyright Directive, Starforce, Ray-Tracing and Apple: Best Gizmodo Posts of the Week

The European Union passed its disastrous Copyright Directive this week, including amended versions of its onerous Articles 11 and 13 (the so-called “link tax” and “upload filter,” respectively). There’s still time to make sure it never passes into law by defeating a final ratification vote in January, though given the 438-226 vote on Wednesday it…

Tech News Tom McKay

Do Kids Feel Stronger Emotions Than Adults?

It’s easy to feel smug around kids. You might not have it all together—you might, in fact, be rapidly disintegrating professionally and psychologically—but at least you can spill some apple juice without wailing inconsolably for six hours. Comparatively terrible things happen to you all the time, and you don’t freak out about it, or if…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Does Your Cat Actually Hate You?

Dogs wear their hearts on their sleeves; cats—or at least some cats, some of the time—can spend years at your side without making it totally clear that they know, or care, who you are. An expression vaguely resembling contentment flits across their face and you think, triumphantly: see! My cat doesn’t despise me. Which it…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Feud Week, Dungeons & Dragons, Shooting Bigfoot, and IFA 2018: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

Here at Gizmodo, we’ve just wrapped up Feud Week: A series on personality and business clashes in the tech world, scientific disputes, and whether or not to shoot Bigfoot. (I say let the big guy do his thing, unless it turns out it’s kidnapping people with mind-waves to make more Bigfoots.) Some have said that…

Tech News Tom McKay

Why Your Brain Can’t Let Go of a Grudge

We humans are masters of resentment—a characteristic that can be traced back the beginnings of recorded history. Feuds seem to be an indelible aspect of the human condition, but why should this be? We spoke to the experts to find out why we love to hold a grudge, and the importance of letting go. Like…

Tech News George Dvorsky

Study Links a Happy, Peaceful Mind to Sweet Dreams

I tend to have very vivid dreams. I recently dreamed that I hit a home run at Wrigley Field as a member of my favorite baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, for example. But I also dreamed the clown from It came to haunt me at the top of every hour as I roamed a crowded casino.…

Health Jessica Boddy

How Bogus ‘Eco-Friendly’ Products Trick You

There are few things more fashionable these days than being “green”, but separating a truly eco-friendly bottle of sunscreen from a bottle of emerald-tinted snake-oil can be tough even for the shrewdest of consumers. Companies use everything from catchy buzzwords to certain color and design choices and brand associations to convince us their product is…

Conservation Ian Graber-Stiehl

The Psychedelic Drug DMT Can Simulate a Near-Death Experience, Study Suggests

Not everyone who is close to death—or thinks they are, at least—has a “near-death experience.” But those who do often hallucinate that they leave their bodies, meet otherworldly beings, see bright flashes and tunnels of light, and more. Those who take the psychedelic drug dimethyltryptamine, or DMT— a compound found in the hallucinogenic Amazonian brew…

Health Jessica Boddy

Robot Peer Pressure Is the Newest Tech Threat to Children

New research shows that children are more likely than adults to give in to peer pressure from robots, a disturbing finding given the rapidly increasing rate at which kids are interacting with socially intelligent machines. An experiment led by Anna-Lisa Vollmer from Bielefeld University in Germany is a potent reminder that modern technologies can have…

Tech News George Dvorsky

Can You Remember Being a Baby?

Every life-stage has its share of novelty—first kiss, first tax return, first twinge of certain death—but when it comes to new experiences most of us peak in infancy. Just laying there, gargling and soiling our diapers, we as infants cycle through thousands of firsts. It would be nice to remember some of them, as our…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Your Earliest Memory Might Not Have Happened

If life is but a tapestry, then memory is the thread. But some of those threads may simply be imagined: A new study out today in Psychological Science suggests that our earliest memories often couldn’t have happened the way we remember them. In 2007, the UK’s BBC Radio broadcast a series of programs centered around memory.…

Tech News Ed Cara

Are Plants Conscious?

Animal rights activists have done stellar work in foregrounding the question of creature-consciousness: no meat-eater is now ignorant of the fact that their food once lived, breathed, maybe nuzzled its kin in a blood-soaked slaughterhouse. Environmentalists have a harder go of it. Fracking footage will always be less upsetting than your average fast food expose:…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Climate Denial is a Form of American Exceptionalism

America is already great, my friends, at least when it comes to climate denial. New research published this week in Nature Climate Change shows the U.S. is without peers when it comes to denying the basic science of climate change. Scientists surveyed people in 25 countries around the world, and found there’s no country quite…

Climate Change Brian Kahn

Why Do Cats Wag Their Tails?

Cats are enigmatic little creatures. It’s hard to get a read on them. Does your cat love you, or would it gladly stab you in your sleep, if only it had thumbs and a slightly larger brain? The cat never tells—it thrives on inscrutability. But it can’t help betraying certain signs of its inner life:…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Why Do People Believe in Pseudoscience?

Why Do We Forget?

The Psychology of Faking Your Own Death

Why Do We Remember Some Dreams but Not Others?

Would Perfect Memory Be a Burden or a Superpower?

Do Dogs Forget Their People?

The EU Copyright Directive, Starforce, Ray-Tracing and Apple: Best Gizmodo Posts of the Week

Do Kids Feel Stronger Emotions Than Adults?

Does Your Cat Actually Hate You?

Feud Week, Dungeons & Dragons, Shooting Bigfoot, and IFA 2018: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

Why Your Brain Can’t Let Go of a Grudge

Study Links a Happy, Peaceful Mind to Sweet Dreams

How Bogus ‘Eco-Friendly’ Products Trick You

The Psychedelic Drug DMT Can Simulate a Near-Death Experience, Study Suggests

Robot Peer Pressure Is the Newest Tech Threat to Children

Can You Remember Being a Baby?

Your Earliest Memory Might Not Have Happened

Are Plants Conscious?

Climate Denial is a Form of American Exceptionalism

Why Do Cats Wag Their Tails?

The ‘Paradise’ Season 2 Finale Paved the Way for a Wildly Sci-Fi Season 3

A $1 Samsung Galaxy Smartphone Lands at Mint Mobile With Unlimited Data at 50% Off in a Clearance Push

Your Wimpy Workouts Aren’t Cutting It, Scientists Say

Anker Prime Power Bank Drops to an All-Time Low (200W, 20,100mAh, 3-Port) as Amazon Clears Out Remaining Spring Sale Stock

Students Are Now Renting Smart Glasses to Cheat on Exams

Roborock F25 GT Cordless Vacuum and Mop Hits Its Lowest Price in Spring Sale, 20,000Pa Cleaning Power Without the Premium Price Tag

New Details Add a Bizarre Twist to NASA’s First ISS Medical Evacuation

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Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

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Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

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