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These time-slice photographs of Shanghai and Hong Kong are beautifully unreal. In each photo, photographer Dan Marker-Moore captures an entire day of those amazing cities from one vantage point. You see day shift into night, sunlight giving way for city lights and it all adds up for photos that looks absolutely stunning. The picture above…
Did you know that turkeys kill rattlesnakes? Forgive me a little bit of a Ben Franklin moment, but I’m going to tell you about one of the most interesting wild animals that’s native to North America and what it’s like tracking them in the wild. Turkey Fact #1: They are actually named after the country.…
It’s a dangerously day to be teasing awesome retro novelty products, but Hyperkin is at it anyway. The company just announced that the Smart Boy design concept it posted on Reddit —a special iPhone case that lets you play real, physical Nintendo Game Boy cartridges on your smartphone—is for real. I’m so happy this isn’t…
Quentin Tarantino loves to flex his directorial muscles in his movies, so much so that he’s developed so many different trademark shots. Roman Holiday put together a bunch of close up shots from Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown to showcase all of those scenes. It’s kind of fun to track the story through just these…
Spanning over more than 1,700 acres, the Ivalo Testing Center, or as they call it, “White Hell,” is the place where Finland’s snow tire maker, Nokian Tyres, tests their winter tires in extreme conditions, using over 20 different snowy or icy test tracks, including the world largest indoor ice rink. Over the Arctic circle, deep…
Jerry Brown must be a Gizmodo reader because he apparently heard my parched plea: Today, the California governor issued mandatory water restrictions for the state—the first in history. Standing in a dry Sierra Nevada meadow which is usually buried under five feet of snow, Brown was able to provide a haunting visual illustration of the…
After millions of years of evolution, your feet are still not perfectly energy efficient. Enter exoskeletons. Researchers have created a new boot that, unlike other exoskeletons, makes walking more efficient without an extra battery or power source. The boot contraption reduces the energy it takes to walk by about 7 percent. That may not sound…
Eventually the weather will warm up and cities on the east coast will come alive again but until then, people will continue to mummify themselves while visibly exhaling their frustration at why they live, where they live. And then the first sign of sun comes and everyone remembers why. This video from Seeker Stories shows…
Online, Apple, Facebook, and Google are competing to control the future of technology. Offline, they are competing to build the future of corporate architecture—small cities nestled in the Silicon Valley suburbs that are designed by some of the most famous architects alive today. It’s a space race. Literally. These buildings are powerful marketing tools. They’re…
Blood transfusions have saved countless lives. But blood transfusions can be risky. Emily Anthes writing inNature gathers the evidence that the procedure is one of the most overused treatments out there, an expensive, but more importantly, potentially dangerous, problem. It’s intuitive to understand why blood transfusions are good. When blood banks that arose out of…
A hundred thousand million yums. After watching this chocolate food porn overload from Marks & Spencer, I think I have developed a permanent craving for chocolate. Like, this is forever now. The video is an ad for chocolate Easter Eggs but it features all sorts of chocolate deliciousness that it makes me want to bathe…
The key to the human race’s future may be right beneath our feet. It sounds bizarre, but fungi better known as mushrooms can help solve many of society’s greatest challenges, from cleaning up the environment and living more sustainability to colonizing other planets. Threaded into nearly every square inch of the ground are tiny, biological…
There’s been a few remote-controlled K-9 toys over the years since the Doctor’s canine companion trundled his way back into our hearts with the revived version of Doctor Who — but this latest version uses a smartphone app to give you the ultimate Robot Dog toy! The 1/4-scale K-9 isn’t exactly life-sized, but it’s still…
This video explainer by Kurz Gesagt focuses on why nuclear energy is actually terrible and something we should stop using because it’s so bad. The reasons are pretty obvious: nuclear energy leads to nuclear bombs, nuclear waste is really dangerous and nuclear accidents and disasters are catastrophic. To see why three reasons why nuclear energy…
Nuclear energy is great! Nuclear energy is terrible! There are two sides to the argument and Kurz Gesagt is breaking down both perspectives with point/counterpoint video explainers. The three reasons why nuclear energy is awesome and why we need more? It saves lives. It helps the environment. And that using it could develop new tech…
President Obama has a message for foreign hackers: You’re grounded. The president declared a national emergency and signed an executive order today allowing targeted sanctions on anyone who is deemed a cyberthreat to the United States. Obama wrote about the sanction plan on Medium: Our primary focus will be on cyber threats from overseas. In…
The Fast & Furious movies today are fun, blood pumping action movies with a few car scenes spliced in. But the original movie that kicked it all off, The Fast and The Furious, was pretty much all about cars. This 8-bit racing game version sums the movie up pretty well. I would have loved to…
Here in the 21st century, April Fools’ Day is a pretty harmless holiday. Brands trot out their fake products and news organizations make silly claims and then we all go about our day. But back in the 19th century, April Fools’ Day could be pretty brutal. In fact, it could be downright dangerous. I looked…
Though completely twisted towards evil by the dark side of the Force, even Emperor Palpatine would find it hard to resist cracking a smile at Etsy seller MiddleBrainedCanvas’ adorable Yoda-inspired hooded bath towel. Available for just $28 the hand-made two-tone cotton towel includes Yoda’s highly-recognizable pointy ears attached to its hood. And it can be…
LET’S TALK ABOUT LOUDNESS! Yelling is loud! That fashionable guy on the train blasting music into his ears? His headphones are loud! Loudness sounds good and feels good, and unfortunately, it’s ruining recorded music. Why we like loud music The concept of loundness is deceptive, because loudness is not a discrete physical property of sound,…