Tech News

Why Weed Makes You… You… Huh?

Scientists have long suspected that THC somehow affects the hippocampus region of the brain, the bit responsible for controlling short-term memory, but they have never been able to prove it. Turns out that’s because they were looking at the wrong grey matter. A duo of researchers—Giovanni Marsicano of the University of Bordeaux, France, and Xia…

Peeps Produce Distinctive Traces of their Motions

On Easter, a dedicated ichnologist stalked the barrier islands of Georgia to investigate the tracks left by a flight of Peeps. These sugary creatures lack wings, legs, or any other limbs, yet produce distinctive traces that leave clues as to their behavioural patterns. Professor Tony Martin at Emory University is a geologist and palaeontologist who…

Celebration, Florida: The Utopian Town That America Just Couldn’t Trust

It’s been exactly two decades since Celebration, Florida, broke ground in 1994, a major anniversary for a community that enjoyed a massive amount of media attention when it emerged. Yet we don’t hear much about Disney’s foray into real estate lately, apart from the odd fire. The Town of Celebration isn’t really a town, in…

This Incredible Animation Was Made By Code That Could Fit on a Floppy

This is no 20 GB video file, painstakingly pulled from a render farm. All of it was generated in real time by one tiny algorithm. And it’s amazing. Every Easter, the town of Saarbrücken, Germany, plays host to Revision, a demoparty where hundreds of programmers and artists get together for four days of showing off.…

This Week in Space

Ready to lose time to link-hopping? It’s time for all the neat news we didn’t cover on Space this week. Eyewitness to the Apollo 13 explosion (because April isn’t all good news for spaceflight). Hypothesis for what we’ll see on Pluto in 2015. Book review of a fictional story starring a particle physicist. On how…

Advanced Concrete Could Last More Than A Century Without Maintenance

A new water-repellant concrete impregnated with tiny superstrong fibers promises to leave roads and bridges free of major cracks for up to 120 years. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee civil engineers have developed a concrete mix that is durable and superhydrophobic. They call it Superhydrophobic Engineered Cementitious Composite (SECC). Preventing normally porous concrete from absorbing water means…

This Baker Made a Laser-Engraved Rolling Pin. Now She Has Dino-Cookies!

A baker in Poland decided her confections were lacking a certain something, so pulled out her laser cutter to engrave rolling pins with dinosaurs. The result is edible geekiness, and further proof that baking is science for hungry people. Fossilized cookie. Photography credit: Zuzia Zuber My only real question is how to classify the imprinted…

This Faucet Sprayer’s Flat Blade of Water Scrapes Dishes Clean

If you’re lucky enough to have a retractable sprayer attached to your kitchen faucet, you’ve probably noticed that its circular blast often isn’t powerful enough to really scrape dishes clean. To fix that, Kohler is introducing what it calls Sweep spray technology that blasts stuck-on food with a wide blade of water that works like…

What Happens to Peeps in a Vacuum

We’re all familiar with the classic springtime tradition of sending Peeps to their noble deaths via microwave, but that’s getting a bit old. How about a total vacuum instead? Interestingly enough, the Peep meets the same expanding death it would in a microwave. But when air is released back into the container, our little Peep…

This Week’s Top Comedy Video: If Miyazaki Films Were Like Other Anime

Anime legend Hayao Miyazaki has a whimsical style and plot complexity all his own. But what if his masterpieces followed the anime tropes we know so well? Whoa Ponyo, you sure look, uh, different. Check out the rest of this week’s top comedy videos over on SplitSider. Now for the news! Both of Dan Harmon’s…

Take a Sip of a 3,300-Year-Old Danish Beer

Wanna get some real beer snob cred? With Egtved Girl’s Brew, you can sneer at your friends’ beers and their “founded in the 1800s” claims to authenticity. Because this beer’s recipe is 3,300 years old. Now that’s a legit brew. Yes, Egtved Girl’s Brew is made from a recipe that dates all the way back…

Electronic Monocle Uses Biofeedback to Track Your Favorite Websites

The internet is a fire hydrant of content. Keeping track of the pages you enjoy is a pain. A team of UK design students has a conceptual solution: Amoeba, an electronic monocle that files away the pages you find most interesting, as measured by your biofeedback response. It’s the emotion-tracking Google Glass you always wanted!…

LED Lights Are Ruining Laundry Detergent’s White-Brightening Trick

LED lighting is great. The right bulb gives the same warm incandescent glow you love from a fraction of the energy. But there’s a downside: while LEDs make cities look awesome, the most common type of LED lighting dims the ultraviolet trick laundry detergents use to make white clothes look whiter. The future is bright,…

And now one freakin’ huge explosion

One freakin’ goddamn huge explosion at some open-pit mine or a road construction or who knows what. Don’t know, don’t care: It’s a freakin’ huge explosion. That’s all, people. Enjoy. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook

An Epic Wind Turbine is Spinning in Scotland

The world’s largest wind turbine is off the coast of Scotland. Construction started in 2012, with pieces assembled in the winter of 2013. Now the prototype is churning out enough power to supply 4,800 homes. The turbine is big enough that it makes sense to use elephants as the basic unit of weight. (Plus, I’m…

Anti-Bus Laws, High Rents, and Pee: What’s Ruining Our Cities This Week

Tennessee lawmakers tried to make Nashville’s buses illegal, a dude pissed in a reservoir and Portland has to flush 38 million gallons of water, and—let’s say it all together—the rent is too damn high. This is your weekly look at What’s Ruining Our Cities. Tennessee’s senate almost ruined Nashville’s transit Earlier this week, transportation advocates…

This week in Tech Reads: the biological basis behind yawning, the suspicious backroom deals that undergird “sound science,” high-tech toilets, and a Silicon Valley inventor who’s either a prolific genius or a criminal con-man. And more! Maria Konnikova delves into the long and strange history of the ways scientists have investigated a misunderstood thing we…

U.S. Gov’t Changed Your HealthCare.gov Password Because of Heartbleed

Heartbleed, the gaping flaw that left the internet’s security gate wide open for more than two years, is causing headaches for yet another site: the beleagured Healthcare.gov. The government says the site has not been compromised, but officials have reset all user passwords “out of an abundance of caution.” Heartbleed’s not done causing heartburn yet.…

Windows Phone, Haunted Houses, Muppets, and More

Well it was another busy week here at Gizmodo. On top of Utopia Week, our week-long look at past, present, and future visions of a perfect society, we brought you reviews of new phones, cameras, and smartwatches, a hard look at beginning a life without Facebook, and a behind-the-scenes look at Jim Henson’s phenomenal workshop.…

This is What it’s Like to Excavate a Dinosaur Nest in Person

We are living in the future. Need proof? Now from the comfort of your computer, you can experience a first-person view of excavating and packing a dinosaur nest for further study. In August 2013, a team of palaeontologists from the American Museum of Natural History paired up with the Mongolian Academy of Science to go…