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The jewelry market has been flooded with synthetic stones over the last several years; not just lab-grown gems but flat-out fakes. Here’s how to tell if your rock is the real McCoy and not just a shiny bauble. Real Diamonds: Natural vs Lab-Grown Until the mid-1950s, the only way to get your hands on a…
Aereo, the amazing watch-broadcast-TV-anywhere-via-internet company, turned off service in Utah and Denver today. It’s the latest in a long-drawn-out battle over whether the service is legal. The major networks will take the Aereo showdown to the Supreme Court next month. [The Salt Lake Tribune via Engadget]
For International Women’s Day, flashback to the early days of NASA. Fundamental research in aerodynamics using wind tunnels and the very earliest push into supersonic flight are piling up stacks of data. All that data went through computers, the women who performed data transcription and reduction. Computers of the NACA Muroc Flight Test Unit. Standing…
Think hacking starts and ends online? Think again. Forbes took a look at the damage an identity thief can do using just the address label on the magazines you subscribe to, and the answer ain’t pretty. Forbes’ Kashmir Hill reports that, up until last week, New Yorker subscribers’ passwords to the magazine’s subscription management website…
If you’ve stuck a toe in the online dating pool, you’ve probably come across some total hottie and thought “oh great, that lucky so-and-so is gonna steal away all the attention from my profile.” Not so, says science—in fact, it’s the controversial-looking people, not the smokin’ specimens, who get the most attention. Here’s Head Squeeze’s…
The James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope science teams are doing a Twitter science chat today at 10am CST (11am EST, 8am PST).
Last night was the 57th annual National Space Club Goddard Memorial Dinner, a celebration of the first successful flight by Dr. Goddard of a liquid-fuelled rocket, otherwise known as #spaceprom. A few highlights from the evening*: The keynote speaker was Emily Briere, a student at Duke University and winner of the Goddard Memorial Dinner Keynote…
The number one rule for hosting a successful dinner party? Make sure your guests fear gruesome death by dinosaur at least once during the evening. The best way to achieve the effect? These ice ripples that mimic that scene—you know the one—from the original Jurassic Park. No T-Rex needed! Slip one into someone’s glass then…
This is definitely the Lego Star Wars Sandcrawler I was looking for. It’s not as massive as the fan built vehicle that every Lego and Star Wars nerd in the world wanted, but with all its moving mechanism and seven minifigs, it’s a must have. Its character and construction seems well resolved. Check out the…
It’s not the massive Sandcrawler Ultimate Collector Edition every Star Wars and Lego nerd in the world were claiming for, but it’s pretty damn good. 3,296 pieces! It’s pretty damn big. Here we got all the official images. It really looks fantastic. It includes seven minifigures: Luke Skywalker, Uncle Owen, C-3PO and four Jawas, plus…
Game of Thrones is a complicated show with a never ending cast of characters and families and sigils and bannermen and animals and politics and power and maps and magic and breasts that it’s sometimes hard to keep up with who is fighting who and for what. This hilarious parody of Game of Thrones by…
I’m pretty sure this is what Snoop Dogg sees every time he opens his eyes.
There’s already a lot of responsibilities in being a parent. You gotta make sure your kids are fed. Make sure they bathe. Make sure they’re safe. And make sure they don’t become a menace to society. There’s only one requirement in becoming an awesome parent though and it’s this: build your kids an awesome Batpod…
Here’s an essential clue to discover the identity of the Yellow King: “My mamma said: dog face to the banana patch.” The rest is all in this video. Watch. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
There are 42 tower cranes working together to build a brand new city district for more than 20,000 people in Vienna, Austria. It’s the biggest construction site in Europe right now. But it’s not always work work work for the cranes, they get to dance in a fun light show on their off day. Watch…
It’s no Forrest Gump but this moving one armed robot is plenty good at ping pong. And may be even better than you. Watch it extend its arm to cover ground, cycle through backhand and forehand shots and hit the ball so effortlessly that it seems like an invisible human is controlling it. The DIY…
I think we can all agree that Indiana Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is the very worst of the Indy movies, but I don’t recall it being as bad as this Everything wrong with… episode shows. No, wait, I do now. I just think seeing Indy getting married at the end was…
While 2 Live Crew is arguably best remembered for their on-stage antics and contentious court battle against obscenity charges, the Miami-based hip-hop group actually played a vital part in creating the Internet we know today—even if they didn’t realize it at the time. The group’s parody of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” landed 2 Live Crew…
I just came across this cool old time-lapse video made by scientists from the US Geological Survey: The collapse of the crater floor of the Puʻu ʻŌʻō, one of the cones of the Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii. The video, filmed on March 5, 2011, “starts at 4 am and ends at 11 pm. The floor…
Did you guys know there is a Gizmodo subdomain where you can go for all things photographic? Yep! It’s called Reframe, and it’s where you’ll find additional coverage of gear, techniques, news, and all kinds of great stuff related to the crafts of photography and videography. Hear All About the Amazing Cinematography of House of…
