Sploid: Where awesome, wild, and breathtaking tech moments burst into view.
No longer confined by the limitations of a printed book, the Guinness Book of World Records has infinitely expanded to include almost every kind of questionable achievement humanity can attempt. Even grabbing 244 friends, jumping off a bridge, and swinging by a rope is enough to gain you pseudo-fame—at least until 246 people try the…
It’s a good thing Halloween only happens once a year, because cleaning out a pumpkin and carving a fun design (that’s hopefully better than your neighbor’s) can be pretty tedious. With that in mind, you’ll realize just how much work went into this stop-motion animation that was carved into countless pumpkins. Crunch the numbers, and a…
The prizes, the lights, the sounds, and a quick-talking barker make it hard to resist playing carnival games, but is every game a fool’s bet? In his latest video, Mark Rober, an ex-NASA JPL engineer, breaks down the science of what makes some of these games so challenging, and others near impossible to win. For…
Meteorologists can predict, with some degree of accuracy, whether or not it’s going to rain tomorrow. But determining the exact severity of an approaching storm isn’t quite as easy. So in order to capture the amazing timelapse sequences in his new film, Monsoon IV, Mike Olbinski had to drive nearly 13,000 miles across the southern…
Did you know a cheap red laser pointer is good for more than just annoying people at a movie theater? As YouTube’s Styropyro, aka Drake Anthony, demonstrates, by focusing the beam you can actually use it to lift and levitate tiny specs of diamond dust, similar to how Star Trek’s tractor beams seemingly work. The…
It’s certainly impressive when someone spends an entire week stacking dominoes, but watching them fall over for half an hour gets a little dull after the first few minutes. So domino masters Hevesh5 and Kaplamino teamed up to create a series of seemingly impossible domino tricks that are far more impressive than any Guinness World…
We’ve got nine long days to wait until the sequel to the BBC’s spectacular 2001 nature documentary, Blue Planet, airs on October 29 in the UK. Fortunately, the BBC has blessed us with a second trailer for Planet Earth II, which looks like it will make even the most extravagant Hollywood blockbusters pale in comparison.…
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of a dystopian future where books have been outlawed and are destroyed by firemen who set them ablaze. But in an ironic twist, Super Terrain, a publisher in France, has created a new edition of Bradbury’s classic that actually requires extreme heat in order to be read. Jo…
Remember the last time you fell asleep on the couch and your TV remote left an imprint on your face? Taking inspiration from that, DBLG, a UK-based ad agency, produced an amusing series of animations by imprinting characters and objects directly onto human skin. It’s an animation style you probably won’t see Disney copying anytime…
Americans will spend roughly $2.7 billion on Halloween candy this year. And an online candy retailer has crunched the numbers to figure out the most popular candy in every state. CandyStore.com has assembled an interactive map showing the best-selling candy across our great, sugar-drenched nation. And some of the picks might surprise you. For instance, who…
A crane left parked in front of a sugar factory for months in Baltimore, Maryland, prevented photographer Paul Frederiksen from getting the exact shot he wanted. He had assumed that using Photoshop to erase the obtrusive crane was all but impossible, until Denyer, a UK-based photographer, performed a photo-editing miracle. The challenge with removing such…
Budget cuts, privatization, and drastically shrinking protected areas are just a few of the ways the current administration is threatening the country’s national park system. If you’re not convinced these are terrible ideas, filmmaker Taylor Gray’s remarkable timelapse footage of Denali, and other parks, will make you realize these ares are truly national treasures. Shot…
The arrival of pumpkin spice jokes is often seen as the first sign of fall, but a trampoline full of gravity-defying dead leaves is a far more satisfying way to welcome the arrival of cooler temps and gourd-flavored coffee. Jumping into a pile of dead leaves is a seasonal rite of passage for most kids,…
Police in Dubai may soon have access to functional hoverbikes, according to AutoBlog, which reported that Dubai Police had unveiled the new technology in conjunction with Russian company Hoversurf at the Gulf Information Technology Exposition last week. Per Autoblog, the Scorpion hoverbike is capable of flying approximately 16 feet (five meters) in the air, moving…
Look: If we’re being honest, fidget spinners are pretty played out at this point. Or at least they are … on Earth. It turns out that fidget spinners remain extremely cool if you have access to a massive spacecraft and a low-gravity environment. NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, who is stationed on the International Space Station,…
We’ve seen remote control airplanes powered by tiny jet engines before. But what’s mind-blowing about this particular RC craft is that it weighs just 17 pounds but can blast through the skies at an astonishing 450 miles per hour, making you wonder how any human has the reflexes needed to keep this thing from crashing.…
The child prodigy of puppeteering, Barnaby Dixon, is back with another update to his bug-like hand puppet. This time Dixon’s swapped out the head with a small LCD display showing a live feed of his face, adding another level of realism to the puppet which, quite frankly, totally freaks me out. In addition to bringing…
A few years ago, Jason Allemann of JK Brickworks created an animated Lego version of the tragic Greek figure, Sisyphus, perpetually pushing a giant boulder. Using the same building techniques, Allemann has created a modern version of that character, who now spends eternity perpetually mowing a lawn that will never stop growing. https://gizmodo.com/watching-a-lego-sisyphus-perpetually-push-a-boulder-is-1745614147 The kinetic…
You’ve probably never given much thought to the design of a pop-up birthday card after first opening it, but you will after watching this compilation of Peter Dahmen’s creations. He somehow manages to turn sheets of paper into intricately engineered architectural masterpieces. https://gizmodo.com/transformers-pop-up-book-features-paper-robots-that-act-1770364509 If you opened a birthday card and had one of these designs…
So far, 2017 hasn’t exactly been a great year, but if you look hard enough, you’ll find the world is still filled with wonderful things. In August, eight children living with disabilities were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience zero gravity. Before watching, you’ll probably want to reach for a tissue. The experience was made…
