Sploid: Where awesome, wild, and breathtaking tech moments burst into view.
This beautiful sea slugis named after the beautiful Khaleesi (Daenerys Targaryen) from Game of Thrones. It’s called Tritonia khaleesi. Researchers noted the similarities between the pale, effervescent sea slug and its fair-haired nomenclature. The slug is the latest addition to the Tritoniidae family. Tritoniidaes live in warm seas and have a pale white body and…
Two studies recently published in Nature set a new standard for so-called “Earth-like” exoplanets. Research into atmospheric conditions show that GJ 1214b, one of the exoplanets closest to Earth, is covered in clouds, just like Earth. To be precise, the clouds on GJ 1214b aren’t necessarily the exact same as the clouds on Earth. Astronomers…
Scientists at the University of Life Sciences in Prague have found that dogs are sensitive to Earth’s magnetism. In fact, they’re so sensitive that they poop aligned to the planet’s magnetic field. I don’t know what that means or why is it useful, but I find it fascinating. The research paper—published in the journal Frontiers…
The giant rubber duckie that has been going around the globe for the past few months—bringing peace and joy to all of humanity—has exploded in Taiwan. RIP good old yellow duckie. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us in Facebook.
This is how the Great Spiral Galaxy of Andromeda would look in the sky if it were bright enough. Sadly, its light is too faint. But imagine seeing that every night. Would you get tired of it? I know I wouldn’t. Unfortunately, it’s not that bright. But it’s a beautiful simulation anyway, one that gives…
Looking at this video, it seems like scientists at the University of Tokyo have mastered the Force and they’re now able to make things levitate and move in space. But magic this is not, young Skywalker—it’s the first time that anyone has achieved such a feat using sound waves. Given enough energy, they can move…
The slow motion clips in this video by Simmon Hammond look like computer generated scenes from a superhero movie—the exquisite photography, the dramatic color, and the camera moves are just too perfect to be real. But it is real. And it feels magical. It may be a commercial for the Sony A7R cameras but I…
I love rocket launches photos, especially when they are as awesome as this photo by Pat Corkery, featured by the US Air Force. The 45th Space Wing successfully launched a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the second Mobile User Objective System (MUOS-2) satellite for the U.S. Navy July 9, 2013, at Cape Canaveral…
Behold the first self-propelled ice sculpture ever—a truck made of ice that actually works! It’s a real truck, using 11,000 pounds of ice over a regular truck chassis complete with engine and electrical system. Check out the videos to see how they built it—and how it melted. The truck ran for 1.6 kilometers at about…
Happy New Year everybody! Or well, almost. Or maybe, already (depending on where and when you read this). Either way, stay safe in your celebrations but have as much fun as you possibly can because it’ll be your last chance for the year. The clock is ticking! If you need inspiration on how to get…
Say hi to the Portuguese man o’ war. It’s purple, it’s clear, it looks like a balloon, it’s painfully venomous, but it’s not a jellyfish and you wouldn’t have to convince me too hard that it’s from an alien world. This Portuguese man o’ war, which other than being a fantastic name, washed up on…
Let’s end the year on a happy note. And happiness is this photo series by photographer Lara Jo Regan. Called Dogs in Cars, it’s photo after photo of well, dogs sticking their heads out of moving cars. Is there anything in the world more joyful than seeing that? I don’t think so. PetaPixel says that…
Though it may look fake and unreal and impossible and not allowed on Earth, the camera stabilizer in the video is completely real. You can’t make it shake. It’s like magic decided to defy physics and ignore gravity. All I want to do is park myself in front of a mirror and do as many…
September 19th, 1989 UTA Flight 772, flying from Paris to Brazzaville (in the People’s Republic of Congo), was taken over by six Libyan terrorists. They set off a suitcase bomb over the Sahara Desert, and all 170 souls aboard perished. 18 years later the victims’ families met at the crash site to build this memorial.…
Michelangelo Buonarroti was too busy to buy food, so he used to send his illiterate servant with grocery shopping lists like the one above, illustrated in 1518. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us in Facebook.
This incredible photo by Nir Ben-Yosef aka xnir—an Israeli photographer who specializes in aviation and air-to-air photography and production—may look really scary. But fear not, because this AH-64A Apache is not going down in flames. It’s just releasing flares to show off. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us in Facebook.
The first thing I thought when I saw this was “nice abstract painting.” So pretty and delicate. But it’s not. Like Steve Coogan says in The Trip: “You can’t paint this. I mean, you can, but it would be rubbish.” What is it? It’s an aerial photo of an Icelandic river, taken by Andre Ermolaev,…
This is a great ad by Greenpeace Netherlands, brilliantly executed by Studio Smack: They erased all the animals of The Lion King’s opening sequence to show kids and adults how the African savanna would look if we don’t protect its animals. I can imagine the kids first puzzled, then crying, as all their favorite animals…
Oh my. This is beyond scary. A mile-long train carrying crude oil derailed near a small town in North Dakota and sent explosions, flames and dark black smoke into the sky. Luckily (and almost unbelievably), no one was hurt in the accident that looked a lot more like a nuke exploding than a train derailment.…
Your eyes might tell you differently, your brain might make you believe something else and that gut of yours will say you’re right but you’re not. There is only one person in this video. You will only see one woman’s face. It may look like a different person but it’s not. The magic is in…
