Sploid: Where awesome, wild, and breathtaking tech moments burst into view.
You may think you know most of what needs to be known about the history of the Universe, the solar system, Earth, and human civilization. And perhaps you do, but not in the way the beautiful Big History Project presents it. The project looks to the past not as several separate disciplines but as a…
Scientists have discovered a new optical illusion that will screw up your brain big time. Focus on the red cross while the dots move. They are wriggling around, right? Wrong. All of them are moving “in straight trajectories and random directions without colliding.” In this paper, we report on a novel visual motion illusion. When…
io9’s George Dvorsky explains the math, tech and physics that explain “how swarms of self-replicating spacecraft could someday rule the galaxy.” https://gizmodo.com/how-self-replicating-spacecraft-could-take-over-the-gal-1463732482
Take a look at these stunning new photos depicting US spec ops forces during night operations in Afghanistan hunting down suspected Taliban operatives. They were taken by U.S. Army Spc. Liam Mulrooney in the Zurmat district, Paktia province, and in Nerkh District, Wardak province.
Not everything in Russia is crazy people in cars, anti-gay mobs and a Nazi government with no respect to human rights. Here’s something that I wish we had: a machine that gives you a subway ticket for 30 squats in less than two minutes. The machine was installed at the Vystavochaya station, west of Moscow…
NASA has created a beautiful simulation of how Mars might have looked billions of years ago. It’s a fascinating view that looks eerily like Earth. According to NASA: Billions of years ago when the Red Planet was young, it appears to have had a thick atmosphere that was warm enough to support oceans of liquid…
At the right time and under the right light, our planet can look really weird and alien. Take a look at the phenomenal work of Scottish photographer Scott Wilson. Some of the scenes really seem out of this world—or belonging to other fantastic eras. Scott says that he likes to “prowl around between dusk and…
New Scientists reports on a new planetary model that describes the most probable color signature of worlds thriving with life: purple. We would be able to detect these planets in 2018, once the James Webb Space Telescope is in orbit. According to the model developed by scientists at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary…
How do doctors become better doctors? By doing more doctor things, duh. Things like spending years at residency, doing rounds, poking synthetic cadavers and yes, practicing prostate exams on a plastic robot butt video game. https://gizmodo.com/this-freakish-skinless-body-is-actually-a-synthetic-hum-1456468994 Rob Delaney tweeted out this eye-popping photo on Twitter earlier this month and Geekosystem tracked down the doctor behind…
This is so sad. Satellite imagery has captured what the Philippines looked like before and after Typhoon Haiyan and it’s absolutely tragic. Towns, homes, people’s lives have just been completely decimated. There’s nothing left. To see the total destruction from above like this is heartbreaking. One day everything is normal, the next everything is gone.…
If you’re anything like me, you slept through biology class in high school and figured you could become a full-fledged adult without it. And you were right! But if you’re like me, you’re still curious about how this thing we called life works. This Ted-Ed animation video by pew 36 explains it better than any…
You can summarize io9’s list of things you must never do when watching TV to one simple rule: shut up and watch the bloody movie or leave. However, let’s get specific because you really don’t want to be a douchebag and be hated by everyone, right? https://gizmodo.com/im-trying-to-watch-my-tv-show-and-youre-being-a-war-c-1462776424
Los Angeles gets a lot crap for being this gigantic sprawl that’s pumped with Botox and bleached hair and that its city life only exists on the freeways. Maybe some of it is true! But it’s also a fantastic place to do a time lapse video since the world is so big. Ralph and Randy…
The Aviationist found this incredible picture taken by Nikos Delhanidids at the Thessaloniki airbase. It captures the exact moment an F-16 ejects a flare—which is used to mislead heat-seeking missiles—from the underside of the fighter jet. Great shot.
Remember the morphing table that can replicate your body and movements in real time? It’s name is inForm. Daniel Leithinger—from the Tangible Group at MIT Medialab—just told Sploid about their first official video. This thing is so damn awesome. https://gizmodo.com/this-morphing-table-can-create-a-virtual-version-of-you-1458375473 They added a screen in portrait mode so you can see the person who is…
DJDanaK has a friend who works at McDonalds and took this photo of some raw frozen McRibs. They look gross, like frozen pink snowmobile tracks. But I don’t care. They’re delicious. This pork patty is the core ingredient of this scarce trash gourmet delicacy—made with processed pork meat compressed and pre-cooked in a mold to…
Maybe you didn’t find those layered fish paintings as impressive as I did but, after you watch this video showing how Riusuke Fukahori makes them, I think you will change your opinion. This guy is a perfect human 3D printer. Impressive skills. https://gizmodo.com/these-fish-are-not-real-but-incredible-layered-painting-1462561864 From the video description: Japanese artist Riusuke Fukahori paints three-dimensional goldfish using…
I thought it was going to be impossible to best the Saturn eclipse image taken by Cassini on September 15, 2006, but I was wrong. This one, taken on July 19, 2013, it’s even more impressive—the shadows and highlights, the halo, the exquisite details and gradients. A true planetary photographic masterpiece. This was taken the…
This amazing photo by Brian Smith shows one of the two gigantic 98.2-foot (30 meters) high horse heads that have just been completed in Scotland. They call them The Kelpies, and one day Hobbits and Elves will pass by them en route to drop some ring somewhere. They were designed by sculptor Andy Scott and…
This is Lockheed Martin’s concept for a High Speed Strike Weapon that will enable the United States to strike anywhere in the world within hours. They claim it’s been designed by Skunk Works—their advanced research division—but it looks like they ordered it from an ACME catalog. According to the aerospace and weapons manufacturer, “this is…
