Van Gogh has returned in the form of a gecko

// Invest in the future of ice cream and robotics »

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Brand new black hole image will blow your mind

“At the heart of our Milky Way galaxy lies a giant. It's a massive black hole, dubbed Sagittarius A* (pronounced ‘Sagittarius a star’), weighing as much as 4.3 million suns. … Although we can't see the actual object, we can see the matter — intensely hot gas — swirling around a black hole, called an ‘accretion disk.’ Some of this material inevitably falls into the black hole, never to return; much of it gets spewed back out into the cosmos because black holes aren't efficient consumers of galactic material. Where the light ends at the center of the image is the point-of-no-return, called the ‘event horizon.’ That's the final boundary between space and the black hole. In the orange-colored accretion disk, those vivid lines show the twisting structure of the magnetic fields in the donut-like disk.”

// Mashable »

I scream, you scream, we all scream for… Dice Cream?!

Yeah, you read that right. Dice Cream is the revolutionary new bot that serves ice cream in fun square-shaped servings. The idea is simple: Minimize the costs and labor required at your traditional brick-and-mortar ice cream parlor and replace it with robots. While there’s already a functioning prototype, they need more support from investors like you to help bring it fully to life. Shares start at just $250 a pop with eligibility for bonus shares for any investment over $1,500. Invest today to become part of the future of robotics and, more importantly, ice cream. [Ad]

// Get invested »

New tiny gecko species named after Vincent van Gogh

“Scientists have discovered a new species of gecko named for post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. A team of scientists from the Thackeray Wildlife Foundation were exploring the Southern Western Ghats in southern India when they came across this unusual lizard. The back of Cnemaspis vangoghi reminded them of one of the world’s most famous paintings. The new species is described in a study published March 27 in the journal ZooKeys. ‘Cnemaspis vangoghi is named for Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) as the striking coloration of the new species is reminiscent of one of his most iconic paintings, The Starry Night,’ study co-author and biologist Ishan Agarwal said in a statement.”

// Popular Science »

The fitness wearables data you can (and can’t) trust

“The paradox of wearables is that there will always be a mismatch between what you want to know and what a bundle of sensors strapped to your wrist can actually provide. Your goals are probably things like: sleeping better, running faster, losing weight, and staying active. And the wearable can provide things like: heart rate, skin temperature, and distance traveled in a given time. There are some pretty big leaps between those two categories. I find it helpful to separate a wearable’s features into things it measures versus things it estimates.”

// Lifehacker »

Stop giving your digits to strangers

Do you really want to give your phone number to that rando you met last weekend? If the answer is yes: yikes, but okay, keep scrolling. If the answer is no (which, frankly, it should be): looks like you’re in the market for a private phone line. Before you knock private numbers for being sketchy, consider how helpful it would be to keep in touch without giving your real digits to complete strangers. That includes anyone from Tinder or Hinge matches to that person you’re selling to on Facebook Marketplace. Choose from 300+ area codes and get 6,000 SMS (or 1,000 mins) with a secure line from Hushed, using code SECURE20 to get the app for just $21. And please — we’re begging you — stop giving your real number out to weirdos. [Ad]

// Go incognito »

We asked ChatGPT to write a Tinder profile (and the results are hilarious)

“Artificial intelligence is going to be the end of us, but until then, we might as well make the most of it. The best way we can figure to do that? Demand that the bots, like ChatGPT, do our bidding and make us laugh. To that end, we decided to ask the chatbot (developed by OpenAI and launched last November) to write a funny Tinder profile for a 25-year-old man who works in IT, loves cats, and is obsessed with sci-fi novels. Then we demanded the bot punch it up by writing it in various celebrities’ voices. That’s when hilarity truly ensued.”

// Mandatory »