Ancient Microbes, Virtual Comic-Con, and Mind-Boggling Sperm, Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

Since the world is both metaphorically and, in some places, literally on fire these days, I’ve replaced doomscrolling through my feeds with something more wholesome to preserve my already perennially shaky mental state: farming sims. Nice try, depressing news, but I can’t hear you when I’m 100+ hours deep in Stardew Valley (look, I love Animal Crossing, but after months of quarantine I desperately needed a vacation from my virtual island paradise).

So imagine my surprise when the folks at Earther tackled farming, of all things, this week. Vertical farming, to be precise, a new-fangled method that could revolutionize wheat production if it weren’t so prohibitively expensive. You see, it requires tons of artificial lighting, way more than traditional horizontal farming, and apparently unless innovations in solar energy bring down that energy bill significantly, vertical farming will remain science fiction. For now, at least.

A completely unrelated but none the less great read the Gizmodo team put out this week broke down how sperm may actually be masters of optical illusions. We imagine that they swim to get around because that’s what it looks like when they’re examined under a microscope. But now scientists think sperm may actually be doing the equivalent of a three-dimensional acrobatics routine instead. I suddenly have a newfound respect for the little guys.

Lastly, the good folks at Gizmodo also spoke with experts to figure out how to nip those annoying habits like tapping your foot or twirling your hair in the bud. As someone who has a tendency to work out their anxiety on their poor nailbeds, I definitely took some of this blog’s advice to heart.

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