Isaac Schultz, Author at Gizmodo

Screenshot: Agencia de Noticias Andina/YouTube

Archaeologists Find 3,000-Year-Old Mural of Knife-Wielding Spider God in Peru

It likely had eight legs, and at least one of them is still brandishing a knife. That’s the report from archaeologists in northern Peru, who have announced the discovery of a 50-foot mural that once was the centerpiece of a pre-Columbian shrine. The find was made in November 2020, when farmers seeking to expand their…

Human History Isaac Schultz Mar 30

There’s an Ancient Connection Between Our Saliva and Snake Venom

Humans and other mammals have the same genetic foundations for developing oral venom that snakes have, according to a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This connection was discovered by a research team looking at venom-producing tissue from 30 habus, a pit viper from East Asia. The researchers were…

Biology Isaac Schultz Mar 29

These Mutant Rabbits Walk on Two Legs, and Geneticists Now Know Why

An entire lineage of French rabbits has been doing handstands for nearly a century. The acrobatic bunnies are not so much performing a stunt as they are a product of stunted genetics, according to a paper published this week in PLOS Genetics. First discovered in a domesticated rabbit living in a Parisian suburb in 1935,…

Biology Isaac Schultz Mar 26

Extinct Kangaroo Could Climb Trees With Its Huge Claws

A new study describes a “semiarboreal kangaroo” that lived 40,000 years ago in Australia. Apparently, even hopping can get boring. According to the study, published this week in Royal Society Open Science, the discovery came from fossils excavated decades ago from Western Australia’s Mammoth Cave and the Thylacoleo Caves system. The skulls, teeth, and skeletons…

Biology Isaac Schultz Mar 25

Researchers Found a Way to Send Tiny Robots Into Mouse Brains

In a mind-bending development, a team of researchers in China have managed to treat brain tumors in mice by delivering drugs to the tissues using microscopic robots. The robots jumped from the mice’s bloodstreams into their brains by being coated in E. coli, which tricked the rodents’ immune systems into attacking them, absorbing the robots…

Tech News Isaac Schultz Mar 24

See a Black Hole’s Magnetic Fields in New Image From the Event Horizon Telescope

In April 2019, the world was spellbound, if only for a moment, by an ominous void encircled by a half-halo of light. It was the first direct image of a black hole; more specifically, a supermassive gravitational abyss at the core of Messier 87, a galaxy in the constellation Virgo some 54 million light-years from…

Space & Spaceflight Isaac Schultz Mar 24

Scientists Just Found a New Kind of Rock Under the Pacific Ocean

New basalt just dropped. An international team of scientists drilled nearly a mile into the Pacific seafloor and extracted a variety of the volcanic stone chemically and mineralogically different from any previously known sort. The team examined a 49-million-year-old outcrop of stone that formed just a couple million years after the Ring of Fire, that…

Earth Science Isaac Schultz Mar 23

NASA Reveals Its Plan for First Helicopter Flight on Mars

So far, human exploration on Mars has been measured in the circular motion of orbiters above the planet and the meandering trails of rovers on the ground below. Early next month, NASA will enter the elusive space between those two realms, with the launch of the box-shaped helicopter Ingenuity. Equipped with two 2,400 rpm rotors…

Space & Spaceflight Isaac Schultz Mar 23

Photo: CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN/AFP via Getty Images

This ‘Map of Life’ Shows Where Undiscovered Species May Be Lurking

Nine years ago, a team of Yale ecologists mapped out the world’s life, a project that showed biodiversity patterns in geographical context; basically, a heat map of animal life. Now, they’ve gone a step further: mapping the likeliest spots for unknown species to still exist, in the hopes that those animals can be documented before…

Conservation Isaac Schultz Mar 22

Here’s 16 Minutes of Perseverance Rover Going Kssst, Tiktik, and Pffft

Three weeks ago, Earthlings sat agog by their computers as they heard the first sounds recorded by NASA’s Perseverance rover on the Martian surface. Turns out these tracks will be a regularity, as NASA just released another ballad from our new favorite robot. Last week, we heard Perseverance zapping rocks with a laser. Ok, so…

Space & Spaceflight Isaac Schultz Mar 18

Illustration: Vullo et al., Science (2021)

Weirdo Manta Shark Found Fossilized in Mexican Limestone

Paleontologists have announced the discovery of an extraordinary fossil shark in Mexico. They describe Aquilolamna milarcae, a Late Cretaceous shark that was wider than it was long, with an oddly slender pair of pectoral fins. This shark, far from a ferocious biter, may have survived by eating plankton. The team’s research was published today in…

Biology Isaac Schultz Mar 18

Armored Dinos May Have Dug Trenches to Protect Themselves, Fossil Study Suggests

The headless horseman would make fast friends with an Asian ankylosaur; where the former tends to be missing its head, these dinosaurs are often found without their body. In fact, the dearth of ankylosaur bodies has vexed paleontologists, who are eager to learn more about how the hefty herbivores became clubbed-tailed, heavily armored tanks. Now,…

Biology Isaac Schultz Mar 18

Image: Craig Rhodes and Kenneth Yamada/National Institutes of Health

Mouse Embryos Grow Successfully in Beakers, a Step Toward an Artificial Womb

Quivering with life, the developing mice moved ever-so-slightly in their vials. Just a few days since they were fertilized, the rodent embryos were minuscule—smaller than an Aspirin tablet—but their existence a is monumental feat: they developed in an artificial uterus, a first in early mammalian science and a big step in improving scientists’ understanding of…

Health Isaac Schultz Mar 17

Russian Scientists Drop a Telescope Into the Deepest Lake on Earth

On Saturday, a team of Russian researchers dropped a brand-new telescope into frigid Lake Baikal, the deepest lake on Earth. It wasn’t an accident; the instrument took the plunge to give the scientists a better shot at detecting neutrinos, elusive subatomic particles that are extremely difficult to spot, since they usually pass right through matter…

Physics & Chemistry Isaac Schultz Mar 17

A Dredge Crew Found Pre-Civil War Cannons Near Downtown Savannah

British researchers believe the cannons belonged to the HMS Rose, a royal ship scuttled off Savannah in 1779.

Human History Isaac Schultz Mar 16

Astronomers Spotted a Black Hole Casually Gliding Through Space

Some 230 million light-years from Earth, there’s a black hole going places. These extraordinarily dense objects are usually found sitting at the center of a galaxy violently gobbling up matter, so it was a surprise when astronomers spotted this one moving out of step with its resident galaxy. Containing more than 3 million times the…

Space & Spaceflight Isaac Schultz Mar 15

‘Invisible’ Deep-Sea Bacteria Cause Researchers to Rethink Human Immune Systems

Researchers have found microbes in the deep sea that are completely invisible to the human immune system, a somewhat unnerving discovery that suggests our bodies’ seemingly universal ability to recognize bacteria isn’t so all-inclusive. The interdisciplinary team’s research was published last week in the journal Science Immunology. Their fundamental conclusion is that the way our…

Biology Isaac Schultz Mar 15

Greenland’s Rocks Contain Hints of a Magma Ocean on Baby Earth

Billions of years ago, parts of Greenland were a molten sea, a sharp contrast to the pale-blue ice seen there today. Researchers have now found isotope signatures of that burbling, primordial Earth in basalt rocks near Nuuk. It’s generally accepted that early in its history, Earth had a big magma ocean; it’s a common step…

Earth Science Isaac Schultz Mar 12

Long Known as Nomads, Scythians May Have Been Solidly Sedentary

Popularized by myth and historical accounts as horse-riding warrior nomads of the Eurasian steppe, the true story of the Scythians (pronounced Sith-ian) may be more complicated. New research published in the journal PLOS One describes the likely range and diets of Scythians buried across a number of sites in modern Ukraine, which suggest that the…

Human History Isaac Schultz Mar 10

A Bloodsucking Fish May Not Be the Vertebrate Ancestor We Thought

Derpy from the side and hellish from below, the lamprey is the bane of the Great Lakes fisheries industry. A jawless, bloodsucking fish, the lamprey is often considered an ancestral early vertebrate for its rudimentary morphology and its larval life stage. Now, a team of researchers has authored a new study about fossilized lamprey larvae…

Biology Isaac Schultz Mar 10

Isaac Schultz

Archaeologists Find 3,000-Year-Old Mural of Knife-Wielding Spider God in Peru

There’s an Ancient Connection Between Our Saliva and Snake Venom

These Mutant Rabbits Walk on Two Legs, and Geneticists Now Know Why

Extinct Kangaroo Could Climb Trees With Its Huge Claws

Researchers Found a Way to Send Tiny Robots Into Mouse Brains

See a Black Hole’s Magnetic Fields in New Image From the Event Horizon Telescope

Scientists Just Found a New Kind of Rock Under the Pacific Ocean

NASA Reveals Its Plan for First Helicopter Flight on Mars

This ‘Map of Life’ Shows Where Undiscovered Species May Be Lurking

Here’s 16 Minutes of Perseverance Rover Going Kssst, Tiktik, and Pffft

Weirdo Manta Shark Found Fossilized in Mexican Limestone

Armored Dinos May Have Dug Trenches to Protect Themselves, Fossil Study Suggests

Mouse Embryos Grow Successfully in Beakers, a Step Toward an Artificial Womb

Russian Scientists Drop a Telescope Into the Deepest Lake on Earth

A Dredge Crew Found Pre-Civil War Cannons Near Downtown Savannah

Astronomers Spotted a Black Hole Casually Gliding Through Space

‘Invisible’ Deep-Sea Bacteria Cause Researchers to Rethink Human Immune Systems

Greenland’s Rocks Contain Hints of a Magma Ocean on Baby Earth

Long Known as Nomads, Scythians May Have Been Solidly Sedentary

A Bloodsucking Fish May Not Be the Vertebrate Ancestor We Thought

First Statewide Data Center Ban Passed by Maine Legislature

FCC Exempts Netgear from Foreign-Made Router Ban for Some Reason

Jamie Dornan Is Your New Aragorn in ‘The Hunt for Gollum’

Trump’s Fed Pick Is Knee Deep in Tech and Crypto Investments

The First Trailer for ‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ Takes Terror Stateside

The Trump Phone Still Looks Like Total Trash

‘Masters of the Universe’ Really, Really Wants to Be the Next ‘Barbie’

Samsung’s Micro RGB TVs Provide So Much Color It May Be Too Much

The Crypto Bros Want to Get Their Hands on Anthropic’s ‘Super Dangerous’ Model

This Is What a Music Industry ‘Plant’ Looks Like in 2026

Sony Inzone H6 Air Review: A Perfect Case for Open-Back Gaming Headsets

Anker’s EufyMake E1 Finally Brings Printers Out of the Dark Ages

The Soundboks Mix Is Going to Make You the Most Popular Guy at the Park

Asus Zenbook A16 Review: Start Considering Snapdragon on PC, for Real

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice