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Poison Gas Can Induce Suspended Animation, and Could Save Your Life

A small dose of hydrogen sulfide gas put this little guy into a state of suspended animation for six hours. If the technique can scale up to humans, it could buy doctors valuable time in emergency situations. The idea is that if someone suffers a critical injury and time is of the essence, a small…

Who Should We Blame for the Anticlimactic Balloon Boy Saga?

After a thrilling chase sequence, Balloon Boy was found…to have never been in the balloon in the first place. We’re glad he’s safe, but now the question comes: Who’s to blame for this whole catastrophe? https://gizmodo.com/boy-flies-away-uncontrollably-in-homemade-flying-saucer-5382627 Stevie Safran cleverly notes in Twitter that “Balloon Boy’s parents say he won’t be grounded, fail to recognize ironic…

The Dark Sword UAV – Chinese Knockoffs Can Be Better Than the Real Thing

The Chinese military has apparently been copying American UAV designs for a while now. After they got bored simply rebuilding Uncle Sam’s models, they decided to design a few of their own. And they blow ours out of the water. Above is the Dark Sword, the Chinese military’s newest drone. Not only does it look…

Photosketchers of the Giz: You Disgust Me

I asked for sketches to feed into the magic Photosketch image compositing program. You delivered just a few weirdustrations, but enough to show that there’s one little pack of sick individuals reading Gizmodo: https://gizmodo.com/draw-your-dream-gadget-or-technology-photosketch-style-5377244 Too bad. If I could, I would name myself winner, and get the $10,000 prize in cash. In fact, if we…

Balloon Boy Admits They Did It for the Show

World-class Jeopardy loser Wolf Blitzer got an exclusive interview with Balloon Boy and his family, and not surprisingly, BB himself (AKA Falcon Heene) fails to shed much light on his motivations. Check out the video (with bonus fart) post-jump. http://gawker.com/5362580/wolf-blitzer-lost-on-jeopardy So he heard his parents frantically calling for him, and didn’t come out of the…

When A Nuclear Holocaust Wrecks Civilization, It’s Important To Be A Nipple Connoisseur

Three great moments from 1985’s post-apocalyptic Def-Con 4: Three astronauts watch a nuclear holocaust claim the entire world. A post-apocalyptic survivalist demands to know, in great detail, about the female astronauts nipples. And a teenager whips slaves dragging a space-capsule. You kind of have to love Def-Con 4, despite the silly title (Def-Con 4 is…

Stories about science, the future, and weird true things.

Clue Gets a Completely Necessary Update That Involves Text Messages

You are undoubtedly familiar with the classic board game Clue. But did you know you’ve been enjoying the sissy luddite version for all these years? Because you have been. The new version uses texting! Texting! Yes, Clue: Secrets & Spies is truly a game for this generation. That is to say, it chose to do…

Dwarf Galaxy On Our Doorstep Pulsates With Fascinating Beauty

Here’s our best view ever of Barnard’s Galaxy, a dwarf galaxy just 1.6 million light years away, courtesy of the European Southern Observatory’s Chilean telescope. Those red bubbles are areas of intense star formation, marked by hot hydrogen. [via BadAstronomer]

Learn How To Tell Time and Waste Money With a Manual Digital Clock

According to the manufacturers of the Digits Clock, kids don’t need to learn how to tell time the old fashioned way. Instead, parents should spend over $100 on a board that requires kids to manually construct the time every minute. Do kids need to learn how to tell time on a digital clock? It’s been…

You Can See Why New York’s Real-Life Spider-Man Makes People Throw Up

Rickshaw driver Shaun Emerson thought dressing up as Spider-Man and doing weird acrobatic stunts would make him an overnight sensation — instead, it’s made at least one passenger vomit. Watching this video, you can see why. [NY Times, via NYMag]

Witness Ron “Typewriter” Mingo In Action

This video has it all folks. The fastest typist in the world circa the late 70’s, music, pimp suits and the hardships of a man too damn good at what he does. “I’ve lost about 25 or 30 jobs because of my speed. They couldn’t keep me busy 8 hours a day, 5 days a…

You Know It’s An Indie Horror Movie When . . .

Paranormal Activity has everybody talking about indie horror, especially shoestring budget flicks like Blair Witch Project. What do DiY scare movies really have in common, other than nausea-inducing steadycam? Allow us to enlighten you. With slick horror movies hitting theaters this horror-tastic season, it’s important that you know how to recognize true, authentic made-in-my-basement chills.…

The Lego House Is Dead. Long Live the Lego Kitchen!

I was sad that the Lego house was destroyed, but happy to know that its spirit lives in this Lego kitchen, a Scandinavian clusterfuck made with a Swedish IKEA kitchen island and more than 20,000 pieces of Danish Lego. https://gizmodo.com/lego-house-gets-destroyed-you-can-cry-now-5368648 It may be that I really miss my Lego Timer, but I wouldn’t mind to…

Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 2 Plays Like A Novel

We didn’t really know what we had in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles until it was cancelled — just as an apocalypse makes you realize what a fantastic world we’ve lost. Luckily, the season-two DVDs give you one more chance. (Sorry, I know this DVD box set came out a couple weeks ago — I…

Scientists Use Lasers to Create False Memories in Flies

A team of researchers experimented with fruit flies and found that by genetically engineering some flies, they were able to give those flies the “memory” of pain that they never actually experienced. It’s kind of complicated and kind of creepy. Basically, and I use the word loosely, the researchers understand that fruit flies are able,…

Rocking Chair Powers Its Attached OLED Lamp Just by Rocking

The Murakami chair’s attached lamp is powered by kinetic energy produced from the chair’s rocking back and forth—deliciously simple and elegant. Oh, and that lampshade? Not a lampshade. That’s the actual OLED light source, shaped like a lampshade. The OLED lamp even senses when it’s light or dark out, and if it’s light, stores the…

What Science Fiction Characters Wear for Halloween

Still stumped on a Halloween costume idea? Maybe you can take your cue from these Halloween-loving characters from science fiction and fantasy. Check out what these folks wear to celebrate the season of horror.

Guy Finds Missile Launcher In His Backyard, Government Lazy About Retrieving It

A resident of Comal County, Texas named Jarrette Schule found a military issue missile launcher in his backyard. Figuring that the government would surely be looking for it, he made some calls. Amazingly enough, no one seemed to care. But Schule spent Tuesday afternoon calling the FBI, Homeland Security, the Sheriff’s Department – every agency…

Twitter Lists Are Live, Meaning Soon You’ll Be Able to Create Groups in Twitter Apps

A feature people often ask for in Twitter apps is a way to create groups of people to organize that giant list of people they follow—a group for your friends, one for news, one for crazies, however they wanna break down all those people. Well, Twitter Lists just went live, meaning that before too long…