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Architects Design Wooden Bicycle Frame to Explore Structural Engineering

Wooden bikes may be beautiful, but they’re also a tad impractical. Nevertheless, there may be unexpected value in wooden bike frames, which architects can use to understand important structural challenges and prototype new designs. That, at least, is the rationale behind bike manufacturer AERO’s latest prototype. Architects Martino Hutz, Atanas Zhelev and Mariya Korolova built…

Singer And Aspiring Space Tourist Sarah Brightman Postpones Her Launch

Her website is still awesomely space-themed, but soprano Sarah Brightman, who owned Broadway in the 1980s thanks to Cats and Phantom of the Opera, is scratching from her planned space-tourist trip to the ISS. She’d hoped to be “the first professional musician in history to perform live from orbit.” The news came via a Facebook…

The short answer to the question “Could a robot write the perfect pop song?” is “No,” because, as this piece in The Atlantic suggests, the pop star of tomorrow will probably be an avatar instead of a robot, offering up popular Japanese “android diva” Hatsune Miku as an example.

Watching This Frozen Apple Get Smashed to Bits is Oddly Satisfying

You don’t have to tell me you were wondering what happens when you dunk an apple in liquid nitrogen and smash it with an 83 pound weight. So were we. The YouTuber who’s answered many important life questions for us, including what happens when you light a Rubik’s cube on fire or drop a hot…

Security Researcher Claims to Have Commandeered a Flight in Mid-Air

While United is busy offering free miles to researchers who can root out bugs in its website, there’s a much larger cybersecurity risk the airline still refuses to touch: The possibility of a hacker accessing critical avionics controls through an in-flight network. https://gizmodo.com/united-cant-even-be-bothered-to-pay-money-for-finding-s-1704639413 Which, it so happens, is exactly what cybersecurity researcher Chris Roberts has…

The Techno-Islands That May Replace the Maldives

If the 350 thousand-odd Maldivians want to stay put, they may have to rebuild everything, starting with the ground they walk on. Located roughly 370 miles off the southwest tip of India, the island nation of Maldives sounds like paradise—over a thousand tiny oases of white sand beach, lush tropical vegetation, and warm, aquamarine water.…

The Only Darth-Vader-In-A-Holiday-Sweater Ornament You Will Ever Need

No matter what holiday (if any) you celebrate ‘round December, Hallmark’s “Holiday Darth Vader,” available in October, is something to behold. According to the description, “The Dark Lord ornament will sense your movement and deliver a Christmas message.” It’s one of several geeky releases for 2015. Hallmark’s other new ornaments of note, albeit none so…

And A Very Happy Ssssaturday To You!

A black and white Argentine Tegu lizard shows off during an exhibition at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa this week. Tegus are intelligent and make popular pets, though escapees have taken a page from the python playbook in recent years, becoming an invasive species in Florida. AP Photo by Denis Farrell

Ancient Asteroid Impacts Boiled the Oceans and Made Life on Earth Hell

Roughly 3.3 billion years ago, Earth’s early life forms were plunged into an unimaginable hell, when a series of massive asteroids smashed into the young planet, vaporizing the oceans and scorching the skies. Image: Johan Swanepoel/Shutterstock We’ve heard about one of these asteroids before—a 58 kilometer-across object that, upon impact 3.26 billion years ago, shook…

Watch Adam Savage Build A Perfect Replica Of Kirk’s Chair From Star Trek

When Adam Savage ordered a replica of Captain Kirk’s Star Trek chair off eBay, he found it to be “totally sad and not accurate.” What’s a fanboy who also happens to be capable of building practically anything to do? Watch the (long, but entertaining and Shatner-approved) video below to find out. Spoiler alert: Tribbles. [Via…

Andromeda And The Milky Way Might Collide Sooner Than We Think

The merger of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxy won’t happen for another 4 billion years, but the recent discovery of a massive halo of hot gas around Andromeda may mean our galaxies are already touching. Andromeda’s halo is gargantuan. Extending for at least 2 million light years, if we could see in our night…

Smart and JBL Cram a Concert Hall Into a Fortwo

Smart is all about being compact and efficient, so when the company teamed up with audio provider JBL, it naturally wanted to see how much sound it could squeeze into one of its little hatchbacks. The resultant ‘smart forgigs,’ which boasts 5720 watts of amplification, is a mobile concert hall guaranteed to give any struggling…

David Lynch Rejoins Showtime’s Twin Peaks Revival!

YOU GUYS! Don’t scare us like that again! According to a flurry of Twitter reassurances last night, though, looks everyone has made nice (and there will be more than the originally-announced nine episodes!) Put back all that garmonbozia and commence with the pie and coffee binge. https://gizmodo.com/the-twin-peaks-revival-is-happening-without-david-lynch-1695866373

On Sailor Moon Crystal Near Death Experiences Will Get You What You Want

Everyone wants something on Sailor Moon Crystal. The Black Moon want power. Usagi wants to go home with her friends. Tuxedo Mask wants to protect Chibi Usa. I want to move on from the endless exposition and get to the action. But as hard as Sailor Moon Crystal tries this week, not everyone gets what…

The Backbone of the Internet is Maxing Out

Earlier this week, we heard reports that we’re on the verge of running out of internet, specifically, out of IPv4 addresses. Now, it seems, we may be hitting another, more serious internet wall: The cables. That’s right. The tubes themselves can’t spit out our data much faster. The fiber-optic cables that transmit the internet’s data…

SpaceX Just Dropped These Amazing Retro Mars Travel Posters

Everybody wants to go to Mars these days, not least of all Elon Musk, who might very well be hoping to retire there after he turns into a cyborg. But for those of you who haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, SpaceX just dropped some travel posters of the Red Planet to entice you. For…

Now We Want A Feature-Length Film In This Black-And-White Anime Style

Hikari Toriumi’s short anime film Koishi doesn’t need color to be to be utterly luminous. In fact, its grayscale palette makes its tale of a boy in mourning all the more the more breathtaking. On Vimeo, Toriumi explains the title, “a Japanese pun, ‘KOI’ being the kind of fish used for the flag designs and…

The Best of Gizmodo This Week

Two new and fantastic things we’ve kicked off at Gizmodo: we launched our podcast “Meanwhile In the Future” with a premier episode about artificial wombs, and a new diagonal, “Throb,” all about science and sex. This week was also Action Hero Week, which meant we got to nerd out about all the tech making humans…

Climbers Helped a Zoo Make Sure Its Orangutan Habitat Is Escape-Proof

The Kansas City Zoo didn’t have the best track record when it came to penning-in its primates—two gorillas got out in 2012 and two chimpanzees ran away in 2014 (I assume they all were brought back?). So when building a new orangutan habitat, the zoo brought in some experts to test the sheer rock walls…

How Does Aspirin Actually Work?

There was once a time when the cutting edge in pain relieving technology was a stick to bite down on. It was only when sticks ran short that people turned to pills. How do these work? When it comes to stopping pain, there are some pills that manage it by deadening the entire area. They…