Latest

Predatory Birds Remind Us That Inside, They’re 100% Dinosaur

Watch this Great Blue Heron stalk, snatch, and swallow a gopher and you’ll get a sense of how terrifying it must have been to be a small prehistoric proto-mammal just trying to survive without getting gobbled up by a dinosaur. Also: OMG you can still see the gopher wriggling around as it moves down the…

Watch The Curiosity Rover Shoot A Martian Rock With A Laser!

Besides beaming us back rare astronomy photos, one of the visually cooler duties the Curiosity rover has up on Mars is firing its lasers at rocks it encounters in its path. Here’s the first footage it’s ever sent back of just how that process works. After Curiosity fires its laser, the resulting flash of plasma…

So Apparently Extant Is Really About Creating A Superior Human Species

Last night’s Extant slowly and clunkily peeled back some of the layers of its mystery, offering some hints as to why Molly Woods went into space alone in the first place. But the biggest clue to the show’s purpose came from a character who has little idea what’s going on. First off, I just want…

My Life in Canadian Netflix Hell

I’m American, but I’ve spent a big chunk of the last eight years in Canada, first for affordable education, and then for love. Canada is a gentle foster motherland, suckling me on her polite, maple-flavored bosom. But Netflix here is some bootleg FUBAR bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, Canada’s got a lot going for it.…

Is This First TMNT Clip Funny Or The Worst Thing Ever?

I’m genuinely asking. Fast-forward to about 3:23 in the above video of Whoopi Goldberg’s interview on The Tonight Show, and watch this first clip from the new live-action TMNT movie, which contains Megan Fox and Whoopi Goldberg, but no turtles. And then watch this dilemma unfold. Knowing that there’s going to be any moment in…

The new Predator drone cockpit looks like a dream gaming setup

General Atomics has a new cockpit for their MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers, two of the most common hunt-and-kill drones used by the USAF, capable of destroying basically any ground—and some air—targets. It looks like a dream gaming setup. Heck, it even includes a gamepad (check out that guy’s lap.) According to General Atomics’ Christopher…

Can we predict the future of evolution? One physicist believes that we can.Especially because many life forms have evolved in similar ways over the past couple of billion years.

Every Centimeter Mark on This Ruler Is Actually a Tiny Embedded Flower

It’s the attention to detail that often differentiates a good product from a great product, but designer Norihiko Terayama goes above and beyond the call of duty with his f,l,o,w,e,r,s ruler, which uses tiny dried flowers to represent the centimeter markings along its length. It’s unfortunately useless to those still using archaic imperial units, but…

Microsoft Is Already Quitting the Movie and TV Business

After two years of aspiring to original content, Xbox Entertainment Studios is shutting down. Master Chief will have to settle for video game stardom. Xbox Entertainment Studios was created in 2012 to help Microsoft create original entertainment content, but it appears Microsoft is shelving its hopes to produce an Xbox-branded version of Orange is the…

Report: Oculus VR Is Working on Motion Controllers for the Rift

The Oculus Rift is a fantastic headset, but looking at stuff is only one part of VR. If you want to interact you need some sort of controller, and CNET is reporting that Oculus VR is working on its own first-party ones. According to CNET’s sources “close to the development process” Oculus VR is currently…

True Blood‘s Baby Vampire Jessica Will Play Daredevil’s Love Interest

Deborah Ann Woll’s newbie vampire Jessica has been one of our favorite things about True Blood, but even though the series is ending, we won’t have to go without her puppy dog eyes for long. Woll has landed the role of Karen Page on Netflix’s Daredevil. EW announced that Woll will be playing Karen Page…

Facebook Now Lets You Buy Things Straight From Your News Feed

Facebook is just full of surprises today. After releasing its new Mentions app earlier, the company has just announced the latest in its long history of experiments: Giving you the ability to buy things straight from your News Feed. At least for right now, Facebook is keeping the option limited to “a few small and…

The Rosetta Spacecraft Is Headed for This Giant, Whirling Rubber Ducky

Well this is…unexpected. You know that comet the Rosetta spacecraft is headed towards? Turns out it’s a two-fold comet — one that looks like a two-mile-wide rubber ducky tumbling through the depths of space. Landing the probe on this thing is going to be difficult, to say the least. Images sent back by OSIRIS, the…

Guillermo del Toro Takes Us Inside His “Kinky” Horror Film Crimson Peak

If there’s one genre we’re ready for monster movie-maker Guillermo del Toro to tackle, it’s gothic horror. And now he finally has in his dark, sexy horror movie Crimson Peak, which we were very lucky to sneak a peek at on the set. Here’s what GDT had to say about his latest film project. We…

Even More Screenwriting Tricks And Tropes That Need A Nice Long Rest

Yesterday, we brought you a list of screenwriting tricks and tropes we never need to see again. And afterwards, people tweeted some stuff that we’re incredibly embarrassed we missed. Here are more overused gimmicks that really do need to go away. https://gizmodo.com/20-screenwriting-tricks-and-tropes-we-never-need-to-see-1605803781 1) “Don’t psychoanalyze me!” Also, “Is this some kind of sick joke?” (Julie…

The Powers TV Show Has Found Its Deena Pilgrim

The gears on the Playstation adaptation of the superpowered police procedural comic Powers are moving forward, and now we’re getting to meet some of the show’s cast—including the actress playing Detective Deena Pilgrim. Deadline reports that Susan Heyward, fresh from her role as murder cultist Hannah on The Following, will be playing Pilgrim, the young…

These Cemeteries Are All That Remain of Mountains Destroyed by Mining

Mountaintop removal mining is exactly as destructive as it sounds. In West Virginia coal country, entire mountaintops have been stripped into barren wastelands for the sake of coal. But every once in a while, you’ll see a lonely island of green—a centuries-old cemetery that just barely continues to exist. In this video from the BBC,…

​The 12 Labors Of Hercules, Ranked

After Hercules murdered his family in a fit of madness — a tragedy engendered by the goddess Hera, who hated him — the demi-god and son of Zeus was ordered to do penance by performing 12 Labors for the weaselly King Eurystheus of Tiryns. Here are those feats, ranked from most to least badass. 1)…

MIT Wants To Give Our Hands Two Extra Robot Fingers

First it was an extra set of shoulder-mounted robot arms, but now MIT feels that humanity could also benefit from a couple of extra robotic fingers on each hand. Faye Wu and other researchers at the school have been developing SR—or supernumerary robotic—fingers that work alongside your existing digits to make countless tasks easier to…

I Origins Went To Insane Lengths To Get Its Science Right

Mike Cahill’s new movie I Origins, out tomorrow, is about a molecular biologist studying the evolution of the human eye. And Cahill tells io9 he was absolutely determined to get the science right — not just having scientific advisers, but giving them headphones and planting them in front of monitors on set. We were lucky…