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Physicists say energy can be teleported ‘without a limit of distance’

A team of physicists has proposed a way of teleporting energy over long distances. The technique, which is purely theoretical at this point, takes advantage of the strange quantum phenomenon of entanglement where two particles share the same existence. The researchers, who work out of Tohoku University in Japan, and led by Masahiro Hotta, describe…

Report: Google Is Selling Motorola to Lenovo for $3 Billion

The New York Times is reporting that Google will sell its Mobility unit to Lenovo for $3 billion. Details are thin, but the Times says a deal should be announced shortly. For a refresher, Google bought Motorola Mobility back in 2011 for $12.5 billion. Motorola Mobility is the part of Motorola that includes handset technology…

Archaeologists May Have Uncovered the Oldest Roman Temple Ever Found

Archaeologists from the University of Michigan believe they have found what is perhaps the oldest Roman temple still in existence. Built around the 7th century BC—probably for the goddess Fortuna—the temple tells us a lot about how the Romans built their city, thousands of years ago. The site is located in central Rome near the…

10 Failed Utopian Cities That Influenced the Future

Some of the most famous cities in history were never built. These 10 Utopian cities may have been failures, but they expressed our ideas about what the future of human civilization could look like. And many ideas contained in them continue to influence us today. Illustration from Destiny 1. Octagon City, the Vegetarian Utopia In…

“Were the first black to seek office 30 years from now, his chances still would be minimal,” said Troy Scroggins, compliance manager in the Houston district office of the Equal Opportunity Commission in 1983. Scroggins was speaking about Jesse Jackson entering the race to be the Democratic nominee for President. “I don’t think the political…

Even the most ferocious storm can look beautiful in a time-lapse video

It’s not what its author intended but, after seeing Huelux, filmed in South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah, I want to see some spectacular time-lapse videos on huge storm systems. From the author: The weather in 2013 made it difficult for me to get some of the shots I wanted. There were many times I planned…

The Science Behind Why Fat Tastes So Good

It’s the end of January, and that means New Year’s resolutions swearing off chocolate and fries and all the other delicious fatty foods are just starting to bend. Who can blame you, really? Here’s a rundown on the science of fat, and why it’s so hard to resist. It Feels and (Sounds!) Good in Your…

The World’s Largest Toy Car Collection Has Over 30,000 Tiny Vehicles

The fact that Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys are so cheap means that countless kids have giant collections of tiny cars. But the world’s largest? With over 30,000 scale vehicles in his collection, Beirut’s Billy Karam has a legitimate claim to that title, and Cool Hunting had a chance to tour his showroom. An actual…

Shooting Challenge: Cocktails

A lot of you participate in Gizmodo’s weekly Happy Hour, but most of you (intelligently!) aren’t taking photos of it. But for this week’s Shooting Challenge, let’s celebrate the beauty of booze. Photograph a cocktail (and get us the recipe!). The Challenge Take a photo of a cocktail and tell us how to make it.…

Behind the Surprise Twist that made us Scream on Helix

Did you see what happened on last week’s Helix? Madness! We are all still dealing with the massive upset that happened. Why do terrible things happen to characters we love? To find out, we talked to the actor who plays our favorite (and now horribly mangled) scientist. Massive spoilers ahead… If you didn’t know —…

3D Printed Custom Insoles Made From a Ten Second Video Of Your Foot

Everyone’s feet are different, but when you buy a pair of shoes, they come with insoles that are designed to (mostly) fit everyone. Don’t your feet deserve better given the impacts they absorb for you all day long? A company called Sols has created a better way with a process where they can design and…

Guy Pierce can’t get beyond Thunderdome in post-apocalyptic Rover movie

Sorry, when you combine post-apocalyptic movies and Australian accents, all I can think of are the Mad Max movies. But Guy Pierce and Robert Pattinson look like they have far bigger troubles than Tina Turner in The Rover, director David Michôd’s follow-up to Animal Kingdom. According to the film’s official plot summary: 10 years following…

Sneaky “Honey Encryption” Stops Hackers By Drowning Them in Phony Data

It seems like no matter how much companies may try to up their defenses, there will always be some industrious young hacker who manages to evade every roadblock in his way. One team of researchers, though, think they may have finally found a way to turn their defense into an attack on the hackers themselves—by…

Did China’s one-child policy actually reduce population growth?

China made huge headlines late last month when it decided to ease its famous “one-child policy” after more than three decades. The policy, requring most couples to have only one child, stands as one of the most famous social experiments of the past century. But how successful was it? Top image: Adrian Zwegers/Flickr. A lot…

Gorgeous Aerial Photos Capture the Ironic Beauty of Fracking

Cities popping up in the middle of nowhere. Blackened landscapes of industrial runoff, including lakes of liquid hydrocarbons, like something from the moons of Saturn. Vast transportation systems snaking over previously empty hills and ranches, pulling not human passengers but tankers. This is the new geography of fracking. Think, for example, of the brand new…

A giant avalanche has buried a town behind a 40 foot wall of snow

Oh, and did we mention it’s covering the only road out of town? And that the snow has dammed up the river behind it, creating a giant lake? The series of avalanches first began along Richardson Highway on Friday morning, trapping the 4,000-person town of Valdez, Alaska behind a 40-foot wall of snow covering over…

A map showing gender inequality around the world

By using data pulled from the United Nations Development Program, Time has compiled a map showing just how far the world has to go to reach gender equality. The numbers on the map correspond to each country’s Gender Inequality Index (GII), a figure derived from a number of factors, including the maternal mortality rate, the…

How A California City’s Sidewalks Were Redesigned for Wheelchairs

The story of how Berkeley, California, first got wheelchair-accessible sidewalks in the 1970s is an unlikely mix of public protest, anti-war sentiment, and the grassroots potential of urban planning for the people, by the people. Writing for Boom, Bess Williamson explains how the city began to redesign itself for everyone to navigate. A story of…

Twitter’s adding new search features for web users: filter results by videos, photos, news, or people. You can also filter only results from those you follow. [Twitter via The Verge]

Apple’s Touch-Friendly, Solar-Powered Laptop Would Be Insane

Hey you, Apple user. Have you been waiting—and waiting and waiting—for Apple to make some face-melting upgrades to the MacBook instead of just bumping the specs every few months? Well, this is it. Maybe. With a capital “M.” Those crazy Cupertino kids were just granted a patent for a touch-friendly, solar-powered laptop from the future.…