Latest

What happens when you ask the Internet to write an entire novel in a single month? It goes a little crazy. The Best of NaNoWriMo collects the funniest posts from the National Novel Writing Month forums, including oddball story pitches, pleas for esoteric advice, and little cheats to boost your word count.

The Mona Lisa loses her hair in clever ad campaign against cancer

A clever design and ad campaign to raise money for Fondazione ANT, an Italian organization that provides free social assistance, healthcare and prevention against cancer. I kind of find La Gioconda more beautiful without the hair.

Elaborate Dioramas Model the Apocalypse in Miniature

We can do a lot with Photoshop, from faking entire military operations to whatever this is. But sometimes, low-tech trickery is just more fun. Such is the case with the work of Lori Nix, a photographer who specializes in shooting urban dioramas containing scenes of complete and utter destruction. https://gizmodo.com/this-composite-photograph-from-wwi-is-better-than-most-1458519043 Given the minuscule nature of…

The nuclear-fusion spaceship that may take us to Mars in three months

A group of University of Washington researchers is working on a completely new kind of spaceship that could make relatively fast interplanetary travel possible: a nuclear-fusion rocket that will shorten the time of a trip to Mars “from eight to nine months to less than three.” I hope it works in the short term. Humanity…

Google Now Is Finally As Good on iOS as Android

Google just pushed a major update to its search app that effectively makes Google Now as useful on iOS as it is on Android. That means iPhone users can finally enjoy all those cool features like Google notifications telling you who won the World Series and what time to leave your house to make that…

Philips Adds a New Bulb To The Hue Lineup

The first bulbs in Philips’ color-changing, app-controlled Hue line were designed to mimic the omnidirectional shine of standard A19 light bulbs. This made them ideal for conventional lamps, but wasted a large portion of their light when installed in recessed ceiling fixtures. But today, Philips has announced the new Hue BR30 downlight bulb. https://gizmodo.com/philips-hue-lightning-review-your-lamps-not-worthy-up-5994183 The…

We may finally know why warm water freezes faster than cool water

It’s a conundrum that’s baffled scientists since the time of Aristotle: Why do warmer liquids freeze faster than cooler ones? Researchers from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University have come up with an awesome new theory that may finally put the mystery to rest. It’s called the Mpemba Effect, and scientists have tossed around a number of…

A UK Town Is Replacing Its Buses With Driverless Pods

It’s happening, folks. The self-driving car phenomenon is finally jumping from the test track onto public roads. And the revolution isn’t just happening in the United States—it’s happening in the UK, too. https://gizmodo.com/why-you-shouldnt-be-too-quick-to-cheer-self-driving-car-5974608 The small town of Milton-Keynes, just north of London, will soon deploy 100 driverless pods to replace its noisy, pollution-blasting bus system.…

Get trapped inside an outpost with a gooey killer, in Syfy’s Helix

Check out the first official footage from Syfy’s horrific new series Helix, after the teaser we exclusively premiered back in July. It looks as though that black goo isn’t just killing people — it’s also turning them into murderers. Or possibly taking them over? https://gizmodo.com/ronald-d-moore-unleashes-a-black-gooey-hell-in-the-new-841435433 Favorite line from the above trailer: “We aren’t just violating…

Can you see the house hiding in this image?

The Phillip Island House by Denton Corker Marshall is a beautiful home on a beautiful bay in an island off the coast of Melbourne. And it’s beautiful because you can’t really see it. The bay is the house. One of six buildings hiding in plain sight at Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/the-art-of-hiding-a-building-six-acts-of-architectural-1454259712

All the Most Essential Science Fiction and Fantasy Books in November!

November’s books are full of fantastical greatness. There’s a sinister alternate history by Robert Charles Wilson, a new Gene Wolfe novel, and a historical epic by Nicola Griffith. Plus the definitive collection of 21st century science fiction. Here are all the science fiction and fantasy books you can’t miss in November! Top image: Limit by…

12 Monumental Structures Made From Type

When architects and designers want to make a point, they certainly love to spell it out for us. So check out these buildings, statues, and sculptures made from letterforms, from Lettering Large: The Art and Design of Monumental Typography, a new book by Steven Heller and Mirko Ilić. While carving a sign from a slab…

This Aluminum Mecha Taught Apollo Astronauts How to Land on the Moon

In the early 1960s, when the Apollo missions were underway and America was hellbent on reaching the moon, NASA researchers faced a nearly endless litany of technical hurdles and engineering obstacles nobody had even dreamed of up to that point. Chief among them: Once you shoot three guys across 238,900 miles across space at an…

This virtual 10-year-old-girl just outed 1,000 sexual predators

A Dutch organization called Terre des Hommes has identified some 1,000 alleged child-sex predators by luring them in with a computer-animated prepubescent Philippine girl on Internet chat rooms. The online victimization of children, it would appear, is far worse than imagined. The virtual girl, named Sweetie, was created by TDH Netherlands to notify the public…

Fox wants to make a third Wolverine movie

The last Wolverine film was infinitely better than the first. So obviously that means Fox has to make 1,000 more of them. But do we really need another Wolverine movie? Deadline is reporting that Fox is negotiating with James Mangold for another Hugh Jackman-centered Wolverine feature. Apparently the international sales motivated the talks. So what…

Happy 120th Birthday to Raymond Loewy, a Designer Who Built The Future

When visitors to the 1939 New York World’s Fair stepped into the Transportation Focal Exhibit, they got a look at the machines of the past which had made the world feel so much smaller. But thanks to a man named Raymond Loewy, visitors didn’t just get a lesson in the past — they got a…

The No-Contract Phone You Should Buy On Every Carrier

No matter how you mince it, the new Google Nexus 5 is a total steal. $350 for a slab of Android hotness—without a contract. That’s especially nice because, sooner or later, everyone loses/smashes their mobile and needs to buy one outright. Here’s a roundup of all of the best off-contract deals on every carrier, and…

The people who can see in pitch darkness

Some people can “see” their own hands waving in front of their faces while in total darkness. It shouldn’t be possible, but a quirk of their senses allows these people to perceive movement without using their eyes. In 2005, Duje Tadin was working on a post-doc experiment with his mentor Randolph Blake, a psychologist who…

Norman Reedus’ early crossbow training for Walking Dead did not go well

While we all now know TWD’s Daryl Dixon as a zombie-killing badass, actor Norman Reedus needed a great deal of crossbow training before he could play the role so effectively. As Conan O’Brien’s research team discovered via this footage, Reedus had a lot to learn when he first picked up Daryl’s crossbow.

Beauty and the Beast serves up the best, most murderous mascot ever

Does anyone else suffer from a fear of reunions thanks to television? Because nothing good ever happens at these things. On the plus side, what this plot lacked in originality it more than made up for in mascot-tackling. This episode opened with Cat organizing a girls’ night in right before her 10-year high school reunion.…