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There’s an active volcano deep beneath the Antarctic ice sheet

It’s a song of fire and ice — an active volcano that’s spewing magma at a depth of more than a half-mile beneath a massive sheet of ice. It’s an unprecedented discovery that hints at the possibility for a huge eruption, but with completely unpredictable consequences. A team of seismologists led by Douglas Wiens of…

Folding Wings Will Let Boeing’s New 777x Squeeze Into Small Airports

Commercial planes have gotten bigger and bigger over the past few decades, but the size of the gate at most airports have stayed the same. To circumvent this little infrastructural disconnect, Boeing’s future 777x jet will have a massive wingspan that folds up upon landing. The 777x is already in the news this week, after…

The Island of Mass Graves, A Short Boat Ride From Manhattan

The New York Times has published a long piece about Hart Island, a few weeks after Gizmodo’s own coverage of the shocking and emotionally super-charged site, where prisoners from Riker’s Island bury New York City’s unclaimed dead. https://gizmodo.com/what-we-found-at-hart-island-the-largest-mass-grave-in-1460171716 While the New York Times piece tells much the same story as our own reporting—a harrowing essay…

This Week’s TV: Everything You Need to Know About Doctor Who Week!

There’s only one show that rules our screens this week, and it’s the longest-running science fiction series ever. The entire week is crammed with celebrations of Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary, including a dramatization of the early years, and a meeting of titans. Check out clips and details from all this week’s TV! Top image: Doctor…

Sling—the streaming box that lets you use your cable subscription from anywhere—has completely redesigned its SlingPlayer app for Android and iOS to favor better discovery, with added social integration and new split-screen navigation. Sling will also be releasing an app for Windows 8.1 in December. And finally, you can now use your Slingbox with your…

​This Wacky Sci-Fi Plane-Helicopter Hybrid Was Totally Almost a Thing

By the end of WWII, the basics of helicopter technology as we know it had generally been worked out—and we’d begun to reach the aircraft’s physical limitations. For the US Air Force, the solution to the issue running up against these performance walls was simple: Combine the best parts of a helicopter and jet together,…

Scientists find herpes and coke in Fifty Shades of Grey books

Bacteriology and toxicology researchers have found volumes infected with herpes and traces of cocaine in all the copies of Fifty Shades of Grey at a public library. According to these experts, modern drugs tests will be able to detect traces of coke from the books in your body after reading them. The herpes virus was…

Will This Fossil of Two Dueling Dinosaurs Ever Make it to a Museum?

This 60 million year old fossil of two dinosaurs locked in combat has scientists eager to take a closer look. The price of that look? Somewhere between $7-9 million dollars. The fossil goes up for auction tomorrow — and could easily end up in the hands of a private collector. Just who was getting the…

This No-Hassle Shotgun Mic Is Great for Video Cameras with Crap Sound

You can capture amazing video with all kinds of cameras these days, but almost all of them have really bad on-board microphones. Rode’s new simple-as-pie shotgun mic looks like an easy and cheap way to give your videos the clear sound they deserve. The Rode Videomic GO is $100 and aimed at video shooters who…

S.H.I.E.L.D. shows how Thor 2 will crossover onto the TV

We’ve been wondering exactly how S.H.I.E.L.D. would be dealing with the massive destruction that occurred in Thor: The Dark World. Now we know! This sneak peek at this week’s S.H.I.E.L.D. episode reveals what happens after a god rips up the U.K. — i.e., the TV show team is sent in to clean it up. Ah,…

Shelved Android Code Hints That Way Better Camera Apps Are Coming

Android has come a long way as a platform in the last couple of years, but one drawback of the phones is that for the most part their cameras lag behind what’s available for Windows Phone and iOS ). A batch of comments discovered in the Android source code hints that the cameras might be…

The “Highway of Light” That Guided Early Planes Across America

The dusty landscape of the American West is dotted with enormous concrete arrows. They look like cryptic messages from a primitive civilization — a civilization that was obsessed with westward expansion. And that assessment wouldn’t be altogether wrong. But these enormous arrows pointing west tell only part of the story. Because at the dawn of…

The Supreme Court Won’t End NSA Phone Spying Quite Yet

The Supreme Court just rejected a case brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) to put a stop to the NSA’s telephone metadata spying program. The justices didn’t offer an explanation. In fact, they didn’t even offer comment on why they declined to hear the case. It was a long shot all along, though.…

What does 200 calories look like in 25 foods?

If you find calories hard to visualize, check out this great visual food index that show what 200 calories look like. I’m surprised at the tiny amount of canned peas that it takes to make two glasses of Coca-Cola.

The Best Small Tablet Display (Hint: It’s Not the iPad Mini)

A new generation of mini 7 to 8-inch tablets from three of the major manufacturers has just completed with the belated launch of the Apple iPad mini with retina display. While the Kindle Fire HDX, Nexus 7, and new iPad mini all have improved displays over their previous year counterparts, only one truly stands out—as…

NASA’s Next Mars Mission Launches Today – Watch it Here Live!

NASA’s newest Martian explorer – the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft – is finally ready for lift-off. Currently poised atop an Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral in Florida, the Mars-bound orbiter is slated to launch this afternoon at 1:28 pm ET. Live coverage of the launch begins right now! https://gizmodo.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-maven-nasas-next-ma-1465086848 Above: A…

A touching short film about Mandelbrot and how he discovered fractals

Back in 2010 — a mere 19 days before his death — Benoît Mandelbrot gave a candid and moving interview describing his life’s work and how he came to devise fractal geometry, the notion that the much of the natural world is organized according to elegant and predictable mathematical principles. Mandelbrot is best known for…

Philips’ New Logo Is an Awesome 1930s Throwback

75 years after Philips debuted a circular “shield” logo filled with twinkling gold stars, the Dutch electronics giant has brought the design back as a bold monochromatic logomark. The shield has appeared perennially in the company’s 120-odd years of operation, as you can see in our GIF history above, but it fell out of favor…

Nothing but the desert lives in these surreal abandoned homes

Not only is Namibia a magnificent place, but it’s also pretty pretty surreal. Check out the houses in the village of Kolmanskop, abandoned by old German diamond miners and taken by the desert in a hundred years. https://gizmodo.com/its-hard-to-believe-that-this-is-in-our-planet-1464768492 https://gizmodo.com/colorful-desert-ruins-consumed-by-waves-of-sand-1466602523

Christian Bale has some Batman advice for Ben Affleck

Now that Christian Bale has passed on the Bat-cowl to Ben Affleck, Access Hollywood asked the actor if he had given the new Dark Knight any advice regarding the role. Bale had, and his suggestions may surprise you — that is, unless you somehow guessed they were solely about peeing.