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It Takes a Ludicrous Amount of Work to Build a Quake-Proof Bridge

Building a road might be harder than you’d think, but we all know that building a bridge is one serious feat of engineering. Here’s some proof: 42,000 hours of work time-lapsed down to a hypnotizing 4-minute sprint. https://gizmodo.com/building-a-highway-is-way-more-complicated-than-youd-t-1193344004 EarthCam has been pointing its robot eyes turned San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge-ward since 2008, and in that…

Know your Star Wars fighters with these gorgeous posters

If you find yourself in a galaxy far, far away, and some unidentified starfighter is attacking you, make sure you can figure out who’s flying it — with these amazing, informational posters. Created by Deviant Art user Thong Le, these posters take the movies’ already-beautiful starfighter designs and add a nice poster-art sensibility to them.…

These metallic dresses were created with iron filings and magnets

This dress looks like an alien exoskeleton — but it was actually “grown” using mega-magnets, out of iron filings and a special resin. Dutch designer Iris Van Herpen created this magnetic dress in collaboration with product designer Jólan van der Wiel for Van Herpen’s 2013 fall/winter couture collection. As Wired Design explains: The van Herpen…

The Truck is probably the best “evil truck” movie of the year

In The Truck, a truck chases people around and tries to… run them over. Is it haunted? Is it Satanic? Is it just born evil? Is anybody even driving this thing? Whatever the truth, stop lights can’t stop it. Even barriers made of thin plywood can’t stop it. Yes, The Truck is your new cult…

What’s the Most Useful Gadget People Don’t Know They Need?

Plenty of today’s best gadgets and devices are well-known and basically mandatory. A good laptop, a decent smartphone, an HD TV. But under that surface, there’s a whole other breed of toys that you never actively knew you wanted but now just can’t imagine life without. What’s yours? Image by Jezper/Shutterstock

Don’t miss this engrossing novel about the science of dragons

With A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan has done something that I didn’t think was possible. She’s written an adventure about dragons in an alternate Victorian world, while also realistically capturing what it’s like to be a young woman who wants to buck convention and devote her life to science. Illustration by Todd Lockwood…

Google’s Crazy Internet Balloons Will Flock Together Like Cyborg Birds

Google’s Project Loon is sort of insane. Then again, that’s kind of the point. And to make it actually work, the squadrons of balloons are taking a cue from nature. https://gizmodo.com/google-wants-to-use-balloons-to-cover-the-world-in-wi-f-513537918 Filling the sky with internet-balloons is one thing, but making the sky-blanket stable enough to keep the coverage going is another. Individual balloons can…

First Teaser for the Epic Documentary About Nic Cage’s Superman Lives

Of all the doomed Superman projects leading up to Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, the oddest might be the Nic Cage-starring, Tim Burton-directed, disco-tinged Superman Lives. We dissected the majesty of the movie’s screenplay before, but here’s your first glimpse of the documentary. Featuring Cage himself! https://gizmodo.com/proof-that-superman-lives-would-have-made-batman-robi-5981002

Obama will attack Syria if Congress gives OK

President Obama has taken the decision to strike Syria because the use of chemical weapons can’t stand unanswered. The war machine is ready to strike at any time, he said, but first he “will seek authorization of the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress.” He added that he will not wait…

Is Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar really about climate disaster?

Christopher Nolan is filming his hard science-fiction movie Interstellar, and we couldn’t be more excited. Originally written by Jonathan Nolan for director Steven Spielberg, Interstellar is based on the theories of CalTech physicist Kip Thorne. But now we may know why humans need to go to another planet. https://gizmodo.com/spielberg-gets-his-2001-on-with-wormhole-saga-368989 According to the Fort MacLeod Gazette,…

Porn Habits Across the USA, Breathing Liquid, GIFs on Facebook, And More

Well this is it folks; summer is basically over. Take your final dip in our kiddie pool of summer-style stories. We’ve got the worst college football uniform designs, Facebook GIFs, humans breathing liquid, how to add a button to your Android phone, US porn habits and more. Dig in! The 17 Worst College Football Uniform…

Incredible chrome T-rex skeleton scavenges on the banks of the Seine

There’s nothing more magnificent than a T-rex skeleton — except, maybe, one made entirely of chrome that is rising up over the River Seine in Paris. I think this sculpture by Philippe Pasqua might be the exact definition of “metal.” In so many ways. I think a Mastodon song might be in order, even if…

These fan-made Peter Capaldi Doctor Who credits are astounding

Can’t wait to see Peter Capaldi take ownership of the TARDIS in 2014? 3-D artist NeonVisual (aka Xander David-Hugh) has you covered. He’s created some brand new Capaldi opening credits that look neat enough to be the real thing. Meanwhile, if you’re a massive Doctor Who fan and want to get married during the 50th…

Deadly Cloud: The Science Behind the Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack

It’s believed that last week the Syrian government murdered hundreds of its own civilians with chemical weapons. We don’t know which weapon they used, but we do know it’s one of a handful of chemicals called nerve agents. Nerve agents were invented accidentally by a Nazi-era scientist trying to make a more effective pesticide. That’s…

How many people are in space right now? You can find out, by clicking this link. (Thanks for the tip, Genevieve Valentine!)

Are you a cyberpunk? This early 1990s poster explains it all to you.

R.U. Sirius was a founder of Mondo 2000, the definitive futurist magazine of the early 1990s. And now he’s posted a ton of snippets from it over at Omni Reboot – including this amazing 1993 chart showing all the gadgets a cyberpunk needed. Like a portable computer and cellular phone! Check out this chart and…

This Goofy Radio Ad Got People All Worried About an Alien Invasion

It’s easy to think back on that whole Orson Wells War of the Worlds thing and think to yourself: “That could never happen today, not in a world with internet, and where everybody knows about that one time it happened already.” Well, you’d be wrong. Last week, Star 94.9 in Alabama began running a series…

Did studio meddling cause all the problems with Star Trek: Enterprise?

Very few people really love Enterprise, the Star Trek prequel series that aired for four years. Until its final season, this show seemed to be struggling with the worst elements of both prequels and sequels, given its confusing time-travel storyline. But on the Blu-ray special features, the show’s creators blame the studio. Top image: The…

It’s a truck with a jet engine going 210 mph!

No, really, that’s what this is. Plus a lot of fire. Apparently, for the truck engine to start, it has to burn down half the stage at this show.

Will Jonathan Nolan deepen Person of Interest‘s themes in Westworld?

Jonathan Nolan has explored the nature of artificial intelligence in some intense, thought-provoking ways in his show Person of Interest. Now he’s making a Westworld TV show for HBO, and it’s described as “a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin.” In Westworld, a theme park features robots who…