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This Fish Fossil Shows Why Humans Have Two Arms and Two Legs

An unusual prehistoric fish with fins near its butt has helped to solve the mystery over why most animals, including humans, have paired limbs. Top image: Euphanerops fossil showing one of the two anal fins, which appears just to the left of the tail fin. Credit: Robert Sansom. The fish, Euphanerops, is possibly the first…

Beets Parody Headphones Are Actually Not a Prank

Revealed while the internet is still recovering from last week’s barrage of fake April Fool’s products, OrigAudio’s Beets headphones—a parody of Dre’s Beats headphones—are real and will set you back just $25 a pair. Will they sound as ‘good’ as an authentic and considerably more expensive pair of Beats? Probably not, even when you consider…

The Casiopea Lamps Are Elevated, Illuminated String Art

These lamps are made from string, and yet somehow they don’t look like they were glued together by a second grader. They’re elegant and modern, though the materials they’re made from are so simple. They’re part of a collection by Miguel Herranz called Casiopea, which is actually a misspelled version of the constellation Cassiopeia. That’s…

Burner: The Single-Serving Phone Number App Is Now for Android

You may already be familiar with the iPhone version of this disposable phone number app, but Burner has just opened up its brave, new, anonymous world to Android—use it wisely. https://gizmodo.com/burner-stop-worrying-about-creeps-calling-5932884 What does it do? Cornered into an awkward situation with a doe-eyed, phone-number-requesting stranger? Selling your couch to a potential weirdo on Craigslist? Making…

This moonrise timelapse is the most mesmerizing thing you’ll see today

Here is a captivating moonrise in three parts, captured by photographer Dan Marker-Moore. Up first: a 10-second timelapse of a full moon rising above the smoggy L.A. skyline. The clip captures the moon’s half-hour transformation from a ruddy sphere low on the city’s horizon, into a gleaming white orb, hung high in the night sky.…

What’s Inside the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Headset?

The Oculus Rift might be something out of Demolition Man. Or it might be a Virtual Boy. However it turns out, it’s deeply ambitious, and iFixit has the first look at what’s inside the new VR headset. To start, the OR—a development sample here—has a single 1280 x 800 resolution LCD (640×800 viewable per eye)…

The scientific innovation designed to rip off an artist’s work

The trouble with the stunning vistas of nature is that they’re rarely projected on small, moodily-lit, containable screens for comfortable viewing. This leads to a lot of neck straining . It also led to the popularity of Claude Lorrain, a 17th century painter who painted landscapes in a relatively restrained color palette; people adored his…

A Stunning Crystal Chandelier That’s Actually Made From Lego

If you’ve inexplicably amassed some 8,000 clear window pieces in your Lego collection, thanks to the design talents of Tobias Tøstesen you can turn them into a stunning see-through, floor-to-ceiling chandelier. What’s particularly great about this approach to decorating is that it’s far cheaper than a similarly sized chandelier made of crystal, but no less…

The Walking Dead season 3 VFX reel shows computers are the real zombie killers

Whether you want to learn how the fine artists of Stargate Studios create the graphic zombie kills in The Walking Dead or just want to see a bunch of zombies get eviscerated, this three-minute video detailing how the graphic zombie violence was made in season 3 is a pretty great way to start the morning.…

The Exterior of This Tokyo Coach Store Is a Pattern on the Outside and Shelves on the Inside

The new Coach store in Tokyo features shelves that display wallets and purses on the interior and form a louvered facade on the exterior. When the store opens, each of those boxy shelves will hold one single Coach item like a belt or another accessory. The building was designed by a firm called OMA, and…

A Dark Knight Rises star joins Christopher Nolan’s new epic Interstellar. Plus lots of Doctor Who set videos!

Filming for Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary is in full swing, and we’ve got the videos to prove it. Director Neil Blomkamp and his District 9 star Sharlto Copley reveal more details about their new movie Elysium. Max Landis reveals what’s really going on with Chronicle 2, and he promises this will be one seriously dark…

All the Different Animal Flus You Could Possibly Catch

The internet is often awash with news of new types of flu—spread from pigs, birds and all kinds of other creatures—but it’s not easy to tell which ones you should really be worried about. Fortunately, this visualization explains exactly which strains you can pick up, and just how dangerous they are. In the Venn diagram…

How To Build Your Own Muscle-Controlled Iron Man Repulsor

Iron Man 3 is just around the corner, and if you intend to show up on opening night decked out in your own home-made armor, you’ll want to check out this slick Instructable by Advancer Technologies. It shows you how to build a muscle-controlled repulsor that functions just like Stark’s does in the movies. When…

Could This Be the Front of the Next iPad?

Since the launch of the iPad mini, there’s been some speculation that the next full-size iPad might ape its looks. Today, French site Nowhere Else has published an image of what it claims to be the bezel of the next iPad—which does indeed look a little like the mini’s. While it’s certainly worth taking a…

Leaked Paper Reveals Wide Reach of America’s Drone Killings

A leaked top-secret Justice Department white paper reveals the true extent of US drone killings—and lays bare the fact that unmanned aircraft are targeting far more than just Al-Qaeda terrorists. The document, acquired by McClatchy, reveals that “at least 265 of up to 482 people who the U.S. intelligence reports estimated the CIA killed during…

Awesome Underwater EVA Training Photo Of Astronaut Thomas Pesquet

In this recently issued magnificent image is ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet descending underwater during spacewalk training at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston, USA. Training and support divers follow his movements. Training underwater on a life-size mockup of the Space Station is one way astronauts prepare for their mission. Floating underwater is one of the…

This Fish Sailed From Japan to Washington on an Unmanned Tsunami Boat

On an epic two-year journey across the Pacific, a bait box in a Japanese boat turned into an aquarium when five striped beakfish made it their home. The 6-metre fibreglass boat probably started off from Japan when the tsunami hit in March 2011. For some time, debris disloged by the giant wave has been turning…

The Problem With Every Adobe Update Ever

You know that something, somewhere, has gone seriously wrong when every last software update requires you to update a proprietary download manager before you can even think about getting your hands on whatever trivial bug fix that’s on offer. [XKCD]

Samsung Offices Raided By Police Over Alleged LG Technology Theft

Police have raided one of Samsung’s offices in Asan, South Korea, after being tipped off about the possible theft of OLED TV technology from rivals LG. Bloomberg reports that the police were looking for evidence that people connected with LG had leaked secret OLED data to Samsung. It’s currently not clear what came of the…

CBS has joined News Corp in considering the adoption of a subscription-only model as part of its tussle with Aereo.