Latest

How 2000 A.D. Changed Science Fiction Forever

2000 A.D. is best known as the magazine that launched Judge Dredd as Mega-City One’s top lawman. But it also helped give science fiction some of its greatest creators and weirdest ideas, including launching Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison and others. David J. Williams, author of The Mirrored Heavens, The Burning Sky and the…

Take An Unexpected Journey To This Amazing Hobbiton Lego Set

It may not be a 50,000 piece Rivendell, but this sprawling Hobbiton Lego setup is impressive in its own right. Displayed at SteineWahn 2012 in Berlin, the set depicts Hobbiton right around the time of Bilbo’s birthday party, right before the trilogy kicks off. https://gizmodo.com/this-awesome-50-000-piece-lego-rivendell-was-made-by-a-5937678 While it’s impressive in its scope, the set also includes…

The Science Fiction Romances that Make Felicia Day Go Ewww.

Love: the final frontier. Science fiction is full of great love stories… but it’s also full of terrible love and sex disasters that gross us out and just annoy us. This week on the io9 show, we talk about our least favorite science fiction romances — plus all the weirdest and most inappropriate romantic tropes.…

15 Ophthalmological Marvels That Make Your Eyesight as Clear as Your Hindsight

They may look as ridiculous as they sound but Phoropters are essential eye-doctoring devices. These overgrown binoculars have helped optometrists measure an individual’s refractive error, more commonly known as your eyeglass prescription, since the 19th Century. Our friends at Oobject have collected the very best examples of phoropters since the Victorian Era. When you’re done…

Behold: A Cordless 5-inch Random Orbital Sander, the Unicorn of Power Tools

When cordless power tools started getting good, back around 2006, manufacturers always said a cordless random-orbital sander was out of the question. Too much continuous power draw, they said. The batteries couldn’t handle it. The closest you could come to a 5-inch tool—the type pro woodworkers and jobsite carpenters use every day—were these puny little…

Weirdest (and Most Poisonous) Food Colorings from Antiquity

The next time you see a Ghostbusters wedding cake, stop and wonder just how they got the radioactive green coloring for the ectoplasmic slime. It’s worth asking — because history is full of really icky substances being used for food colorings. You probably know already about the beetle that is still crushed to make red…

The earliest split in modern humanity was 100,000 years ago

The Khoe-San people of Southern Africa have long been argued as one of the oldest distinct populations in the world — but it wasn’t until now that we realized just how long ago that split actually happened. A new report published this week in Science has undertaken a genomic study of 220 people from 11…

Pre-Peeled, Re-Wrapped Bananas Are the Most Wasteful Sign of the Apocalypse Yet

In what has to be the worst case of wasteful packaging in the history of modern conveniece, a grocery store in Austria is actually selling pre-peeled bananas that have then been re-packaged in cellophane-covered foam trays. One of the reasons bananas have been billed as the world’s most perfect food is that they come with…

This is what Batgirl would’ve looked like in the 1880s

If Gotham City needed crimefighters in the Victorian era, these dress designs from the 1880s would’ve been a good place to start. These lovely fledermaus-themed ensembles appeared in the 1887 edition of La mode illustrée, journal de la famille and an 1882 copy of the German publication Fliegende Blätter, respectively. And should you be so…

The Lumia 920’s PureView Camera Passes the Russian RC Car Test

When it comes to phone cameras, the Lumia 920’s PureView is proving to be pretty awesome at low-light shots, but how good is that Optical Image Stabilization? A couple of Russians with a 920, a Galaxy S III, and an RC car ran a little experiment to find out. Turns out it’s nothing to sneeze…

Minds Will Be Blown When You Have a Table That’s Also an Optical Illusion

Looking at Roberta Rampazzo’s Illusion Side Table, you can’t help but fall into a vortex of heavy thoughts. Are the legs crossing? Are they bent? Are there three legs? Four legs? Five legs? Does this still adhere to the platonic ideal of what a table is? Will I be a better person for having one?…

See-Through Anatomical Model Is the Creepiest Use of Projectors Yet

Developed by researchers at Gifu University in Japan, this new medical teaching tool projects a virtual anatomical model onto a featureless mannequin letting students study the brain and nervous system. And while it’s less creepy than cutting open an actual body, it’s certain to fuel a few terrible nightmares. Virtual human bodies are nothing new,…

Samsung Galaxy Note II Hands On: Bigger Got Better

The original Galaxy Note was very not good, but seven months and 10 millions sales later, it’s hard to deny that it’s found a niche. But will its even beefier successor live up to the hype? We just spent the morning fondling the upcoming Galaxy Note II, and you know what? We’re pleasantly surprised. https://gizmodo.com/samsung-galaxy-note-lightning-review-wait-who-ordered-5886054…

Is This Tuna-Bot the Future of US Harbor Security?

What’s the difference between a tuna fish and an unmanned underwater vehicle? About a million years of purpose-built evolution. That’s why the Department of Homeland Security is hoping to leverage Mother Nature’s handiwork into a fleet of ichthyoid-inspired drones to defend our harbors. In the aftermath of 9/11, the newly-minted Department of Homeland Security took…

New transparent soil reveals the secret world of plant roots

Plant biologists who study the rhizosphere — the narrow region of soil in which roots and microorganisms grow — have never really been able to take a peek at what goes on down there without having to disrupt the plants themselves. The solution, it now seems obvious, is to create transparent soil — and this…

Verizon’s Galaxy Nexus is finally getting updated to Jelly Bean. Great news! And about time. [Verge]

First iPhone 5 Drop Tests: Very Sturdy! (But Still Shatters)

You might be longing to fondle your new iPhone 5 lovingly, but there are people out there who just want to break them—as a public service, of course. The first iPhone 5 drop tests are starting to come in, and as painful as they may be to watch, the new iPhone holds up remarkably well…

The One Crucial Test That Any Judge Dredd Movie MUST Pass

A movie about Judge Dredd needs to do a bunch of things, just to be a decent movie in its own right. You need insane action. You need a portrayal of Judge Joe Dredd that lives up to the hard-as-granite, sleeps-with-his-helmet-on original. You need crazy villains. But there’s one all-important test that any Judge Dredd…

This Ultra-Quiet Mechanical Keyboard Is Perpetually In Stealth Mode

You’d think the presence of 26 letters would be sufficient, but some keyboard users are extremely fanatical about how the QWERTY setup feels as it types. For those who find an old-fashioned clacking sound totally intolerable, the manufacturer Matias may have achieved golden silence with its new Quiet Pro keyboard. Through some secret voodoo, Matias…

Get ready for vampires that poop their pants — Guillermo del Toro’s The Strain comes to FX

Mystery writer Chuck Hogan and monster caretaker Guillermo del Toro’s vampire novel The Strain is getting its own series on FX! Which means we’ll finally have a vampire show without dry-humping to songs by The Fray. Hooray! Deadline broke the news that del Toro and Hogan are teaming up with Lost’s Carlton Cuse. The pilot…