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Since at least the first time a man got on stage at a TED talk and 3D-printed a human kidney, the idea that one day we might simply grow new body parts to replace our old, out-of-service ones has existed in the collective consciousness as the pinnacle of biomedical achievement. But what if you didn’t…
On Tuesday, Baltimore news outlets shared footage from a January drug bust where an officer appeared to record himself planting drugs he would later say belonged to a suspect. The video, posted by Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton, is staggering: While on, Axon body cameras enter “buffering” mode, allowing them to save up to 30…
Bad news: Humans will probably never explore the area around a black hole, at least while you’re alive. That’s mostly because most black holes are too far away, and even if we could travel to them, it’s unlikely we’d survive their gravitational pull. That means that if we want to study the wacky effects extreme…
After months of delays, Samsung’s much ballyhooed voice assistant Bixby is here—and users on social media are already noticing the company’s loaded, sexist characterizations of its female and male voices. Inside Bixby’s “language and speaking style” menu, Samsung describes its female voice as “chipper” and “cheerful,” while the male voice is described as “confident” and…
Meteorologists are currently tracking a pair of weather systems, a tropical storm named Don that appears to be on its way out, and an emerging system that will be dubbed Hilary should it continue to gain strength. While the names given to these storms might seem deliberate, they’re actually the product of a naming convention…
Fifteen minutes beneath 41-degree Fahrenheit water is a crippling experience, and possibly death sentence for a two-year-old. These are just not conditions that children generally survive. But a controversial treatment may have played the role in saving Eden Carlson’s life. The girl fell into her family’s pool in February 2016, according to Newsweek, and showed…
Samsung’s AI assistant Bixby is finally available in the US—months late. But, hey, at least it doesn’t explode. Akin to Google’s Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa, Bixby is a voice service that lives inside the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus smartphones. It was first announced in March and was supposed to arrive by the end of…
Getting rid of CEO Travis Kalanick has apparently not magically resolved all of ride-hailing giant Uber’s many, many problems, with the company now facing a lawsuit in New York over its near-total lack of cars accessible to people with wheelchairs. Disability Rights Advocates filed a lawsuit in the State Supreme Court on Tuesday on behalf…
In between reeling from the catastrophic failure of the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare and hiding climate scientists from Mark Zuckerberg, Donald Trump’s administration found time on Tuesday to signal FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s bullshit plan to destroy net neutrality has its full backing. Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters they…
Could future iPhones come with a built-in panic button to discreetly summon the cops? It’s certainly a possibility, judging by Apple’s recent patent filings. According to a patent granted to Apple on Tuesday for “Biometric Initiated Communication,” the panic button could operate from a number of inputs including “a particular finger or finger sequence,” “a…
In America, we regularly endure news reports about some sort of War on Christmas, so don’t feel too smug. But in Russia, there’s currently an effort to paint fidget spinners as a devious plot by the opposition to “zombify” kids using “political technologies.” https://gizmodo.com/we-regret-to-inform-you-that-fidget-spinners-are-now-ex-1796513329 The man saying those silly quotes is Ruslan Ostashko, the editor…
You are very lucky that you ended up about the size that you are today, somewhere between one and ten feet tall and weighing somewhere between one and one thousand pounds. This is a very good size. Not to body shame, but if you were, say, a quadrillion times shorter and weighed a nonillion times…
We just realized it’s the 20th anniversary of Smash Mouth’s “Walkin’ on the Sun,” a song about not being a normie or giving into ephemeral fads like soul patches. Smash Mouth never did that. “Walkin’ on the Sun” is also the title of the official Smash Mouth biography, which is very good according to the…
Late last week, strange sponge-like clumps began washing ashore in northern France. By the weekend, thousands of the foamy yellow balls were seen along nearly 20 miles of the coastline. Local authorities aren’t sure where the unsightly stuff is coming from, and an investigation is currently underway. As reported in The Local, this mysterious substance…
When shooting a documentary, the vast majority of what you film gets edited out of the final production. But instead of letting thousands of hours of breathtaking footage go to waste, the creators of Planet Earth II have re-purposed hundreds of breathtaking mountaintop shots into this 10-hour-long relaxation tool. All of the footage included in…
Facebook is desperate to do business in China, but authorities in the country are increasingly comfortable with shutting out foreign companies and tightening restrictions on internet communications. On Tuesday, Facebook’s only major product that is still permitted by authorities fell victim to the “Great Firewall” and all signs indicate that we’re entering a new age…
Google is stepping up its effort to block phishing attempts that use app permissions to gain access to users’ Gmail accounts. These phishing attacks invite users to grant an app permission to manage their Google account—which lots of safe apps do, too—and then exploit those permissions to take over an account or send spam. To…
Ninjas are stereotypically known for their expertise with shuriken, also known as throwing stars. But while Rick Smith Jr. spends his days as a professional magician, we’re going to assume his nights are spent as a crime-fighting ninja who uses throwing cards instead of pointy stars. Rick recently spent some time with the folks from…
Tornadoes aren’t hurricanes. Hurricanes are long-lasting, low-pressure swirls that follow somewhat predictable paths. But tornadoes can pop up and disappear in just a few minutes. It hasn’t been easy to give people fair warning about tornadoes, especially those folks caught in the crosshairs of violently-rotating columns of damaging, high-speed winds. But that could change one…
Despite an endless list of fascinating and destructive experiments you can try, microwaves should really only be used to heat food. Not lightbulbs, not highlighters, and definitely not an airbag from a car. Unless you’ve got a high-speed camera to record the microwave’s door turning into a high-speed missile. Thankfully, The Slo-Mo Guys did, and…
