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Researchers from Wyss Institute and Harvard SEAS have developed a soft robotic exosuit that significantly boosts a person’s running performance. The device requires a tether and external power supply to work, but once it becomes portable, it could help athletes run faster and further than before, smashing their existing running records without having to undergo…
Tesla fired a female engineer this week, just months after she publicly raised concerns about sexual harassment and wage discrimination at the company. AJ Vandermeyden sued Tesla last year and went public with her allegations in a February interview with the Guardian, but continued working at Tesla until her firing this week. In February, Vandermeyden…
At President Trumps’ behest, the US is joining Syria and Nicaragua in abdicating from the Paris Agreement, a coalition of 147 nations to combat climate change by reducing carbon emissions. While Trump faced heavy international pressure to remain within the agreement, from the Pope during his trip to the Vatican, China’s President Xi and European…
For the first time ever, scientists have captured high-speed footage of lightning striking a building. It’s dramatic as hell, but the video could also change the way lightning rods are used to protect buildings. The unprecedented video—captured by physicist Marcelo Saba and his team from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research—shows branches of lightning hurtling…
Daft Punk isn’t the only musical group who packs its hits full of obscure and eclectic samples. Gorillaz have been borrowing funky beats and catchy rhythms from other artists for over 16 years now, and YouTube’s Kirima Nagi has found the source of almost every last one in this comprehensive quarter-hour video. https://gizmodo.com/this-is-where-all-of-daft-punks-impossibly-catchy-sampl-1793437260 All five…
Data backups can save your skin from all kinds of IT mishaps like dropping your laptop in a lake or having a virus blast through your hard drive. You should be backing everything up! Thanks to the recent spree of ransomware attacks, it’s once again time to evaluate your backup system, so you’re prepared in…
OneLogin, an identity management software company, announced yesterday that it suffered a data breach. Although the firm hasn’t provided many details, the few that it has released suggest that the breach is extensive. Customers were warned about the incident in an email yesterday, and OneLogin also posted a short blog post about the problem. A…
Two extremely similar cases involving locked iPhones in two neighboring Florida counties ended up with two conflicting judgments this week. Both suspects claimed that they couldn’t remember their passcodes which prevented police from obtaining evidence. In one case, the judge slapped the suspect with contempt and sentenced him to 180 days in jail. In the…
Vladimir Putin, who apparently had nothing better to do today, decided to throw water on claims that Russia had direct ties to the DNC email leaks during last year’s US election. Simultaneously, the strongman who has helmed Russia for the better part of two decades endorsed the hacks as being in his country’s best interest.…
The smaller a drone gets, the more places it can be easily flown. But while many researchers have been trying to tackle the monumental challenge of building drones that look and behave like tiny insects, a new approach has engineers giving Mother Nature’s existing creations drone-like upgrades. The biggest hurdle with building tiny drones that…
Life gets pretty weird in the cold abyss of the deep sea. One deep ocean oddity presented itself to researchers at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) just the other day—the strange beast has now been referred to dozens of times as the “faceless fish.” While the nickname is pretty fitting, this mysterious fish…
One of the dirty secrets about streaming live TV services like PS Vue and Hulu TV is that in many cases you’re paying the same amount of money as you would for basic cable. The main difference, besides the benefit of not dealing with a godforsaken cable company, is the crazy monthly fees local operators…
Thanks to Jonathan Odom, a clever designer and builder who’s created everything from animatronics for films to museum exhibits, the fidget spinner has just taken a giant leap forward. Odom created One Spinner To Rule Them All: one with an animated cat video that comes to life when you flick it. https://gizmodo.com/youre-not-on-mushrooms-this-animated-fidget-spinner-br-1795686029 Based on an…
In a dramatic development, the giant rift in the Larsen C ice shelf has grown an additional 11 miles (17 km) since last week, and the leading tip of the crack is now exceptionally close to the ocean. There’s now very little to prevent a complete collapse—an event that will produce one of the largest…
We’re made of star stuff, as Carl Sagan once said. Even crazier, elements heavier than iron on the periodic table mostly come from the remnants of exploding stars, or supernovae. And what better way to explain our connectedness to these explosions than with the sounds of stars themselves? That’s what songwriter Meklit Hadero (who performs…
The Moscow Times has a fascinating look at the Russian media outlet RT, formerly known as Russia Today. The Kremlin-funded operation is highly secretive, thanks to non-disclosure agreements that employees are forced to sign, but the Moscow Times was able to get a peek at how the RT sausage gets made. RT has come under…
For people with severe allergies, having an EpiPen can mean the difference between life and death. Because there’s no generic alternative, EpiPen manufacturer Mylan just keeps jacking up the price and ripping off patients. They also seem to have ripped off the government. Today, a probe by the Department of Health and Human Services concluded…
Some poor beleaguered souls working at a 7-Eleven in Oregon were just trying to serve up some Big Gulps and hot dogs when their microwave suddenly exploded. They called the cops, and when the proper authorities checked out the situation, they didn’t find a bomb. Instead, they say it contained a urine sample. https://gizmodo.com/how-do-chemical-handwarmers-work-1670218718 According…
You can’t be a Silicon Valley billionaire without having your own initiative to build a big-ass aircraft. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is most definitely a Silicon Valley billionaire and today, he proved that by pulling the world’s largest airplane out of its hangar for the first time. https://gizmodo.com/this-insane-giant-mothership-will-launch-rockets-into-o-5867710 Allen first announced the Stratolaunch way back…
Uber drivers landed a major payday in New York last week when the ride-hailing service agreed to reimburse drivers after miscalculating its commission on rides for years. But a group of drivers claim they are owed even more money than what Uber conceded, and it could end up costing the company millions more. https://gizmodo.com/oopsie-uber-just-noticed-it-forgot-to-pay-drivers-mill-1795481727 For…
