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Had enough of Google meddling in your affairs? Rather impressed by what Microsoft is doing with Outlook on the web? A little bit spooked by how much data Mountain View has on you? Whatever your reasons for splitting up with Google, here’s how to make sure it’s a clean and uncomplicated break. Get your data…
Telling time seems easy enough—just look at a clock, dummy! Not so easy if you’re a plant without any eyes or ears, though. But seriously, smart plants need to know the time more than many humans do, especially since they rely on sunlight to produce their food through photosynthesis. Us dumb humans, meanwhile, are still…
Facebook just can’t seem to help itself. Today, the company’s photo-sharing app Instagram announced that it’s adding “face filters.” Trouble is, the concept is just a bad rip-off of the one offered by rival app Snapchat. Instagram announced the “idea” in a blog post: Today, we’re introducing face filters in the camera, an easy way…
Fertility has become a major target for regenerative medicine. What if, the thinking goes, science and medicine could be used to simply restore fertility to women who for one reason or another no longer have it? In mice, scientists have now done just that. In a new paper out Tuesday in Nature Communications, scientists at…
Tony Hawk landing a 900 is an impressive feat, but do you know what would make it even more impressive? A trail of fire making it seem like Tony’s skateboard has a fighter jet afterburner propelling him up the half-pipe. Does that sound a little dangerous? Yes. Are there instructions online for upgrading your favorite…
Yesterday, Donald Trump’s national security advisor H.R. McMaster told America that the reports about Trump leaking classified info to the Russians were fake. That seems to have been a lie. But hopefully it will all get straightened out during today’s live press briefing. You can watch the livestream of the McMaster press briefing on YouTube.…
A trove of more than 560 million login credentials has been exposed by a leaky database, researchers revealed on Tuesday, including email addresses and passwords stolen from as many as 10 popular online services. The dataset, which remains insecure, was first discovered this month by the Kromtech Security Center. It was further verified by Troy…
Last week, we reported that tens of thousands of fraudulent comments had been filed in favor Ajit Pai’s proposal to roll back net neutrality rules, using text taken from the Center for Individual Freedom (though, according to the CFIF, they aren’t behind the fake comments). We spoke to several people who had comments filed under…
On March 24th, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet was joined by NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough on a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. The outing was fairly routine, but this amazing footage captured by Pesquet gives all of us stuck here on Earth an amazing first-person look of what it’s like to be an astronaut looking…
This morning, Wired magazine published an early look into Apple’s brand new spaceship campus. The giant circle features the kinds of ridiculous details you might expect from Apple, like sliding glass doors that weigh 440,000 pounds each and 9,000 trees supposedly durable enough to survive the forthcoming climate crisis. Such details are impressive, but they’re…
On Monday, The Washington Post broke the story that President Trump told Russian officials highly classified information when he met with them in the Oval Office last week. The story has been verified by multiple news outlets, and even Trump himself seemed to verify the story in tweets from this morning. But what kind of…
As someone who spends every day researching and writing about history, I often think about how our era will be judged by future historians. And I can’t help but think that this particular week will be seen by people of the future as a major turning point in 2017. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised…
David Fincher got his start working on special effects for Return of the Jedi. In some rare footage from Alien 3, we get to see and hear how he works with the FX team to bring the destroyed Bishop android to life. Usually, footage like this would be considered an effects test, but when David…
The founders of Silicon Valley startup UploadVR landed on Forbes’ coveted 30 under 30 list this year. And now, they’ve reached another tech world milestone—being sued for rampant sexual harassment. The details of the lawsuit describe a company that seems to have looked at other startup’s workplace environments and decided they just weren’t hostile enough.…
It’s been a dizzying few days for news about hackers demanding ransom. It’s hard to tell which events are connected. But according to multiple reports, hackers are threatening to leak a major film owned by Disney, and sources tell Deadline that the movie is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man Tell No Tales. https://gizmodo.com/hackers-leak-new-episodes-of-orange-is-the-new-black-an-1794774618 According…
As President Trump continues to weigh a replacement for former FBI Director James Comey—whom he abruptly fired last week—the lawmakers who oversee the bureau’s authority are growing increasingly concerned that a White House sycophant might top the list. On Monday, Trump said that he was “moving rapidly” to replace Comey, and the Associates Press reported…
Water’s got some special properties you’ve surely heard about in high school chemistry. Most notably, it sticks to itself really well. It beads together, looks like this in space, and climbs up plants’ vascular systems, all thanks to hydrogen bonds. Now, scientists have figured out exactly how sticky those ubiquitous bonds are. https://gizmodo.com/even-wringing-a-wet-cloth-is-magical-in-space-5994988 Scientists have…
This won’t come as a surprise, but Trump fucked up again. Last week, the day after the president fired James Comey, the tangerine nightmare that is now the leader of the free world met with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador. Then he reportedly revealed some highly classified information, putting not only our continued access…
You might think you were born in Duluth, or Detroit, or some sleepy suburb on Long Island—but let me tell you, friend, you’re wrong. In a sense, we were all spawned on a tiny island full of trash, floating miserably far, far out there. Only now are we beginning to understand the horrifying gravity of…
An arresting image of a “mummified” dinosaur went viral this weekend after National Geographic broke the story of the 110-million-year-old armored plant-eater, a newfound species of nodosaur whose exquisite remains are now on display in the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada. The ancient animal is obviously a remarkable specimen—not just a few battered bones,…
