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Have you typed “is Ted Cruz” into Google lately? You’ll get some interesting autocomplete suggestions. Is Ted Cruz American? Yes, but his eligibility to run for president depends on the interpretation of “natural born citizen.” Is Ted Cruz Hispanic? Depends on who you ask. Race is, after all, a social construct. Is Ted Cruz married?…
Millions of people around the globe were enthralled when the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft successfully landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November 2014. Artist Ekaterina Smirnova was one of them—so much so that she has created an entire series of giant watercolor paintings inspired by the comet. “It is unbelievably hard to land a robotic…
For nearly two-and-a-half decades, an everyday Silicon Valley engineer has owned the domain name Tesla.com. That streak of internet glory is over. Elon Musk has grabbed it, replacing his car company’s clunkier TeslaMotors.com. Bloomberg reports that engineer and Nikola Tesla admirer Stu Grossman has apparently owned the domain since 1992, a long-ago claimed personal site…
The post-antibiotic future sounds terrifying, but here’s one upside you didn’t imagine: swilling Viking crunk juice to stay alive. New research suggests that mead, the vitality drink of gods and berserkers alike, was a potent medicine in ancient times. And with science, we can make it even better. Welcome to Gizmodo’s Happy Hour. Substance abuse…
Everybody is in a tizzy over whether Apple should comply with a court order to unlock the iPhone of one of the dead San Bernardino terrorists. But there’s one detail in this whole mess that’s completely bizarre. The terrorist’s employer, the San Bernardino Health Department, reset the guy’s iCloud password. Technically, the iPhone in question…
GOP presidential candidate and sack of rotting tangerines Donald Trump has called for a boycott of Apple products until the tech company obeys the government’s demands about unlocking a suspect’s phone. “Boycott Apple,” the pumpkin-themed businessman said at a rally in South Carolina. Trump’s boycott suggestion comes in the middle of a fight between Apple…
How hard can it be to ride a streetcar? Apparently DC thinks its residents need help understanding how its newest transportation mode works. In advance of the city’s streetcar opening later this month, the District of Columbia’s Department of Transportation has produced a video to teach people how to ride it. The first thing you…
It doesn’t look like much, but this tattered piece of clothing found buried in an ancient Egyptian cemetery has been confirmed as the world’s oldest dress as well as the oldest woven garment known to archaeologists. Called the Tarkhan dress, the remarkable garment has now officially been dated by University College London researchers to between…
The Department of Justice has filed for a court order to compel Apple to assist it in unlocking the phone that belonged to one of the dead San Bernardino shooters. “Apple is not above the law,” it reads. If this sounds familiar, that’s because there is already a court order covering the exact same case,…
If you haven’t heard, virtual reality is finally happening. Like, for real this time. And everyone wants a piece of the action: CNN, NBA, Sports Illustrated, Showtime Boxing, and TED to name a few. All of these companies have recently used VR as a marketing ploy, and quite frankly, the “experiences” they’ve created are all…
If you don’t want your home invaded this summer, you’ll want to learn the results of a summer-long experiment meant to test whether different light bulbs attract different amounts of bugs. It turns out that incandescent bulbs attract the most insects, while yellow-orange LEDs attract the least. Every night for an entire summer, Mike and…
That anxious feeling of parking a freshly washed car under a tree full of birds would become genuine terror if you were to drive anywhere near this massive flock of over 70,000 Starlings. This startling footage was captured by the BBC, which points out that the correct term for a massive gathering like this is…
Ronda Rousey, MMA fighter and general badass, has apologized to her followers on Instagram for sharing a picture of her that had been photoshopped. The image was intended to promote her appearance on Jimmy Fallon and she didn’t notice the alterations until later. As you can see from the side-by-side that she posted, her right…
Scientists at NASA have uncovered evidence suggesting that Pluto’s moon Charon once featured a subterranean ocean—one that eventually burst through to the surface as it froze and turned to ice. What a crazy sight that must’ve been. Images beamed back by the New Horizons spacecraft show a fractured landscape on Charon. A new theory put…
When Will.i.am launched the Puls smartwatch/bangle/jewelry thing in 2014, it was so bad, we were actually kind of impressed. (Let’s also not forget the musician’s disaster of a smartphone case, foto.sosho.) But Will.i.am is trying again. Undeterred by his past hardware disasters, the Black-Eyed Pea’s thirsty frontman just announced a wrist computer called the Dial.…
Hoverboards still don’t hover. But people are finding some pretty creative ways to use them. Like this 14-year-old boy who discovered a way to utilize his hoverboard while shoveling snow. The Canadians are calling it “shovering.” And we can’t wait for this teen craze to sweep America. The clever kid is Julius de Paz of…
Everywhere you go on the web, publishers and marketing agencies are trying to keep tabs on what your activity—primarily to fire targeted advertising in your direction. The Privacy Badger extension is a simple, effective way of taking control over the data you give away in your daily journeys across the internet. Install the extension in…
Seeking to “push the limits of what humans can do,” researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a wearable robotic limb that transforms drummers into three-armed cyborgs. The remarkable thing about this wearable arm, developed at GT’s Center for Music Technology, is that it’s doing a lot more than just mirroring the movements of the drummer.…
China just tightened its control over online publishing with a restrictive set of rules that would shut down foreign outlets and foreign gaming companies—If they’re enforced as written. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has released a restrictive set of regulations, set to go into effect next month. As Ars Technica reports, the new…
Smartwatches might finally be outselling traditional mechanical watches, but that doesn’t mean Swiss watchmakers are going away anytime soon. The legendary horological creations from Switzerland are mechanical masterpieces. And watching the 234 components inside this Omega Speedmaster that Hodinkee filmed getting serviced is an amazing behind-the-scenes peek inside a watch that’s as much a gadget…
