Tech News

This Is the World’s First Working Cell Made From Plastic

Scientists have long been toiling to create artificial life, managing to produce man-made cell walls and even synthetic DNA. But now, a team of chemists has produced a functioning cell made from polymers. This is the first ever eukaryotic cell—that just means it contains a nucleus and other sub-units known as organelles within its membrane—to…

27 Amazing Images From the Depths of Scientific Labs

As an image-driven person, I often find myself deeply lost and buried in the vast online libraries of universities and research centers. Scientists just love to show off all the big and shiny machinery they work on. Even if I do not completely understand what they are doing, I love hanging on their newsfeed and…

Rock mysteriously appears in front of the Mars Opportunity rover

Left: a photo taken 3528 days after the Opportunity rover arrival to Mars. Right: the exact same spot 12 Mars days later. Notice the difference? NASA JPL scientists did too: “It’s about the size of a jelly doughnut. It was a total surprise, we were like ‘wait a second, that wasn’t there before, it can’t…

We knew LG’s curved G Flex was heading to US carriers, but it’s happening sooner than expected: you’ll be able to get the phone via Sprint from January 31st for $300.

Reuters: Obama to Stop NSA Spying on Phone Records Without Legal Reason

We already knew that Obama was set to announce some major NSA reforms today, and now Reuters is reporting ahead of the event that he will prevent the Agency from looking at phone records without a legal reason. https://gizmodo.com/president-obama-will-announce-nsa-reforms-on-january-17-1498835700 The newswire reports that Obama will announce, during an 11am speech at the Justice Department, that…

The History of the Human Cannonball

Whenever there is a list released of the world’s most dangerous jobs, tree loggers, steelworkers, electrical power-line installers, and fisherman usually are the professions that populate the list. But none of those things are nearly as dangerous as being propelled out of a long cylinder tube, flown through the air completely untethered, and attempting to…

This Beautiful Wooden Table Only Weighs 10 Pounds

This gorgeous wooden table, designed by Ruben Beckers, is called kleinergleich5—which means “less than five”—because it weighs 4.5 kilos, just 10 pounds. What the hell? That might sound perplexing until you take a look underneath where, instead of solid wood, you’ll find a grid of extremely thin strips of wood which create a rigid structure…

The World’s Biggest Global Warming Offenders, Visualized

New calculations show that the US, China, Russia, Brazil, India, Germany and the UK were responsible for more than 60 per cent of global warming between 1906 and 2005. Here, those numbers are visualized so it’s plain for all to see. The new research was carried out by Damon Matthews of Concordia University in Montreal,…

This is how San Francisco sounded just before getting destroyed in 1906

Hardscrabble Pictures added sound to this old black and white silent film of San Francisco’s Market Street in April 14, 1906, just four days before the big earthquake that destroyed 80 percent of the city. It’s really wonderful—put on your headphones and listen to the calm before the storm. I have seen plenty of restored…

Is There Any Wearable Tech You Actually Want to Wear?

Smart glasses, fitness trackers, intelligent contact lenses, hell, even weird bracelets that tell you when to get out of the sun. Wearable tech seems to be very much the future—just ask Dilbert—but do you want to wear any of it? https://gizmodo.com/hands-on-epsons-moverio-bt-200-augmented-reality-lite-1495348507 Is there any of the current crop that you would happily slip on? Or,…

Woman Ticketed For Wearing Google Glass While Driving Judged Innocent

Remember the woman who got a ticket for wearing Google Glass while driving? Well, her citation’s been dismissed by a San Diego court commissioner, who said he found no proof the device was operating at the time. https://gizmodo.com/you-could-get-a-ticket-for-wearing-google-glass-while-d-1454618382 The achingly contemporary court case saw technology entrepreneur Cecilia Abadie challenge a citation, given alongside a speeding…

I can’t figure out which way the girl in these photographs is standing

So her hair makes it look like she’s turned away from the camera but her clothes are set up to make it look like she’s facing the camera. What way is she really facing? Honestly, I can’t tell. Malin Bergman loves to play little games with her Instagram pictures to make you question and wonder…

When a Wind Chime Provides the Rhythm

Disquiet Junto Project 0107 Note: The SoundCloud.com site is experiencing some connectivity issues as of this project’s starting. If you have difficulty accessing the Disquiet Junto page, try another browser. If that doesn’t work, then when posting your track add it to this page as a comment, and I’ll add it manually to the project…

Santa Deaths and How to Avoid Them

Folks might think St. Nick’s present-delivery service is a pretty cushy gig, seeing as how the man only works one night a year, but they fail to realize the numerous and diverse ways that job can kill.

Dancing all over China might be the best way to travel through China

100 days. 1 foreign country. 1 outfit. 1 guy dancing all across China. It’s just a bloody good time to see someone have so much fun making a fool of himself as he travels all across a foreign country. We should all lighten up and remember to dance more. The video above shows Jake Gaba,…

This upside down house is actually right side up

Your eyes aren’t deceiving you, this house was actually built upside down. The roof is on the floor, the Mini Cooper is parked in the sky and every fixture in the house is flipped around. But when the house is upside down it’s actually right side up, if that makes any sense, because the interior…

Health-monitoring contact lenses herald the Medical Tricorder Age

Google is working in a new device that will monitor your glucose levels: smart contact lenses, connected to your phone using a wireless chip. It’s just the beginning of something that will be much bigger—this is going to be one of the sensors that will turn your phone into the Star Trek medical tricorder. https://gizmodo.com/holy-spock-the-star-trek-medical-tricorder-is-real-an-5965143…

The sum of 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + … until infinity is somehow -1/12

Here’s a fun little brain wrinkle pinch for all you non-math people out there (that should be everyone in the world*): the sum of all natural numbers, from one to infinity, is not a ridiculously big number like you would expect but actually just -1/12. Yes, the sum of every number from one to infinity…

Google Charts the History of Popular Music as We Listen to it Today

Google’s research department just released a fun visualization called Music Timeline, which attempts to chart the rise and fall of different musical genres in terms of their relative popularity. Watch rock, pop, alternative, and hip hop each rise to the top. The chart begins in 1950 and reflects data about what Google Music users have…

This Slick Steel Bucket Holds a Flame Or A Fern: Your Choice

What’s classier than a tiki torch, tougher than a luminaria, but less commitment than a big ol’ backyard pit? Well hey, it’s this cool Fire Bucket. And whoa, it can do double duty as a planter. Neat! Norm Architects designed the piece in powder-coated stainless steel to weather whatever crazy seasonal elements you’ve got going…