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Are hoverboards real? Well, no. But if you were a kid in the 1980s and happened to see the “making of” documentary for Back to the Future II, you’d be forgiven for thinking so. When I first started the Paleofuture blog back in 2007 I got some rather curious emails about hoverboards. Specifically, some people…
Next year, the fine people of Uruguay will be able to buy high quality state-produced weed at only one dollar per gram. For reference, high quality weed in the US goes for around $350 an ounce, according to this and this. That’s $12.36 per gram, which is more than ten times the price of Uruguyan…
I live in L.A., a land of 20-lane interchanges, parking lots the size of football stadiums, and mind-bending, soul-crushing, life-altering traffic. Every day, I meet people who don’t even know we have a public transit system and see places in my neighborhood without any sidewalks. This is because, a half-century ago, my city decided to…
Don’t even think about posting cartoon nipples on Facebook. Decapitations, however? Go right ahead. Six months after establishing a ban on blatant, gruesome beheadings, Facebook has decided to (once again) keep videos of decapitations available to the masses. https://gizmodo.com/these-nipples-got-the-new-yorker-banned-from-facebook-5942284 Facebook was first forced to address its decapitation policy back in May, when the Family Online…
There’s no doubt that technology has changed the field of archaeology in profound ways. New tools have taken archaeologists to places they couldn’t go before and opened the door to countless new discoveries. They’ve also shed some light on some of the—err—more creative interpretations of artifacts. Let’s just go ahead and call them what they…
Hundreds of thousands of historical buildings have been destroyed by natural or human-caused disasters, which is why an organization called CyArk is scanning ancient landmarks all over the world in 3D. If someday something bad happens to them, we will be able to fix them with millimetric precision. Or at least have a digital copy…
Unless you grew up to become an architect, you’re probably wondering if you wasted your toddler years playing with blocks when you could’ve been learning more valuable skills. But worry not—thanks to designer Scott Jones, anyone can put their longstanding block skills to good use with this lovely modular Bloc’d Sofa, which can be rearranged…
A laser first developed in the early 1990s to survey complex architectural structures in the petrochemical and nuclear industries is now being leveraged to preserve at-risk monuments— at least in digital form. The laser sits atop a standard tripod, where it spins around sending out tens of thousands of pulses of light per second. Based…
Our kitchens have become a warzone for beverage makers battling to get their drink dispensing appliances on our counters. Pod-based coffeemakers and soda carbonators have taken an early lead, but now Heineken’s decided to enter the fray with a sleek beer dispenser called The Sub that promises to chill your suds to two degrees celsius—or…
Google’s waving its pro-internet freedom flag again, launching a suite of anti-hacker software intended to help human rights and elections-related websites in vulnerable regions. It’s a nice thought, even if there’s a catch. The new program is called Project Shield (yes, like the TV show and the game controller) and aims to protect websites from…
Hair plugs, comb overs and toupées beware; a team of researchers from Columbia has developed a way to induce new human hair growth for the first time ever. It’s not just the fact that they can just grow hair that’s so exciting, though. It’s that they can grow your hair. The technique centers on the…
The woman with the awesome hair is Dr. Angela Christiano—a dermatology researcher at Columbia University’s Medical Center. Together with her colleagues, she has discovered a way to cure baldness on mice, as described in a new research paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper—titled Microenvironmental reprogramming by three-dimensional…
State-sponsored freeway construction can be a pain for commuters whose daily routines are upended by constant building and maintenance, but roadwork can also be a source of unexpected archaeological discovery. In California, every project approved by the state begins with a detailed look at the distant past of any future route, looking deep into a…
Headphones are part of daily life at train stations, an urban necessity used by commuters to drown out the flurry of action around them. But the other night at Union Station in Los Angeles, as I watched a woman crawl across the top of an information booth while a man’s voice from another room whispered…
Sam Berns is a 17-year old living with progeria, a rare genetic disease where symptoms resemble aspects of rapid aging. Sam’s also a prolific Lego builder and the subject of HBO’s award-winning documentary, Life According to Sam, which premieres tonight. The film opens in Sam’s Lego room. According to filmmaker, Sean Fine, when he first…
The dream of the cyborg is coming true at an exhilarating rate. As humans gets better and better at making machines, we keep attaching those machines to our bodies to make ourselves better humans. It seems at times that the only question left is if we can put a human brain in a robotic frame.…
When Gizmodo last checked in with archaeologist Mark Willis, he was assembling huge 36 GB panoramic photographs of ancient rock art in the wilds of west Texas; now he’s flying drones over ancient pyramids in the Andes. https://gizmodo.com/36-gigapixel-image-captures-ancient-petroglyphs-in-texa-1410698528 Normally covered by fog, the landscape—dotted with “earthen mounds and platform pyramids… near Hacienda Zuleta”—is exceptionally difficult…
Using 130 HTC One smartphones and a few breakdancing, fire-breathing passersby who just happened to include a perfectly trained dog and totally weren’t actors, Qualcomm showed off everything its crazy fast Snapdragon processors can do with a 540-degree Ultimate Smartphone Photo Booth. https://gizmodo.com/htc-one-review-the-beauty-is-a-beast-updated-5990716 The results are actually pretty awesome. While you’re doing your thing in…
The U.S. possesses the most formidable naval fleet in the world. However, the face of oceanic warfare is rapidly evolving and bears little resemblance to 20th century sea battles. Naval dominance is no longer decided in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic, but rather in shallow territorial waters. To meet these new offshore challenges,…
James Newhard is Director of Archaeology at the College of Charleston, where he works to bring 3D imaging, mobile technology and geographic information systems to a field more popularly associated with shovels and dusty brushes. Gizmodo got in touch with Dr. Newhard to learn how he uses emerging tech to dig deep into ancient societies.…
