Gizmodo

An expert tasked with helping the Food and Drug Administration weigh potential new opioid drug approvals is openly calling out the agency for what he alleges are its continued missteps in handling the opioid crisis. In an interview with the Guardian Thursday, Raeford Brown claimed that the FDA has failed to learn from…Read more...

Buried deep within the DNA of Asian individuals is a genetic clue pointing to the existence of an unknown human ancestor. Remarkably, it wasn’t a human who reached this startling conjecture, but rather an artificially intelligent algorithm. Welcome to archaeology in the 21st century.

Scientists have devised a way to communicate secretly by sending laser-transmitted messages directly into the area around a person’s ear.Read more...

Climate change is going to have a lot of unpleasant consequences. But at least those of us on the East Coast won’t face as many nasty winter snowstorms, right? Well... a new study is throwing a bit of cold water on that silver lining.

A re-analysis of lunar materials collected during the Apollo 14 mission has resulted in a rather astonishing conclusion: One of the rocks brought back appears to contain a small chunk of Earth dating back some 4 billion years. Incredibly, it’s now amongst the oldest terrestrial rocks known to exist.

So, you’re one of the thousands of people currently stuck in airport limbo as the FAA grapples with staffing shortages. You’ve watched in dismay as flight boards flip from green to red. You’re tired and just want to get where you need to go.Read more...

Newly unsealed court documents show that Facebook was aware that underage children routinely used their parents’ payment information to spend large sums of money on in-game purchases, and the company chose not to fix the problem. For years, it allowed for what it called “friendly fraud” because it feared implementing…Read more...

It doesn’t seem to have gotten much attention, but the Fire TV Recast is quietly one of the most interesting gadgets Amazon’s come out with in a long time, and it’s back on sale today for up to $50 off.

Tinder is supposed to dish out $17.25 million dollars worth of cash and in-app features to users over the age of 29 who were required to pay extra for their subscription services.

Three days after announcing its “Shot on iPhone Challenge,” Apple has updated its official rules page for the photography contest following a burst of outrage from artists on social media.Read more...

If there’s one driving job I think I’d be fine with giving up to a robot, it’s finding a place to park in a colossal, jam-packed parking lot or parking deck. That’s not really where driving enjoyment lives.Read more...

Rooster Teeth’s new animated series gen:LOCK from Gray Haddock is a near-future sci-fi fantasy set in a world where war is waged with hulking, humanoid mechas operated by hotshot pilots. The anime which inspired gen:LOCK are written all over the show, and its hero, Julian Chase (Michael B. Jordan) immediately reads as…Read more...

At CES earlier this month, Nvidia and AMD traded words, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang saying his GPUs would “crush” AMD’s newly announce Radeon VII. AMD CEO Lisa Su was more measured in her response, but she didn’t pass up the opportunity to make a dig at Nvidia, noting that when her company finally adopts ray tracing,…Read more...

Electric scooters have become wildly popular, thanks to single-named companies like Bird, Scoot, and Lime creating easy-to-ride, if legally iffy, scooter rental services in cities across the U.S. But a new study out Friday is seemingly the first to quantify a drawback to these convenient devices: lots of riders are…Read more...

It’s day 35 of President Trump’s government shutdown with no end in sight. And it’s only getting worse. The latest: flights at New York’s LaGuardia airport, New Jersey’s Newark airport, and Philadelphia International Airport have been delayed due to staffing issues at air traffic control centers, according to the…Read more...

Facebook, you may have heard, had a year riddled with scandals, data breaches, dwindling user trust, slowing growth, scrutiny from regulators, and plummeting morale among its own staff. Clearly the social behemoth needs a major comeback. But according to a report in the New York Times, Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to link…Read more...

An inflatable space sculpture launched to orbit in December remains unfurled, in one of the more unanticipated consequences of the ongoing government shutdown in the United States.

Sometimes it feels like the operating system doesn’t matter. Sure, the fans will always be there ready and willing for a debate, but for most of us, there’s little difference between using Windows or macOS. Most of our day-to-day computing is happening in a web browser—and those are pretty universal at this point. The…Read more...

While USB-A to USB-C cables can’t take advantage of Power Delivery charging speeds, it’s still a good idea to keep a few handy for charging USB-C-powered phones, tablets, and other devices from regular old USB chargers, even if they’re slower.

Patty Jenkins is already thinking about Wonder Woman 3. Sylvester Stallone wants to make an Edgar Allen Poe film. The Walking Dead teases some dire storylines from the comics. Get a look at Supergirl’s take on Menagerie. Plus, a new clip from Alita: Battle Angel, and what’s to come on Deadly Class. Spoilers get!

Roger Stone, a longtime Republican political operative in Washington and ally of President Trump, was arrested by the FBI in Fort Lauderdale, Florida shortly after 6:00am ET this morning, CNN reports. Stone has been indicted by Robert Mueller’s special counsel which is investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016…Read more...

We have evidently reached the vandalism stage of the public’s fascination with Maine’s 300-foot-wide ice disk.

I think we can all safely agree that last year was not great for Facebook. User trust plummeted to record lows as the company faced scandal after scandal. At this point, there are countless reasons users can and even should be wary of Facebook—and yet.Read more...

Add StarCraft II to the list of increasingly sophisticated games at which well-trained AIs can smash fallible, meat-fingered humans to chunky bits. Google’s DeepMind AI beat two professional players of Blizzard’s StarCraft in two multi-game series that happened in December, the companies jointly announced today.Read more...

It’s about to get way, way harder to win any money playing HQ Trivia.

Oscar-nominated Ray of Pure Joy and Light Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is one of the best superhero movies of all time. It’s a movie so visually stunning, that we just couldn’t wait to get our hands on its accompanying art book to learn just how one of the most inventive animated features of recent memory came to…Read more...

Earlier this week, the world was (unfortunately) not so shocked to read an article in the Atlantic detailing new accusations of the sexual abuse and rape of underage children by X-Men director Bryan Singer. These accusations have been circling the director for a long time now. Today, even in light of the most recent…Read more...

A growing chorus of Washington lawmakers is now pressing federal regulators to do something about the fact that wireless carriers have recklessly sold off data that can pinpoint the locations of their customers’ mobile phones (and thus the customers themselves). The firestorm of inquiries began after it was revealed…Read more...

A pair of new studies just might make you pine for the old days of being cradled by your parents. For both mice and healthy young people, the studies found, a gentle rocking motion before and during sleep resulted in a deeper slumber. And in humans, the rocking even seemed to improve their memory skills afterward.

In 2017, Nancy Lee Carlson of Illinois auctioned off a genuine Apollo 11 lunar sample bag for $1.8 million dollars. That’s a good score given she purchased the bag for $995, but she was expecting as much as $4 million. The reason for the low value, she says, is that NASA damaged the bag—and she’s now suing the space…Read more...

On New Year’s Day, 1995, an instrument off the coast of Norway measured a rogue wave 84 feet high. Now, scientists are recreating these waves—albeit in miniature—in the lab.

In a little over a year, MoviePass has burned through the goodwill of its customers almost as fast as it’s burned through investor cash. But on Thursday, the company claimed it will be bringing back the one feature that made anyone care about its theater subscription service: Unlimited movies for a flat fee.Read more...

For two decades, even after becoming friends, Brian Michael Bendis and David Walker worked in parallel spaces. This week, with the release of their new comic Naomi, the world gets to see what happens when two comics writers with very different backgrounds come together to create a new superhero story.

In October, Stephen Elliott filed a lawsuit against Moira Donegan, the creator of the Shitty Media Men list, a suit that has caused concern among digital privacy advocates. In a move that won’t exactly quell their concerns, Elliott’s attorney filed a petition with the court on January 23 seeking to compel Google to…Read more...

Using a hot-water drill, British scientists have dug a 7,060-foot borehole through the Antarctic ice sheet. The comically long ice hole is the largest ever for West Antarctica, and it’s meant to improve our understanding of climate-related sea level rise.

Slowly but surely, ports have been falling off our devices, and as a preview of our fully wireless future, Meizu and Vivo recently released seamless phones with nary an opening. But despite how slick those devices appear, (and my personal desire to banish wires to the shadow realm), the world simply isn’t ready for…Read more...

Eight years ago, director Joe Cornish blew our freaking minds with his landmark directorial debut, Attack the Block. Now, finally, his second movie is here and while the wait was exceedingly long, the story is worth it.Read more...

I am not a musician. In fact, I’m the only one of my siblings incapable of playing an instrument. So Yamaha’s Sonogenic SHS-500 is ostensibly intended for me. It’s a neat $500 keytar that, in addition to letting you live out some 80s hair band dreams, should help you play better—even when you know nothing.

The adorable and enigmatic axolotl is capable of regenerating many different body parts, including limbs, organs, and even portions of its brain. Scientists hope that a deeper understanding of these extraordinary abilities could help make this kind of tissue regeneration possible for humans. With news today of the…Read more...

Google publicly supported tens of thousands of its employees walking out in November to protest working conditions, but weeks later the company pushed the National Labor Relations Board to roll back a legal protection organizers relied on, Bloomberg reports.

Earth capped its fourth-warmest year in human history in 2018, and this year will almost certainly be hotter according to a newly-released analysis.

Even as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) strives to imbue confidence in the nation’s aviation system amid the unprecedented government shutdown—now in its 34th day—air traffic controllers, pilots, and flight attendants are speaking out about a “growing concern” for the “safety and security” of airlines…Read more...

While you’re struggling to toast bread without burning it, metalsmith Seth Gould harnesses heat and fire to turn raw steel into masterful creations like this lock box featuring a complex series of steps that have to be perfectly executed in order to open it.Read more...

Week 2: Facebook

Of all the steps you can take to improve your personal cybersecurity, keeping your software up to date is one of the easiest and most effective. Thankfully, researchers at security firm Avast have compiled a list of the most common out-of-date programs installed on PCs to give us some guidance on keeping our computers…Read more...

Heading out of town and want to deter thieves, or just want to wake up to a well-lit house? This programmable light switch turns any built-in light into a smart light for $16, the best price Amazon’s ever listed.

Last year brought the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’s famed Doomsday Clock as close as it’s ever been to midnight. This year’s update will test if you’re a glass half full or empty person. The clock is at the same daunting precipice it was last year thanks to the “two simultaneous existential threats” of climate…Read more...

Your wifi sucks, and it’s driving you crazy because every time you want to watch old It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, you’re left watching a little loading wheel spin instead of laughing at Charlie’s antics. But don’t freak out. We’re here to help.Read more...

Aukey’s teeny-tiny car charger is the third-best-selling product in Kinja Deals history, and now, it comes in aluminum. Does that really matter on a car charger that you can barely see? Probably not. But at only $7 (with promo code AUKEYC02), who cares?

Do you still believe? The CW does.