Gizmodo

If you’ve been watching Batwoman, you know things have gotten... thorny for Dr. Mary Hamilton (Nicole Kang), Kate Kane’s stepsister, illegal Gotham City clinic operator, and O.G. member of the Batwoman support team. Poor Mary was infected by one of Poison Ivy’s vines and turned into, well, Poison Ivy. That’s a shame…Read more...

The risk of the plague spilling over from humans to animals in the western U.S. has increased since 1950 thanks to climate change, a new study has found. Importantly, the research gives valuable insights into how this deadly disease has historically moved and developed in the U.S., which can help us understand more…Read more...

Clan Wren flies once more: Lucasfilm’s Mandalorian spinoff revolving around the post-Return of the Jedi life of Ahsoka Tano has found another rebel ally for the force user.

If you’re the type of person who finds fulfillment and meaning from your job and can’t shut up about it at the bar, congrats, but it seems you’re among a dwindling minority. At least that’s the sense from a recent massive Pew survey which found a 7% decline in U.S. adults who said they derive meaning and purpose in…Read more...

Cowboy Bebop fans have been waiting for the live-action Netflix adaptation to reveal the fourth member of the Bebop crew (well, fifth if you count Ein the Data Dog). It took until today, the day Cowboy Bebop premieres on Netflix, for the streamer to do so, but it has finally announced newcomer Eden Perkins has nabbed…Read more...

Coming down with seizures would be a scary experience no matter what, but for one unfortunate man, that experience was compounded by the discovery that dead tapeworm cysts lodged in his brain for decades were the root cause. Thankfully, his seizures were treated successfully, and the man seems to have made a recovery…Read more...

After raising nearly $49 million in ether in just a few days, the ConstitutionDAO that galvanized blockchain idealists did not win a copy of the US Constitution at Sotheby’s. Last night, the document, one of 13 surviving first edition copies, hammered for $43.2 million (going to—sigh—hedge fund billionaire Ken…Read more...

Games Workshop has had a long time to reckon with just how explicit the “Grimdark” satire of its tabletop wargaming universe is. It portrays a fascist, zealous imperial regime as heroic—in a universe of demonic horrors and alien invasion—to players who might find themselves fond of such ideals in real life. But the…Read more...

The U.S. recently passed a $1 trillion bipartisan spending bill aimed at improving and repairing the country’s decaying infrastructure, but a new report on flooding risks resulting from climate change warns even more investment might be needed.Read more...

If you have an Android phone, you’re probably used to seeing a line from an iPhone-using friend or family member that they’ve “emphasized” your previous message. What does that even mean? In iMessage speak, that’s a double exclamation mark, or the ‼ emoji.Read more...

Though it’s been over five years since Paul Feig’s reboot of Ghostbusters, it’s been 32 years since audiences first spent time in a world where Peter Venkman, Ray Stanz, Egon Spengler, and Winston Zeddemore existed. That changes today as Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife finally hits theaters.Read more...

Michael Keaton says he strapped on the Vulture wings this week but the question is, for what? Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live Wednesday night, the actor best known for playing Beetlejuice and Batman spoke a little bit about reprising the latter for The Flash and then about his role in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming. He…Read more...

Days after a Pennsylvania lab was locked down because a worker discovered vials labeled “smallpox” in a freezer, the CDC says there’s no reason to fear a viral outbreak. Late Thursday night, federal officials announced that the vials did not contain the deadly and eradicated variola virus. Instead, they held a related…Read more...

New research shows that feral hogs are hungry wrecking balls in the Southeast’s salt marshes. Their appetite for mussels could end up undoing a key symbiotic relation that keeps marshland intact, right at a time when coastal ecosystems are coming under increasing pressure from climate change. As if we needed any more…Read more...

So far, 2021 has been a banner year for nonsense words. The metaverse—more of a concept than an actual entity at this point—was embraced as the central initiative of Facebook Meta; NFTs, which are quite literally intangible assets, have taken on a life of their own, and now, DogPhone is here to be exactly what it…Read more...

Though Ingenuity continues to break its own records as the first powered, controlled flying machine on another planet, we haven’t had have much visual evidence of its exploits. There’s the telemetry data that NASA scientists receive on Earth, but not much in the way of photos and videos. Happily, NASA has now released…Read more...

In a ceremony held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel last night, Scarlett Johansson become the 35th actor to win the American Cinematheque Award, which is “presented annually to an extraordinary artist currently making a significant contribution to the art of the Moving Picture.” People who came to praise her and her work…Read more...

While it wasn’t available when the Pixel 6 first went on sale last month, Google has finally added an official listing for the Pixel Stand 2 on the Google Store.

From the moment that Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop was announced, fans of the original anime wanted to know what showrunner André Nemec could possibly bring to the classic story that wasn’t already baked into the source material. Rather than simply wondering, io9 asked Nemec directly.

The House of Representatives just narrowly passed a more than $2 trillion spending package that will include the first true climate change legislation passed since 2009.Read more...

George Lucas once told Mark Hamill, “If I could find every copy of that holiday special, I’d smash them with a hammer.” Lucus was referring to, of course, the legendarily awful Star Wars Holiday Special, which aired once in 1978 and has never been seen in an official capacity since. If he had, then I would have been…Read more...

The western remake of Train to Busan may get a truly dreadful title. Neo and Trinity are on the march in another new Matrix: Resurrections poster. Video game icon Earthworm Jim is getting a new animated series. Plus, another look behind-the-scenes on Hawkeye. To me, my spoilers!

Just as the U.S. barreled toward 2 million confirmed covid-19 cases in mid-2020, Charter Communications gave a carefully worded pat on the back to its “employees” who kept the country connected in dire times. “They’ve been asked to go well above and beyond the regular duties and they’ve delivered easing the strain for…Read more...

On Wednesday, amid a fresh surge in gas prices, the Biden administration announced that it had asked the FTC to investigate whether oil and gas companies were doing anything illegal to manipulate prices. Republicans have countered that it’s a cheap political stunt and blamed President Joe Biden’s energy policies.Read more...

Several European countries introduced new restrictions this week on people who refuse to get vaccinated against covid-19, and there was even an announcement from Austria on Friday that covid-19 vaccinations will become mandatory in February.Read more...

The boss has spoken (again): Apple employees will return to the office on Feb. 1, 2022.Read more...

One of the things that makes Hawkeye of the Marvel Cinematic Universe so unique is that he’s not unique. He’s just a regular person, same as you and me. He doesn’t have a super suit or come from outer space. Hawkeye is a human being who just so happens to be great with a bow and arrow. And that regular-guy persona…Read more...

A diplomatic meeting between two parties is tense, but seemingly successful—until the leaders rise to shake hands in front of the assembled group as flashbulbs pop and cameras roll. A firm handshake is one thing, but the characters in Ennio Ruschetti’s short film Hand in Hand take it to an extreme new level.

A bipartisan coalition of at least nine state attorney generals are investigating Meta over the potentially harmful effects Facebook and Instagram have on young users.Read more...

The S&P Dow Jones Indices is monitoring stock Twitter in real-time to see how positively people feel about 200 S&P 500 companies (Tesla) with the top sentiment scores. Today, it launched two Twitter sentiment analysis tools to measure the level of positivity toward companies (or their profit potential) via…Read more...

MediaTek’s smartphone chips typically play second fiddle to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors, but MediaTek just announced its new flagship Dimensity 9000 system-on-chip, and it features a number of notable firsts.Read more...

If you’re tired of the apps on your Android device doggedly tracking every move you make even after opting out, then good news. On Thursday, the privacy pros at DuckDuckGo announced a new feature meant to kneecap the invasive trackers and third-party players that might come bundled with the apps they download.Read more...

Federal health officials are expected to sanction covid-19 boosters for most Americans this week—a decision that’s become well-supported by the science. While the original shots still provide plenty of protection, booster doses are clearly restoring or even surpassing the high levels of effectiveness seen against…Read more...

Although fans have debated about the nature of the relationship between Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and the alien that lives inside him in the two Venom movies, sequel director Andy Serkis explicitly called Let There Be Carnage a “love story.” This makes the fact that this clip, released by Vudu, was taken out of the…Read more...

The fourth episode of Gizmodo’s podcast Gadgettes just dropped, and this week, we’re getting ready for the holidays. Your hosts, Gizmodo reporter Florence Ion and senior editor Caitlin McGarry, womansplain the latest gadgets we’re testing and reviewing. Usually, we interview our fellow Gizmodo reporters about the…Read more...

Our nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri, is 4.37 light-years from Earth, which is super close from a cosmological perspective but achingly far from a human point of view. A new telescope promises to bring this intriguing star system, and any habitable planets it holds, into closer view.

Star Wars’ Expanded Universe has lived on in myriad ways since it came to an official end in 2014, when Lucasfilm and Disney wiped the slate of continuity clean. While some elements and characters have rejoined canon, and re-releases of classic EU comics and books give chances to re-explore what was, one enduring EU…Read more...

Apple’s long-rumored but not officially announced electric vehicle has hit a number of bumps and detours during the course of its development, but now a new report is claiming that Apple has solidified the Apple Car’s roadmap, which will result in a fully autonomous self-driving electric vehicle by 2025.Read more...

Fast-casual pizza chain and frozen food disrupter California Pizza Kitchen reportedly suffered a data breach that exposed the Social Security numbers of over 100,000 current and former employees, according to a breach notification viewed by TechCrunch.

Hey, you remember that awesome lightsaber Disney revealed that looked like the laser blade was actually igniting and extending? Like a parent to a small child reaching for a pair of sharp scissors, Disney has said, “Only Daddy touch.” Meaning the company is not going to offer them to the public, even if you’re going…Read more...

Blood Rage—sometimes known as Slasher, plus there’s a version titled Nightmare at Shadow Woods, though Blood Rage really fits it best—is an outstanding example of what the worst Thanksgiving ever might look like. But fortunately for horror movie fans, that means the film is a feast of intriguing acting choices,…Read more...

The United Nations climate talks ended with a pretty mixed bag of results. The good? That there was a deal at all plus a number of commitments outside what is now the Glasgow Climate Pact. But the bad piled up, too. Many of the pledges are nonbinding and a last-minute gut punch to the pact watered down language around…Read more...

Ghostbusters: Afterlife will be released to the masses very soon, and considering you probably rewatched at least the original Ghostbusters and maybe even Ghostbusters II as prep, now you need something to watch afterward. No, we don’t have access to a time machine where we get another movie that continues the story…Read more...

From 1991 to 2014, Dark Horse Comics churned out more than 100 different Star Wars titles. It adapted novels, helped define the Old Republic era, emblazoned much of the universe both before and after the movies, and helped define what used to be called the Expanded Universe. Now it’s going to tackle series’ canon,…Read more...

A deep-sea scientific expedition off the coast of Mexico has uncovered some weird stuff on the ocean floor, including six possibly newly discovered animal species of arrow worms, crustaceans, mollusks, and roundworms. The research crew also found striking hydrothermal vents fueled by geologic activity beneath the…Read more...

Speaking to scientists yesterday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk offered an update on the Starship program and how the company plans to perform around a dozen launches of the gigantic rocket next year—the first of which could come as early as January.Read more...

Star Trek’s legacy is built on heroes doing the kinds of things that, really, they shouldn’t: captains beaming down on missions that could get them killed, reckless, brave officers who dare first and ask questions later. It’s always been an accepted part of the narrative; Star Trek’s leads, commanders, engineers,…Read more...

One of the principal organizers of the #AppleToo movement is reportedly set to depart the company on Friday after reaching a settlement with the iPhone-maker over a National Labor Relations Board complaint she filed in September.Read more...

Over 10,000 John Deere workers spread out across 14 locations have ended a nearly five-week-long strike after ratifying what the United Auto Workers Union is calling a “landmark agreement.”Read more...

Animal comedy capitalizes on the usual grace of the natural world and the inherent humor of slapstick. Since animals can’t do stand-up routines, we rely on their occasional anthropomorphics and blunders to get a laugh. Here are some of the winners of this year’s Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards, which honor photographers…Read more...