Gizmodo

The West is in drought. You might even call it Biblical given that a drought this fierce hasn’t hit the region in at least 1,200 years.Read more...

After weeks of hype-building, the X-Men’s 2021 Hellfire Gala kicked off this week in the pages of Marvel’s ongoing Hellions, Marauders, and X-Force series. Unsurprisingly, the extravagant mutant gathering is already threatening to upend the delicate balance of power keeping humanity from going to war with Krakoa. Let…Read more...

There’s no such thing as easy climate fixes, but when it comes to methane emissions from oil and gas production, a couple of little patches could go a long way. A new study suggests that just 123 sites in the Permian Basin in Texas could be responsible for a huge chunk of the region’s accidental methane leaks—and that…Read more...

Called Life Beyond Earth, the four-minute short film presents a realistic vision of a future lunar base and the sustainable habitats that could turn this long-sought goal into a reality.

It’s a good day when you can rock out to the sweet sounds of Envy Adams (Brie Larson) leading the Clash at Demonhead—and it’s only a sign of more to come. Edgar Wright, the director of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, took to social media Friday to announce that the expanded edition of the film’s soundtrack will finally…Read more...

Boston Dynamics promises its impressive Spot robot can do a lot of things, but as we can see in the company’s latest demo, replacing the family pet isn’t one of them. Even with incredible autonomy, advanced sensors, and an articulated arm instead of a head and neck, Spot manages to make a fun interaction like a …Read more...

If you were just to list all the elements that make up the new Netflix show Sweet Tooth, you’d think it was just a bunch of random ideas thrown together. In fact, let’s test that theory: deer boy. Robert Downey Jr. Post-apocalypse. Animal army. DC Comics. Football star. Lord of the Rings. VR gaming. Weird, right? But…Read more...

For some 9,000 years, the bones of three aurochs—huge, extinct ancestors of modern cattle—languished at the bottom of a cave in northwestern Spain. A team of paleontologists have now genetically sampled the Mesolithic remains, which were found in the 1990s near a human skeleton, and they believe that the DNA could…Read more...

Scientists say that two common strains of the seasonal flu have seemingly vanished from circulation, likely due to public health measures like mask-wearing meant to slow the covid-19 pandemic. Though it will take time to confirm the disappearing act, the unexpected good news could make developing next season’s flu…Read more...

After its explosive opening, Star Wars: The Bad Batch has hit a bit of a weird, interesting, and yet kind of frustrating rut. Now in a comfortable status quo of the “mission of the week” format, the series is using the structure to apparently catch up on familiar faces shrouded in a corner of the Star Wars galaxy left…Read more...

Rep. Lauren Boebert, the gun-toting, Trump-loving, riot-goading, Congresswoman from Colorado, has a new conspiratorial obsession. And she’s fixated on it rather than working to address the multiple environmental crises facing her state.Read more...

Facebook announced on Friday that Donald Trump’s accounts on the company’s platforms—which includes the former president’s Instagram account—are going to be suspended for a full two years. At the end of that two-year gap, the company will “look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded,”…Read more...

We all know the stories: George Washington cut down that cherry tree...with his Wolverine-like retractable chainsaws. Paul Revere sped through the night, warning people the British were coming, because he was a robo-centaur. And then they formed a rock band with Sam Adams, Geronimo, and more. Right?

Following a previous Trump executive order that banned some Chinese companies from buying U.S.-made tech, this week President Biden issued a new executive order banning U.S. entities from investing in 59 different Chinese tech and defense companies.Read more...

Melting glacial ice along a mountain passageway in Norway has resulted in the discovery of hundreds of ancient artifacts. One of these items, a wooden box with the lid still firmly in place, has finally been opened, revealing its precious contents.

The arrival of the smartphone made mobile messaging infinitely easier, but for those who some reason still miss typing out long messages on a tiny nine-button keypad, Guy Dupont has created a compact computer keyboard alternative called the T9 Macropad that brings predictive text to the desktop.Read more...

TikTok quietly updated its privacy policy earlier this week in a way that allows the company to automatically collect extensive data on users in the United States—including data about their faces and their voice.Read more...

From the looks of things, director Andy Muschietti’s upcoming The Flash is set to expand the DCEU in a significant way by using the titular speedster’s penchant for mucking up timelines in order to broach the larger DC multiverse, and bring another, familiar Batman back to the big screen.Read more...

United Airlines has agreed to purchase 15 jets that fly faster than the speed of sound from Boom Supersonic, with options to purchase 35 more. The purchase means United is on track to reintroduce the first commercial supersonic flights since the retirement of the Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde in 2003.

After a year of gangbuster iPad sales, Apple is reportedly working on a new design for the iPad mini and revamping its iPad Pro to support wireless charging.Read more...

The fate of an experimental dementia drug will be decided within days. On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration is set to announce whether it will approve Biogen’s antibody-based therapy aducanumab as a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease—the first intended to slow down the progression of the incurable ailment. But…Read more...

If you live in a crowded urban center, all you really have to do is peek outside in the morning to confirm how polluted the air you’re breathing is. But even if you don’t live in a perpetual cloud of smog, that doesn’t necessarily mean the air you’re breathing is clean, which is why this $12 air quality sensor from…Read more...

Get another shadowy look at the stars of Borderlands. An action legend joins John Wick 4. The latest Mission Impossible suffers another setback. Plus, teases from the set of She-Hulk, and what’s coming on Disney’s The Owl House. Spoilers away!

Google’s Android Auto is more than six years old now, and it’s changed a fair bit in that time. The latest version is baked into Android, if you’re running Android 10 or later, but you can download the stand-alone app if you don’t already have it. More and more automobiles and car stereos now support Android Auto (as…Read more...

The White House announced on Thursday that the U.S. will donate at least 80 million covid-19 doses to countries around the world by the end of June, with the first 25 million doses going out to nations in the very near future. But where exactly are the doses heading?

Traffic deaths in the U.S. surged in 2020 to the highest level since 2007 and experts in the U.S. government believe they know why. Despite driving fewer miles during the covid-19 pandemic, Americans involved in car crashes were taking more risks, including everything from not wearing their seatbelts to driving drunk.Read more...

With Apple’s developer conference just around the corner, Google is reportedly planning to follow in its rivals footsteps by letting Android users opt out of being tracked by the apps they download from the Google Play store.

George R.R. Martin is a man known for one thing at this point: trying to finish The Winds of Winter, the latest, long-awaited novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire saga that gave us Game of Thrones. He’s had years and years, he’s had a global pandemic locking him down from appearing at conventions and whatnot. But now,…Read more...

Amazon’s Halo band, the company’s first fitness tracker, drew criticism when it launched because of its two marquee features: body fat scanning and tone analysis. Several reviews— including Gizmodo’s—describing the gadget as creepy and invasive. You might think that would lead Amazon to perhaps rethink its approach to…Read more...

It’s been quite a while since District 9's Neill Blomkamp has directed a feature-length film—not since 2015's poorly received Chappie, in fact. That will change when his new movie Demonic arrives later this summer, a science fiction-horror story that is... kind of incomprehensible, at least in its first trailer?

Facebook’s found a new way to capitalize on the thoughts, prayers (and data) from the religious side of its user base. On Thursday, the company confirmed that it’s begun expanding a new feature called “prayer posts” that will let members of particular Facebook groups literally ask for (and offer up) prayers for other…Read more...

The U.S. Department of Justice plans to take a much harsher tack when pursuing cybercriminals involved in ransomware attacks—and will investigate them using strategies similar to those currently employed against foreign and domestic terrorists.Read more...

Donald Trump Jr. has pivoted to the personalized celebrity video app Cameo because, as all relevant people do, he understands that nobody’s time on the internet should be free. You get that money, giiiirl.

The dust piled up everywhere. Pushed around by the Martian winds, it stifled the InSight lander, whose solar panels—the source of its power—have been coated in red grime. Now, NASA has announced a step in the right direction for the sedentary probe: By commanding it to drop dirt on top of the dust, they managed to…Read more...

Apple’s AirTags are effective little Bluetooth trackers, but the thing that makes them work so well—leveraging Apple’s extensive Find My network of devices that are constantly pinging each other—also makes them extremely problematic because you can be tracked without your knowledge in what is essentially real-time.…Read more...

Zombie movie king George A. Romero passed away in 2017, but his legacy will live on forever in his work—including, now, an early 1970s “lost” film that’s soon debuting on Shudder. To learn more about The Amusement Park, io9 hopped on a video call with Suzanne Desrocher-Romero, the late filmmaker’s wife.Read more...

A New Mexico sheriff running as the tough-on-crime candidate for the mayorship of Albuquerque was buzzed at a campaign event on Tuesday by a small drone with a giant dildo attached to it.

Oil-producing heavyweights like Russia and Saudi Arabia will not go quietly into the night. This week, ministers from those and other countries slammed the latest report from the International Energy Agency calling for all new oil and gas development to stop by next year, using some pretty heated (and funny) rhetoric.Read more...

FX and Hulu just announced a swath of launch dates for series coming to the network later this year, and while there are certainly some surprises among them, the biggest surprise of all? The long-awaited, re-tinkered take on Y: The Last Man is really, truly happening at last.

Antivirus apps are best known for running in the background and annoying people with all sorts of pop-ups. But with a new update to Norton 360, Norton’s antivirus app will now let you mine Ethereum, too.Read more...

The climate crisis has put sequoias on a dangerous path. A draft report from the National Park Service indicates that 10% of the largest trees in the world were wiped out in last year’s Castle Fire.Read more...

Media Matters has released the latest edition of its now-regular QAnon candidates series: the checklist of people running for Congress who also adhere to conspiracy theories that helped motivate a violent insurrection. One has even talked about participating in that event. Some already hold office. Fun with friends…Read more...

It took four generations, but the Philips Hue app is finally a delight to use. In a significant update to its iOS and Android apps, which control its expansive lineup of smart lights and bulbs, Hue now has an overhauled interface and better automation engine, plus a few other subtle tweaks that make the entire…Read more...

In Ava Reid’s The Wolf and the Woodsman, a young woman named Évike becomes an outcast in her village because she doesn’t have magic powers (at least, none that she knows of). She’s sent away as a sacrifice, but her fate changes dramatically after she survives a monster attack. Today, io9 has more from Reid’s debut…Read more...

Fujifilm, the Japanese film company that somehow survived (and then thrived) amidst the digital photography revolution, would appear to be the latest victim in a recent blitz of ransomware attacks. The firm has announced that it’s investigating the “possibility of a ransomware attack,” while noting that it was still…Read more...

It’s been a long, long time since we got our first look at Marvel’s long, long-awaited Black Widow movie. How long? Well, the first teaser trailer came out on December 2, 2019. But now that it’s currently scheduled to premiere next month, we’ve received one final look before we (hopefully) get to see the dang thing.

Scientists have stumbled upon a previously unknown extinction event that decimated ocean shark populations 19 million years ago. The cause of this sudden die-off, in which global shark populations plummeted by 90%, is a complete mystery.Read more...

Amazon’s Ring—a company that is famously pretty chummy with law enforcement—will now require law enforcement officials to make their requests for security footage public, the company said in a blog post published Thursday. Starting next week, any time an officer wants to ask Ring’s customers for any recordings that…Read more...

Summer has begun with a sizzle in California and the rest of the West. Large swaths of the state are baking under a heat wave, including areas in the Central Valley where the National Weather Service is warning there’s “little to no relief” from the brutal temperatures on Thursday. That will only reinforce the dire…Read more...

With their vibrant hues and designs inspired by science fiction, it’s often hard to make smart lights fit in with more traditional furniture. That’s exactly what Nanoleaf is trying to fix with its new line of Elements smart lights.Read more...