The largest lake in Earth’s history is now in the Guinness Book of World Records. The Paratethys—or Lake Paratethys, if you will—and contained 10 times more water than all of Earth’s modern lakes. In other words, it’s long overdue for its place in the Guinness Book.
Source: Gizmodo – Behold the Mega Lake: Earth’s Largest Lake in History Lands in Guinness Book of Records
A life without burps might sound like a blessing, but a new study shows it’s anything but. Researchers interviewed patients with the rare condition retrograde cricopharyngeus dysfunction (R-CPD), which makes them unable to burp or belch, about how it affected their daily life. Not only did patients report unpleasant…
Source: Gizmodo – Not Being Able to Burp Actually Sounds Pretty Horrific
An influential machine learning dataset—the likes of which has been used to train numerous popular image-generation applications—includes thousands of suspected images of child sexual abuse, a new academic report reveals.
Source: Gizmodo – An Influential AI Dataset Contains Thousands of Suspected Child Sexual Abuse Images
Dinosaurs’ reign on Earth ended explosively (and then dustily, as we’ll mention in this story) when an asteroid slammed into Earth some 66 million years ago. But the dinosaurs—and the diverse ancient creatures they shared the planet with—have kept many secrets locked away in their fossilized remains, secrets which…
Source: Gizmodo – The Coolest Dinosaur-Age Discoveries of 2023
Last year the Toronto International Film Festival played host to The People’s Joker, a queer, comedic re-imagining of Batman’s legendary foil in a Gotham City where crime was outlawed. Warner Bros, naturally, immediately did not care for this, and the film looked like it was destined for a life of limited showings at…
Source: Gizmodo – The People’s Joker Will Finally Get a Theatrical Release in 2024
A new NASA experiment will take to the skies on a balloon, scanning the space between the stars of our galaxy and listening for cosmic ingredients to understand how the Milky Way evolved over time.
Source: Gizmodo – How a Balloon Over Antarctica Will Help NASA Study the Mysterious Space Between Stars
All eyes are on Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Pictures after the CEOs of each company met Tuesday in New York City to explore a possible merger. According to Axios, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav met with Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish and Shari Redstone, who owns Paramount’s parent company, about…
Source: Gizmodo – A Potential Warner Bros and Paramount Merger Could Be Hollywood’s Next Megacorp
Amazon is done making an ass of itself, and making snacks out of ass, as the digital marketplace will no longer sell edible donkey meat in California. The online retailer will not allow Californians to buy hundreds of donkey-based snacks listed on the platform as part of a settlement, according to Wired. But don’t…
Source: Gizmodo – Donkey Meat From Amazon Is Off the Dinner Table in California
If you thought it’d be Hasbro who first got its hands on Ahsoka’s trooper repurposing, think again: Hot Toys is giving us our first actual look at Thrawn and the Great Mothers’ unholy matrimony of Imperial Remnant and Nightsister witchery in action figure form… although there stands a good chance anything Hasbro has…
Source: Gizmodo – Ahsoka’s Zombie Stormtroopers Are Getting the Lavish Toys They Deserve
Things we know for certain about Robert De Niro: he’s an acclaimed actor whose career is still going strong after over 50 years—and his outspoken personality means he’s no stranger to controversy. His feelings on Donald Trump are well-documented, but apparently Killers of the Flower Moon producers Apple would rather…
Source: Gizmodo – Robert De Niro Says Apple Asked Him to ‘Dial Down’ Anti-Trump Remarks, He Didn’t Get the Message
Welcome to AI This Week, Gizmodo’s weekly deep dive on what’s been happening in artificial intelligence.
Source: Gizmodo – I’d Buy That for a Dollar: Chevy Dealership’s AI Chatbot Goes Rogue
With a dizzying array of streaming services available, there was no shortage of great TV this year—and while io9 has already shared our top 20 shows of 2023, today we’re revealing our top TV moments… all 50 of them. These are the moments when we laughed, cheered, shed a tear, shrieked in disbelief, and/or realized…
Source: Gizmodo – 50 Most Memorable Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror TV Moments of 2023
In the last year, computers started acting strangely human. As OpenAI’s Ilya Sutskever put it, you can think of AI as a “digital brain”, one that’s directly modeled after that of a human. Just like a young child, AI has incentives and learns from those around it. If ChatGPT was a young child, it would be growing…
Source: Gizmodo – How to Make Artificial Intelligence More Human in 2024
Scythians in modern-day Ukraine made leather out of human skin, a team of researchers has determined, likely as a macabre trophy item. The discovery affirms a claim by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote extensively on the Scythian way of life.
Source: Gizmodo – Researchers Test 2,400-Year-Old Leather and Realize It’s Made of Human Skin
Every year, there are a few dates I immediately look forward to on the calendar. My birthday, of course. My wedding anniversary. Christmas. Super Bowl. San Diego Comic-Con. And, maybe above all others, DesignerCon.
Source: Gizmodo – The Amazing Art and Toys We Loved at DesignerCon 2023
We’re still discovering new ways covid-19 can harm us, some four years after the emergence of this complicated viral disease. In a recent report, doctors in Massachusetts describe a teen girl whose vocal cords became paralyzed soon after a bout of covid-19. The girl required a tracheostomy in place for more than a…
Source: Gizmodo – Covid-19 Paralyzed a Teen Girl’s Vocal Cords, Doctors Say
Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines are all set with their Moon landers. Now they just need their rockets prepped and the launch windows to swing open. But once underway, these NASA-funded missions, slated for early 2024, will chart a new course for the future of private space exploration.
Source: Gizmodo – NASA-Funded Space Ventures Set for Back-to-Back Moon Landings in Early 2024
This story is part of our new Future of Gaming series, a three-site look at gaming’s most pioneering technologies, players, and makers.
Source: Gizmodo – Why Xbox Game Pass Will Help Microsoft Win the Console Wars
Experimental rockets, Moon landers, planetary flybys, breathtaking spacewalks, and vintage boosters—these are just a few of the many stories that contributed to the most striking and memorable images of 2023.
Source: Gizmodo – The Most Captivating Spaceflight Images of 2023
Four astronauts are getting ready to travel to the Moon and back for NASA’s Artemis 2 mission, and the space agency is making sure that the crew is well-prepared in case things go wrong during the 10-day journey through space.
Source: Gizmodo – NASA’s Moon-Bound Astronauts Prepare for Emergency Ahead of 2024 Launch