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io9MoviesTen Great New York Monsters (OK, One is from New Jersey)
New York is famous as a breeding ground for monsters. With the metropolis about to get ripped to shreds on Friday in giant monster flick Cloverfield, NY’s love affair with deadly, inhuman beasts is on our minds. HP Lovecraft wrote back in the 1920s that the Red Hook neighborhood was built over a vast, subterranean … Continued
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io9
Biological Art Mixes Plant Clones, Human Flesh, and Beautiful Bacteria
It was the first time I ever went to an art show where the art had gotten unruly and climbed outside its frame. A Sunshine-looking installation by Philip Ross of plants growing inside glass tubes of water (above) had turned into a jungle of plants breaking out of their transparent prisons and in some cases … Continued
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io9
Genetic Engineers Create Mice With Proto-Wings
Mice and bats like this one share a genetic ancestor, and now they may become one species again. Yesterday, scientists announced they’d engineered mice with proto-bat wings. Researchers added bat genes to the mouse genome, and the results were “mice with abnormally long forelimbs.” Those long limbs are the first evolutionary step towards wings. More … Continued
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io9
Satellite Rockets from Ocean Launch Pad at Equator
A communications satellite called the Thuraya-3 launched yesterday afternoon from Boeing’s Sea Launch, a massive ocean vessel. Various laws of physics dictate that the best place to launch a heavy payload like a satellite is on the equator, and that’s why the United Arab Emirates company Thuraya paid to use the Sea Launch pad you … Continued
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io9
Flesh-Eating, Sexually-Transmitted Bacteria Hit San Francisco and Boston
Your next kiss could turn into an infection that eats your lips off. San Francisco and Boston are reporting outbreaks of drug-resistant staph bacteria that cannot be stopped with any antibiotics currently being used to fight them. When the bacteria come into contact with your skin, they can burrow into tiny cuts and create infections … Continued
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io9Movies
Ming the Micromanager
On SciFi Channel’s Flash Gordon last Friday, we were all once again reminded why today’s Ming is not as scary nor as campily compelling as Mings of yore. This scene encapsulates everything problematic about today’s Ming. He slurps wine instead of growling; he has no awesome makeup nor a funny hat; and instead of punishing … Continued
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io9Books & Comics
Free Peek at Iain M. Banks’ New Culture Novel “Matter”
Orbit, publishers of Iain M. Banks’ new novel, Matter, have posted the book’s action-packed prologue on their Web site — it introduces you to one of the book’s coolest heroes, Seriy Anaplian, a Special Circumstances Agent who comes from a backwater Shellworld (you’ll have to buy the book in February to find out what that … Continued
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io9Movies
Science Fiction Angels Who Are Really Aliens in Disguise
The Left Behind books (and movies) are one of the most popular edge-cases in the science fiction world. They’re shunned by many SF fans as too cheesily religious, yet embraced by zillions of Christians who made this many-volumed tale of the Rapture and Armageddon into bestsellers. They’re an odd anomaly hovering between great apocalypse scifi … Continued
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io9
Brain Scans Reveal That Inflation Gets You Hot
Inflated prices trigger the pleasure centers in your brain more than fair ones. Not only is the idea of buying something expensive more exciting than buying something on sale, but you’ll actually get more genuine pleasure out of something expensive — even if it’s not worth the cost. A group of social scientists at CalTech … Continued
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io9
A Frozen Water Planet Begins Its Thaw
Amado Becquer Casaballe is a photographer who recently had the chance to work on an ice-breaking ship as it floated around Antarctica. He wanted to capture the beauty of this frozen desert before climate change transforms it forever. His images of glowing icebergs and shattered glaciers are truly otherworldly. You can see some in our … Continued
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io9
Hearts from Dead Bodies Made to Beat Again
Hearts removed from dead rats started beating again after several days in a lab. No, it wasn’t caused by that bright green serum from Re-Animator — it was real science at work, and it could mean heart transplants are about to get much, much easier. A completely “dead” heart can be coaxed into beating on … Continued
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io9
Cybervertising Proves Cyber May Not Be So Punk Anymore
Last week we asked you which science we should “punk” next because cyberpunk is, well, not very hardcore any more. And here’s proof. We’ve rounded up six commercials saturated in cyberpunk imagery, including ones for a Hummer SUV, Phillips razors, Mountain Dew, a dairy company, and of course the PS2. I think it’s safe to … Continued
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io9
Rabies Virus Delivers Drugs to Your Brain
As we all learned from watching I Am Legend, scientists are now using virus shells (the hard and pointy outside of a virus that you see here) to deliver gene-tinkering drugs to your body as swiftly as possible. Virus shells are the perfect delivery system because the little bugs are designed to latch onto your … Continued
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io9
How Should io9 Deal with Spoilers in Posts?
Spoilers are a weirdly divisive issue among science fiction fans. Some of us love to know the endings to movies, books, and TV shows before we dive into them; others want to know absolutely nothing before plunging into a story. We’ve had a few grumpy emails from io9 readers who aren’t happy with how we’ve … Continued
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io9
The Best of io9 Last Week
On io9 last week, we explained the five marks of Clinton-Era science fiction, identified five potential alternate histories of New York City that nobody has written a scifi novel about yet, gave you a NSFW peek at the greatest scifi porn of all time, debated which are the best zombies of science fiction, and told … Continued
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io9
Bad Movies Are Changing the Shape of Your Brain — Literally
Those Godzilla movies and Mork and Mindy reruns you grew up watching have altered the way you think on a biological level. At least, that’s the implication of a controversial new study MIT researchers announced today, which showed that culture changes the way your brain is wired, and how you think about visual problems. In … Continued
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io9
Tinkering with the Sleep Gene
Why do our brains need sleep? And can we switch off the genes that make sleep necessary? Medical researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say that they’ve located a gene that regulates sleep, and if they can switch it on and off it’s possible that you’ll be able to take a pill to eliminate your … Continued
Annalee Newitz
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