Annalee Newitz

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Find out the dark secrets of Pokky Man in this story from “Classics Mutilated”

If you love classic characters mashed into bizarre horror stories, then you need Jeff Conner’s short story collection Classics Mutilated. We’ve got exclusive art and a short story from the book so you can sample at will. Download the whole story “Pokky Man” here [PDF]. Marc Laidlaw, the author, has this to say: When I … Continued

Tech News

Come to io9’s Time Bending SXSW Party

Want to hang out with stormtroopers from the 501st, sword fighters from the medieval and Renaissance eras, MC Frontalot, and innocent bystanders attending the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas? Then come to our party! SEE the clashing of swords! HEAR the nerdcore stylings of MC Frontalot! DRINK free booze! Time Bender starts at … Continued

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Samuel Jackson vs. Shark – Who Wins?

We were talking earlier today about the fine film that is Deep Blue Sea, featuring deadly sharks and a great moment of Samuel L. Jackson munching. After he delivers a speech about why it’s bad to fight. Deep Blue Sea is about a group of scientists who bio-engineer supersharks in order to cure Alzheimers, and … Continued

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It Came From Beneath the Ice To Destroy the World!

Monsters and supervillains come from a lot of places, but a perennial favorite is the frozen depths. Defrosted Big Bads have been rampaging through books and movies for almost a century, and here are fifteen of the freezingest. The Thing There are two movie versions of The Thing, which is itself based on a short … Continued

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A “Blunt Puncture” Machine That Precisely Measures Condom Reliability

How do condom manufacturers do scientific tests on their wares? Using this machine, apparently, which imitates the circumstances under which “breakage” might occur. According to the scientific paper from Contraception journal that describes this device: Over a period of 7 years, broken condoms returned to a supplier (SSL, Durex) via consumer complaints were examined to … Continued

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A Portable Hard Drive Shredder for Every Office!

Doesn’t this plate of sliced hard drive look delicious? It was created in less than a minute by a refrigerator-sized machine that can slice hard drives up like bread, using 19.8 tons of pressure. Want to see it in action? I’m reporting to you from the Dutch hacker conference Hacking At Random, where I got … Continued

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Tobias Buckell On Eco-Thrillers and Writing Fight Scenes

Fresh off his top-selling novel Halo: The Cole Protocol, Tobias Buckell is turning back to original stories with an eco-thriller called Arctic Rising. He talked to us about that, and why the best fight scenes are short. I sat down with Buckell at WorldCon last week. First we talked about Arctic Rising, and where he … Continued

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Your Oppression Will Be Simulated in “District 9”

New indie flick District 9 is about bureaucrats trying to evict 1.5 million stranded, buglike aliens from a vast slum outside Johannesburg, South Africa. What happens when slum life gets turned into a CGI actionfest? Something that’s almost revolutionary. This essay will contain spoilers. I have already said that I think District 9 is one … Continued

io9Movies

Zontar! You’re Slimy! Use Your Intellect on Me!

A crazy lady points her gun at a hulking thing and delivers a screaming speech right into the camera. Is it a Sam Fuller movie or a Fredric Hobbs movie? Can’t decide? That’s because it’s the amazing Zontar: The Thing from Venus! All you need to know to understand this thrilling confrontation between lady and … Continued

io9Books & Comics

Is Young Adult Fiction the “Slum” of Scifi?

Over the weekend, NY Times science fiction columnist David Itzkoff wondered “how any self-respecting author of speculative fiction can find fulfillment in writing novels for young readers.” This didn’t sit well with the Boston Globe’s Brainiac blogger Joshua Glenn, who writes: “I attempted to disprove . . . Itzkoff’s thesis that people who write speculative … Continued

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The First Child to Have Three Genetic Parents

In three to five years, a baby will be born with two genetic mothers and one father. This could prove to be a boon for polyamorous families of the future who want to have children with more than two parents. A team of British researchers working with embryos have now perfected the three-parent babymaking technique. … Continued

io9Books & Comics

Advance Copy of Iain M. Banks’ New Novel on iTunes

Orbit Books just announced that iTunes UK is making an unabridged audio book of Iain M. Banks’ new novel Matter available a few days before its official release on Feb. 7. If you need something to listen to on your commute, this is it. Action-packed and strange, it’s Iain M. Banks at his world-building and … Continued

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A “Morning Before” Pill to Prevent HIV Infection

In the next decade, people may begin taking HIV medications to prevent contracting the AIDS virus, much the same way people take malaria pills. A somewhat odd study of macaques done by a group of researchers with the CDC demonstrated that two anti-retroviral medications, Emtricitabine and Tenofovir, were relatively successful at stopping HIV-like infections in … Continued

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Israeli Bomb Disposal Robot Has a Terrible Job Cleaning Up After Humans

Yesterday in Israel, a bomb disposal robot inspected the scene of a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in the town of Dimona. The bot is remote controlled, and used an articulated arm to remove the jacket of the alleged bomber to be sure he doesn’t have more explosives on his body. Want to see … Continued

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Robo-Kangaroos from the Terraformed Australian Outback

These robo-kangaroos have evolved to use language (they vocalize through the speakers near their throats), and carry tiny nuclear power generators on their backs. Plus, they’ve got stabilizing actuators on their legs so they can do long-distance hopping. And they look damn stylish with those fingerless gloves. So when are we going to see them … Continued

io9Movies

Seven Reasons Why Australia is the Most Apocalyptic Country

Ever since On the Beach was published in 1957, Australia has been the country we think of when we think “global apocalypse.” That might be because people fantasize it’s the one continent that will escape nuclear fallout. Or because it’s so remote that people north of the equator imagine it as a savage wasteland of … Continued

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Iran Goes to Space with First Successful Satellite Launcher Test

Early this morning Iran launched its first rocket into space. It was part of a test of a satellite launcher that will soon send Iran’s first satellite into space sometime next year. You can hear a countdown and see the rocket zooming up into the sky in this clip from local TV. In an odd … Continued

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Grow Your Own Genetically-Engineered Bacteria

Want to make the goo in a petri dish spell out the words “Hello World”? Now you can. Biopunk provocateur Quinn Norton is writing a five-part series for O’Reilly Radar about how you can start hacking yourself and your friends for fun (and, occasionally, profit). If her excellent introduction to biohacking isn’t enough for you, … Continued

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Will We Drug Soldiers to Make Them Depressed?

Will soldiers of the future be given serotonin depressors to make them depressed and therefore fearless? A new study released Friday shows that people with a low level of serotonin do not “reflexively avoid” bad situations, and are more likely to explore risky and dangerous places. This is a sorry state in everyday life, but … Continued

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A Better Debugger for the Software That Runs Your Cybernetic Heart

Semi-permanent heart pumps like this one are installed in people’s hearts all over the world. The problem is that when these software-controlled pumps fail, the blue screen of death is literally killing people. So researchers at Frunhofer-Gesellsschaft Research, who make a popular model of heart pump (or VAD, for ventricular assist device), have invented this … Continued