Alasdair Wilkins, Author at Gizmodo

Superman reboot will be telling its own original story. Plus The Hobbit casts starts to take awesome shape!

We’re jam-packed with spoilers today, as Zack Snyder talks Superman, Damon Lindelof talks Star Trek, Ghostbusters 3 might be a go, The Hobbit casts every awesome British actor ever, The Hunger Games looks for a lead, and much, much more! Superman Reboot: Director Zack Snyder confirmed the rumors that this focuses on Superman’s early days,…

Television Alasdair Wilkins

The stars of No Ordinary Family explain how the show balances comedy and vigilantism

We spoke with Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz, No Ordinary Family’s Jim and Stephanie Powell, and they explained how the show is getting funnier and darker, plus whether we’ll ever see the Powells turn into one big crime-fighting family. Although I’ve been pretty satisfied with the progress No Ordinary Family is making, I asked them…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Your kitchen sink is the perfect model for the event horizon of a white hole

White holes, which are basically reversed black holes, may not even exist in our universe, but you can create a perfect substitute for them in your kitchen. Water flowing from a tap obeys exactly the same laws as white holes. https://gizmodo.com/what-are-white-holes-5545135 White holes are theoretical structures that are essentially time-reversed black holes. While a black…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

The universe might have to end in 3.7 billion years so that the laws of physics make sense

The laws of physics only work in a finite universe, but we likely live in an infinite multiverse. Resolving this discrepancy could mean a 50-50 chance time will end in 3.7 billion years. Yeah, this one’s going to get weird. The problem starts with eternal inflation, an offshoot of the inflationary universe model used to…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Blotting out the Sun to slow down global warming could be outlawed

Blocking out the Sun is being seriously considered as a temporary solution to slow down global warming. But the U.N. might ban these solar shades, perhaps because someone there knows The Simpsons already did it…and it didn’t work out well. The United Nations’s Convention on Biological Diversity is expected to either ban outright or limit…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Omnipresent scifi character actor Mark Sheppard is headed to Doctor Who

The inevitable (and awesome) has finally happened: Mark Sheppard, the man behind Badger/Romo Lampkin/Benedict Valda/Crowley/Manservant Neville/every other shifty but strangely lovable science fiction character of the last decade is playing a “huge role” on the next series of Doctor Who. Apparently having run out of genre shows to appear on in the United States, Sheppard…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Does the Earthlike planet Zarmina actually exist? Some say no.

It’s not a fun question to ask, but anytime a discovery of this magnitude comes along, it’s a good idea to hang on to a little skepticism. So let’s sort through the biggest questions about Earth’s newly discovered sibling. This week, some astronomers have raised doubts over the existence of Gliese 581g, popularly known as…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Magnetar has magnetic fields that are mysteriously intense

Pulsars, or neutron stars, are the universe’s densest objects other than black holes. Special pulsars known as magnetars can have intense magnetic fields up to a trillion times stronger than our Sun…but one strange magnetar has been hiding its powers. All neutron stars are incredibly dense and incredibly magnetized – they pack the mass of…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

The supercomputer that folded a protein

The atoms of proteins move around in incredibly complicated ways, but modeling how all those moving parts fit together is vital to understanding biology. Now, thanks to a supercomputer, you can see every step of the process right here. The image below (you can click it for a larger view) reveals just a portion of…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Airplane food tastes bad because your brain can’t handle the noise

For as long as there have been hack comedians, humanity has pondered the question: “What’s the deal with airline food?” Well, science has figured it out: airplanes are just too damn loud for food to taste good. Generally speaking, it’s not just that airplane food tastes bad – most passengers, when asked, report that the…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Alec Baldwin is joining the Men in Black, plus Jon Hamm might (sort of) get to play Superman after all!

Jack Donaghy, a Bond Girl, a South African alien, a Pussycat Doll, and the reigning queen of internet memes all join the new Men in Black movie. Plus why Oz is the most Robert Downey, Jr. character ever. Spoiler alert! Spider-Man Reboot: Sony is offering no comment on whether the reports about Rhys Ifans playing…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Humanity will need two Earths to sustain itself in just twenty years

At humanity’s present rate of consumption, by 2030 we’ll need the resources of two Earths just to survive long-term. There are really two options: start building another Earth, or drastically change our lifestyles. Which one is supposed to be easier? According to the latest “Living Planet” report from the World Wildlife Fund, Earth’s 6.8 billion…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Making a baby in space could be dangerous for all involved

Any future astronauts here who are hoping to make the first space baby might want to think again – embryonic stem cells don’t act the same way in zero gravity, making successful procreation in space almost impossible. We already know that full-grown adults suffer harmful consequences the longer they stay in microgravity, as prolonged living…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

The platypus knows 80 different ways to poison you

The platypus is Earth’s weirdest creature – famously, 19th century biologists thought it was a hoax when first shown one – and its venom is a hodgepodge too, containing toxins borrowed from snakes, spiders, and even starfish. The fact that the platypus has venom at all is incredibly unusual for mammals, but then there’s very…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

First cores are cold, gigantic protostars…and it looks like we’ve found one

Low-mass stars like our own Sun start life as “first cores,” which is the earliest point where gas and dust clump together to form a coherent structure. They’re an essential part of stellar evolution, but we’ve never seen one…until now. Stars like our Sun can last for many billions of years – the Sun is…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Karl Urban explains the world of the new Judge Dredd, and Zack Snyder isn’t kneeling before Zod…yet!

Zack Snyder is coy about General Zod, but he’s got a clear idea for what he wants to do with Superman. Plus more on the “Brad Pitt in Super 8 rumor,” and Bruce Willis talks two very different superhero movies! Superman Reboot: It’s been rumored that General Zod will be the villain in this movie.…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

No Ordinary Family should really just become a comedy

Last night’s No Ordinary Family found Jim and George chasing ludicrously high-end jewel thieves, Stephanie racing to protect the family’s secrets, and Daphne’s psychic powers destroying lives left and right. It was all a bit silly…but genuinely funny, too. “No Ordinary Ring” marked another improvement on the previous episode, although not as big as one…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Darren Aronofsky is almost certainly doing Wolverine 2, and the Highlander takes on Nic Cage’s Ghost Rider!

We still don’t know which Spider-Man villain Rhys Ifans is playing, but an astute observer has come up with a pretty convincing guess. Yet another actor denies he’s a Batman villain. We’ll be waiting awhile for Kick-Ass 2. Spoilers today! Spider-Man Reboot: We still don’t know which villain Kraven is playing, but there’s some interesting…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Cosmic strings are super-massive, ultra-thin cracks in the universe

Cosmic strings are theoretical fault lines in the universe, defective links between different regions of space created in the moments after the Big Bang. And they might be theoretical no longer – distant quasars show the fingerprints of these strings. Compared to cosmic strings, black holes seem downright sensible. These strings – no relation to…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Exploding dark stars could be the answer to the universe’s accounting problem

The search continues for dark matter, the mysterious stuff that makes up the vast majority of all matter in the cosmos. Although nowadays they’re most likely undetectable subatomic particles, in the universe’s beginnings they could have formed super-explosive dark stars. Dark matter is, in brief, a huge group of unidentified matter that has resisted all…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

Alasdair Wilkins

Superman reboot will be telling its own original story. Plus The Hobbit casts starts to take awesome shape!

The stars of No Ordinary Family explain how the show balances comedy and vigilantism

Your kitchen sink is the perfect model for the event horizon of a white hole

The universe might have to end in 3.7 billion years so that the laws of physics make sense

Blotting out the Sun to slow down global warming could be outlawed

Omnipresent scifi character actor Mark Sheppard is headed to Doctor Who

Does the Earthlike planet Zarmina actually exist? Some say no.

Magnetar has magnetic fields that are mysteriously intense

The supercomputer that folded a protein

Airplane food tastes bad because your brain can’t handle the noise

Alec Baldwin is joining the Men in Black, plus Jon Hamm might (sort of) get to play Superman after all!

Humanity will need two Earths to sustain itself in just twenty years

Making a baby in space could be dangerous for all involved

The platypus knows 80 different ways to poison you

First cores are cold, gigantic protostars…and it looks like we’ve found one

Karl Urban explains the world of the new Judge Dredd, and Zack Snyder isn’t kneeling before Zod…yet!

No Ordinary Family should really just become a comedy

Darren Aronofsky is almost certainly doing Wolverine 2, and the Highlander takes on Nic Cage’s Ghost Rider!

Cosmic strings are super-massive, ultra-thin cracks in the universe

Exploding dark stars could be the answer to the universe’s accounting problem

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