Annalee Newitz, Author at Gizmodo

What is a cyborg, and are you one already?

Over at The Atlantic, Tim Maly has summed up the dreams, anxieties and philosophical musings he collected last month though his 50cyborgs project that celebrated the coining of the term “cyborg” a half-century ago. He begins the article with a series of questions: Because the word ‘cyborg’ is 50 years old, we wanted to have…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 6

Posters from planet Zarmina, 100 years after colonization

It’s been a century since we established the first colony on planet Zarmina, in the Gliese system 20 light years from Earth. After scientists discovered its oxygen-rich atmosphere, it wasn’t long before settlers came. And then tourists, and hockey teams. Here you can see a collection of posters celebrating the history, beauty, and outdoor sports…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 6

Why you won’t want to miss space opera gangland in tonight’s Caprica

We’ve seen the first two episodes in the new season of Caprica, which starts tonight. And I’ve got two good, spoiler-free reasons why you need to tune in. First of all, one of the big question marks last season for many people was, “Why do we believe that the Graystones and the Adamas are so…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 5

The io9 Book Club is in session! Let’s discuss “Zero History.”

Welcome to the monthly meeting of the io9 Book Club. This month we read William Gibson’s new novel, Zero History. Jump into comments to get started talking about it! For those unfamiliar with the io9 book club, here’s how it works: You read the book. We create a special book club post on io9 when…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 5

What Clark Kent sees every day on the Metropolis subway

When you have x-ray vision, a trip on the subway means you always know who is behind every newspaper – and what people are carrying in their pockets. Nick Veasey’s photos reveal what lurks beneath the surface of everyday life. See more weird x-ray photography by Nick Veasey via National Geographic

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 5

On Supernatural, changeling babies bring the family together again

Friday’s episode of Supernatural, “Two and a Half Men,” brought the show back into focus by making the Winchester brothers a team again. It also raised more questions about the Campbell hunter crew, and what their creepy agenda might be. Spoilers ahead… Apparently the best way to Dean’s heart these days is to dangle a…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 4

Mutation in one gene can radically change the size of the human brain

Two papers published over the weekend in Nature reveal that human brain size can be manipulated genetically by tampering with just one gene, called WDR62. Mutations to this gene cause microencephaly (MCPH), a condition where humans (and other animals) are born with small brains. In humans, the condition can cause severe disabilities. But, researchers speculate,…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 4

And the winners of the Ig Nobel Prizes for mad science are . . .

Last week, winners of the Ig Nobel prizes for humorous but thought-provoking research were honored in a ceremony at Harvard. Winners included the inventors of a remote-control helicopter whale snot collector, and researchers documenting bat fellatio. Photo by richard_b, of Neil Gaiman and other presenters testing an “emergency bra” (created by a former Ig Nobel…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 4

Explore every glorious, gauge-covered inch of a jet cockpit

Thanks to Scotland’s Museum of Flight, you can look at high resolution photos of every inch of the cockpits of bombers, fighter jets, and the Concorde. Dials, toggles and gauges cover every surface in these tiny rooms. The museum has created an online exhibition where you can get a 360 degree view of the interiors…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 4

Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy

io9 is home to the popular podcast, The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy is an interview/talk show hosted by John Joseph Adams, the editor of Lightspeed Magazine and numerous anthologies such as Wastelands and The Living Dead, along with author David Barr Kirtley, who has published short stories in…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 1

“Let Me In” is quietly disturbing and horrific

Let Me In, the unusual story of a child vampire and the human boy she comes to love, is moody and quiet. It’s a movie whose horror slowly creeps up on you, leaving a profound feeling of disturbance behind. Set in the early 1980s in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the movie is visually swaddled in…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 1

The astrophysicist who discovered Zarmina describes life on “second Earth”

Steve Vogt is the UC Santa Cruz astrophysicist who discovered Zarmina, the first recorded Earthlike planet outside our solar system. He told io9 what a human colony there would be like, and why he believes the planet already harbors life. https://gizmodo.com/astronomers-have-discovered-a-habitable-planet-20-light-5651589 Image by David Hardy I spoke to Vogt at his home in Santa Cruz…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 1

This is a news website article about a scientific paper

In a terrific parody of science journalism on the web, blogger Martin Robbins has written the ultimate generic science article about a recently-published research paper. Complete with random one-sentence paragraph, specious attempt to represent the points of view of special interest groups who know nothing about science, and weasel language where the journalist pretends to…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 1

The incredibly sad tale of a woman and her dragon

This indie short called “Sintel” is a startling combination of cuteness and tragedy. The short was created as a proof-of-concept for an open source 3D animation package called Blender. The Blender Foundation explains: “Sintel” is an independently produced short film, initiated by the Blender Foundation as a means to further improve and validate the free/open…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 1

California State University sends the first creatures from Earth to the asteroid belt

It’s a scifi thought experiment in the form of transient plant art. Author and artist Jonathon Keats, who previously created pornography for trees, worked with California State University to send some cacti and potatoes to Mars and beyond. In theory, at least. Keats is known for his strange experiments with nature, where he only half-jokingly…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 1

The sun was setting and the technobotanists were sailing home

If humans can be cyborgs, why not trees? In this image, we see a future where technobotany has produced organic wind power stations – and many more plant-machine wonders. Created by NL Architects, these windmill trees were the subject, in part, of an essay by Rob Holmes, writing at Mammoth about cyborg arboretums. He begins…

io9 Annalee Newitz Sep 30

When architecture attacks: The Las Vegas death ray

The curved glass facade of the Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas promises a world of climate-controlled luxury. Except if you are poolside, where sunlight reflected and intensified by the building’s shape has been melting plastic and burning people’s hair. According to BLDG BLOG: The surface of the building acts like a parabolic reflector, concentrating solar…

io9 Annalee Newitz Sep 30

What a colony might look like on Zarmina, the newly-discovered “second Earth”

Yesterday scientists announced the discovery of the first Earthlike planet in another solar system. Find out why colonies on planet Zarmina would have a view like this, of a huge sun always in the process of setting. https://gizmodo.com/astronomers-have-discovered-a-habitable-planet-20-light-5651589 Painting by Don Dixon. Officially known as Gliese 581g, we’ve dubbed the first colony on this newly-discovered…

io9 Annalee Newitz Sep 30

Astronomers have discovered a habitable planet 20 light years away

Orbiting a nearby red dwarf star called Gliese 581 are 6 planets. One of them is a rocky ball, bigger than Earth, in the “habitable zone” where water is liquid and temperatures are human-friendly. It’s possible we could live there. Unlike Earth, this planet called Gliese 581g, is “tidally locked” to its star. That means…

io9 Annalee Newitz Sep 29

Explorers discover a lost civilization frozen in tiny sodium crystals

A few years ago, Alan Jaras told a science fiction story on Flickr, using images of crystals he’d photographed under a microscope. He called it MicroWorld. Here are a few of the breathtaking images and the incredible tale they tell. The story is about explorers who land on the tiny world, whose laws of physics…

io9 Annalee Newitz Sep 29

Annalee Newitz

What is a cyborg, and are you one already?

Posters from planet Zarmina, 100 years after colonization

Why you won’t want to miss space opera gangland in tonight’s Caprica

The io9 Book Club is in session! Let’s discuss “Zero History.”

What Clark Kent sees every day on the Metropolis subway

On Supernatural, changeling babies bring the family together again

Mutation in one gene can radically change the size of the human brain

And the winners of the Ig Nobel Prizes for mad science are . . .

Explore every glorious, gauge-covered inch of a jet cockpit

Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Let Me In” is quietly disturbing and horrific

The astrophysicist who discovered Zarmina describes life on “second Earth”

This is a news website article about a scientific paper

The incredibly sad tale of a woman and her dragon

California State University sends the first creatures from Earth to the asteroid belt

The sun was setting and the technobotanists were sailing home

When architecture attacks: The Las Vegas death ray

What a colony might look like on Zarmina, the newly-discovered “second Earth”

Astronomers have discovered a habitable planet 20 light years away

Explorers discover a lost civilization frozen in tiny sodium crystals

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