Annalee Newitz

As cities grow, their populations become more diverse — on a species level. As we move into the future, many wild animals will be living in urban areas alongside humans and their pets. Now, urban planners are figuring out new ways to make urban species diversity possible — without killing anyone.

Your Bio-Engineered Penis Is Almost Ready

Using advanced techniques in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, doctors in the U.S. are reporting their first successes with lab-grown penises. They’ve worked in rabbits, and now scientists say they’re ready to begin testing the penises on humans. A group of researchers at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina are in…

Nickelodeon Expert Says the Channel Has Become “Too Diverse”

Mathew Klickstein is the author of a new history of Nickelodeon, Slimed: An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age. And he recently explained that a big reason why that “golden age” ended is because the shows became too racially diverse. Really? In an extensive interview with Pilot Viruet at Flavorpill, Klickstein explained why the 1990s…

Real-Life Blood Sucking Animals Are Everywhere

Whether you’re on land, at sea, or in the air, you’ll meet animals who thrive by drinking blood. Some of them even want to drink yours. Photo via MBARI

How to Understand What You’re Seeing in Aerial Pictures of Whales

This is a fascinating interview with marine scientist John Durban, who explains how his team is using drones to monitor the health of killer whales in the waters off the coast of California. The best part is that he shows us how to understand what we’re seeing in aerial photographs of the whales. Some of…

When Bears Fought Beside Mechs to Defend Warsaw

They always say that the mechs helped defeat the National Libertarian Army back in the 2120s, but that’s because they don’t remember the bears. The ursine forces were what finally drove those bastards out of Poland, with claw marks on their faces. Hamburg concept artist and illustrator Jakub Rozalski says that this image is his…

On Person of Interest, the Machine Gets Its Groove Back

I never thought I would be so glad to see a user interface as I was when I saw the Machine’s familiar dashed boxes around everybody’s heads on last night’s Person of Interest. Things are getting back to normal, despite Samaritan, and we even got to see Fusco and Finch playing against type for once.…

Haunting Cave Paintings in Indonesia Are the Oldest in the World

This stencil of a graceful, outstretched hand was discovered in a cave on an Indonesian island. And now we know that it’s more than 39,900 years old. That makes it the oldest painting in the world, at least so far, and shows that humans in Asia developed symbolic expression at the same time as humans…

Why History Should Replace Economics in the 21st Century

Fifty years ago, historians advised politicians and policy-makers. They helped chart the future of nations, by helping leaders learn from past mistakes in history. But then something changed, and we began making decisions based on economic principles rather than historical ones. The results were catastrophic. Photograph of dust bowl survivors, by Dorothea Lange According to…

Dreaming of a World Full of Winged Dinosaurs

Imagine a Cretaceous forest, blazing with sunset, where the flying creatures settling down to sleep are four-winged Microraptors. It might look something like this. I adore this illustration by artist and sculptor Angela R. Connor, which she has dubbed Micronaptor (because of course). You can see more of her gorgeous art, depicting animals both alive…

To perfect the birth control pill, doctors lied to their patients. That was pretty much the only way they could test a drug that was illegal at the time it was being developed. On NPR today, you can listen to an interview about the fascinating history of the Pill with Jonathan Eig, who just published…

Maps of City Growth Over the Past Century Are Actually Shocking

It’s one thing to know that cities are growing larger, and that over half the human population lives in a city. But when you see these maps charting the growth of megacitiessince the early 1900s … well, it’s stunning. It’s especially incredible when you realize most cities exploded in size over the past 50 years.…

How Hard Can a Robot Hit You Before It Becomes Illegal?

This is a question that is already becoming relevant as robots enter the workforce in larger numbers. And the answers proposed by standards bodies are about as strange as it gets. Over at Technology Review, Tom Simonite reports on a discussion at last week’s Robot Industry Association conference about new rules for robot safety proposed…

A Viscous Arm of Plasma Punches Its Way Out of the Sun

Last week, a solar flare flashed on the surface of the sun, just as our star erupted with a massive amount of burning ejecta. The twin explosions, captured by a NASA satellite called the Solar Dynamics Observatory, make for a gorgeous and violent portrait of our sun. NASA explains: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this…

The Real Top Predator of the Dinosaur Age Was Not T. Rex

Deinosuchus could snack on T. rex for dinner. That’s how badass this ancient ancestor of the American alligator was. In this short video from Brian Switek, author of My Beloved Brontosaurus, you’ll find out exactly how the perfect predator came to rule the swamps of Utah 75 million years ago. This is part of a…

Why Are Scientists Always the Bad Guys in Movies?

You just can’t have a dystopian science fiction film without some evil scientists lurking behind the scenes — or even right out front. Remember the good old days when Satanists and corporate overlords were responsible for everything terrible? Why are scientists turning into bad guy clichés? It’s one of those things that has become so…

The Cartoon That Shocked Me Into Realizing Animation Wasn’t for Kids

We know that animated stories and movies are for people of all ages. And yet — many kids are raised on a diet of cartoons. Which means that at some point, every kid realizes that cartoons can be just as scary and bewildering as grown-up live action tales. What cartoon gave you this realization? For…

What’s So Bad About Danish Sperm?

Danish sperm may be the lowest quality sperm in the world. At least, that’s one data point you could pull from a study of how alcohol consumption affects sperm counts. The researchers — Danish, of course — call the results “troubling.” Over at the Washington Post, Rachel Feltman reports: In the study, men who drank…

Yes, science fiction can save the world. That’s the subtext (or just the plain old text) of this new collection of articles at Slateabout why we need science fiction to spur our creative efforts and next great scientific collaborations as a species. Spend the afternoon reading them all!

New Comic About 17th Century Slave Trade Brings a Samurai to Mexico

Cimarronin is about silver, sword-fighting and slavery in 17th-century Mexico. The comic grew out of an all-star collaboration between scifi writers Neal Stephenson and Mark Teppo, science writer Charles C. Mann (1491), and artist Robert Sammelin. We’ve got a sumptuous preview. What’s truly great about this detective adventure following a samurai in Mexico is that…