Annalee Newitz

Read an Excerpt from John Darnielle’s Haunting Novel Wolf in White Van

Wolf in White Van is one of the most intense, engrossing novels about gaming you’ll ever read, and we’ve got an excerpt. Written by John Darnielle, creator of The Mountain Goats, it’s a moody, surreal character study of a game designer whose face was disfigured in a mysterious accident. We reviewed the novel here ,…

Greenhouse gases are increasing at the fastest rate they have in 30 years. That means our atmosphere collected more greenhouse gas in the past year than they have in decades, and ocean acidification is moving faster too. The BBC has a report on this new finding.

Russia Is Building a Star Fort on This Strategic Arctic Island

For decades, Wrangel Island has been classified as a nature preserve. Situated in the icy Chukchi Sea which flows between the Russian and Alaskan coasts, this quiet, hilly island is now home to a rapidly-growing Russian military base comprised of “prefabricated modules” arranged in a star formation. It sounds a lot like the kinds of…

Here’s What You Need to Know About Big Data

What the hell is “big data,” and why does everybody keep saying it will change the future? If you want to understand the answer, you’ve got to get beyond the buzzword and back to the term’s real meaning. In a recent post on UC Berkeley’s Data Science blog, Jenna Dutcher asked several people who work…

If Reddit’s leaders consider themselves a government, is it time to declare Reddit a failed state? That’s what T.C. Sottek is asking over at the Verge, in a thought-provoking essay about Reddit’s failure to control the way its members are abusing women.

8 Things We Can Do Now to Build a Space Colony This Century

Before humans start living in space on a regular basis, there’s a lot of basic science and political agendas that need to advance. We talked to scientists and experts about the fundamental things they think we should do right now, if we want to have a space colony in the next 100 years. Interstellar Mayflower,…

Finally, a Novel That Truly Captures the Intensity of Gaming

Wolf in White Van is a disturbing character study of Sean, a teenager who invents a role playing game that almost destroys him and the people who play it. But it’s also about how gaming is a form of salvation. There’s a dark ambiguity at the heart of this mystery, making it one of the…

A Grisly But Fascinating Tale of the Greatest Medical Revolutionary

Thomas Mütter was a surgeon who would transform the world of medicine. Partly that’s because he invented anesthesia, but mostly it’s because he pioneered the idea of patient-centered treatment. In Dr. Mütter’s Marvels, a fantastic new book by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz about his life, we learn how Mütter transformed a profession known for butchery into…

Why Has the Population of Russia Suddenly Declined by 7 Million People?

Something bizarre is happening in Russia. Between 1997 and 2007, the population declined by 7 million, or 5 percent. These numbers are enormous — they are comparable to wartime losses. What is causing this shocking death toll? Photo by Helen Filatova via Shutterstock Over at the New York Review of Books, reporter Masha Gessen describes…

What Fictional Story Did the Best Job Showing Us Realistic Science?

It’s easy to find stories that get science wrong, but what about the ones that get it right? Tell us which movies, books or TV series represent science realistically, and why. There are really two ways to look at this question. Either the story can represent the scientific process itself realistically — with all its…

The Five Craziest Things Pets Have Ever Swallowed, Revealed in X-Rays

Veterinarians see some crazy things come through their office doors. But perhaps the most entertaining – at least in cases where the animals come out just fine – show up on x-rays. Here are five of the weirdest (and yes, the animals all made excellent recoveries).

What Happens When Scientists Study “Black Twitter”?

A study at USC sponsored by IBM will study “Black Twitter,”trying to figure out what it means for people to form “neighborhoods” online. But has this study become a form of racial profiling, rather than just a sociological investigation? Black Twitter, often invoked with hashtags (including, not surprising, #blacktwitter), can be loosely defined as a…

Now This Is a Space Station I Could Get Used To

Look at those luxurious curves and inverted spires. The gravity may not be perfect all the time, but it’s hard to complain with that view of a ringed gas giant lighting up every window. Dylan Cole is an illustrator and concept artist in Los Angeles, and this image comes from his brand-new children’s book The…

Impostor Cell Phone Towers Could Be Controlling Your Mobile

This map shows the locations of 17 mysterious cell towers in the United States that aren’t part of any known cell phone provider network. Nobody knows where they came from, but they are busily intercepting the communications of any mobile in signal range. What happens next probably isn’t good. Over at Popular Science, Andrew Rosenblum…

Why Do We Build Walls Around Our Cities?

At almost the instant when humans started building cities, we figured out ways to put walls around them. The often violent history behind those walls is still affecting urban life today, in ways you may not realize. Illustration by Mark Molnar In the early 1960s, eminent scholar Lewis Mumford published a massive tome called The…

Kill It. Kill It With Fire.

Unfortunately, we’re running out. Now that the Fire Elementals Union is on strike, the macro-parasites have been getting out of control. I hope the city settles on some terms with the union soon, because we really can’t afford to lose another bridge to the gibbering maws of cosmic darkness. This fantastic monster comes to you…

Have you ever been caught in a “phantom traffic jam,” where cars have slowed down and even stopped for no reason at all? These are a real phenomenon, and they can be hotspots for accidents. In Nautilus, Benjamin Seibold reports on some possible reasons for these mysterious events.

What Logical Inconsistency in a Story Still Bugs You, Years Later?

Sometimes a science fiction or fantasy story makes a logical error so egregious that you can’t let it go. Even years later, it still pops into your head and annoys you. Why did they DO that? Tell us what stories make you feel that way. My pick is a pretty obvious one. How did Darth…

Dramatic Cave Art Confirms that Neanderthals Were Basically Humans

They made jewelry, buried their dead, and left behind haunting abstract paintings on the walls of their caves. Now a new finding in Gibraltar, one of the last regions of the world where Neanderthals survived, is further evidence that Neanderthals had a recognizably human culture. We’ve known for almost a decade that early humans interbred…

People in the U.S. Fear War More Than Economic Downturn

In a national survey, U.S. residents said that the biggest global threat to the country today will come from extremist militant groups or nations. But they nevertheless said that other big threats include pandemics and global climate change. This survey reflects a change from last year. War and violence are rated as a bigger threats…