Annalee Newitz

Iain M. Banks: Humans Could Join the Culture via Genetic Engineering

Apparently scifi author Iain M. Banks (Matter, Consider Phlebas) believes that future humans could conceivably reach the advanced techno-political state of the Culture, a vast, intragalactic society he describes in several of his novels. And we’ll get there via designer babies. Over at Biology in Science Fiction, Peggy quotes the author saying we’ll become like…

Is the world ready for DJ Spock? Hard to say.

Three Kinds of Mindwipes that Are Popular in Hollywood This Year

Click to viewCall it the year of mindwipe chic. Coming up on TV in midseason, we’ve got Joss Whedon’s new show Dollhouse, about “actives” whose personalities are wiped and replaced for each job they do. And in the fall we’ve got the debut of My Own Worst Enemy, where Christian Slater plays a nice guy…

Drug Lords Hire Professional Chemists in Afghanistan

It’s a science job of the future: Primary researcher in the lab of a drug lord. Aspiring chemists from Iran, Turkey and Pakistan are immigrating to Afghanistan, where there are jobs for highly-educated scientists willing to oversee heroin production. According to the Financial Times, “Christina Orguz, Afghanistan country director of the UN Office on Drugs…

Every Possible Way to Look Horrible

After overdosing on supervillain musical Dr. Horrible for pretty much two weeks straight, you’re probably ready to move on to the next stage: Fashion purchases. You know, like costumes. J!NX, which provides the world with so many awesome fannish and hackish t-shirts, has every tee you need to dress like penistastic hero Captain Hammer, as…

Why Alice Ain’t Married Anymore

I adored Resident Evil: Extinction, the third in the series of movies starring Milla Jovovich as the bio-engineered, satellite-controlled ninja Alice. She has to fight evil computers, plus all the zombies created by a virus that’s escaped from the evil R&D mad science outfit Umbrella Corporation. But to fully appreciate why Alice is so badass,…

How We’d Give Farscape a Battlestar-style Reboot, and Make a New Hit

After chatting briefly with the extremely nice (and still-ultra-hunky) Ben “Farscape” Browder at Comic-Con, I realized what society needs most right now: A reboot of 1990s space opera Farscape. Supposedly the Sci-Fi Channel is airing 10 Farscape webisodes, but those have yet to materialize and besides they are not enough. There are a lot of…

They’re Putting Anti-Aging Enzymes in the Water

Click to viewWithin about 10 years, you might be drinking anti-aging enzymes with your bottled water. California biochemists have a plan to keep the world younger and healthier by using nanotech to deliver an enzyme called CoQ10 to our drinking water. This coenzyme is naturally produced by the body, but in smaller and smaller amounts…

One Last Chance to See Dr. Horrible Free Online

Hulu TV is running the full three acts of Joss Whedon’s supervillain musical Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog today for free. Catch it today, and then buy the DVD that Whedon’s brother Jed Whedon told Comic-Con fans would be coming soon, crammed with extra features. Plus, we now know that Whedon is planning to do more…

Joe Morton Says Frankenstein Is Not a Nerd

Joe Morton plays Henry Deacon on mad scientist show Eureka, and his character is in many ways the moral center of the show. One of the most brilliant scientists in town, he’s suffered great personal loss and prefers to spend his time tinkering in a garage in greasy overalls rather than stuffed into a white…

Two Men and a Dalek Mask Arrested in Weird Ex-Girlfriend Kidnapping Plot

Poor James Wakefield just wanted to reawaken his ex-girlfriend’s affections after she dumped him last December. And he figured the best way to do it would be to pay his friend James Rawson £20,000 to don a Dalek mask with voice-changer, kidnap his ex, and take her out to the woods. After the Dalek-masked Rawson…

A Floating Ecopolis for the Age of Rising Seas

When climate change allows oceans to wash over the lands we once called home, you’re going to want to immigrate to one of the ecopolises that Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut created for his LILYPAD concept project. Callebaut’s cities will float on the oceans swollen by the water from melted icebergs, and produce their own foodstuffs…

Comic-Con 2008 Wrapup: Get the Big Fat Summary of All the Shinest Things We Saw

Comic-Con was psychotic, exhausting and wonderful. We’re sorry if you got turned away from our packed io9 panel on “science fiction that can change your life,” but we’ve summarized it to mollify you. More importantly, we’ve broken down our coverage from Comic-Con into bite-sized, easily-navigated chunks below. Find out what we discovered about everything from…

Exclusive: Nathan Fillion Explains Captain Hammer’s Superpowers

Click to viewIf you watched Joss Whedon’s web series Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog, you know all about the sorta dicky good guy Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion). He’s got rubber gloves, a t-shirt with a hammer on it, and nebulous powers of . . . something. I mean, we know he’s supervillain protagonist Dr. Horrible’s nemesis.…

Gualagon Likes to Swim in Moonlight, Take Walks in the Sun, and Eat Power Stations

A bunch of kaiju-loving Germans have created a strange radio play about a giant monster named Gualagon, who looks like Cthulhu having a bad eye day. While the story of Gualagon exists only in audio format right now, the group who created the “Frankensteins Schreckensgigant” (or Frankenstein’s Giant Horror) had whipped up a little CGI…

JJ Abrams Tells io9 How to Make a Monster Awesome

After JJ Abrams had finished answering all the official questions about his new series Fringe, and his upcoming Star Trek prequel, I had just one crucial burning question left. About monsters. Abrams is known for being a monster-lover — after all, he helped conceive of Clovie from Cloverfield — and I needed to know just…

Leonardo DiCaprio Channels Rod Serling

Apparently Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company Appian Way is hunting down script ideas for a Twilight Zone movie. We’d love to see DiCaprio as Rod Serling — we know he can do mid-twentieth century weirdos, after Catch Me If You Can and The Aviator. Obviously he’s getting into the mytho-scifi groove, since he’s also rumored to…

Fringe Will Be Dark, and Clues About It Are Already Out There

In the panel devoted to JJ Abrams’ new spooky mytho-scientific show Fringe, Abrams revealed that there are already a lot of clues about the show floating around out there, but that he won’t reveal what they are or where you can find them (those “non-humans banned” signs, leading to a mystery URL around Comic-Con aroused…

Can Science Fiction Lit Keep Up With High-Tech Changes?

Comic-Con took a break from media frenzy to have a thoughtful moment with a panel featuring some of the most interesting contemporary science fiction writers in print right now: Robert J. Sawyer (Rollback), Ann Aguirre (Grimspace), Tobias S. Buckell (Ragamuffin), Alan Dean Foster (author of more than 100 books), Charles Stross (Saturn’s Children), and John…

Enter the Dollhouse with Joss Whedon, Eliza Dushku, and Tamoh Penikett

One of the most eagerly-anticipated series to hit airwaves early next year will be Joss “Firefly” Whedon’s Dollhouse, starring Eliza “Buffy” Dushku and Tahmoh “BSG” Penikett. It’s the tale of “actives,” people who volunteer to have their personalities wiped and new ones implanted for clients who need special tasks done (from romantic ones to spy…