Annalee Newitz, Author at Gizmodo

Cool Battlestar and Star Wars Collectables of Yesteryear

Back in the early 1980s, little Derek Powazek collected several cups from Burger King with old-school Battlestar Galactica and Return of the Jedi art on them. Now he’s rescued them from destruction in his family home, and has turned them into lovely portraits of a bygone era in scifi swag. Here are a few more,…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Robot Finds Melting Ice on Mars

Remember that mystery white substance that the Phoenix Lander uncovered beneath Martian soil with its robot arms? Scientists were speculating that it might be salt or it might be ice. Now, a few days later, it’s looking very much like ice. Why? It’s melting, as you can see in these pictures. https://gizmodo.com/mystery-white-substance-but-no-water-yet-at-martian-po-5017355 This represents a…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Fear of a Chocolate Planet

In the lonely days after he’d packed in his bionics from Six Million Dollar Man, Lee Majors starred in a freaky flick called Agency. Released in 1980, after a decade of hallucinatory presidential shenanigans in the United States, the movie is about an evil advertising agency controlled by the U.S. government. Their nefarious plan? To…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Get the Story Blueprint for Pixar’s John Carter of Mars — Free Online!

Andrew Stanton, who directed lonely garbage robot movie Wall-E (hitting theaters next week), is already hard at work on his next Pixar flick. The movie is John Carter of Mars, and now Stanton has confirmed to /Film that the script will be based on one book from the beloved early-20th century series, A Princess of…

Movies Annalee Newitz

Sorry, Californians, It is Unlawful for You to Sequence Your Own Genomes

If you were getting excited about having a company like 23andme sequence your genome for you, it’s time to put a lid on it. Apparently the State of California has decided that people should not be allowed to sequence their own genomes without supervision from a medical professional (despite the fact that many medical professionals…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Best of Sporn: A Love Song [NSFW]

Why does Spore, the new evolution game from EA/Maxis, give us hope for the future of humanity? Because the first thing everybody did with the “creature creator” editor was create a bunch of, shall we say, genitally-oriented organisms. Call it Sporn. EA is unlikely to let you share these creatures with other Spore players, and…

io9 Annalee Newitz

An Office of the Future Held Aloft by Balloons

This office is suspended by two huge balloons, and only the ceiling is preventing it from hovering dozens of feet off the ground and gently drifting in the breeze. Is this a model of an environmentally-friendly office of the future, its energy needs fed by sunlight and wind? Or was it built by people who…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Career in Creatures: A Stan Winston Art Retrospective

Click to viewWith the sad news earlier this week that special effects master Stan Winston had died, Hollywood lost one of its master creature-makers. Though Winston’s studio did do some digital effects, Winston may have been one of the last great artists of the animatronic. With the help of a huge group of artists, sculptors,…

Movies Annalee Newitz

The Abandoned Spacecraft City of San Zhr

There are countless homages to the lost space-age architectures of the 1950s and 60s, but none seems more poignant than these photographs by Craig Ferguson of the abandoned village of San Zhr in Taiwan. These saucer-shaped buildings look like crashed spaceships. Apparently commissioned by the government as a hotel/apartment complex on the north coast, it…

io9 Annalee Newitz

A Gene That Makes You Really Horny for Men

In the ongoing and quixotic quest to discover whether there is a “gay gene,” scientists believe they’ve stumbled across something related. It’s a gene that shows up in gay men and ultra-fertile women. A recent study of families in Italy that contained gay men has revealed that often the mothers and sisters of gay men…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Two New Ways to Access io9

Just in case you have been dying to get more brain implants, we’ve got a couple new ways you can get your io9 fix. You may have noticed on the left sidebar, below all the other text, there’s a little box where you can give us your e-mail and “subscribe to io9.” If you do…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Ridley Scott Admits Little Orphan Annie Inspired Blade Runner

Last weekend in Los Angeles, Blade Runner director Ridley Scott and writer Hampton Fancher spoke at a benefit screening of the digitally-remastered film. Special effects artist and blogger Mojo was there, and gives a great recap the evening, including a brief but friendly spat between Scott and Fancher over whether Deckard is a replicant. Apparently…

Movies Annalee Newitz

Welcome to the Post-Apocalyptic Sex Galaxy

Yes, I meant for that headline to be confusing. You are probably wondering if the sex is post-apocalyptic, or if the galaxy is full of sex. The answer is yes. Our naughty sister site Fleshbot brings good news about a new movie called Sex Galaxy, put together out of weird found footage from old stag…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Absurdist Pro-Science T-Shirts for Every Occasion

Since we were just talking the other day about how intelligent design theory has been creeping into popular culture via movies like The Happening, it’s only fitting that we supply you with an antidote to such culture. Amorphia Apparel, known throughout the galaxy for their absurdist tees devoted to mad science and runaway pterodactyls (see…

io9 Annalee Newitz

When Therapy Goes Bad

Years after seeing David Cronenberg’s psychotic movie The Brood, I could not get this scene out of my head. Nola has been undergoing experimental “psychoplasmics” therapy with Dr. Raglan (Oliver Reed!), trying to deal with rage over her divorce from doughboy Frank. Using psychoplasmics, she winds up literally giving birth to her rage in the…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Human Ovulation — Caught on Tape!

The process of human ovulation has long been shrouded in mystery. We know that once or twice a month, women release tiny eggs from their ovaries into their fallopian tubes, which usher eggs into the uterus. There they either get fertilized by some frenzied sperm, or zoom away during menstruation. But until last week, nobody…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Mystery White Substance, But No Water Yet at Martian Pole

The Phoenix Lander, our favorite robot chemistry lab on Mars, has successfully cooked up some soil in its oven to see if water evaporates from it when heated. So far, no dice. Though the Martian rovers Opportunity and Spirit have found evidence of evaporated water at the equator of the planet, Phoenix hasn’t yet found…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Midwest Emo Boys vs. Giant Monster — Who Wins?

We’ve told you before about Zero Trooper F, a giant monster flick set in a town much like Madison, Wisconsin, and now there’s an action-packed clip from it online as well as a full trailer. Basically it’s the simple tale of a mad scientist having a life crisis while super-soldiers fight a giant monster (see…

io9 Annalee Newitz

What’s Happened to Giant Bug Movies?

Genre movies are like folk tales: hundreds of people tell the same basic story again and again, with little variations and tweaks. Thus part of the pleasure of watching horror or scifi movies, at least for me, is figuring out which things have been tweaked — and which stories are getting retold. I like to…

Movies Annalee Newitz

Original Battlestar Concept Paintings for Cylons, Ships, and Bug People

In the original Battlestar Galactica series, the cylons were created by lizard people, creatures who died off before they could hit the “shut down” buttons on their solider creations. Now you can see those old lizard-made cylons, plus some half-robo, half-bug creatures that the humans fight, in these amazing concept paintings by Ralph McQuarrie (also…

Television Annalee Newitz

Annalee Newitz

Cool Battlestar and Star Wars Collectables of Yesteryear

Robot Finds Melting Ice on Mars

Fear of a Chocolate Planet

Get the Story Blueprint for Pixar’s John Carter of Mars — Free Online!

Sorry, Californians, It is Unlawful for You to Sequence Your Own Genomes

Best of Sporn: A Love Song [NSFW]

An Office of the Future Held Aloft by Balloons

Career in Creatures: A Stan Winston Art Retrospective

The Abandoned Spacecraft City of San Zhr

A Gene That Makes You Really Horny for Men

Two New Ways to Access io9

Ridley Scott Admits Little Orphan Annie Inspired Blade Runner

Welcome to the Post-Apocalyptic Sex Galaxy

Absurdist Pro-Science T-Shirts for Every Occasion

When Therapy Goes Bad

Human Ovulation — Caught on Tape!

Mystery White Substance, But No Water Yet at Martian Pole

Midwest Emo Boys vs. Giant Monster — Who Wins?

What’s Happened to Giant Bug Movies?

Original Battlestar Concept Paintings for Cylons, Ships, and Bug People

What’s Actually the Best Way to Get a Good Night’s Sleep? We Asked Scientists

Game to Lose Online Mode After Its Server Partner Pivots to You’ll Never Guess What

This $400 (Not) AI Keychain Is Pointless, Extravagant, and Weirdly Lovable

New Getaway Means Subaru Has an Electric SUV in Every Size

pCloud Easter Special: One Payment, Lifetime Storage for Entire Family (68% Off)

Getting Stuck Inside a Glitching Robotaxi Is a Whole New Thing to Be Scared of

Artemis 2 Live Updates: Humanity’s Epic Return to the Moon 🔴

NASA’s Artemis 2 Mission Blasts Off

Disney’s Robot Olaf Dying Is the Funniest Thing to Happen in 2026

Kia’s EV3 Is Headed to the US This Year With Up to 320 Miles of Range

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?