Michael Reilly, Author at Gizmodo

Regrowing Fingers Using Pig Bladders

Lee Spievak regrew his fingers from powdered big bladders. While tinkering with his model airplane two years ago, Spievak accidently sliced a half inch off of the middle finger on his right hand — nail and all — in the propeller. Doctors told him he’d never get it back, but his brother Alan sent him…

io9 Michael Reilly May 1 '08

Saturn Thunderstorm Would Fry Earth in a Hurry

When other planets do storms, they do ’em right. The Cassini spacecraft snapped photos of this monster thunderstorm on Saturn that’s been raging for five months now, each lightning bolt packing 10,000 times more juice than it’s Earthly counterparts. Jupiter’s still got the illest storm in the solar system with it’s almost four-century old Great…

io9 Michael Reilly May 1 '08

Coming Soon: Recycled Electricity

What if, instead of using energy once we could recycle it? A new way of generating electricity from truck traffic at the Port of Oakland in California is doing just that, a promising step toward the coming electricity cycle. Nature is defined by cycles — the water cycle, the carbon cycle, and so on. Humans…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 30 '08

Fake DNA Will be Scaffolding for Next Gen Nanotech

The building blocks of life just got a little weirder. Natural DNA strands are also a favorite construction tool for nano-engineers because of its tendency for individual strands to automatically bind to one another, snapping into a range of useful shapes, like the famous double helix design. Now scientists at Arizona State University have taken…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 30 '08

Seawater Crops Could Solve Food, Water Shortages

Imagine going to the beach, looking out across the ocean, and seeing an endless stretch of…tomato plants. Those days may still be years off, but the case for using seawater for farming is getting stronger. Italian researchers reporting in the Journal of the American Chemical Society say that when tomato plants are watered with a…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 29 '08

US Army Sargeant Volunteers Unit to be First Colonial Marines

Being a member of the US military in Afghanistan takes it’s toll after a few years. So last week, Sergeant First Class William Ruth of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division proposed an alternative mission for his soldiers: let them be the first humans to colonize another planet. In his letter (below) to an editor at…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 29 '08

The Ancient Apocalypse

Finally, a reason to think we’ll survive the next apocalypse. Last week, a study that traced the origins of humans through mitochondrial DNA concluded that 70,000 years ago humanity underwent its greatest disaster ever. Africa experienced a massive drought at the time and it devastated our population, leaving perhaps as few as 2,000 people alive…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 28 '08

Genetic Discrimination Banned — Gattaca Still Possible?

Yesterday the United States Congress passed the Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act (GINA), which bans health insurance companies and your employers from using your genetic information against you. This is a major step in the right direction, but does it go far enough to prevent a dystopian, Gattaca-style future? The new bill prevents most forms of…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 25 '08

Martian Ice Ages Bolster Case for Life on Red Planet

Just ten million years ago (a geological eyeblink), Mars could’ve had an ice age. Even cooler, it may have been one of several, meaning the planet underwent freeze/thaw periods much like those here on Earth. And that means — you guessed it — the chances for liquid water and life on the Red Planet just…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 25 '08

We Can Stop Global Warming — And Cook Ourselves Alive

Tweaking Earth’s climate to combat global warming seems like a great idea. Giant mirrors or shades in space, artificially enhanced cloud cover, and regular injections of reflective sulfate particles into the stratosphere could all help cool the planet enough for us to ignore all of the CO2 we’re pumping into the atmosphere. But a new…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 24 '08

Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.

Brace yourselves, Battlestar fans: in real life Starbuck would probably be ugly as sin. Think more like a Ferengi, less like a supermodel. So would anyone else from the 12 Colonies, most likely. That’s the implication of a new study of evolution here on Earth, which shows that natural selection can work at break-neck speeds.…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 24 '08

NextGen Wind Power Goes Local

The world needs to figure out its energy problems. Fast. Enter our saviors: a new salvo of gonzo wind power generation systems that break the solution into small, bite-sized parts. From odd, transparent windmills that fit on your urban rooftop (pictured) to handheld devices, wind power might just save us all. And it isn’t just…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 23 '08

X-Prize Hits the Meatpacking Industry

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are putting their money where their mouths are with a million dollar contest to see who can grow edible, tasty chicken nugget meat in a lab by 2012. The prospect of lab-grown meat has a lot of promise, but has been around for years without much progress,…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 23 '08

NASA Mission to a NEO: Bad Idea

Ever since the Columbia disaster, NASA’s been hurting for some good press in the crewed spaceflight program. Agency scientists think they have the answer — sending a crewed mission to a Near Earth Object (NEO) once the new Orion spacecraft begins missions in 2015. What are they thinking?! It’s hard to imagine a worse approach…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 22 '08

Real “Iron Man” Suits are Coming, but are Just the Beginning

“Iron Man” fans rejoice: real exoskeletons are coming. Japanese company Cyberdyne has plans to start selling their model, the HAL-5 Robot Suit later this year. The American company Sarcos has its own prototype out, too, so the race is on for new generations of exoskeletons that can do everything humans an do, only better (and…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 22 '08

Biggest garbage dump: Oceans or Space?

People are good at spreading trash around the globe, and even our vast oceans are starting to fill up with (mostly plastic) refuse. Witness the North Pacific subtropical gyre, a floating trashcan the size of Texas. But outer space is closing the gap, according to a recent article in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 21 '08

New Mexico Spaceport is the new Area 51

If you’re looking for the latest in hush-hush experimental test flights, look no further than the new Spaceport America in Truth or Consequences, NM. Last week local radio station KRQE in Albuquerque reported that Lockheed Martin is running a shadowy operation out of the port, and even got a hold of some pictures of the…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 21 '08

Looking for Aliens in all the Wrong Places

Life doesn’t need water. In fact, all kinds of weird liquids could be solvents for life like water is here on Earth. Scientists say the list of alien water-substitutes is long, from frigid nitrogen to supercritical CO2 to methane to formamide. Whatever inhabits these other liquids would have to take on some truly odd forms,…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 18 '08

Suicide Mission to Mars? Astrobiologists say “No Thanks”

Astrobiologists seem to have trouble putting their money where their mouths are. Generally among the most ardent supporters of planetary exploration, around 2/3 of them got cold feet yesterday at the Astrobiology Science Conference 2008. During a talk entitled “A One-way Mission to Mars,” famous cosmologist Paul Davies asked the audience who among them would…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 18 '08

Failure of the Planet of the Apes Hypothesis

Charley Lineweaver, a scientist with the SETI Institute, argued today that pure human vanity, not scientific evidence, leads us to believe that if humans were wiped off the face of the Earth some other species (probably an ape of some kind) would rise to fill the “intelligence niche” that we Homo sapiens currently occupy. He…

io9 Michael Reilly Apr 17 '08

Michael Reilly

Regrowing Fingers Using Pig Bladders

Saturn Thunderstorm Would Fry Earth in a Hurry

Coming Soon: Recycled Electricity

Fake DNA Will be Scaffolding for Next Gen Nanotech

Seawater Crops Could Solve Food, Water Shortages

US Army Sargeant Volunteers Unit to be First Colonial Marines

The Ancient Apocalypse

Genetic Discrimination Banned — Gattaca Still Possible?

Martian Ice Ages Bolster Case for Life on Red Planet

We Can Stop Global Warming — And Cook Ourselves Alive

Super-Fast Evolution Means Capricans Would be Hideous, Not Hot.

NextGen Wind Power Goes Local

X-Prize Hits the Meatpacking Industry

NASA Mission to a NEO: Bad Idea

Real “Iron Man” Suits are Coming, but are Just the Beginning

Biggest garbage dump: Oceans or Space?

New Mexico Spaceport is the new Area 51

Looking for Aliens in all the Wrong Places

Suicide Mission to Mars? Astrobiologists say “No Thanks”

Failure of the Planet of the Apes Hypothesis

Florida Murder Suspect Reportedly Asked ChatGPT What Happens If You Put Someone in a Dumpster

Canadian Police Arrest Three Men Behind SMS Blaster Scam That Allegedly Hijacked Thousands of Phones

Jury Selection Signals the Start of Elon Musk and OpenAI’s Blockbuster Court Battle

What Would You Have Done on the Season Finale of ‘Invincible’?

‘Rogaine’ in a Pill? Oral Minoxidil Aces Major Hair Loss Trial

Nespresso Clears Out Vertuo Espresso Machine by Breville at 49% Off, Make Cafe-Quality Coffee at Home for Less

Why Dan Stevens Enjoys Being a Weird Genre Guy

Feds Will Start Charging Companies Like SpaceX For Rocket Launches

Leak Suggests Samsung Cribbed Meta’s Smart Glasses Design

Samsung Galaxy S26 for $0? Here’s How Mint Mobile Makes It Happen Right Now

Steam Controller Review: Trackpads Change Everything for PC Gaming

Soundcore Space 2 Review: A Shockingly Stellar Value for Budget ANC Wireless Headphones

Anker’s UV Printer Can Handle Almost Anything… If You Know What You’re Doing

HP’s EliteBoard Keyboard-Computer Proves We Can Stick a PC in Anything

Sleep-Tracking Earbuds Didn’t Fix Me, but They Did Open My Eyes

I’ve Tested a Lot of Bad Smart Glasses and These Are the Worst Yet

Roborock’s Qrevo Curv 2 Flow Is the Ultimate Robot Mop—If You Don’t Have Corners or Walls

Alienware’s $350 QD-OLED Gaming Monitor Nixes Everything for a Pretty Screen

Sony Inzone H6 Air Review: A Perfect Case for Open-Back Gaming Headsets

Anker’s EufyMake E1 Finally Brings Printers Out of the Dark Ages