Nivair H. Gabriel, Author at Gizmodo

The Wait for “Top Gun” Virtual Reality Is Over

Let’s be honest: Aerial acrobatics are about as badass as it gets. Unfortunately, they’re not too accessible for the average person without the thousands of dollars and years of training it takes to get a pilot’s license in a high-performance plane. But New Zealand company Air Sports Ltd. envisions a world where we’ll all get…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 19

Sci-Fi Rock Opera is Music to Alien Ears

You probably haven’t been to the opera much recently, and I don’t blame you — the works of Wagner and Mozart just don’t seem to have enough in the way of blinking satellite transmissions, stern spaceship commanders, and crashed UFOs. A group of performance artists from Pittsburgh, however, is out to change that. They call…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 19

Visit the Acropolis, Now Clean in All Light Wavelengths

The ancient ruins of the High City in Athens are covered with soot, dirt, random metals, and crumbling cement from sloppy early restorations. Plus, acid rain and pollution have left many of the Sacred Rock’s monuments deteriorated and forlorn. In attempt to restore the original marble, the Acropolis Restoration Service explored 40 different ways to…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 18

Engineer Your Body Functions with Programmable RNA

This week, scientists at Caltech released the first ever multi-input, “plug-and-play” synthetic RNA devices. You may have heard of Boolean logic gates in computer science, but now synthetic biologists are taking them one step further, creating organic computer programs that control the activity inside your cells. Maung Nyan Win and Christina D. Smolke have formed…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 18

We Saw This Asteroid Coming from a Mile Away

Click to viewWith all the hullabaloo about giant asteroids that could destroy us, we tend to forget the little guy. Luckily, NASA’s Catalina Sky Survey has it covered. Last Monday, CSS astronomers caught sight of an incoming object zooming toward the Earth, and by the time of the asteroid’s impact on Tuesday, NASA engineers had…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 12

A Robot with Pigtails? What Next, Japan?

The creepiest — or most exciting — thing you will see on YouTube today is this new video of the Repliee R-1, an android that just went for its first spin at the 2008 CEATEC Exhibition in Japan. Based on an actual five-year-old girl, this robot can speak, wave, walk, pick things up, and even…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 12

Six Sweaty Moments of Geeky Triumph

If you watch enough high school movies, you’ll begin to think that jocks and geeks are always at war. Not so, however: Science fiction is full of triumphant sports moments, and not just the ones that end in death. From Battlestar Galactica’s pyramid ball to Futurama’s Blernsball to Arthur C. Clarke’s outer space sailing, this…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 11

MIT Professor Stares Down Hurricanes

Biologist and chemical engineer Robert Langer won the $1.2 million Millennium Technology Prize earlier this year for his work fighting cancer and heart disease with advanced drug delivery systems. Now, he’s setting his sights on sinister weather, and he hopes to win. Langer revealed at a recent talk that he has been working for almost…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 11

Radioactive Venom Lengthens Lives, Promotes Tumescence

So here’s one thing you probably didn’t know about Peter Parker: All that spider venom in his bloodstream not only makes him super-powerful, but also keeps Mary Jane satisfied through the night. Yes, you read that right – new research is showing that spider venom could be used to treat impotence. That’s not the end…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 5

Anything Called “Blasphemous Horrors” Belongs on My Wall for Sure

In May of this year, historically transgressive SF monthly Weird Tales launched a year-long tribute to one of its greatest writers, cosmic horror scribe Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Lovecraft’s work fills a lengthy bibliography, and now it can fill the walls of your (no doubt sci-fi-themed) living room as well. Inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos —…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 5

Read SF, Save Money – And Your Country

October 2 was a red-letter day for anyone who reads. After all, it’s not every day that a high-quality, groundbreaking SF publisher offers up a totally affordable package of their entire collection — but on Thursday, Small Beer Press announced that they are doing just that. And their purpose isn’t just to clean out the…

Books & Comics Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 4

Ten New Teams Join NASA Astrobiology Institute

NASA’s Astrobiology Program, which has been exploring the future of life in the universe since 1959, just got bigger. In attempt to further its continuing studies, NASA has awarded grants totaling $70 million for university research over the next five years. Their focus is on detecting signs of extraterrestrial life, on determining and creating the…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 3

Test Yourself for Cancer, HIV, and MS in Fifteen Minutes

Currently, you can take your own temperature, determine the percentage of fat in your body, and even monitor the glucose levels in your blood with handheld devices. In the future, however, you’ll have the power to do a lot more. New biosensor technology from the University of Leeds makes it possible to test for a…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Oct 1

NASA’s Trash and ESA’s Treasure

As our sister site Gizmodo reported yesterday, the European Space Agency’s cargo craft Jules Verne returned from its mission to the International Space Station — and went out in a blazing ball of glory. You all saw the photos yesterday, but now the ESA has released a high-res video of Jules Verne’s destructive re-entry —…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Sep 30

Our Math PWNS Nature’s Swirling Vortices

If someone asked you to mathematically describe the flow of air in this picture, you would probably just blink a lot and smile winningly – or run as fast as possible in the other direction. Even aerodynamicists are intimidated by the challenge of understanding what happens in the boundary layers around airfoils, cars, and golf…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Sep 28

You’re Not As Obsessed with Star Wars As You Think

If you’re looking to while away a ridiculous number of hours on your favorite movie trilogy, you are very much in luck. This Wednesday, Chronicle Books releases the 2500-question trivia game book Obsessed with Star Wars, which should nestle quite nicely in between companion volumes Obsessed with Hollywood, Obsessed with Golf, and Obsessed with Baseball.…

Books & Comics Nivair H. Gabriel Sep 28

British Gamer Killed Over Gaming Grudge

Click to viewIt started as a war between the two fictional countries of Orange Star and Blue Moon. Over time, it became a friendly multiplayer internet game, with armies of various colors fighting for supremacy in a Nintendo-based world. And last week, the fictional war crossed over into reality when 20-year-old gamer Matthew Pyke was…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Sep 27

Check Your Reflection in the World’s Smoothest Mirror

Have you ever wanted to analyze your own blemishes at nanometer resolution? Send rays of helium atoms to smash into specimens of your choosing? Look at a biological sample under a microscope without having to stain it first? You’re in luck, because teams of researchers from Spain and England are out to help you achieve…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Sep 27

10 Amusing Things to Do with Your Genome

Click to viewWith new SMRT DNA sequencing — and that’s Single-Molecule Real-Time, not cutespeak for “smart” — it might soon be possible to get the complete details of your own genome for the price of an iPod. At long last, you’ll be able to prove to the world that you truly are a beautiful and…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Sep 21

Grow Your Own Treehouse, Using Only Air

Some of you may look upon trees as villains after our shocking exposé on the subject, but it turns out that scientists can cultivate trees to bend their branches to our will. Using the technique of aeroponics — growing plants exclusively in air, like tropical hanging orchids — a company called Plantware hopes to build…

io9 Nivair H. Gabriel Sep 20

Nivair H. Gabriel

The Wait for “Top Gun” Virtual Reality Is Over

Sci-Fi Rock Opera is Music to Alien Ears

Visit the Acropolis, Now Clean in All Light Wavelengths

Engineer Your Body Functions with Programmable RNA

We Saw This Asteroid Coming from a Mile Away

A Robot with Pigtails? What Next, Japan?

Six Sweaty Moments of Geeky Triumph

MIT Professor Stares Down Hurricanes

Radioactive Venom Lengthens Lives, Promotes Tumescence

Anything Called “Blasphemous Horrors” Belongs on My Wall for Sure

Read SF, Save Money – And Your Country

Ten New Teams Join NASA Astrobiology Institute

Test Yourself for Cancer, HIV, and MS in Fifteen Minutes

NASA’s Trash and ESA’s Treasure

Our Math PWNS Nature’s Swirling Vortices

You’re Not As Obsessed with Star Wars As You Think

British Gamer Killed Over Gaming Grudge

Check Your Reflection in the World’s Smoothest Mirror

10 Amusing Things to Do with Your Genome

Grow Your Own Treehouse, Using Only Air

See the Early Stages of How ‘Project Hail Mary’ Brought Rocky to Life

‘Cognitive Surrender’ Is a New and Useful Term for How AI Melts Brains

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Marshall Acton III Home Speaker Drops to a Record Low, the Deal Countdown Has Already Started

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

I’m Worried About the Helpless AI Disruptors of the Future

Russia Allegedly Swung at VPNs but Accidentally Hit Its Own Banking Sector Instead

Ryan Coogler Is Shifting ‘Animorphs’ Into a Disney+ Show

No Fooling, ‘Spaceballs 2’ Will Hit Theaters April 2027

I Regret to Inform You That the Artemis II Astronauts Are Having Lots of Screen Time

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

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