Three Ways to Reduce the Ocean’s Garbage Gyres (And One Way Not To)

You’ve heard about the ocean’s garbage patches, swirling with tiny pieces of plastic. Now there are several organizations and inventors working on cheap, simple ways to reduce ocean garbage — and some of them are already working. Photo of inner harbor water wheel by Andrew Thaler. Over at Deep Sea News, Kim Martini has a…

Why We Deserve More Bisexual Characters On Television

Today we learned that, in addition to losing his precious cigarettes the TV version of John Constantine will see his bisexuality downplayed, and some of you chimed in with reasons why Constantine should have both male and female lovers. In response to one Hellblazer comics reader who noted that they never realized that Constantine was…

Chris Pratt Was Turned Down For The Roles of James Kirk And Jake Sully

Guardians of the Galaxy doesn’t come out until next month, but we’re already pretty sure that Chris Pratt is our new space-opera hotness. And if things had turned out differently, he could have starred in Star Trek. Or Avatar. This weeks’ big Entertainment Weekly cover story about Pratt mentions an odd tidbit — he tried…

Masters of Sex Is Trying to Do Something That’s Almost Impossible

I am obviously the target audience for Masters of Sex because I love romances involving repressed men, but I am also a fan of hot sex scenes and laboratory dramas. Last night’s premiere, however, reminded me that this show does something even harder than creating a story about kinky/repressed geeks. Spoilers ahead. This season is…

Horns Trailer Shows Off Daniel Radcliffe’s Dark Side

Adapted from the Joe Hill novel, this new teaser trailer for Horns shows Daniel Radcliffe in a whole new light—a darker light, and with horns. He looks great. The premise is twisted: “Horns,” a supernatural thriller driven by fantasy, mystery and romance, follows Ig Perrish (Radcliffe), the number one suspect for the violent rape and…

Two genetic programs have been discovered that turn stem cells into blood. The method, which mirrors the way blood is produced in the body, allows researchers to make both white and red blood cells. Encouragingly, the researchers produced 30 million blood cells for every million stem cells. Image: eurostemcell

Journey Underground to These Eye-Poppingly Incredible Old Mines

Want to know what it would be like to live in a subterranean world? Visit these incredible old mines and see how the Morlocks live. Turda Salt Mine (Salina Turda), Romania, operated between the 2nd century, abandoned in 1932, reopened for tourists in 1992. More than three billion tons of salt was mined here. One…

Here’s The Best And Worst Of The Last Ship In One Short Video

There’s a lot to love about The Last Ship, the TV show about the crew of a heroic Navy destroyer trying to save the world from a global pandemic. But there’s a lot that makes us roll our eyes so hard, we get a headrush. See both aspects of the show in one brief clip.…

True Blood Brings Back Everything We Love About This Series

OK, now that was a very good episode of True Blood, mostly because it ended a lot of annoying story lines that no one cared about in favor of delivering piping hot fan service—and one reveal so fantastic it almost caused me to throw both my wine and my cat. Getting right down to business…

What’s The Weirdest Comic Book Adaptation Of All Time?

Everybody knows it’s hard to convert comics to movies, TV or prose fiction. There’s just something about the dynamic storytelling in comics that’s hard to capture in other media. But what’s the most bizarre comics adaptation of all time? Please include a picture or clip (or book cover) for your chosen weird adaptation. And please…

io9 Newsstand: Best Short Stories for the Week of July 7 – 12

Summer reading — is it really a thing once you leave primary school? People seem to think it is, from all the summer reading lists that pop up around this time of year. But in between plowing through the novels in your to-read pile, don’t forget to pick up or download some magazines as well.…

​A Man Challenges Time Itself To Save His Wife In Comic Epic Ei8ht

Rafael Albuquerque is best known for his haunting art on Vertigo’s American Vampire comics, but he’s running out of time (literally!) in Ei8ht, co-written by Mike Johnson, and due out next February from Dark Horse. We’re thrilled to announce and reveal the first details regarding this chronally challenged scifi epic. io9: What can you tell…

​The Real Reason the Pentagon Has Downgraded the Iran Missile Threat

An unclassified excerpt of a Defense Department document reveals a subtle, but significant, change in language, which suggests that Iran’s intercontinental ballistic missile technology does not pose an imminent threat to the U.S. This year’s Annual Report on Military Power of Iran opens with a two-page executive summary that notes, “Iran has publicly stated it…

How To Distract People Into Accepting Propaganda

Propaganda is all about seizing your attention and your will. It turns out, though, that a few moments of distraction can actually enhance the effectiveness of some types of propaganda. Here’s how distracting people can be as good as convincing them. Propaganda is meant to put across a single point, relentlessly and clearly. It’s meant…

The Strange Real-Life Origins Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are about to take their third trip to the big screen, but they began their lives as a whimsical sketch in a comic book studio. In this excerpt from his book Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History, cartoon historian Andrew Farago reveals the comic book origins of the…

Game Of Thrones Characters And Their Historical Doppelgangers

The digital curators at the National Library of France have scoured their massive collection of photos and drawings from across the centuries to prove, once and for all, that everyone has a lookalike — even imaginary characters, like the stars of Game of Thrones. Or Smeagol and Shrek. Top image: François II and Prince Joffrey…

Does It Matter That The TV Version Of Constantine Is Straight?

This fall is seeing a huge crop of comic-book TV shows, and one of the most promising is Constantine. The trench-coated antihero who copes with the unsavory side of magic is getting a more faithful portrayal. Except he won’t smoke. And now we’re hearing his sexuality will be toned down too. Does it matter? At…

North America’s First Foragers Hunted These Elephant-like Creatures

A recent archeological dig in Mexico shows that gomphotheres — an extinct elephant-like animal believed to have disappeared from North America long before humans got there — actually roamed the continent longer than previously thought. Incredibly, the new evidence suggests these large mammals were hunted by the Clovis people. The earliest known foragers to populate…

Science Conclusively Determines The Best Kind Of Slapstick

There’s an old adage about humor: Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. Nobody’s that interested, and the frog dies. It turns out that some people really are that interested. Here’s a quick experiment that tries to figure out, scientifically speaking, which sort of slapstick is funnier. Frog Image: Ren West Lambert Deckers and…

Pentagon Successfully Demonstrates Self-Guiding Sniper Bullets

A DARPA-funded project has successfully demonstrated a .50-caliber sniper round capable of maneuvering during flight in order to maintain a fix on its target. Called EXACTO, the bullet is optically guided to the target by a laser, allowing for accuracy up to 1.2 miles away. Headshots will never be the same. EXACTO stands for Extreme…