Should solitary confinement be considered a form of torture?

To virtually no one’s surprise, scientists are increasingly finding that solitary confinement induces a host of psychological and physiological problems in prisoners. The time has come, say a growing number of concerned citizens, to call it for what it really is: Torture. Top image: Steve McQueen in Papillion (1973) A pair of recent articles have…

Bizarre GMO wheat mystery in Oregon

A farmer in Oregon recently discovered unkillable wheat in his fields. He’d sprayed the whole field with a pesticide called Roundup, but this patch of wheat wouldn’t die. Convinced he’d discovered a new super-wheat mutation, he sent some to a scientist. Carol Mallory-Smith was that scientist, an expert in weeds, who immediately knew that the…

Is the book industry sexist or just starved for great women authors?

There’s a huge gender divide in speculative fiction publishing — especially when it comes to science fiction and space opera, which are incredibly male dominated. And yesterday, Tor UK’s Julie Crisp wrote a revealing post that started a fascinating discussion. Top image: Cover art of Justina Robson’s Natural History. Crisp’s article basically boils down to…

You Don’t Know Squat About Pacific Rim

You think you know all about Pacific Rim, the robots-stomping-monsters epic that opens tonight? You haven’t even scratched the surface. We went deep inside the making of Pacific Rim and talked to the stars and VFX crew, plus director Guillermo del Toro. And we learned the Pacific Rim secrets they didn’t include in the trailers.…

Decapitated worms regrow their heads with old memories intact

It’s hard to let go of some memories, even if your head has been chopped off. Well, at least if you’re a flatworm. When these tiny critters are decapitated, their heads and brain eventually grow back. But more remarkable than that, so too do their previous memories. Scientist who study planarian flatworms have known for…

New Star Trek comic to explain those darned 1990s Eugenics Wars

Khan Noonien Singh was truly the greatest genetically enhanced soldier who fought in the Eugenic Wars of the 1990s — the only problem is that no one seems to remember them happening. IDW will try to correct this problem by releasing Star Trek: Khan, a comic that explains whatever the hell happened. Regular readers might…

Astronomers have discovered a blue planet beyond our solar system

In a major breakthrough, researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope have seen the true color of a planet outside our solar system. HD 189733b, as the gas giant is called, is blue. A deep, vibrant, cobalt blue. And just wait til you hear why it’s that color. An international team of researchers led by Oxford…

We asked the writer of Sharknado some very serious questions

Tonight, Syfy debuts the greatest shark disaster epic since Sharktopus. It’s called Sharknado. And yeah, it’s about a tornado — full of sharks. Thunder Levin wrote the script, and we caught up with him to ask some philosophical questions about this important film that forces us to question the very nature of reality itself. io9:…

An Excerpt from Dave Goldberg’s “Universe in the Rearview Mirror”

The day is finally here! My new book, The Universe in the Rearview Mirror, is being released today! Many of the topics in the book were prompted by all of the great questions from the io9 community, and I wanted to thank you again by offering you this free excerpt. Also, starting right now (2pm…

These RPG Campaigns Will Keep You Busy All Summer Long

The best way to spend summer vacation is playing tabletop RPGs with your friends, obviously. Whether you’re into swords and wizards or prefer technomancers and secret agents, here are eight awesome RPG campaigns to occupy those hazy afternoons and summer nights. The eight role-playing systems here run the gamut, from old-school simulationist dice-fests to more…

I dearly love Joss Whedon, but everything Buffy the Vampire Slayer did, Xena: Warrior Princess did first. Read the rest of this epic comment here.

Why does this fire keep burning, even after you smother it?

Want to see a fire that’s so determined that it will burn merrily away even though you rob it of oxygen? Then grab a big block of dry ice and some magnesium and prepare for horror! …and cool visual effects. Dry ice, which is carbon dioxide in its frozen form, is generally a great way…

Oh, good, Day of the Dead is getting remade… again

George Romero’s Day of the Dead didn’t exactly burn up the box office when it came outin 1985, but it was a smash compared to the very loosely adapted “remake,” which was released straight-to-DVD in 2008. But someone is remaking it again, so maybe the third time will be the charm (probably not, though). The…

10 Science Fiction TV Spin-offs That Are Great in their Own Right

Soon enough, we’re going to be watching spin-offs of The Vampire Diaries and Once Upon a Time, proving that too much of a good thing is never enough. Spin-offs often seem like pointless cash grabs — but there have been some fantastic exceptions. Here are 10 science fiction and fantasy spin-offs that actually rule. 10.…

Sophisticated chatbot poses as teenage girl to lure pedophiles

Spanish researchers have developed an advanced — and extremely convincing — chatbot that poses as a 14-year-old girl. Called Negobot, the system will help authorities detect sexual predators in chatrooms and social networks. To sniff out pedophilic behavior, the “conversational agent” utilizes natural language processing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and even game theory — a…

Prepare for a Nerf apocalypse with the new Zombie Strike line!

Who says the zombie apocalypse can’t be fun? io9 is proud to bring you the exclusive reveal of Nerf’s awesome new Zombie Strike line, featuring shotguns, crossbow, swords and more. All aspiring zombie hunters are going to want to get their hands on these ASAP, so check out the entire 2013-14 line-up! Above is the…

Holy crap this waterspout is enormous

A positively massive and downright otherworldy waterspout vortex formed over Tampa Bay, Florida on Tuesday. WDRB meteorologist Jeremy Kappell shared the above photograph to Facebook. Said one commenter: “Thats freakin aliens stealing our water………” In fact, waterspouts are just non-supercell tornados that form over water. Via the American Meteorological Society: Waterspouts occur most frequently in…

The BBC’s Doctor Who docudrama gets the first Doctor exactly right

Shockingly, that’s not an old picture of William Hartnell as the first Doctor. That’s actor David Bradley as Hartnell, in the first promo picture for Mark Gatiss’ An Adventure in Time and Space, the docudrama retelling the creation of Doctor Who. Bradley — who you might recognize as cranky janitorial staffer Argus Filch from the…

What is the evolutionary advantage of death?

Taxes may be inevitable, but death is an evolutionary puzzle. Owl skeleton photographed by mugley, via The Conversation We are all getting older. The average human lifespan has doubled in the past one hundred years, prompting claims that 60 is the new 40 and 50 the new 20. But decade relabelling aside, we are still…

Futurama gets a current event just right

“The Inhuman Torch” shows off how fun Futurama is when it features a great parody of current events. It stumbles, a little, when it comes to the relationships in the show — but at least it has Zapp Brannigan. It starts with Zapp showing off his trademark incompetence as he collapses a mine shaft into…