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What’s it like playing Tintin’s klutzy buddy? Nick Frost gives us the scoop

io9 recently caught up with actor Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), who plays the pratfall-prone Inspector Thomson in Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin. Frost filled us on the motion-capture process, potential upcoming projects with longtime collaborator Simon Pegg, and what it’s like to play a Thompson twin (and no, we’re not…

Movies Cyriaque Lamar

Can you name the stages of human evolution in this circle of skulls?

Science tells us that humans evolved from more ape-like primates, but it’s not every day that so much evidence winds up in one place. The skull replicas on this table belong to a whole slew of distant human cousins and ancestors. Taken together, the contents of this table represent 4.5 million years of human evolution.…

io9 Sophie Bushwick

What’s the relationship between Black Widow and Hawkeye in The Avengers?

The ultimate Dark Knight Rises rumor resurfaces. Weta Digital head Joe Letteri explains how Man of Steel will (literally) take flight. Hear five unexpected candidates for the villain of the Star Trek sequel. Plus a casting update on Ender’s Game! Spoilers from this point forward! Top image from The Dark Knight Rises. The Avengers Scarlett…

Television Alasdair Wilkins

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Is the Worst Possible Movie to Go to Prison Over

Shit just got real in the War on Piracy with a US District Court judge handing out a year-long prison sentence to a New York resident for uploading a single, terrible movie. To be fair, Gilberto Sanchez did somehow get his hands on an unfinished copy of the film that hadn’t yet made it through…

Movies Andrew Tarantola

Picture of the Day: December 19, 2011

TAKE IT TO THE BRIDGE | “Space Bridge” concept art from Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. For more gorgeous T:FoC concept art, head over to Kotaku. Want to read today’s io9 stories a different way? Check out our blog view. Or visit Observation Deck, our general discussion forum.

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

After the Apocalypse is one of the most powerful tales of the near future you’ll read this year

Maureen McHugh’s latest short story collection, After the Apocalypse (Small Beer Press), is a dark look at what the next century might hold for ordinary people. Known for intense, character-driven work in novels like China Mountain Zhang and Nekropolis, McHugh makes even the most extraordinary circumstances feel as real as blood. These nine stories take…

Books & Comics Annalee Newitz

How to kill cockroaches by offering them sex

Researchers who synthesized an artificial sex pheromone have just discovered that it’s most useful application so far is . . . killing cockroaches? Female cockroaches, specifically the wood cockroach Parcoblatta lata, communicate their willingness to mate by releasing a hormone that can travel long distances to attract males. A research team from North Carolina State…

io9 Sophie Bushwick

Brad Bird tells us how it feels to throw Tom Cruise out of a 1,717-foot building!

Yes, it’s true. Tom Cruise did all his own stunts on Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol — including running around on top of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. We interviewed MI:4 director Brad Bird one on one, to find out just how they managed to throw Tom Cruise out of a building, and which…

Movies Meredith Woerner

A Kraftwerk-esque video about evolution and mobile phones

A few years ago, artist Kyle Bean decided to tell the story of how mobile phones came to be the way they are today. The resulting vid reminds me of Kraftwerk, if only the weird German synthpop band had been obsessed with nesting dolls. Watch and be mesmerized. The best part is that these are…

io9 Annalee Newitz

The Most Futuristic Music of 2011

Put away your grandpa-style indie rock sweaters and salute the year’s most futuristic music. By that I don’t just mean music that sounds like it comes from the future (though there’s quite a bit of that); I also mean music that is indicative of larger future trends. Shall we begin? Vektor, “Outer Isolation” Sometimes the…

io9 Phil Freeman

Fish hatcheries super-charge the speed of evolution

When we domesticate animals, we alter their evolutionary development to favor the traits that we find most desirable. Usually, that process takes hundreds, even thousands of years. But fish hatcheries can scramble a species’ genetics in a single generation. In fish hatcheries, thousands of young are born in a tightly enclosed space, a situation utterly…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

How We Will Terraform Mars

NASA’s latest Mars rover, Curiosity, is currently its way to Mars, on a mission to explore whether life could exist there. If we’re going to colonize Mars — and some scientists say we must — it’s likely that we’ll start by terraforming. Terraforming, or planetary engineering, is the process of altering the climate of a…

io9 Jason Shankel

Eating less makes your brain younger

Our brains don’t like being overfed, as obesity can age the brain prematurely and even make it more vulnerable to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Now we’ve discovered the opposite effect: a strict diet turns on molecules that keep the brain young. Scientists searching for the key to extending human lives have put a lot of attention…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

A mathematical impossibility that became possible, thanks to early computer graphics

Turning a sphere inside-out was thought to be impossible for decades. It was officially declared possible in 1958, but remained impossible to picture. It was only until the 1970s, when a graphics expert got involved, that people could finally see the craziest bubbling of a beach ball ever mathematically conceived of. Mathematicians have a certain…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

All multi-cellular life might be descended from a parasitic invasion

Eons ago, two single-celled organisms, a bacterium and an archaeon, combined to form the first complex cell. This symbiosis gave birth to all multi-cellular organisms, but new evidence suggests this wasn’t about cooperation. That bacterium was actually a parasite. Two billion years ago, an archaeon swallowed a bacterium, and for whatever reason it forgot to…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

We break down the new Dark Knight Rises trailer, screencap by screencap

You’ve seen the preview for The Dark Knight Rises and read the synopsis of the teaser footage. Now check out over twenty scenes from the latest trailer with annotations. Anne Hathaway loves symbolism! Possible spoilers. Let’s start with the kid singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Gotham City Rogues football game. Note that they’re playing…

Movies Cyriaque Lamar

Wrath of the Titans trailer promises more monsters, more metal, and more hair

Sam Worthington has grown his hair out into some kind of late 70s/early 80s disaster fluff, Liam Neeson’s beard is beardier than ever, and Marilyn Manson is moaning on the soundtrack. What, you need more than that to convince you that Wrath of the Titans is going to be your new monster-based guilty pleasure? Well,…

Trailers Annalee Newitz

You cannot resist the charms of the rare pygmy hippo, caught on tape

The BBC has posted this footage of the rare pygmy hippo, taken by a zoologists’ group camera trap in Libera. Soak in the cuteness as it delicately chomps its way through the midnight underbrush. These little/big creatures are currently considered an endangered species.

io9 Annalee Newitz

First ever footage from Ridley Scott’s space epic Prometheus

Science fiction’s grandmaster returns with Prometheus — and now the first ever footage has been released! Watch Michael Fassbender and friends, as they’re blasted on grey planets, lit on fire, and sent to explore an extraterrestrial world. And yes, it does have that wonderful dark almost grainy feel that the past Alien films all shouldered.…

Trailers Meredith Woerner

David Fincher reveals the operatic title sequence for his Spider-Man movie that never was

David Fincher is bringing your favorite Swedish hacker girl Lisbeth Salander to life in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo — but he almost tackled Spider-Man instead. In our exclusive interview, the director told us how he would have handled the web-slinger… and walked us through his operatic title sequence in great detail. Fincher has…

Movies Meredith Woerner

What’s it like playing Tintin’s klutzy buddy? Nick Frost gives us the scoop

Can you name the stages of human evolution in this circle of skulls?

What’s the relationship between Black Widow and Hawkeye in The Avengers?

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Is the Worst Possible Movie to Go to Prison Over

Picture of the Day: December 19, 2011

After the Apocalypse is one of the most powerful tales of the near future you’ll read this year

How to kill cockroaches by offering them sex

Brad Bird tells us how it feels to throw Tom Cruise out of a 1,717-foot building!

A Kraftwerk-esque video about evolution and mobile phones

The Most Futuristic Music of 2011

Fish hatcheries super-charge the speed of evolution

How We Will Terraform Mars

Eating less makes your brain younger

A mathematical impossibility that became possible, thanks to early computer graphics

All multi-cellular life might be descended from a parasitic invasion

We break down the new Dark Knight Rises trailer, screencap by screencap

Wrath of the Titans trailer promises more monsters, more metal, and more hair

You cannot resist the charms of the rare pygmy hippo, caught on tape

First ever footage from Ridley Scott’s space epic Prometheus

David Fincher reveals the operatic title sequence for his Spider-Man movie that never was

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

Don’t Get Too Attached to Any AI App

‘Paradise’ Writer Teases What’s Coming in Season 3 After That Huge Twist

Trump’s New White House App Is Mildly Concerning and Weird for a Lot of Reasons

Bloodsucking Ticks Can Survive Inside Your Home Longer Than You Might Think

The Best New Toys of March 2026

Judge Denies Liking LinkedIn Post Critical of Elon Musk But Reassigns His Cases Anyway

Amazon Slashes 50% Off Keurig K-Cup Pod Coffee Maker, Now a Budget Alternative to Breville and Nespresso Espresso Machines

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?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

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