4 Maverick Filmmakers You Should Stalk

Screw McG. The most alarming visions of five minutes from now are coming from a handful of filmmakers who bring their weird imaginations to film after film. Here’s a list of four creators you should be obsessing about. Stuff your Netflix queue with their past movies. Hunt down the obscure shit. Show up for their…

Hawaii 5-0 Brainwaves Sent to Space, Return Expected in 1,920 Years

Artists these days don’t just use paintbrushes and canvas. Spencer Finch, in fact, uses brainwaves, a popular sixties TV show, microwave signals, and the bluest stars in the night sky. Aptly named “Blue (one second brainwave transmitted to the star Rigel),” this piece is actually an early 1990s neuroscience experiment that won’t yield results for…

Spider-Man Musical Will Be Circus Of Pain

Singing and dancing worked out so well in Spider-Man 3 that somebody felt we needed a more concentrated dose. The Spider-Man musical hits Broadway in late 2008 or early 2009. Director Julie Taymor wants to use Jim Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood, stars of her critically panned Beatles romp Across The Universe. You won’t go…

Post-Apocalyptic Vampire Comic Book from Joss Whedon

Never mind the WGA strikes, Hollywood has something larger to worry about – Los Angeles has been relocated to Hell. At least, that’s the premise behind Angel: After The Fall, the Joss Whedon-plotted comic continuation to his Angel TV show. Following on from the apocalyptic cliffhanger conclusion to the fifth and final season, After The…

I Want A Bionic Perm!

There’s no better way to unwind after a tough mission than with a makeover at the Bionic Beauty Salon, circa 1976. After all, you may be a cyborg, but you’re still a lady. P.S. You can see more toys spawned by the original Bionic Woman at Bug Eyed Monster.

Mexico City will achieve water self-sufficiency by the year 2020, say the region’s local government officials. This city of 20 million people must stop relying on outside sources of water if it’s to survive. [TreeHugger]

Torchwood Is Like Mad Men, Only With Sex Monsters

Raunchy Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood is a guilty pleasure, featuring glam-rock cyborgs, small-town mass murder and giant monsters from outside of time. The good news is you won’t have to watch any Doctor Who to understand what’s going on. Torchwood is edgy, saucy fare that belongs on premium cable. Sort of like Mad Men with…

You can draw a direct line of descent from Rudyard Kipling to Robert Heinlein, and from Heinlein to today’s military science fiction authors. Too bad none of Kipling’s acolytes deal with the realities of war as well as he did, argues Jeet Heer. [Sans Everything]

Environmentalist Nation Secedes from Union, Institutes 20-Hour Workweek

Written in the 1970s at the height of the last eco-craze, Ernest Callenbach’s classic utopian novel Ecotopia will intrigue anyone who wants to see what a sustainable environmentalist country might look like. Surprisingly prescient, and unafraid to look at the dark side of eco-fanaticism, Callenbach shows us a believable alternate United States whose commitment to…

Blue Aliens Face Off with Braveheart Bots in New Animated Short

Great battle scenes are few and far between, especially when animated alien-bot wars are what make your blood boil. When you want your alien-bot war, the only thing to do is watch Masks, an short created by Microsoft’s Zune Arts and NYC design studio PandaPanther. It’s packed with horned blue aliens in pumpkin head masks,…

The American Midwest, With Giant Robots

Josh Cotter has just released a trade book of the first four issues of indie comic fave Skyscrapers Of The Midwest. Cotter describes the book as being about “observations of childhood isolation and existence in the American Midwest. With giant robots.” He talks to Tom Spurgeon and Newsarama.com all about it.

Waterworld’s Aquatic Dystopia Is A Design Breakthrough

Waterworld may have drowned at the box office, but this shot of Kevin Costnersailing into the 1,021 ton floating city shows how breathtakingly original and stark its postapocalyptic vision was. Critics mocked Waterworld’s massive $175 million budget, but the truth is, you can see every penny on screen. The makers of Waterworld didn’t just show…

Alien bacteria may have seeded life on Earth, says the latest issue of Scientific American. Not only that, but alien bacteria may be among us right now, breeding happily.

Disabled People Driving the Next 10 Years of Computer Innovation

Quadriplegic sailor Hilary Lister can control her boat using a computer activated by the “sip and puff” interface she has in her mouth. With this rig, she crossed the English channel on her own. Futurist Jamais Cascio, who consults with companies like Mozilla on 10-year innovation plans, told io9 that computers like Lister’s designed for…

Stephen King’s The Mist Remains Hazy

By now you’ve probably seen the trailer a hundred times where a bleeding man comes stumbling into a grocery store screaming, “There’s something in the mist!” The same guy could have stumbled onto a boat in Jaws and said, “There’s something in the water!” So yes, The Mist isn’t exactly breaking into new territory plot-wise:…

Raspberries and Liquid Nitrogen Create Cocaine-Style Dessert

In a Brussels restaurant, this chef dipped raspberries in liquid nitrogen, fished them out, then chopped them into fruity cocaine on a flash-frozen piece of wood. Fans of sweetness and molecular gastronomy consumed the confection by sucking it through frozen glass straws. Here he is blending the berries in liquid nitrogen. Pretty fancy way to…

Morally Pure Stem Cells And An Electronic Nose

Wake up and smell the science, people. A bunch of researchers say they can turn any cell into a stem cell. There’s always a big problem with stem cells, despite their potential to regrow brains and stuff, because they’re harvested from human embryos. That’s why the Bush Administration outlawed making them for a while. But…

Exclusive New Clip From Blade Runner: The Final Cut

Blade Runner: The Final Cut is coming out on DVD next month, and packaged with it is a feature-length documentary about making the movie called Dangerous Days. Everyone is in this doc, including Ridley Scott and the ever-elusive Harrison Ford. After the jump, check out io9’s exclusive clip from the documentary where writer David Webb…

Do You Live In A Flu Epidemic Zone?

Using the deadly SARS flu outbreak as a template, researchers have created a model that can predict the spread emerging global epidemics. A team of researchers in the US and Europe incorporated travel and census data from 3100 urban areas and 220 countries to figure out where a virus would travel and how fast. The…

Office Robot Will Kneel At Your Command

This cute robot isn’t a toy, it’s an office worker. The EMIEW 2 is supposed to serve as a guide for visitors, or run errands. During a demonstration for reporters, someone asked where Mr. Nakamura was. The robot responded, “I will take you there. Follow me,” in a “boylike” voice. The ultra-light robot can roll…