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FDA Makes It Official: Legal Smoking and Vaping Age Raised to 21

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has officially raised the legal smoking age from 18 t0 21. The measure marks a culmination of a monthslong, bi-partisan campaign aimed at curbing the use of tobacco products— particularly electronic cigarettes—among youth amid rising concerns about the health effects of vaping. A new statement on the FDA’s website…

Health Alyse Stanley

12 Star Wars Episodes to Watch Explaining that Mandalorian Bombshell

Did the very end of The Mandalorian season finale leave you scratching your head? Well, your Disney+ subscription has the answers. The season one finale of The Mandalorian, “Redemption,” ended with the evil Moff Gideon using a mysterious object to cut himself out of his downed TIE fighter. That object, familiar to some, was almost…

io9 Germain Lussier and James Whitbrook

A Man’s Penis Started Rotting After Getting Bitten During Sex

A harrowing medical case reported by doctors this month should remind everyone to keep their teeth away from each other’s genitals. It details how an accidental love bite during sex left a man’s penis on the verge of rotting away, though thankfully doctors intervened in time to save it. The 43-year-old man visited the emergency…

Health Ed Cara

Publishing Companies Are Mad That The President Might Want to Make Federally-Funded Research Open Access

Scientific societies and publishers are angry about a rumor that a White House executive order might make all federally-funded research open access. If the rumors turn out to be true, the Trump administration would expand a program introduced by the Obama administration in 2013 that made federally-funded research available a year after publication. The rumored…

Politics Ryan F. Mandelbaum

How to (Hypothetically) Hack Your School’s Surveillance System

This week, hacktivist and security engineer Lance R. Vick tweeted an enticing proposition along with a gut-punch headline: “Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines, tracking the locations of hundreds of thousands,” read the Washington Post link. The report revealed nearly instantaneous and sweeping adoption of smartphone-tracking platforms implemented in roughly 60 campuses, ranging…

Tech News Whitney Kimball

A Realistic New Superhero Show Is Coming to Netflix In January

And, appropriately enough, it’s called Ragnarok. Netflix releases approximately 768 million shows every week, so it’s very easy for two or ten to get lost in the shuffle. One that we hadn’t heard of, and maybe you haven’t either, is Ragnarok, an original Scandinavian drama coming to the streaming service January 31. Netflix describes it…

Trailers Germain Lussier

Spotify: Your Political Ads Are No Good Here

Streaming giant Spotify will ban all political advertising in early 2020, Ad Age reported on Friday, saying in a statement to the site that it does “not yet have the necessary level of robustness in our process, systems and tools to responsibly validate and review this content.” The suspension of paid political ads on Spotify’s…

Politics Tom McKay

Shitty Company in Shitty Talks for Shitty Streaming Service

Ahead of the launch of NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service launch in April, its parent company is reportedly in “advanced talks” to buy ad-supported streaming service Xumo. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Comcast—which is regularly voted the most hated company in the U.S.—is eyeing an acquisition of the service, which the paper notes the…

Tech News Catie Keck

Oh Good, the New Police Surveillance Vector Is Self-Driving Cars

Technologists have long speculated on the privacy implications of largely ungoverned, camera-enabled vehicle fleets roaming the roads of America. Now we’ve finally bumped up against the tip of that particularly worrying iceberg. With the help of a judge-signed search warrant, police in Chandler, Arizona, obtained footage from one of Google’s Waymo-branded autonomous vehicles in the…

Artificial Intelligence Avery Ellis

Why Indigenous Youth Were 2019’s Climate Warriors

If there was any year to honor the youth, 2019 sure as hell would be it. Around the world this year, young people took to the streets and demanded their governments take action to address climate change. Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg has been held up as the face of the new youth movement, but…

Earther Yessenia Funes

10 Intriguing Star Wars Details We Learned From The Rise of Skywalker‘s Visual Dictionary

A new Star Wars movie is out, and for better or worse, that always means there’s also a host of new tie-in material released which can explain or clarify some questions left lingering after the credits rolled. The Rise of Skywalker is no exception, and its own “Visual Dictionary” guidebook is jam-packed with little nuggets…

Movies James Whitbrook

China Set to Launch Its GPS Competitor Next Year

China is close to launching the last two satellites that will complete BeiDou-3 Navigation Satellite System—the nation’s rival to the United States’ Global Positioning System. Ran Chengqi, a spokesperson for China’s Satellite Navigation Office, shared the status of the program on Friday at a rare media event, according to the Associated Press. Ran told reporters…

Tech News Jennings Brown

Image: DreamWorks / Image: Disney / Photo: HBO / Photo: Disney

io9 Judges the Big Pop Culture Endings of 2019

While 2019 was filled with all sorts of content—television, movies, comic books, video games—that kept us busy, there were a lot of major franchises meant to wrap up some pretty epic stories this year. Did they all succeed in telling emotional tales that resonated with the fans who’ve been along with them for the long…

io9 io9 Staff

FDA Approves the First Drug of Its Kind to Treat Acute Migraines

People dealing with painful migraines will soon have a new treatment available. This week, the Food and Drug Administration approved a unique drug meant to shorten acute migraine episodes. It’s the latest treatment for a condition that’s historically had few. The drug is called Ubrelvy (compound name Ubrogepant), licensed by the pharmaceutical company Allergan. It works…

Health Ed Cara

Cuomo: Eyy, I’m Vetoing the Bill That Would End the NYPD’s E-Bike Crackdown Here

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has vetoed a state bill that would have legalized electric bikes and scooters the New York Post reported on Thursday. The bill passed with overwhelming support from legislators this summer, The move is a blow to delivery workers in NYC, who have been targeted by police for seizures and $500 fines.…

Transportation Tom McKay

Antarctic Ice Melt May Have Hit an All-Time High on Christmas Eve

There are signs Antarctica just experienced its highest melt extent ever recorded in the satellite era. The big meltdown hit on Christmas Eve and is bad news for a continent already dealing with a lot. With summer is just getting started there, this is a serious case of Summertime Sadness. Antarctic is the largest stash…

Climate Change Yessenia Funes

Ring and Amazon Sued for Security Camera Hacks They Blamed on Customers

Ring and its parent company, Amazon, are facing a class-action lawsuit over allegations of negligence, invasion of privacy, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment for the allegedly lax security standards that have left thousands of cameras vulnerable to hacking. This comes on the heels of several high-profile reports about security vulnerabilities, including by Vice and…

Privacy & Security Dhruv Mehrotra

Starlink Satellites Produce Wave of UFO Sightings in the US

Residents in northern Montana reported a string of strange lights dotting the sky. What looked like UFOs from an alien invasion has turned out to be another consequence of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation. SpaceX launched 60 satellites into orbit back in May and another 60 in November 11 as part of the Starlink satellite constellation,…

Tech News Ryan F. Mandelbaum

The Sonic the Hedgehog Movie Wants in on That Baby Yoda Hype

Good sir, I know myself a Baby Yoda. And this? This is no Baby Yoda. It’s been an up and down year for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, running around at the speed of sound as it debuted its nightmarish original trailer, sparking off a backlash of dunks so powerful it literally forced the movie…

Movies James Whitbrook

Google’s New Recorder App Has an Unofficial Workaround, No Pixel Required

When Google announced the Pixel 4, one of the things we were most excited for was the new Google Recorder app. It could transcribe your recordings live and offline! Around the world, journalists, students, and anyone who might need meeting transcripts raised their eyes heavenward and whispered a quiet “Thank you, Jesus.” The only hitch?…

Tech News Victoria Song

FDA Makes It Official: Legal Smoking and Vaping Age Raised to 21

12 Star Wars Episodes to Watch Explaining that Mandalorian Bombshell

A Man’s Penis Started Rotting After Getting Bitten During Sex

Publishing Companies Are Mad That The President Might Want to Make Federally-Funded Research Open Access

How to (Hypothetically) Hack Your School’s Surveillance System

A Realistic New Superhero Show Is Coming to Netflix In January

Spotify: Your Political Ads Are No Good Here

Shitty Company in Shitty Talks for Shitty Streaming Service

Oh Good, the New Police Surveillance Vector Is Self-Driving Cars

Why Indigenous Youth Were 2019’s Climate Warriors

10 Intriguing Star Wars Details We Learned From The Rise of Skywalker‘s Visual Dictionary

China Set to Launch Its GPS Competitor Next Year

io9 Judges the Big Pop Culture Endings of 2019

FDA Approves the First Drug of Its Kind to Treat Acute Migraines

Cuomo: Eyy, I’m Vetoing the Bill That Would End the NYPD’s E-Bike Crackdown Here

Antarctic Ice Melt May Have Hit an All-Time High on Christmas Eve

Ring and Amazon Sued for Security Camera Hacks They Blamed on Customers

Starlink Satellites Produce Wave of UFO Sightings in the US

The Sonic the Hedgehog Movie Wants in on That Baby Yoda Hype

Google’s New Recorder App Has an Unofficial Workaround, No Pixel Required

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