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In a Doctor Who Premiere Clip, the Companions Use a Low-Tech Cover Story to Do Some High-Tech Research

A week ago, we learned that Doctor Who will be returning on New Year’s Day, and now we’ve got our first clip from the season premiere. Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Ryan (Tosin Cole), posing as journalists, question a new character—some kind of transportation mogul, played by Sir Lenny Henry. But while he thinks they’re newspaper,…

io9 Cheryl Eddy

Apple Pushes Back as Senate’s Nightmare Anti-Encryption Push Comes Back From the Dead

The enormous fissure that formed decades ago in the deathless American debate over encryption proved insurmountable on Tuesday. Senate lawmakers struggled to be heard on the all-important topic by the two tech company suits that they invited over mostly for the purpose of serving as punching bags. Supposedly aimed at analyzing the “benefits and risks”…

Privacy & Security Dell Cameron

New NYC Law Would Require New Buildings to Have Bird-Friendly Windows

Today, the New York City Council passed one of the country’s most comprehensive bird-safe glass laws yet. The law, Proposed Initiative 1482B, requires any new construction and certain renovations to use bird-safe materials designed to prevent bird-strike deaths. Advocates for the bill hope it will lead the way for similar laws in other communities. “New…

Biology Ryan F. Mandelbaum

The Supers and Bats Were the Focus of Crisis Part 2 and It Was Perfect

Yesterday I complained about the breakneck speed of the CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. The scope was incredible, the wide array of heroes on call was impressive, and the Easter eggs were plentiful. Yet there seemed something soulless at the heart of part one—it moved so quickly that the catastrophes never quite resonated. Instead, they…

Books & Comics Alex Cranz

ISS Sees Thunderstorm Beaming Electromagnetic Pulse Into Space, Producing Gamma Rays and ‘Elves’

At 8:01 p.m. on October 10, 2018, a bolt of lightning flashed inside of a storm cloud just east of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The International Space Station was passing overhead at the time, and a suite of instruments observed as the bolt produced a flash of gamma radiation—and, simultaneously, emitted a glowing ring…

Physics & Chemistry Ryan F. Mandelbaum

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay to Become a Showtime Series

Since its publication almost 20 years ago, Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, has been flirting with Hollywood. Numerous stars, directors, producers, and other show biz types have circled the project in those two decades (among them Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire, Ryan Gosling, and the late Sydney…

Books & Comics Germain Lussier

These Maps Show Why We Need a Green New Deal

The Green New Deal is a massive proposal that aims to take on the climate crisis—the greatest threat humanity has ever faced—while creating millions of jobs and boosting economic equality. That’s going to take plans for everything from electricity to housing to flood control, not to mention a fuckload of political will and, if it’s…

Environmental Justice Dharna Noor

On Lube Man

Every Watchmen masked vigilante has to have an origin story. Even Lube Man. Because Watchmen’s been busy focusing on its story about how white supremacists want to take over the world (how novel), the show hasn’t exactly had the time or need to say much more about Lube Man, the strange masked weirdo who made…

Books & Comics Charles Pulliam-Moore

The Arctic Is Undergoing Changes Scientists ‘Never Expected Would Happen This Soon’

Surprise, surprise: The Arctic didn’t do too well this past year. You can thank global warming for that. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its annual Arctic Report Card Tuesday, and the findings show a region in the midst of a rapid transformation. Wildlife populations are decreasing, sea ice is melting, and the Arctic…

Climate Change Yessenia Funes

Watch the Trippy Winning Videos of Nikon’s Microscopic Film Contest

Feast your eyes on the incredible winners of the Nikon Small World in Motion contest, featuring tardigrade cannibalism, growing mouse embryos, and swimming coral polyps. This year marks the ninth annual Nikon Small World in Motion contest, an annual award that celebrates video taken with a microscope. This year’s first prize went to Philippe Laissue,…

Biology Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Influencer Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison After Domain Hijacking at Gunpoint Goes Awry

We give you our modern-day Macbeth, a 27-year-old man who once sat on an empire of dumb college memes and now, after a domain name hijacking that ended in bloodshed, pays the price of 14 years in federal prison and $35,000. Was it all worth it, Mr. Adams?, we ask, as we now reflect on…

Tech News Whitney Kimball

A Controversial DNA Database Used to Solve Crimes Has Gone Commercial

A third-party DNA database that began as a passion project and later became embroiled in an ongoing debate over genetic privacy has now gone commercial. This week, the San Diego-based forensics company Verogen announced its acquisition of the genealogy website GEDmatch. But it’s anyone’s guess as to how the shift in ownership will affect its…

Biology Ed Cara

The Star Wars Prequels’ Biggest Crime Was Wasting Christopher Lee

I wouldn’t call myself a Sir Christopher Lee fanboy, but I am an ardent admirer who often watches entertainment solely because he’s in it and buys merchandise because it bears his image or likeness. After all, he’s a pretty cool dude. He had a lengthy acting career in films both great and godawful, he was…

Movies Rob Bricken

Exxon Escapes

After a bit more than a year of legal wrangling, a landmark lawsuit against ExxonMobil has ended with the oil giant emerging unscathed. New York Supreme Court Judge Barry Ostrager ruled that the company didn’t engage in fraudulent behavior to mislead shareholders about how it accounted for climate change. It’s the second high-profile case against…

Climate Change Brian Kahn

Apple Sues Former Chip Designer, Who Says Apple Also Spied On His Texts

Let it be said, Apple is not afraid to take people to court. The company’s latest beef involves Gerard Williams, a former employee who purportedly spearheaded the design for Apple’s A-series processors. You know, the itty bits of silicon that have powered Apple’s marquee gadgets since the iPhone 5S. Williams left Apple earlier this year…

Tech News Victoria Song

Image: Paramount, Universal, Disney, Cartoon Network,Getty

The Pop Culture Highlights and Lowlights of 2019

It’s been a year seemingly full of bad news, bad takes, and bad feelings. But pop culture was still there for us—making us delight at unexpected joys like Baby Yoda, and allowing us to bond over horrors like Sonic the Hedgehog’s freakish teeth. Read on for io9’s pop culture highlights (and lowlights) of 2019. The…

io9 io9 Staff

DoorDash Has a New Plan to Make Workers Gamble on How Much They’ll Get Paid

Courier service and notoriously predatory employer DoorDash is still messing with its pay and tipping systems. This time, the company has informed its delivery drivers that it will soon only show them the minimum earnings for each delivery rather than the total earnings, a change dashers worry is an attempt by the company to bait…

Tech News Catie Keck

The Most Innovative Gadgets of the Decade

This decade we saw the smartphone move from overpriced gadget to something more necessary than a laptop or desktop. We saw the e-reader settle on a design so perfect it’s barely changed in seven years. We saw games systems that made us rethink how we game and laptops that made us rethink what a good…

Tech News Gizmodo Staff

Report Claims Microsoft’s Project Scarlett Could Be 4 to 5 Times More Powerful Than Xbox One X

Over the summer we were told the next generation of consoles would have the “greatest compute jump in any console,” and last week, a report from Kotaku claimed Microsoft’s plan to make two versions of Project Scarlett, including a cheaper disc-less model, and now some new info has specific numbers on how powerful Microsoft’s next-gen…

Tech News Sam Rutherford

Famous Foxes Bred for Tameness Weren’t Actually Wild in the First Place, Claims Controversial New Paper

Decades ago, a Soviet geneticist purposely bred foxes to make them extra tame, an experiment that produced a host of unanticipated physical changes in the animals. It’s one of the most famous experiments in genetics, but it might not have gone down in the way we were told. A new opinion paper argues these foxes…

Biology George Dvorsky

In a Doctor Who Premiere Clip, the Companions Use a Low-Tech Cover Story to Do Some High-Tech Research

Apple Pushes Back as Senate’s Nightmare Anti-Encryption Push Comes Back From the Dead

New NYC Law Would Require New Buildings to Have Bird-Friendly Windows

The Supers and Bats Were the Focus of Crisis Part 2 and It Was Perfect

ISS Sees Thunderstorm Beaming Electromagnetic Pulse Into Space, Producing Gamma Rays and ‘Elves’

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay to Become a Showtime Series

These Maps Show Why We Need a Green New Deal

On Lube Man

The Arctic Is Undergoing Changes Scientists ‘Never Expected Would Happen This Soon’

Watch the Trippy Winning Videos of Nikon’s Microscopic Film Contest

Influencer Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison After Domain Hijacking at Gunpoint Goes Awry

A Controversial DNA Database Used to Solve Crimes Has Gone Commercial

The Star Wars Prequels’ Biggest Crime Was Wasting Christopher Lee

Exxon Escapes

Apple Sues Former Chip Designer, Who Says Apple Also Spied On His Texts

The Pop Culture Highlights and Lowlights of 2019

DoorDash Has a New Plan to Make Workers Gamble on How Much They’ll Get Paid

The Most Innovative Gadgets of the Decade

Report Claims Microsoft’s Project Scarlett Could Be 4 to 5 Times More Powerful Than Xbox One X

Famous Foxes Bred for Tameness Weren’t Actually Wild in the First Place, Claims Controversial New Paper

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