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How Space-Aged Whiskey Tastes: Smoked Fruit, Antiseptic, Rubbery Smoke

Back in 2011, Ardbeg Distillery, of Islay in Scotland, sent a sample of unmatured malt whiskey into space aboard the International Space Station. Now, the samples have been tested — and here’s how it tastes. Samples of the distillery’s whiskey were aged aboard the space station: sealed in something called MixStix, astronauts were able to…

Dragon Con Day 4: No Sleep, Sore Feet, and Still Going With Great Costumes

By Monday morning of Dragon Con, most people were packing up to leave Atlanta. And yet some cosplayers persevered, and the flood of awesome costumed characters continued. Here’s the best of what we saw on the final day of the popular culture convention. Owen takes his velociraptor Blue, Delta, Echo and Charlie on vacation from…

A Beautiful Composite Image of the ISS Crossing the Sun

What happens when the International Space Station flies past the Sun? Nothing as bad as the fate that befell Icarus, fortunately — just a nice image, instead. In this picture, you can see how the silhouette of the ISS as it passed across the face of Sun on Sunday September 6th. Moving at about 5…

Instagram Video Ads Are About to Double in Length

Video ads have been popping up on Instagram for a while now — but they’re about to get longer and appear from a broader range of companies. Great? Changes to Instagram’s advertising policies will see the time limit for video ads rise to 30 seconds from the previous 15, doubling the time in which companies…

Finally, a Mountain Hut That Looks OK

Mountain huts, used by climbers to break up ascents into multi-day trips, are utilitarian in the extreme — everything has to either be flown up by helicopter, or carried over unfriendly terrain on someone’s back. So it’s unusual to see a hut that actually looks good. For example, the new Gouter refuge on Mont Blanc,…

My Afternoon With James Bond’s Amazing Spy Vehicles

I grew up with James Bond. That’s not a huge exaggeration. I remember proudly telling my babysitter I’d been watching the films for years. My favorite parts: the chase scenes. So when I went to London last month and discovered Bond in Motion, a museum exhibit filled with actual Bond vehicles, I drooled a bit.…

Amazon Has Finally Stopped Trying to Sell the Fire Phone

Have you long lusted after an Android smartphone with face-tracking cameras and a dedicated button to make you spend money? Well, bad news: Amazon isn’t selling its Fire smartphone any more. https://gizmodo.com/amazon-fire-phone-review-a-shaky-first-step-1608853105 As spotted by GeekWire, Amazon is out of stock of the 32GB and 64GB versions of the Fire phone; the site says it…

It would probably be a good idea to go update your Windows computer: today’s Patch Tuesday, and this month’s round of updates nixes some critical security bugs, including inInternet Explorer(surprise!) and Office. [Krebs on Security]

Stream the First Colbert Late Show For Free, Legally

Even if you’ve already ditched live TV in favor of Netflix binges, you’ll probably want to watch Stephen Colbert’s first night hosting The Late Show. CBS is offering everyone a one-week free trial of CBS All Access, the company’s live TV/catchup streaming service. Like most free trials, you have to create an account and offer…

Matt Damon Is Ripped And Ready To Go In the First Image From Bourne 5

After a film away, Matt Damon is back playing Jason Bourne, and here’s the gritty photo to prove it. Producer Frank Marshall tweeted the first image from the film’s set and it’s pretty obvious this is a different Bourne movie. Different looking? Yes, but a lot of the big players are back. Bourne 5 (which…

Welp, We Need to Update Godwin’s Law

Godwin’s Law is one of the oldest laws of the internet. Attorney Mike Godwin invented it back in the 1990s, and it goes as follows: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” And now there’s a new addendum to the law for the social media…

This is how Boeing is building the first commercial Starliner spacecraft ever

NASA and Boeing have released a little teaser on their newest spacecraft, the CST-100 Starliner, which will be built and tested at Kennedy Space Center and hopefully, eventually taxi people to space. Imagine touring space inside one of these awesome pods in the future. The video below highlights some features of the Starliner. SPLOID is…

This poem about science fiction is a brilliant look at genres, and what it’s like to imagine how the world could be different. And several phrases from Anne Boyer’s “Science Fiction”will be stuck in my head for ages. It’s short—go read it!

Meanwhile in the Future: We’ve Invented an Empathy Machine

When you were a kid and stole your friends’ toys, your parent probably asked you this angry hypothetical: “How do you think that made them feel?” But what if you actually could feel what another person is feeling? This week, we travel to a future where humans have invented an empathy machine. Before we dive…

Remember the Last Time Apple Tried to Launch a Video Game Console?

With Apple’s big event less than 24 hours away, everybody is getting excited about a new gaming-focused Apple TV. But you might not realize that the Cupertino company’s been down this road before. A few times, in fact. Dan Frommer just published a fun retrospective into Apple’s long and sordid history with TV gadgets. It…

The Totally Insane Way That Breast Milk Works

I know breast milk is good and all, but when I became a mom I was kinda shocked at how much it was cited as a cure-all for anything that ailed my newborn. It turns out it’s not just because of the nutritional value. My baby’s immune system is communicating with mine THROUGH MY NIPPLES.…

Janelle Monae IS the Droid Star Wars Was Looking For

The deluge of Star Wars marketing and promotional tie-ins is already getting kind of ridiculous—but it’s all worthwhile, if it results in Janelle Monae becoming one of the faces of the Resistance against the First Order. Cover Girl just unveiled the latest of their Star Wars-themed makeup lines, featuring the indispensable android musician as their…

LIGHTSPEED Presents: “Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World” by Caroline M. Yoachim

io9 is proud to present fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we’ll be featuring a story from LIGHTSPEED’s current issue. This month’s selection is “Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World” by Caroline M. Yoachim. You can read the story below or you can listen to the podcast. Enjoy! Image © 2015 by…

The Silky Anteater is Just Ridiculous

Look at that thing. It looks like a teddy bear mated with a powder puff and a set of meat hooks. It has giant claws and a spiked mucousy tongue, and it kills 5,000 things a day. And it’s still adorable. The silky anteater, shown above being utterly content with its place in the world,…

First Oxygen Appeared On Earth Way Earlier Than We Realized

If you hopped in the Tardis and traveled back four billion years, you’d find yourself on a hot, miserable wasteland of a planet with nary an oxygen molecule to breathe. Earth used to be an asphyxiating hellscape, but over the eons, tiny green microbes filled the air with oxygen. New research finds they’ve been at…