An important clinical trial is now underway in the UK. The study is the first to transfuse red blood cells grown in the lab from donated stem cells into humans. Should this research pay off, these blood cells would be incredibly valuable for people with rare blood types, though they wouldn’t replace the need for…Read more...

Daniel Kaluuya may not have come back for the sequel to Black Panther, but he is joining another major sequel from Marvel. The Oscar-winning star of Get Out and Nope will voice Spider-Punk in next year’s highly anticipated sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.Read more...

As fans on Disney+ explore the eras between well-established Star Wars movies, the written word is working on a completely different timeline. For the past two years, popular Star Wars authors have been building out an era called The High Republic, which takes place centuries before the events of the films. And though…Read more...

Lunar eclipses may be more common that solar eclipses, but they’re still incredible sights to behold. On Tuesday, some parts of the world will get an early morning view of a total lunar eclipse, in which the full Moon will steadily darken and appear to turn red under Earth’s shadow.

Doctor Who has long had a proud history of trying to do a lot with very little money, and while gone are the days of wobbly cardboard sets and whatever the hell Erato the Creature from the Pit was, even to this day the show often has ideas much larger than a BBC budget can imagine. That might be about to change in a…Read more...

Not a day goes by without Twitter owner Elon Musk stirring up a shitshow on his new platform. Over the weekend, it appears the billionaire was not amused when comedian Kathy Griffin changed her name to “Elon Musk” and swapped her profile picture to one of his. Griffin mocked him and began encouraging people to vote…Read more...

The first operational mission of Boeing’s Starliner CST-100 spacecraft to the International Space Station won’t happen until 2024 at the earliest, according to NASA’s updated flight manifest. The capsule, designed to carry crews to low Earth orbit, was originally supposed to fly in 2017 but has faced a series of…Read more...

Darkly funny and deeply existential, Mali Elfman’s debut feature Next Exit confronts questions of life and death with a sci-fi practicality that allows the emotional, character-driven story to unfold.Read more...

Donald Trump says he’ll ‘probably’ pursue a third presidential run. He dropped the rather definitive hint at a rally last week. In response, shares of the shell company Digital World Acquisition Corp. tied to Truth Social meaningfully increased in value for the first time in months. At market open on Monday, DWAC’s…Read more...

Airbnb users are about to have a better sense of what they’re signing up for when they book supposedly affordable weekend getaway listings.Read more...

Amazon’s greenwashing efforts continue as the massive online retailer’s relationship with electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian hits its stride. Amazon announced in a blog post today that it already has over 1,000 electric delivery vehicles dropping off packages in dozens of cities across the U.S.

James Gunn talks about the potential future of Legends of Tomorrow and the original Suicide Squad movie in his new role at DC. James Wan confirms his Conjuring 2 spinoff is no longer happening. Plus, Stranger Things’ final season reveals its first episode title. Spoilers now!

It was announced way back on May 4 of 2020, but the newest Star Wars TV series has finally begun. The Acolyte, set in the final days of the High Republic era, has begun filming--with what turns out is an almost shockingly attractive cast.

On average, Lego produces about 20 billion plastic bricks and building elements every year, and most come from injection molding machines that are so precise that just 18 of every million parts produced are rejected. It’s the secret to Lego’s enduring appeal and quality standards, but the approach also has its limits,…Read more...

Internal Twitter Slack reportedly called the widely-reported 3,700, or 50% cuts to Twitter’s global staff “The Snap” ala the famed dusting of half the universe’s sentient life from Avengers: Infinity War. Though as many internet folks were quick to point out, such a move would also lead to even more harm. Without 50%…Read more...

Meta, the parent company that owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, is expected to start mass layoffs as early as this week, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. And while it’s not clear exactly how many of Meta’s roughly 87,000 employees will lose their jobs, it’s in the “thousands,” according to…Read more...

Although priced well out of our meager budgets, we can’t say we haven’t drooled over Devialet’s audio gear, including the company’s $2,200+ wireless Phantom 1 speakers that manage to both look good and sound even better. They weren’t completely wireless, however: an issue that Devialet is addressing with its first…Read more...

Do you ever feel tense when watching The Walking Dead anymore? Does the TV show ever truly surprise you anymore? I’m pretty sure it’s been quite a while since TWD made me feel like a character was in real danger or did anything that made me wonder what was going to happen next. Tonight’s episode, “Faith,” was a pretty…Read more...

It’s a law of nature that eventually, every long-running game franchise will have a particular entry that gets dinged for straying too far from what made it so fun in the first place. Your Super Mario Sunshine, your Dragon Age II, Assassin’s Creed III, and so on. Whether or not that opinion changes more favorably over…Read more...

Come this Friday, the PlayStation 5's big hit for the holiday season, God of War: Ragnarok, will finally release. The second installment in Sony Santa Monica’s soft reboot of the hack-and-slash franchise (which started with the PlayStation 4's God of War) isn’t just getting good reviews, it’s getting great ones from…Read more...

Over the past month and a half, Andor has proven itself to be a pretty excellent show, and its cast is a big reason why. In each arc thus far, Cassian (Diego Luna) has drawn in a variety of different characters into his often chaotic orbit who are, like him, trying to get by under the Empire’s rule. This most recent…Read more...

Creator-owned comics have been on the rise in recent years across indie (read: non-Big Two) publishers like Image or Legendary Comics. Much of those new books are from well established comics presences such as Saladin Ahmed or Christian Ward, but actors like Keanu Reeves and Oscar Isaac have also recently joined in on…Read more...

Since 2014, Keanu Reeves has shot, stabbed, library book’d, and horse’d dozens of gangsters and hired guns to death across three (going on four) John Wick films. While we know that the franchise will continue with the upcoming prequel series The Continental, and there’ll be another film in a couple of years (plus the …Read more...

That Henry Cavill is returning to Superman after technically five years still feels pretty fresh, even though it’s been about two weeks since the news officially broke. Since he finally broke the news, he’s made clear that he wants to come back as a more joyful Man of Steel, and his gratefulness that he’s able to get…Read more...

Cixin Liu’s sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem can’t stop jumping to other formats. In addition to next year’s Netflix series from The Terror: Infamy’s Alexander Woo and Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and DB Weiss, last year saw the release of a serialized podcast (different from the audiobook version). And…Read more...

While Elon Musk’s massive $44 billion buyout of Twitter might seem like a one-man show, it’s really a kind of Suicide Squad of big tech moguls and financiers coming together in a strange rogue’s gallery reunion. Not only were Musk’s personal rich friends in the mix, but the holding companies of Middle Eastern nations…Read more...

Late Friday afternoon, news broke that HBO had pulled the plug on its sci-fi drama Westworld after four seasons. Before this, creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy had already planned to bring the twisty and often convoluted series to a close with a fifth and final season, but those plans have been dashed as Warner…Read more...

Microsoft president and vice chair Brad Smith wants thousands of companies to shift from pledging to help solve climate challenges to actually making good on those promises. These companies can’t rise to meet the challenge unless their workers are trained in sustainability, he wrote in a company statement this week.

If you thought the picture of the elderly man walking around with a giant turtle looked strangely familiar, you’re not alone. Give the man some sunglasses and beard, and he could be mistaken for Master Roshi’s long-lost twin brother from Dragon Ball. Alas, this man is not skilled in the kamehameha, but is special for…Read more...

Researchers in California are calling for cat owners to do their favorite thing in the name of science: talk about their cat. The team aims to understand how to make remote vet visits more appealing to owners, in hopes of better ensuring that cats can get the regular medical care they need.

Dating apps present an endless sea of potential matches. But do they actually expand our horizons? And is that good for us? Some studies suggest that dating apps can make us feel that settling down with someone isn’t important or that our chances of romantic and sexual success are infinite and guaranteed, increasing…Read more...

Using a $20 off-the-shelf drone, researchers at the University of Waterloo in Ontario have created what is effectively an airborne scanning device that can triangulate the location of every WiFi-connected device in your house. Yikes.

The Department of Homeland Security launched a failed operation that ensnared hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. protesters in what new documents show was as a sweeping, power-hungry effort before the 2020 election to bolster President Donald Trump’s spurious claims about a “terrorist organization” he accused his…Read more...

UK-based “clean” energy company Drax Group is looking to sell offset credits tied to U.S.-based power plants that the company hasn’t even built yet, Bloomberg reports. While the company is being vague about specifics, Drax says its first biomass plant with carbon capture technology is expected to be up and running…Read more...

Welcome back to Toy Aisle, io9's regular round up of the coolest merchandise on the internet lately. This week, Gundam’s latest protagonist gets her own figure, Hasbro lifts the lid on a whole host of Star Wars toys, and Groot gets hairy. Leafy? Check it out!

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Want to bring instant gravitas to your movie, TV show, documentary series, video game, or English-language dub of a foreign animated film? Hire Keith David, whose long career is a testament not just to his charismatic screen presence, but also his uniquely velvety voice.

Blockchain skeptics and critics often deride cryptocurrency as a whole as one big pyramid scheme. And though that point might have some room for debate, the Securities and Exchange Commission is officially adding at least one more crypto venture to the ever-growing list of “definitely a scam” operations.

Members of Meta’s Oversight Board weighed in on Elon Musk’s calamitous first week as Twitter CEO Friday, offering their competitor some tactical advice, and even leaving open the possibilities of one day extending its Supreme Court-like judicial services to his platform.Read more...

Back in 2012, I made a list of the Most Disturbing Hallmark Ornaments I could find. I updated the list in 2015, but since then, it’s lain dormant while Hallmark has not. The company has been churning out more Christmas ornaments every year, and while most of them are perfectly fine, goofy, or lousy, there are a few…Read more...

Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s Westworld has not made the cut to stick around in the new hierarchy of power over at Warner Bros. The acclaimed HBO sci-fi series has been canceled after its fourth season, according to the Hollywood Reporter.Read more...

The Biden administration’s plans to boost manufacturing of electric vehicles may face a big bump in the road—and that bump is made of graphite. Both E&E News and Marketplace reported this week on how the coming electric vehicle revolution will supercharge the demand for the mineral.Read more...

In a new report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reevaluate how large constellations of satellites are regulated and approved for launch.Read more...

If anyone has been paying attention to me over the past few weeks (there are, what? Three of you? Welcome! Join me) you might have noticed that I’ve been working through an all-consuming obsession with AMC’s new series, Interview With the Vampire. You might think to yourself, “wasn’t that a kind of cheesy,…Read more...

Joe Rogan talks a lot of shit, and his newest narrative involved schools providing litter boxes to students that identify as furries. Except that’s not true—obviously—and Rogan clarified his fib on a recent episode of his podcast.

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The Mississippi River is still in drought, with no end in sight. The historically low water levels in the busy waterway are disrupting transportation, recreation, and even water quality along the river.Read more...

The holidays are a challenging time for so many of us, which is why the last three years having so many Pokémon releases has morphed into a welcome comfort for me, rather than seeming like a blatant cash grab. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will be here on Nov. 18, and Nintendo has launched a matching console in…Read more...

You don’t have to break the fourth wall to know what happens after Marvel Studios releases a show or a movie. Soon after, it’s followed by a new episode of the making-of documentary series Assembled. And when that happens, io9 is going to watch it and pick out a dozen or so pieces of information that either we didn’t…Read more...