Yes, we've given in to peer pressure and created a Facebook group for io9. Anyone can join, and anyone can start a discussion thread there. So if you're looking for local io9ers who might want to see Get Smart with you this weekend (or Wall-E and Wanted next weekend!), the Facebook group is the place for you. Also feel free to use it to create discussion threads of any sort, or to trade comic books, action figures, or (legally-acquired) DVDs. Have fun!

Lauren Davis lives in Boston. As with most things in life, she blames her love of science fiction on her mother, who spent a good portion of her pregnancy watching late-night Star Trek reruns. Lauren majored in biomedical ethics at Brown (where she wrote her senior thesis on religion and human cloning), but summarily slipped and fell into law school. Since reemerging, she has been working various feudal positions in online media and running a small writing site.

Andrew Hudson studies politics and writing at Fordham University in New York City, on his way to becoming a journalist. He reads a lot of comic books, plays too many video games, and wiles away the hours as a sort of Internet dandy. He has a black belt in karate and always, always sweeps the leg.

• Welcome To The Summer Of White Guilt
  As we lurch into the slow-motion hysteria of the summer election season, movies aren't serving up the pure escapist crack we depend on them for. Instead, almost every movie stars a tormented Gen-X or Baby Boomer white guy, who's trying to atone for using his power to make the world a worse place. Welcome to the summer of guilt.
  
  
• Why Are We Pleased That Prince Caspian Is A Flop?
  It's science fiction 2, fantasy 0, at least at the movies. Prince Caspian only wishes he had a fraction of Iron Man's box-office magic, and Disney CEO Robert Iger has been reduced to going around making excuses for its floppitude.

• New Japanese Trailer For Machine Girl Is Full Of Bloody Goodness
  The sexy Asian ladies of The Machine Girl show us how to kick ninja ass with heavy weaponry and loads of screaming. The movie makes its US debut this week at the SF Indie Fest.

• First Look at New, Light-Saturated Gotham City in Batman Anime
  It's a slightly different Gotham city in the direct-to-DVD animated movie Batman: Gotham Knight. The city proves it deserves to be name-checked in the DVD's title, with some startling vistas including new and stranger gargoyles, weird searchlights and even a giant ferris wheel.

• Grimy Viking-Monster Battle Movie Still Has No U.S. Release Date
  New stills from Outlander showcase its awesome mix of Viking regalia, space armor and dirt. This saga about vikings fighting a space monster, starring Jim Caviezel, just debuted at Cannes and has a release date in France and Russia, but the U.S. release date remains shrouded in mystery.

• A Genetic Mutation That Causes Humans to Walk on All Fours
  In 2005, scientists discovered a few families in Hungary where some of the adults only walked on all fours. Few understood the causes of this rare condition, called Unertan syndrome.

• When Humans Punch Aliens: The Video Remix
  Sure, we come in peace and all that. But sometimes, when we encounter alien life forms, the only way we can communicate is by using our built-in universal translators: the ones with five knuckles and a thumb.

• Five Reasons Why Aliens Will Make Contact with the Japanese First
  If aliens decide to make contact with Earthlings, they'll probably want to contact the Japanese using prime numbers and laser pulses. Call me biased (I was born and raised in Japan), but I think there is a really good possibility that this will be the case (and so does the guy who writes alien messages for SETI).

• Where Are My Bioengineered Ecologies?
  Are scientists will be both ready and able to consider artificially-induced emergent biological properties — in other words, terraforming. Let me take you on a tour of today's state-of-the-art in this emerging field.

• The Orgasm That Blew Up A Computer [Very NSFW]
  Desiree Cousteau has an orgasm so massive, it makes the punch cards fly out of the 1970s-style computer she's hooked up to, in this bizarre sequence from 1980's Randy The Electric Lady. Randy visits a sex institute because she's never had an orgasm — so, of course, they gas her and hypnotize her with weird goggles, and then study her responses via computer.

See The Mad Science That Created Captain America
Stills from The Incredible Hulk debut the Captain's secret serum.
Goth Schoolgirl Falls For Killer Robot, In Killdroid
A young high school girl lookin' for love in all the wrong places, specifically with a murderous sex-bot.
Look What Happened The Last Time Galactica Found Earth
Vintage footage from the last time the Galactica meddled in Earth's past.
Is Speed Racer Just Too Gay?
Why are audiences swooning over Iron Man's shiny suit but not over Speed Racer's sleek car?
Ian Miller's Geometrically-Exact Surrealism
Ian Miller would've been cool even if he hadn't worked on Ralph Bakshi's underrated movie Cool World. The UK native has produced a distinctive body of SF artwork over the last thirty years, sometimes pulling collage and photography into his more traditional drawings.
How Superhero Movies Made Comic Books Cooler (If Not Better)
The success of movies like Spider-Man 2, Iron Man and Batman Begins has had a huge effect on comic book publishers, making mainstream comics cooler... if not always better. Here's a list of 9 ways the superhero movie boom has changed comics.
More Terrifying Than Space is Space Madness
If there's one thing more terrible than having a zombie eat the tongue out of your head by breaking your jaw, it's imagining that zombies are eating you when they aren't. That's why one of the best veins to mine in scifi-horror is madness.

Meredith says:

I grew up playing in a backyard AT-ST fort. When Lt. Yar died on Star Trek: TNG I cried and had nightmares with Armus in them for weeks. What followed was a borderline unhealthy obsession with George Romero, Clive Barker, Stephen King, Isaac Asimov and Ewoks. In my free time I take bets on who's marked for death on Lost and update the household's zombie contingency plan. Manhattan's island geography has presented quite a challenge (tunnels and bridges are out, obviously). I love Joss Whedon, Guillermo Del Toro, and anything Super. It's a personal goal to become a member of the Thriller zombies in NYC's Halloween parade.

Day-to-day, the job involves seeking out story ideas and helping editors gather more data for stories they're working on. Send us your resume and URLs for three samples of your writing by May 1. Sorry, you must be 18 or over to apply. Send materials to summerintern@io9.com.

Ed Grabianowski will be a contributor covering science and and games. He's a freelance writer (and occasional drummer, guitarist and singer) from Buffalo, NY. He's been a contributing writer for www.howstuffworks.com for the last five years. Ed is a fan of Blade Runner, Jack McDevitt, Nikola Tesla, and all things post-apocalyptic. In fact, he is one of the few people who will publicly admit to liking Kevin Costner's The Postman. Photograph of Ed by Michael Calanan.

Michael Reilly will be joining us as a contributor too, covering science. He's also a contributing writer at New Scientist, and has written for Wired. Michael used to study volcanoes as a geochemistry researcher, but obviously he's moved on to more exciting things than giant explosions erupting from the depths of the Earth. He's responsible for inventing the well-known slogan, "Death rays don't kill people . . . people kill people."


Ann & Jeff VanderMeer will be writing a column for io9 about SF/fantastic art. Ann is an editor at the venerable Weird Tales magazine, and with Jeff she also co-edited the anthologies The New Weird and the forthcoming Steampunk. Jeff is the author of several books, including City of Saints and Madmen, The Situation, and Shriek: An Afterword. Photo of Jeff and Ann by Bogdan Hrib.

Terry Johnson will also be writing a column for io9, which is basically about everything you've always wanted to ask a biology researcher but were afraid was too weird. Therefore it should not be surprising that Terry is a biology researcher who is willing to answer strange questions. He teaches at UC Berkeley, and is the co-author of a forthcoming book about the future of bioengineering from Bantam-Dell.

Top image of space via AP Photo/NASA/JPL/CALTECH

For the science writer, we're looking for a reporter who will find the latest cool stories about technologies and scientific experiments that will change the future. Ideally, this person will have a strong science background and some experience reporting as well. Must be able to explain science to a lay audience, but must also be comfortable speculating about where today's research will lead tomorrow.

Here's what you need to be an io9-er:

• At least two years of relevant experience with entertainment blogging or journalism.
  
• Ability to write 8-10 items per day, ranging from short one-offs to features and photo galleries.
  
• Experience with video editing, blogging software, RSS readers and graphics software is a big plus.
• Salary is competitive with online and print reporting jobs.

  Please submit a cover letter, resume, and links to three recent writing samples.

  For the entertainment job, mail to entertainmentjob@io9.com. For the science job, mail to sciencejob@io9.com. Send ASAP!

Sadly nobody captured the moment when I was a little tanked up, walked up to Brian Posehn from the Sarah Silverman Program (he's also done a postapocalyptic comic book called The Last Christmas), and yelled, "Sarah Silverman Program ROCKS!!!" Bless his heart, Posehn just rolled his eyes instead of punching me.

You can see more photos here, by Alexis Barrera from Brain Eater Books.

Well, basically, here's the deal. io9 is free to you because advertisers are going to start buying ads that will run on the site. You already knew this, so don't act all shocked. Usually advertisers want to know who the audience is that they're reaching with their ads — that helps them decide if they want to give us money to run their ads. So, in part, the demographic information is for advertisers (minus your names and email addresses, which we don't give out to anybody). So if you like io9 and want us to keep zooming, please support us by filling out the survey.

It may not make sense, but it is the way of consumer capitalism, my humanoids. In this region of this planet, it is our way of allocating resources — though many of our wise ones believe it will not always be. Still, it is how your friendly editors and writers at io9 are compensated for their labor, and earn money for spaghetti.

And so, take the freakin survey people. Jeez.

Demographic Survey for io9 [via io9 Master Control Program]

Official Policy:

We will not post any spoilers on the main page, and when we do post spoilers they will be announced with the words "spoilers ahead." How do we define "spoiler"? Anything that gives away the outcome of a major plot point in a story. For this reason, io9 would not consider discussions of the strange whisper at the end of Cloverfield to be a spoiler - these discussions certainly gave away that the movie has an extra bit after the credits, but knowing that would not give away major plot outcomes in the flick.

Commentary:

Spoilers are like sex. Most people prefer to have them behind a curtain; a few like them right out in the street where everyone can see. I will admit to being of the latter variety in my spoilerish preferences. I like to know the endings of movies before I see them, because I think middles are much more important than endings, and harder to do well.

I often read the ending of a book when I'm still halfway through. Yes, I want to know the cool thief dies before she actually dies, so I can pay attention to the stuff leading up to her death, OK? Spoilers help me plan the way I want to pay attention to a story.

Everybody likes spoilers a little bit. But you want to be able to choose when you see those spoilers, and how. So io9 will give you the spoilers you want, but we'll shield you by keeping them off the front page and telling you "spoilers ahead" when necessary. If you don't have the willpower to stop reading when you see those words, io9 is not responsible. But we might have a spoiler-blocking brain implant to sell you.

Technical stuff for RSS nerds:

Some people have expressed concern that they can't block out spoilers because they read io9 in a feed where there is no break in the post after the "more" link. There is an easy solution to this. You can subscribe to the io9 feed without the "morning spoiler" posts by grabbing the RSS off this page. Find out more about building a custom RSS feed for io9 here.

Senior Associate Editor: Charlie Jane Anders
My science fiction stories have appeared in Paraspheres: New Wave Fabulist Fiction, StrangeHorizons, Flurb, Helix and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. My other writing has appeared in Mother Jones, Salon.com, ZYZZYVA, Publishers Weekly, the Wall Street Journal, the SF Chronicle, the New York Press, and a whole bunch of anthologies. I have stuff coming out soon in MonkeyBicycle's dirty humor anthology and Sex From America, Stephen Elliott's anthology with Harper Collins. I wrote a novel called Choir Boy and co-edited an anthology called She's Such A Geek. I co-founded other, an independent national magazine. And I host a San Francisco reading series called Writers With Drinks.

Associate Editor: Kevin Kelly
My fondest science fiction memories are from playing with the Death Star trash compactor toy sometime in the late 1970s. Why can't toys be that cool anymore? Dammit. Anyhow, I migrated west from Texas after finally finishing college after an extended stint working at Disneyworld in Florida. I spent five years working as a story editor at The Jim Henson Company, and after Disney bought the Muppets I found myself looking for gainful employment. That ended up being writing about movies, television, and video games for the past year and a half, which has also burdened my shelves with more movies, games, and toys than I ever dreamed I'd own when I was a kid, and most of 'em are robots and rayguns.

Contributor: Lisa Katayama
I was made in Japan but I'm not a robot or a cell phone. Or am I? I don't like to stay in one city for more than three years, and I'm addicted to the way my dog smells. When I'm not pondering the future or smelling my dog, I write about Japanese culture, technology, and human rights for Wired and other glossies. I record many of my brain farts on my personal blog, Tokyomango. I have a book about quirky Japanese life hacks coming out this spring. Also, this may surprise you, but I have never seen Star Wars, Star Trek, or any other movie with "star" in the title. Maybe I am a robot, after all, who was programmed not to watch these movies so I can ponder an alternate future devoid of common scifi references.

Contributor: Geoff Manaugh
My interest in sci-fi started early, reading H.P. Lovecraft and Dune and watching John Carpenter films after dark on school nights, and it's continued unabated, going all over the place, including J.G. Ballard, China Miéville, zombie horror, New Scientist, Pruned, human cloning, William Blake, hydroponic urban agriculture, Logan's Run, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, The City of Lost Children, Baroque cathedrals, Angkor Wat, paleo-North American plate tectonics, Tesla's electricity, and the outer limits of geodynamism, not to mention bits and pieces of Robert Morgan, Ian MacLeod, Gormenghast, Max Barry, Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, and even Halo, Clive Barker, Alex Garland, and Steven Spielberg. In real life, I'm the author of BLDGBLOG, a Yahoo! Top 25 Pick of the Year (2006), and a Time Magazine Style & Design 100 blog (2007). BLDGBLOG has led to a book deal with Chronicle Books, for publication in Spring 2009. I'm also now Senior Editor at Dwell Magazine.

Contributor: Graeme McMillan
Borag Thung, Earthlets. I'm Graeme McMillan, the plucky young red shirt of this particular away team. Having survived the comic blogosphere for the past five years on sites like Fanboy Rampage!!!, Newsarama and The Savage Critics, I'm finally finding a use for a childhood of cold Scottish winters spent playing with Six Million Dollar Man toys and watching Blakes 7 and Doctor Who before he was cool. Sure, I may be killed before the second ad break by an alien on a sound stage planet with styrofoam rocks, but at least I'll have my memories.

Contributor: Lynn Peril
I'm a writer living in Oakland, California. My column, "The Museum of Femoribilia," appears in BUST magazine. My latest book is College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens and Coeds, Then and Now (W.W. Norton). In the words of Criswell, "We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives." But first you can spend some time at my website.