I don't know. Sometimes I feel worried that we in the West let ourselves over-prioritize safety to the point of giving up some possible adventures and experiments in our youth that, while they may lead to serious injury or even death in a few rare cases, are more likely to lead to inspiration, interesting discoveries,…

What if I just get around any "outer space property rights" issues by bringing the asteroid down to Earth, first? That'd be okay, right? :P

I think this is an issue they want to avoid addressing for now, and I think that's fine. Granting rights to extracted resources creates an incentive to go out there and get those resources, but I don't think we should be in a rush to let companies claim astronomical bodies outright. I think you'll have a hard time…

My netbook, for the same reason that everyone else is saying "tablet," except that I hate tablets. :P I'd have to try to find a small laptop with the biggest, most astronaut-glove-friendly keyboard ever, though...

"There is NEVER a right time for a catastrophe causing asteroid to hit an inhabited planet."

A few cans of Perri-Air can tide us over in the meantime. :P

Oh, Alberta. The Alabama of Canada.

So? No-one is perfect. I'm not, you're not. But "I like hitting men but not women" shouldn't be the foundation of an entire theory of social relations. Objectively, given whatever context, there's no reason to feel "better" about hitting a physically small, unathletic man who can't defend himself than about hitting a…

See, this is the problem I have with "hitting girls is bad" as a rule, instead of "hitting people is bad" or "taking advantage of someone who's physically smaller than you is bad," etc. The instant you simplify things to "hitting girls is bad," you get people like brupo, and soon you devolve into an argument about how…

That's exactly what people consider to be unrealistic. Sexism!

Are you seriously suggesting that movies with female characters who can hold their own in a fight are bad for women?

"I'm sorry if you were under the impression that just because people put us in one acronym that we all get along and have the same political interests. I'm sure you don't believe this, but just because I'm the L in LGBT does not mean my interests are the same as the BT folks."

That's awful. I kind of wish this poster was just banned. They clothe their transphobia in talk about racism and the problems of the fashion industry, but that's some incredibly hateful stuff right there.

That doesn't at all sound like what he's saying, from this transcript. Talking about "provocation" is different from explicitly talking about hitting first. He sounds like the kind of person who claims that women can "provoke" sexual assault by dressing the "wrong" way. If he meant "hitting is wrong regardless of the…

"You want to escape with science fiction and fantasy, but you also want to learn about what's possible in the real world using science and technology. You want to know what's coming next, and what it will take to get there. What other stories do you want to see?"

I agree! I'm always surprised when I see some tech story break on a general news site, BBC or what-have-you, but it's not mentioned on io9. More emphasis on breaking science and tech news, with more frequent updates on all sorts of new developments, would be awesome.

Yes! Strong agreement. Focusing over-much on big-name, blockbuster films and shows takes away some of io9's uniqueness. It's what everyone else is talking about. More obscure works, on the other hand, are like the gems of geeky culture.

Yeah, I think that'd be a great twist. It would be a bit bizzare if hens turned out to be attracted to human male faces, but not human female faces, and vice versa for roosters. :P I suppose it'd be an ego boost to humanity in general to learn that our innate sexiness crosses species boundaries — take that, Darwin!

I think that would be interesting to explore, and certainly the study suggests that the chickens were able to notice some "pattern" to the masculine and feminine faces, being able to tell them apart. However, I think there's a very large gap between the statement "male and female faces are innately different," which…

I think it's hard to tell, but I am guessing that whatever digital manipulation was used to make the faces "average" or "exaggerated" might contribute to the sharpness and contrast differences... I think this can also raise the question of whether imperfections in the digital manipulation process itself might account…