Cool, thank you, I had never heard of Weightless Books until now. I think I will get some gift subscriptions for my significant other (and steal more than a few peeks, naturally). Happy reading!

Honest question for anyone, if I may: If I were to subscribe to these magazines, do the ebooks expire or anything like that? I've never subscribed to e-periodicals before, and I am deep into SF book series now—but would like to know that the SF magazines are "on the shelf" when I am ready. Thanks!

Anything that gets people interested in B5 is a positive contribution to the universe in my book. B5 is my favorite thing of all time, and I've always thought it was ahead of its time and would have thrived with today's interest in serialized drama, not to mention graphics (the CG in 2007's Lost Tales was beautiful, I…

Old Man's War by John Scalzi featured a space elevator as well, I think.

Yeah, particularly the astronomer's audacious escape...the result was devastating, of course, but he strikes me as a classic AC Clarke character who resisted the knowledge limits imposed by other entities (Overlords, Diaspar, even HAL in a way). In Rendezvous with Rama, there is not only a sense of unknown but…

Yeah, in The City and the Stars the main protagonist isn't a scientist (I think) but nevertheless displays the sort of intellectual bravery that might characterize one. And in Childhood's End there was Jan, the astronomer, and his audacious escape. In AC Clarke's world there are almost always characters that…

Just wanted to chime in with my support. A good idea! Io9 seems to have QandAs with writers and scientists, which are awesome and a highlight of my time on here, but a fleshed out story of how people succeeded would be interesting. The biographies/profiles in general, I think, (e.g. a recent one from Mika about an…

I guess this is a minor request, but would it be possible to create a separate post to notify folks about the next month's book club pick? Currently it seems that the selection is written at the end of the actual book club post—but if the book club is for a book I haven't read, I usually don't click on it. So that…

This is tangential to the problematic legal fiction of corporate personhood, but the Hobby Lobby decision disturbed me on another level: Let's not forget that there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with a woman taking Plan B or using an IUD, nor should there be. Because that's what this is all about, isn't it? The issue…

I just read that not only are Webb's mirrors larger, it will also have coronagraphs onboard to reduce glare from parent stars. So another reason to be enthusiastic, I suppose. Going even further, the light occluder in New Worlds/Starshade would allow for detection of surface details such as oceans, continents, polar…

Cool, though I guess this isn't coming out in paperback?

Cool! Layperson here, but I suppose these visualizations would be particularly useful to track vertical migrations of birds down mountainsides, especially when habitat is threatened, e.g. the Rockies, where pine beetles have killed millions of trees.

Regarding Mars' habitability, how do you think the first pioneers will contend with the dangers of long-term exposure to solar radiation?

I was thinking the same thing! The (Gothic?) aesthetic is straight out of a lot of album covers in 1970s-80s—in the best possible way. See also:

For anyone interested, here is a great little roundup of some owl research: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/sci…

Awesome. Anyone else see the hedgehog robot and think of the head of the Shrike?

A good rule of thumb generally, I suppose, but to to randomly select and assign birds to areas with and without insecticide is impossible given its widespread introduction in the Netherlands and cascading effects. A correction was made for land use practices with known negative impact. Another extraneous variable…

Yeah, rather than taking prudent and cautious actions, such as gradual (and potentially reversible) curbs in use of the insecticide, applying it selectively, monitoring its impact to increase our understanding of the boundaries of its effects, and creating contingency plans (alternatives) for when initial evidence of…

My apologies, to clarify, are we to conclude that sugar increases levels of small LDL particles? This appears to be suggested, but I'm not sure if Krass' advice to avoid sugar was made on a general basis or linked to small LDL particles specifically. Thanks!

Preferably in the same star system, I nominate Cuddles, Snuggles, Bubbles, Snookums, Tootsie, and for good measure (our military hub), Sweet Cheeks.