Katharine Trendacosta

Outlander‘s Back! And Determined To Be As Upsetting As Possible

Outlander just came back after a long hiatus, with an episode that focuses on the viewpoint of Jamie, the show’s 18th century romantic interest. We hear his musings on what a wife is for, and what wife should do. It’s… not as good as the show would like us to believe. Spoilers… It would be…

Everything You Need to Know Before Outlander Returns This Weekend

Outlander returns for the second half of its first season tomorrow on Starz. If you’re among those who haven’t seen it, here’s everything you need to know — what’s going on, who everyone is, why it’s so good, and what to expect — before the midseason premiere. It may seem easy to dismiss Outlander as…

For Easter This Year, Why Not a Set of Guardians of the Galaxy Eggs?

From artist Barak Hardley comes this bevy of pop culture painted Easter eggs. The Guardians are the obvious new heavy hitters, but I will always have a place in my soul for infamous interstellar criminal Pizza the Hutt. See the rest of the eggshere. [via Tastefully Offensive] Contact the author at [email protected].

David Bowie’s Turning The Man Who Fell to Earth Into a Play

This winter, Lazarus, based on The Man Who Fell to Earth, will premiere off-Broadway. It’ll have new songs by David Bowie as well as new arrangements of the original songs. Sadly, though, Bowie himself will not be reprising his role as alien-inventor Thomas Jerome Newton. Adapting the script for the stage is Irish playwright Enda…

Take a Look at a 1948 Scientist’s Fish Drawings 

Donald Erdman was a scientific aide in the Division of Fishes, United States National Museum (later the National Museum of Natural History) from 1947 to 1950. In 1948, Erdman was part of a fisheries survey of the Persian Gulf and Red Sea under the Arabian American Oil Company. The Smithsonian has digitized his notes from…

Oh For the Love of … Disney’s Making a Live-Action Winnie the Pooh

We know. We double-checked that we hadn’t all made a mistake and it was April Fool’s Day again. But, no, this seems legitimate: Disney’s planing on making a live-action Winnie the Pooh. In its quest to turn everything that was animated and charming into live-action monsterpieces, Disney has mined Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and…

Here’s What a Super Typhoon Looks Like From Space

As seen from the International Space Station, Super Typhoon Maysak is a giant swirl covering the entirety of a camera’s view. Image Credit: ESA/NASA/Samantha Cristoforetti

A Complete Ottoman Soldier’s Camel Found In an Austrian Basement

Researchers excavated the first complete skeleton of a camel in central Europe — one that may have started out life in the army and ended it as a curiosity. Image: In situ view of the camel in the cellar/A Sunken Ship of the Desert at the River Danube in Tulln, Austria by Galik et. al/PLOS…

This X-Wings Parody Is a Cars Spinoff We’d Actually Watch

Cars is not exactly a classic Pixar movie, but it’s spawned a bunch of spinoffs and sequels. If this trailer from Big Bee Studio was an actual film, though, we’d forgive those other movies just for bringing us this. Big Bee Studios nails the look of Cars franchise and the major points of Star Wars.…

First Details On David Hewlett’s Return to SyFy in Dark Matter

David Hewlett is returning to Syfy! This summer Hewlett will reunite with Stargate Atlantis writers Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie on their new show Dark Matter. Announced near the end of last year, Dark Matter is the television adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name. It follows the crew of a derelict spaceship,…

Watch NASA Spin Its Flying Saucer Before It Leaves for Hawaii

Yesterday, researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory put the final touches on a design that’s on its way to Hawaii for a test launch and landing before, eventually, hopefully, being deployed on Mars. And the design bears a more than passing resemblance to the iconic flying saucer. This comes from the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD)…

The X-Files Could Have Ended With a West Wing Crossover

While the series finale of The X-Files ended with a scene between Mulder and Scully, there was originally a different ending to the series. The clip above shows that final scene and commentary from executive producer Frank Spotnitz describing how they’d originally wanted Martin Sheen to appear. The cut scene has a George W. Bush…

A Delicate Stone Bridge Creates a Mystical Passage With Its Reflection

Located in Kromlau, Germany, the Rakotzbrücke was built as a perfect half-circle so that still waters and correct lighting would create the illusion of a full circle. It even has outcroppings on each side to make it look like a natural occurrence. In the imagination, it conjures thoughts of a portal to another world. Image:…

Stephen Amell Will Play Casey Jones In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2

As we move inexorably to another live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we find out that Stephen Amell, Oliver Queen himself, is joining the cast as Casey Jones. And, with that, he adds another vigilante character to his resume. According to Variety, which broke the news, it was Amell’s chemistry with Megan Fox — who is…

Definitely the correct choice.

A Haunting Tale of a Sinking Island, From Its Last House’s Point of View

This animated short by Lynn Tomlinson goes through the history of the last house on a sinking island in the Chesapeake. It functions almost like the house’s life is flashing before its eyes, before it goes under the waves. It’s like an even more depressing version of The Giving Tree Tomlinson’s technique is unique: each…

Among the Many Items Joining King Tut In the Afterlife … Four Socks?

There are all sorts of questions that spring immediately to mind when you think about King Tut: What killed him? Are curses real? What on earth is going on with his penis? One question not asked enough is what he planned to wear in the afterlife. Photo Credit: AP Images It really was a question…

When Is a Spiral Galaxy Just a Disc? When It’s Viewed From the Side.

The Hubble Space Telescope shows us the edge-view of galaxy NGC 5023. Even though NGC 5023 is a spiral galaxy, its orientation to the Hubble means that we can’t see its arms, only a side view which shows us a disk. Image credit: ESA/NASA NGC 5023 is located over 30 million light years away and…

io9 March Madness Championship Round: Star Wars vs. Star Trek!

In a way this was inevitable, wasn’t it? As we moved closer and closer to the finals, it became clear that everything else was just distractions from another chapter in a debate that’s raged for decades: Star Wars vs. Star Trek. Top image and bracket by Jim Cooke Look, y’all can be honest with me.…

10 Of The Most Absurd Units Of Measurement On Earth

Humans have a need to quantify things. And sometimes the usual measurements — feet, meters, grams — are not good enough. Or funny enough. Sometimes you need to express things in bananas, Helens, or cows. Image credit: Standard Measures by Neil Cummings/flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0 There are almost as many different ways to measure things as…