Matthew DeBord

Revealed: The Inspiration for Galactica’s Greatest Painting

There’s been speculation about that painting in Admiral Adama’s quarters ever since BSG’s first season. Humorist and sci-fi fiend John Hodgman, who wrote about the show for The New York Times Magazine, is obsessed with it, and the burned, broody painting has been dissected carefully on both BSG forums and Wikipedia. All of which made…

By Whose Command?

Rejoice, forward-thinking collector dorks! Diamond Select Toys has put out a Santa-worthy sampling of oh that fucking word again! reimagined Battlestar Galactica action figures. There’s just one glaring omission. There are no Adm. Adama, and no President Laura Roslin. Lee “Apollo” Adama and Starbuck, of course. Caprica Six and Adm. Cain, yes indeedy (and gods…

US vs. Russia on “World’s Next Top Spacesuit”

The astronauts who spent the past week performing space walks outside the International Space Station wore the familiar puffy white jumpsuits that nostalgia buffs innocently refer to as a “space suit.” But the spacefaring hardcore know it as an EMU, or “Extravehicular Mobility Unit,” and the current ones have been in service since 1984. On…

Futurama’s Big DVD Comeback Is a Cosmic Suck

Futurama was canceled by FOX four years ago, but thanks to the online agitation of its fan base, the show has been resurrected as a series of four feature-length direct-to-DVD releases. The first of these, Bender’s Big Score, hits the market today, and boy, does it essentially suck. OK, feature-length money plus feature-length production schedule…

Behold the Tragic Beauty of the International Space Station

The International Space Station may be beautiful, but it has tragically been scorned by true interplanetary exploration enthusiasts as a money-sucking boondoggle. This month it enters the final stages of its complex assembly even though it’s scheduled to be phased out by 2017 (and presumably allowed to burn up before plummeting into the sea). Nevertheless,…

Robots Will Be the Perfect Casual Sex Partners

Seth Lloyd, an MIT engineering professor, has published a bracingly sniffy review of David Levy’s new book on sex and love between humans and robots. Bottom line: No robot love anytime soon, but get ready for lots of robot sex. [L.A. Times Book Review]

Freeman Dyson Goes Wild

Forever-young physicist Freeman Dyson, now 83, has long been beloved by scifi writers for his extremely fucking cool ideas. He invented the Dyson Sphere, featured in a Star Trek: TNG episode, where the crew visits a sun wrapped entirely in an artificial sphere that captures every bit of solar energy available (you can see a…

An Icelandic genetics lab has announced that for a just under $1,000, it will combine overnight shipping and genetic profiling into a single, irresistible package, called DeCodeMe. Hello, genome envy!

A Post-Apocalyptic Magic Kingdom

Jeff Gillette, “Disneyland Destroyed,” acrylic on canvas

Futurama Release Party Brings Out Paparazzi

Thursday night, Fox threw a redcarpet hootenanny at the Arc Light in L.A. for its first direct-to-DVD feature release of Futurama. “Bender’s Big Score,” which comes out November 27, marks the sporadically amusing franchise’s return to grandeur. The occasion was celebrated, of course, by making voice-over artists pose for paparazzi shots and trotting out a…

Theater Geeks to Study Warp Cores and Prime Directive

Never ones to shy away from scifi references, L.A. architects have now moved on from Battlestar Galactica to Star Trek. Just as we’d learned to love Tom Mayne’s Caltrans intergalactic dreadnought, HMC Architects/Coop Himmelblau serve up an homage to Starfleet Academy with their design for the somewhat ominously named “Central Los Angeles High School #9.”…

Superbugs to Make Power from Poo

Quick intro to the hydrogen-economy paradox: The stuff could save our oil-addled asses, but curses! We have to burn oil to make the stuff. Enter researchers from Penn State, who have announced that they can use specially bred bacteria to make the most plentiful element in the universe from… Well, let’s allow FOXNews to serve…

Eight-Limbed Indian Girl Is Surgery Mascot

Two-year-old Lakshmi Tatma, the impoverished Indian girl who had a “parastic twin” removed from her body last week, is being used as PR by her surgical team. It seems Lakshmi, who was reportedly hailed as a reincarnated goddess in her village and, more menacingly, sought for purchase by a circus, can’t escape the limelight. It…