Sorry Shippers, Mulder and Scully Aren’t Together in the New X-Files

Love is dead. Or at least abducted by aliens. According to Entertainment Weekly, the returning show is going to turn the clock back on Mulder and Scully’s relationship. I’m more upset about this than I am some real-life break-ups. The first hint was in a clip shown at the Television Critics Association press tour, which…

Tapeworms: Bad for your guts, good for your brain? The intestinal worm Hymenolepsis diminuta appears to protect against memory loss in rats, researchers reportinBrain, Behavior and Immunity. It’s the latest example of how parasitic worms might be harnessed for therapeutic purposes. Contact the author at [email protected].

The 50 Most Cringe-Worthy Moments In Comic-Book Movie History

There have been hundreds of movies based on comic books, going back to the earliest days of both media. And that cinematic flood has come with a certain amount of “holy crap, what was that” moments. Here are the 50 most shudder-inducing comic-book-movie moments… according to you. Check out our new video, created in honor…

Ken Liu Explains Why The Social Messages In Fiction Depend on the Reader

Ken Liu’s debut novel The Grace of Kings has sparked lots of interest with its coinage of a new genre, Silkpunk. But is it a novel of social commentary? Does it comment on contemporary social issues? The New York Times asked Liu, and he delivered an interesting perspective on the ability of fiction to critique…

For Some Items, Buying Online Can Actually Add to the Shame Factor

The privacy that comes from buying things online allows people to purchase all kinds of things they normally wouldn’t, right? Not quite. In some cases, buying something online can make you try even more strenuously to avoid the purchase in future than you would if you bought it in public. Online purchasing lets people buy…

A Forensics Expert Explains Just How Far Removed CSI Is From Reality

Stand back behind the yellow tape, everyone! The CSI techs are on their way and they are coming to science—and it’s driving the real forensics experts crazy. Dawnie Steadman is a forensic anthropologist and the director of the University of Tennesee’s “body farm”—the facility where they do the research that enables a crime tech to…

Turns Out The Fantastic Four And X-Men Movies Are In Different Universes

Remember how Bryan Singer started teasing the potential of a “Fox Cinematic Universe,” where the new Fantastic Four and the cavalcade of X-Men movies crossed over? Well, apparently someone at Fox desperately shook him and told him to shut up, because now the movies aren’t even in the same universe as each other. Given that…

Watching the Soyuz Dock to the ISS Is Almost Unbearably Tense

Shot from almost every angle imaginable, these combined takes of the Soyuz spacecraft launching, flying through space, and then going through incredibly fiddly process of trying to dock itself to the space station is straight up hair-raising. (Spoiler! The Soyuz makes it—but not without some drama.)

Exclusive Excerpt From Robin Hobb’s Fool’s Quest: Will Fitz EVER Learn?

FitzChivalry Farseer just can’t resist taking in orphans and creatures in need. And that trait will continue to get him into major trouble, judging from our exclusive excerpt from Fool’s Quest, the second book in Robin Hobb’s Fitz and the Fool trilogy. Excerpted from Fool’s Quest, book II of the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy,…

The Deep Influence of the A-Bomb on Anime and Manga

At the end of Katsuhiro Otomo’s dystopian Japanese anime film Akira, a throbbing, white mass begins to envelop Neo-Tokyo. Eventually, its swirling winds engulf the metropolis, swallowing it whole and leaving a skeleton of a city in its wake. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – along with the firebombings of Tokyo – were…

Vin Diesel’s Fake Beard Steals The Show in the Last Witch-Hunter Trailer

There’s a lot of silly fun going on, in this first look at The Last Witch Hunter—a movie where immortal Vin Diesel teams up with Rose Leslie and Elijah Wood to kill Witches and skeletal monsters. But seriously, the real highlight is his glorious, glorious beard in all the sequences set in the past. Look…

How Crickets Help Explain One of Schizophrenia’s Biggest Mysteries

For a long time, people with schizophrenia have reported feeling as though their thoughts and actions were controlled by an outside influence, and people didn’t understand why. One experiment, involving crickets, may have shed some light on the neurology behind that feeling. A new book, The Man Who Wasn’t There, takes a look at mental…

Meet Bethany Black, The First Transgender Actor on Doctor Who

Now that shows like Sense8 have helped massively expand the presence of transgender people in science fiction and fantasy, one of the most venerable TV shows is following suit. Trans actor Bethany Black is appearing in Mark Gatiss’ upcoming “scary” episode. Black previously appeared in Tofu, Cucumber and Banana, the LGBT show created by former…

Secret Origins Of The Japanese Superhero Show That Became Power Rangers

If you look at the picture above, you probably think of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, costumed heroes who have been kicking their way across TV in different incarnations for nearly 20 years—but you’d be wrong. These are actually the Zyurangers, the stars of a Japanese TV series that inadvertently spawned a global sensation. The…

The Army Surgeon Who Jumped Out of a Plane at 40,000 Feet—For Science!

Sometimes progress requires huge risks. Just ask William Randolph “Randy” Lovelace II, who wanted to prove that an oxygen mask could protect pilots from blacking out at high altitudes when they bailed out of their planes. See his story for yourself, in this Fusion video which we’re premiering exclusively at io9. There’s a reason why…

Why Taking the Thing’s Pants Off Was Such a Dumb Idea

Greetings, my friends! In today’s “Postal Apocalypse” we discuss whether zombies need to eat, a fascinating Star Wars theory about Obi-Wan the prequels ruined, and why the Thing’s lack of underpants is emblematic of the new Fantastic Four movie. I mean, look at that picture and just try not to stare at his crotch. You…

Spielberg’s Ready Player One Movie Comes Out December 2017

We’ve known for a while that a Steven-Spielberg-directed adaptation of Ernest Cline’s nerd-fantasy novel Ready Player One was happening—but now we know when it’s actually going to land in theaters, and it’s sooner than you might think: December 15th, 2017. The 2011 novel, set in a future world where a VR online video game (littered…

Read the Full Text of John Hersey’s “Hiroshima,” A Story of 6 Survivors

For the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, The New Yorker has published online the full text of John Hersey’s “Hiroshima,” to which the magazine devoted the entire editorial space of its August 31, 1946 issue. “It does so in the conviction that few of us have yet comprehended the all but incredible…

NASA Totally Found an Alien Crab on Mars and Didn’t Tell Anybody

And then—get this—THEN they accidentally posted a picture of it online. And then some people spotted it and called a spade a spade crab a crab. Hey everybody! Look! It’s a crab on Mars! The proof, via UFO Sightings Daily: This crab-like object was found in a Mars rover. Its unknown exactly who found it,…

The Reign of Archie Continues as Adam McKay Takes the Comic to Broadway

Not content with a new TV series on the CW, a newly redesigned and shockingly excellent comic relaunch, fighting zombies, Predators and Sharknados, and all the other ways he and his Riverdale pals are conquering the entertainment world, Archie will also get a Broadway musical with help from Anchorman’s Adam McKay. From the press release:…