Is This Our First Look At Lupita Nyong’o’s Alien In The Force Awakens?

We recently found out that actress Lupita Nyong’o was using her considerable talents to play a all-new, motion-captured character for Star Wars: Episode VII. Now we may also know what that character looks like, too. As you may remember, Nyong’o is playing Maz Kabata, a space pirate who lords over a wide variety of smugglers,…

Cornell University’s Institute for Pale Blue Dots has a new name. Now called the Carl Sagan Institute: Pale Blue Dot and Beyond, the multidisciplinary research institute is dedicated to investigating the life-harboring potential of other planets, and to acquiring a richer understanding of our own. Image: Jason Koski/University Photography

Why Is There A Hole In Airplane Windows?

Here’s a question you’ve probably asked at some point in your life. Most likely you’ve asked it in passing, while parked in seat 22A on a flight to… wherever: What’s with that little hole in the airplane window? Photo Credit: Pedro Moura Pinheiro | CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 The purpose of this tiny hole is the…

NASA Is Considering The Use Of Soft Robotic Squids To Explore Europa

NASA has chosen its next batch of proposals under its advanced concepts program, including the use of soft-robotic rovers for exploring gas-giant moons, and autonomous robots capable of crawling, hopping, and rolling around the surface of the Moon. Under Phase I of NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, selected participants are given $100,000 to fund…

The 10 Stupidest (And Most Shameless) Mad Max Rip-Offs

Mad Max is a movie about a post-disaster world, and its success has inspired oodles of disastrously bad films. Witness Grade-Z movies so epically execrable that you’ll be yearning for a couple minutes in Thunderdome. 1) Battletruck Also known as Warlords of the 21st Century (the film takes place in 1994), 1982’s Battletruck was New…

A Blow To The Back Of Your Head Can Shatter The Front Of Your Skull

A blow to the back of the head is dangerous enough, but when doctors have examined such head injuries, they’ve found a strange phenomenon. A hit to the back of the head cause breaks in the front of the skull. It’s called a contrecoup injuries, although it usually refers to brain injuries. But it’s the…

DC Comics Nearly Made A Sequel To Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke

It wouldn’t be the first iconic comic book story to get a follow-up tale many years after the original, but it certainly would’ve been big news: according to the original artist behind the seminal Joker/Batman story The Killing Joke, DC were planning a full-fledged sequel. But now the project may never happen. The news comes…

Many Ancient Egyptian Animal Mummies Aren’t What They Appear To Be

An extensive scanning project has revealed that about one-third of all ancient Egyptian animal mummies are devoid of animal remains, and are instead bundles of cloth filled with mud, sticks, and reeds. As reported in the BBC, the scanning project, in which more than 800 animal mummies were analyzed with X-rays and CT scans, was…

There’s Only One Army That Really Matters On Game Of Thrones

Lots of people have armies, on Game of Thrones. Stannis has an army. Roose Bolton has an army. Daenerys has an army. So do the Lannisters. But there’s only one army that really matters, and we finally heard about it last night: The Army of the Dead. Spoilers ahead… Game of Thrones has been doing…

Welcome To Action Hero Week!

The world is a scary, dangerous place — but that’s okay, because we’re ready for action. This week is Action Hero Week at io9 and Gizmodo, and we’re celebrating our favorite heroes, and the gear that makes them extraordinary. What makes someone a great action hero? It’s not just being willing and able to do…

A Closer Look At Ceres’ Mysterious Bright Spots Reveals We Were Wrong

With our ever closer looks at Ceres’ surface, we’ve been hoping to get close enough to finally see a bit more about where those two mystery light splotches were coming from. Well, now we have. And, it turns out that we were wrong about one very basic fact: There were not two of them. There…

Constantine Officially Canceled, But All Hope May Not Be Lost

The rising darkness struck a decisive blow against the forces of good when NBC announced it was canceling its beleaguered DC show Constantine, based on the comic popularly known as Hellblazer. However, some surprising stars are coming to the show’s aid in hopes of it moving to another network. First of all, Deadline reports that…

Write Us Some Six-Word Science Fiction Stories!

To your keyboards, folks! We want to hear a (very, very short) story. Maybe you want to tell us about some of the sad side effects of immortality like commenter la-cockroach (“No death allowed, payments still due”) or maybe you want to tell us about some of the unexpected perks of our medical future like…

How We Learned Chlorine Gas Is Not An Effective Cold Remedy

We know that chlorine is incredibly dangerous if inhaled. It destroys lung tissue, causing people to asphyxiate on their own pulped lungs. It was used as a weapon in World War I, and soldiers were terrified of it. .So why did a US President and a good chunk of Congress get gassed with it as…

Can You Guess What Tom Hardy’s “Awesome” DC Comics Project Is?

Rosario Dawson will be the glue that holds all of Marvel’s Netflix series together. Kathleen Kennedy teases The Force Awakens’ approach to honoring Star Wars past. Plus, teases for the finales of Agents of SHIELD and The Originals. Spoilers! Top image: Daredevil. Unannounced DC Comics Project Tom Hardy has teased that he’s talking with DC…

Let’s Do Some Cosmic Navel-Gazing

This composite shot of the Cosmic Navel, in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is almost 200 feet wide, with the rock in the middle rising 33 feet above the indentation. Image credit: Cosmic Navel by John Fowler/flickr/CC BY 2.0 Photographer John Fowler, who took this shot, lists its other monikers: Cosmic Ashtray, Red Breaks Volcano,…

Unluckiest Fish Has Two Near-Death Experiences For the Price of One

This fish was already having a bad day when a young boy managed to catch him. Then, a snake grabs him from the boys hand and takes him on a harrowing trip through the grass before the kid is able to release him back in the water. Worst. Day. Ever. [via Tastefully Offensive] Contact the…

Another Indecent Proposal For Claire on This Week’s Outlander

This was not a good episode. “The Search” was aptly named, since the first forty-five minutes were all about finding Jamie, but it just spun its wheels. The only good thing about it was the the fact that I’ve been singing the “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” ever since it aired. “The Search” is a complete…

First Jem and the Holograms Photos Are a Bit Too Somber-Looking

The first full shots of the new Jem and the Holograms movie give us a good look at the characters’ new costumes. There’s a lot of studs and rhinestones, but are they really bright enough? We’ve been a little worried that this project was lacking the full-on eighties camp we really want, and these new…

“Snow Cleaning” Keeps This Giant Telescope Mirror Perfectly Pristine

The James Webb Space Telescope is the most powerful space telescope ever built, and its mirrors must be kept squeaky clean. Any debris, even tiny flecks of dust, could impact its science. Ergo, “snow cleaning:” the use of carbon dioxide snow to clean the mirrors thoroughly yet gently. According to NASA, the photo above shows…