Much Like Evil, The Spooky-Kid Horror Movie Will Never Die

In Before I Wake, parents (Kate Bosworth, Thomas Jane) still grieving the loss of their young son decide to foster an adorable boy who’d be a perfect li’l angel (“He likes butterflies!”) if only he didn’t have such horrifying nightmares that come true. Yo kid, don’t peek under the bed! Before I Wake may feel…

How The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle Fell In Love With Fantasy Books

Electric Literature asked John Darnielle, singer/songwriter with the Mountain Goats and author of Wolf in White Van, to pick a book to talk about. And Darnielle chose The Worm Ouroboros, a 1922 fantasy novel by Eric Rücker Eddison that’s one of the precursors to Tolkien. Top image: 1978 map by David Bedell. Darnielle gives a…

An Obsolete Robot Falls In Love With The Model Designed To Replace It

C-29 was content to move packages along the assembly line until one day, when a shiny new model appeared on the opposite side of the conveyer belt. What happens next is extraordinarily sweet — and more than a little sad. Charlie Davies created Magnetism, and it feels a bit like WALL•E and EVE meets Romeo…

How To Avoid The Horrible Things That Happen When You Give Ducks Bread

Step 1: Stop feeding them bread. Photo by Porsupah Ree via flickr | CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Are you feeding the ducks at your local pond pieces of stale bread? You might be contributing to their untimely demise, not to mention the deterioration of local ecosystems. That doesn’t mean you need to stop feeding ducks –…

Rogue One Will Be The First Star Wars Movie Not Scored By John Williams

Alexandre Desplat has been named the composer of Rogue One, making the first stand-alone Star Wars movie the first to also be made without the help of John Williams. I feel pretty confident, however, that even if Williams doesn’t personally work on the film, many of his iconic Star Wars themes will. To be fair,…

Big-game hunting is an increasingly popular pursuit for the mega-rich, and ranchers in South Africa are taking advantage by breeding special mutant animals to serve as luxury prey (a white lion with blue eyes goes for $30,000). The trend has caused no small amount of controversy, for obvious reasons.

Yep, That Anti-Robot Protest At SXSW Was A Marketing Stunt [UPDATED]

When a group of plucky students organized a protest at SXSW against the rising threat of artificial intelligence, they got a ton of attention. Including interviews on NPR and the BBC. A grassroots anti-robot protest seemed almost too good to be true. And it’s looking like maybe it was. [Updated!] Top image via Stop The…

How Arthur Conan Doyle’s Brutal Scifi Story Became A Horrific Reality

In 1912, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short story about how a small but warlike nation would conquer Britain. It would do so using a new technology in a new and brutal way. It shocked the nation and, three years later, it became a reality. Arthur Conan Doyle was making a point when he…

No, The Yeti Legend Was Not Inspired By a Prehistoric Bear

A couple of years ago, a DNA analysis of an ostensible sample of Yeti hair indicated that it may have belonged to a previously undiscovered ancestor of modern bears. A new genetic analysis now refutes this claim. Back in 2013, Oxford University professor Bryan Sykes studied two different hair samples taken from a pair of…

Insidious 3 Trailer Goes Full Tilt With Jump-Scare Ghosts 

Insidious is back! Did you miss Insidious? Of course not. But it’s back and it’s full of new ghosts and old ghosts and allegedly tells the origin story of the creepy Darth Maul ghost. The first Insidious was good, we’ll give the franchise that. In fact, it was downright horrifying. But then there was another…

io9’s March Madness: Movies Vs. TV!

It’s that time again: io9’s March Madness. In past years, we’ve crowned the best movie, the worst movie, the best TV show, and a winner in an epic science fiction versus fantasy showdown. This year, we’re figuring out which medium has produced the best work: film or television. Top image and bracket by Jim Cooke…

Oh, That’s Why Baby Groot Didn’t Want Drax To See Him Dancing in GOTG

It’s Guardians of the Galaxy’s most beloved scene. But have you ever wondered why Baby Groot froze in place whenever Drax the Destroyer turned to look at him? Director James Gunn actually has an answer. It actually has to do with an earlier scene that was cut from the movie. Here’s Gunn’s explanation from Doug…

Last Man On Earth Awkwardly Pokes Fun At Gender Stereotypes In Sitcoms

The conceit of The Last Man on Earth is that Phil and Carol’s relationship is a microcosm of male-female relations, taking a lot of sitcom tropes and adding a hefty dose of insanity. In the latest episode, Phil takes the idea of the sitcom male to the extreme — and makes us squirm in the…

5 Game Of Thrones Book Plots We’re Glad The TV Show Is Skipping

The Game of Thrones TV series has been a remarkably faithful adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series so far, but that will change when season 5 debuts on April 12th. But not every alteration from the books is a bad thing! Here are five storylines from the novels we won’t miss at all. Book…

There’s One More Terry Pratchett Book Still To Come

We’re still devastated by the news of Sir Terry Pratchett’s passing last week. But at least there’s one last book to look forward to: Pratchett’s The Shepherd’s Crown, a book about his young witch, Tiffany Aching. https://gizmodo.com/rip-sir-terry-pratchett-1948-2015-1691042794 The Shepherd’s Crown had been announced as coming this fall, and as of August 2014 it was announced…

Farmed Salmon Is Dyed From Gray To Pink So Consumers Won’t Freak Out 

Wild salmon are pink (or pinkish-orange, depending on geography) for the same reason flamingos are pink: their diets, which are heavy in krill and shrimp. But farm-raised salmon are fed a diet that renders them gray… or it would, if they weren’t carefully “pigmented” to transform into more appetizing hues. The Atlantic reports: While [astaxanthin,…

Lose Yourself In The Captivating Kinetic Sculptures of Jennifer Townley 

Netherlands-based artist Jennifer Townley combines wood, metal, and electrical motors to build spellbinding mechanical creations. Above: Townley’s 2014 sculpture, “Bussola.” Townley calls her latest sculpture “Asinas.” Her website explains that, like all her pieces, it is derived “from her fascination with science, with an emphasis on physics, engineering and mathematics”: Geometric patterns in Islamic art…

Before A Solar Eclipse, The Whole World Goes Wavy

If you’ve seen a solar eclipse, you know that just before the sun is hidden from view something very strange happens. Shadows start swirling, as if the light from the sun is shining through a heat haze. The phenomenon is called “shadow bands.” Before the Eclipse Very few things prepare you for the strange dimming…

The Answer To One Question Shows How The U.S. Differs From The World

There’s a single question you can ask that instantly reveals the differences between America and the rest of the world — and it’s not about income, religion, lifestyle, or politics. Top image: Visible Earth / NASA Earth Observatory. Ready? It’s “how’s your day going?” It’s the blandest of questions and — if you ever want…

Yes, Dangerously Low Vaccination Rates Are Fueling The Measles Outbreak

A new research letter published in JAMA Pediatrics is the first to positively link low vaccination rates to the Disneyland measles outbreak that emerged in California late last year. The new research also shows how frighteningly fast measles can spread in a population that’s insufficiently immunized against the highly contagious virus. Calculations made by a…