New Found-Footage Horror Film Spotlights Site Of “The British Roswell”

America has Roswell; England has Rendlesham Forest — where aliens maybe paid a visit to US military personnel stationed there in 1980. A new film, The Rendlesham UFO Incident, depicts a documentary crew that encounters eerie activity while poking around the same area. Rendlesham doesn’t sound like a typical found-footage horror flick, however; for one…

These Mesmerizing Videos Reveal The Hidden Flight Paths Of Birds

These videos, recorded by Dennis Hlynsky, a professor at Rhode Island School of Design, are showing the flight paths of various birds like crows, starlings, seagulls, black vultures, purple martins and sparrows, among others. According to Hylynsky: To some degree these videos are studies of mob behavior. Are these decisions instinctual or a small thoughtful…

Just How Did Scott McCloud Create Something As Moving As The Sculptor?

Scott McCloud is best known for his comics about comics, books like Understanding Comics, Making Comics, and Reinventing Comics, which examine the elements and power of the sequential art form. But in The Sculptor, McCloud combines form with heart to tell a story about love, mortality, and art. If you haven’t gotten a chance to…

First Clip From The New Season Of Orphan Black Seeds The New Clone Plot

Spoiler alert, the first-ever clip for the new season of Orphan Black is out and after we watched it all we could do is run around screaming, because we missed these ladies! Welcome back, girls, and hello to the new clones!

Frank Drake: “It Would Be Silly” To Message Alien Life Today

Frank Drake, creator of the eponymous equation formulated to predict the probability of finding communicative extraterrestrial life in our galaxy, thinks that actively transmitting messages into outer space (as opposed to listening passively for extraterrestrial communication) is a silly, expensive, and inefficient idea. Photo Credit: Stephane Guisard/ESO Drake’s opinion contrasts with that of Douglas Vakoch,…

Why Is Marvel So Fascinated By A Teenage Spider-Man?

Peter Parker is essentially the original teen hero in many comic readers eyes – the balance between his teenage life and the great responsibility of super-heroism is what helped made him into one of Marvel’s most popular characters. But why are Marvel so afraid of moving the character on from that point? According to the…

The Journal of Brief Ideas is an online scientific research journal of “brief ideas” that accepts submissions of, at most, 200 words. “This is an interesting experiment, but it’s not a sign of things to come,” astrophysicist Katie Mack tellsNature. “There is a risk of it being just a bunch of half-formed thoughts.”

Fox Nabs Giant Monster-Apocalypse Comic Enormous For Event TV Series

Giant monsters are a dime a dozen, but only Tim Daniel and Mehdi Cheggour’s comic series Enormous explores what it’s like to live in a world where the giant monsters have already won. That may be why Fox has just licensed the comic with plans to make it an “event series” in the near future.…

A History Of The Most Impractical Weapons Ever Used In War

A lot of brainpower goes into designing weapons of war. Unfortunately, in a complicated situation, brainpower is a terrible substitute for testing. Here are some of the ingenious weapons of war that were great on paper and terrible in practice. I remember an engineer giving a talk at my college. He and a team had…

The $1 Billion Movie Could Be An Endangered Species

Over the past half dozen years, the American movie industry has benefited massively from overseas box office, and a number of movies that underperformed domestically rocked out overseas. A number of movies made over $1 billion worldwide. But that could be about to change, thanks to a strong dollar. As recently as last summer, Transformers:…

Meet The New Face Of Marlboro: Jeff The Diseased Lung In A Cowboy Hat

On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver reports on Philip Morris International’s unsavory habit of suing countries over laws requiring health warnings on cigarette packaging, while proposing a compromise that preserves Big Tobacco’s marketing goals while protecting public health: Meet Jeff, the Diseased Lung In A Cowboy Hat. Oliver’s proposed mascot is a humorous coda to…

The ​​​​​Very Best Toys From New York Toy Fair 2015

We’ve combed through New York City’s annual Toy Fair to bring you all the best and the brightest toys, treasures, costumes and action figures presented this year. And what we found is both amazing and awesomely terrifying. Behold a sentient Barbie, virtual reality View-Masters and Block! Virtual Reality View-Master View-Master partnered up with Google Cardboard…

How Does The Scoville Scale Measure The Exact Hotness Of A Pepper?

The hottest chili ever measured rates a whopping 1,569,300 Scoville Heat Units, but what exactly does that mean? Where does the Scoville Scale come from? What exactly does it measure? And how do we end up with such a precise number to describe the heat sensation a pepper can produce? First, it’s necessary to make…

Constantine Has Revealed Its Long Con, And We’re Rooting For Its Return

This week, Constantine aired what might be the show’s final episode, a creepy story about otherworldly polygamous teenagers. But it’s the episode’s last few moments that ups the stakes and has us hoping that Constantine returns, perhaps with a bit of rebranding. I will admit, I’ve been a bit ambivalent about Constantine. Like a lot…

Producers Of That Wheel Of Time TV Pilot Are Suing Robert Jordan’s Widow

A week ago, a pilot episode for a Wheel of Time TV show aired at 1:30 in the morning on the cable channel FXX. And its producers, Red Eagle Entertainment, explained it was basically to hold onto the rights past their Feb. 11 expiration date. But now, they’ve sued Harriet McDougal, the widow of author…

Why Would Someone Stick These Crystals In Your Heart?

These are piezoelectric crystals. Their use is based on one insight — sound is a physical wave which can deform a crystal — and it’s how we measure the changing size of organs while they’re still being used. It works like this: Two crystals are embedded in a material, and both are attached to wires.…

Crows Are Even Smarter Than We Thought Possible 

We know that crows understand causality, the relationship between cause and effect. We also know they have mad tool skills. Now, a new research collaboration between Moscow State University and the University of Iowa suggests that crows are also capable of analogical thinking, a realm of reasoning thought only available to primates. https://gizmodo.com/crows-understand-a-fundamental-part-of-logical-reasonin-1553222215 Scientific American…

The 13 Most Ridiculous Types Of Stormtroopers

The Galactic Empire employs countless Stormtroopers to rule the galaxy. Not all of these are regular soldiers — there are many specialized ‘Troopers with specific skills and/or weapons. Unfortunately, some of these guys are more useful than others. Here are the Stormtroopers the Empire can probably let go. 1) Bombtroopers Officially known as the Bomb…

Why Is This Small Town In Russia Getting Blue Snow?

Snow: It comes in all textures, consistencies, and shapes, but the color, at least, is remarkably consistent. But in Chelyabinsk, Russia, residents have been alarmed to see snow suddenly showing up in shades of baby blue. Just what’s going on here? Residents of Chelyabinsk (whose name you may remember from a couple years ago, when…

Why Do We Need More Science Fiction By LGBT Writers?

Last year, Lightspeed Magazine had a special issue in which “Women Destroy Science Fiction” (and horror, and fantasy.) Now, Lightspeed is following up with “Queers Destroy Science Fiction.” And today’s the last day to support the Kickstarter. But why should you care about getting more LGBT SF? The editors of the issue explain. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lightspeedmagazine/queers-destroy-science-fiction Mark…