Nicolas Winding Refn’s Neon Demon Actually About Cannibal Supermodels? 

Okay, we’ll admit it. We did not expect the plot for Nicolas Winding Refn’s female-lead horror movie Neon Demon to be centered around cannibal supermodels. You’ve got our attention now, Refn. Earlier this month the cast for Neon Demon was announced, and it’s a great group including Christina Hendricks, Elle Fanning, Abbey Lee, Jena Malone,…

How Big Is The Biggest Star We Have Ever Found?

The universe is such a big place that it is easy to get baffled by the measurements that astronomers make. The size of UY Scuti, possibly one of the largest stars we have observed to date, is certainly baffling. Above: UY Scuti (Rutherford Observatory/CC). Not surprisingly, UY Scuti is classified as a “hypergiant” star –…

Who Is The Worst Fictional Scientist Ever?

Improper pipetting procedure, a total lack of any sort of note-taking protocol, the failure to even attempt to get the proper clearance for human testing — we’ve seen all these travesties and more on-screen. Today, though, we want to know which fictional scientist is the very worst at their job? Tell us who your pick…

​Terraforming Gone Wrong Resulted in a Plague of Rabbits

When the “frontier” was first being settled, prairie rabbits were a boon. They were easy game for hungry families. But during the Depression, they became a terror that whole communities fought through gruesome “Jack Rabbit Drives.” During the First World War, the price of wheat went through the roof, and one of the best places…

Rumors: Angelina Jolie Directing Captain Marvel, And A Star Wars Reunion

James Gunn talks Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Samuel L. Jackson may join Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, while a Firefly actor could co-star in Deadpool. Plus, pictures from the Sherlock Christmas special, and the first details about The Lego Movie 2’s new female character. Spoilers, Assemble! Top image: Star Wars Rebels.…

StudioCanal’s already in talks with producer David Heyman to make a sequel to Paddington. As the first film was essentially just the origin story and it received positively — despite a rough start and the replacement of its star’s voice — there’s a lot of room for a sequel. [Variety]

The Difference Between Where Tourists and Locals Take Photographs

Eric Fischer has made a project of sifting through geotagged information in order to produce beautiful maps of things like tweets. He’s taken that one step further, sorting through the information to compare the places in cities where tourists (in red) and locals (in blue) take photos. Cropped map of London by Eric Fischer/flickr/CC-By-SA 2.0…

Watch The Complete Behind-the-Scenes Game of Thrones Special

Although it just aired on the channel earlier today, HBO has put all of Game of Thrones Season 5: A Day in the Life up on the show’s Youtube channel. It’s a single day of filming for the show, spanning Croatia, Northern Ireland, and Spain. Spoilers, in the form of speculation, below. While we see…

Finally, Science Has Solved The Eternal Question of “Where’s Waldo?”

Searching for Waldo (or Wally, to give him his original name) is frustrating to the point of insanity. So when a doctoral student unexpectedly found himself snowed in last weekend, he decided to compute the most efficient way to look for the elusive red-and-white man. Randy Olson, a grad student at Michigan State University’s High-Performance…

Behold, The Icy Rivers Of Northern Canada

The gorgeous patterns you see here come courtesy of an astronaut-shot photo showing the Mattagami (top right) and Missinaibi Rivers (bottom right), flowing into the Moose River (left) in northern Ontario. Keep scrolling for more details from Mika McKinnon.

Will Jennifer Lawrence And Chris Pratt Star in Scifi Drama Passengers?

Is Jennifer Lawrence going to space? Is Chris Pratt going … back to space? A new report has the duo in talks to head up the cast of Passengers, with Imitation Game director Morton Tyldum at the helm. Reports Variety: Passengers is set on a spacecraft in the future, with thousands of passengers making an…

The New Thunderbirds‘ Tracy Island Is A Miniature, Lifelike Paradise

First came the teaser trailer, then the unsettling first look at the characters. Now, here’s your chance to journey into the uncanny valley (ok, Tracy Island) from whence the new Thunderbirds Are Go! characters will emerge when the reboot debuts later this year on ITV. According to the show’s YouTube page: The world of Thunderbirds…

We’re Going To Europa

NASA’s 2016 budget was approved by President Obama last week, and it contained some exciting goals: “A robust planetary science program includes data analysis of ongoing missions, and development of the next Mars rover. NASA will also continue formulating a mission to Europa, Jupiter’s icy moon that, data suggests, may have organic material on its…

How A Group Of Brits Changed The World By Changing Science In The 1970s

There’s a smell in Battersea, south-west London – something to do with local coffee roasters. But in the early 1970s, the area was very different economically, and the stink wasn’t nearly so pleasant. Described at the time as “like dead bodies,” it was known as “The Battersea Smell.” There was various speculation about causes. Most…

The Hyperviolent Trading Cards That Inspired Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!

In 1962, Topps released a controversial trading card series that depicted the gruesome annihilation of “much of Earth’s population” by Martian forces. The set was called “Mars Attacks.” Many parents, unsurprisingly, hated it. Some three decades later, it inspired the Tim Burton film of the same name. “They were pretty violent,” writes Ron Kretsch over…

Try Your Hand At This Surprisingly Difficult Matchstick Puzzle

Matchstick puzzles (aka toothpick puzzles) typically involve adding to, subtracting from, or rearranging an initial configuration of matchsticks to create another, target configuration of matchsticks. Some of these puzzles can get rather complicated. This matchstick puzzle is more straightforward than most, but still quite challenging. Sunday Puzzle # 19: Six Matches, Four Triangles Using six…

Mel Brooks Still Wants To Make A Spaceballs Sequel

We’ve been waiting a long time for the next Star Wars movie… but we’ve been waiting even longer for a sequel to Spaceballs, Mel Brooks’ Star Wars spoof. But now, Brooks says he actually wants to make this happen, and he aims to start work on it soon after The Force Awakens comes out. Redditor…

Here’s What It Looks Like When 300 Manatees Gather In One Acre

Last week, 300 manatees gathered in Three Sisters Springs on the Crystal River in Florida, enjoying the safety and warmth of the sanctuary. Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge officials closed off the area to human visitors, but shared a few photos from the manatee meetup. Photo Credit: Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Approximately 600…

Watch The Midseason Trailer For Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.

“Do you know what it’s like to lose control?” Looks like Skye, with her new Inhuman abilities, is going to get a crash course in this explosion-filled new trailer for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s highly anticipated return (March 3) after December’s mind-blowing midseason finale. Via Bleeding Cool.

Did You Know Soviet Cosmonauts Carried A Bear-Killing Shotgun To Space?

Anything can happen during a launch or landing of a crewed spacecraft, and just in case the crew would end up stranded in a remote area of the world, astronauts and cosmonauts undergo survival training and carry survival kits. The kits contain items such as food rations, water, extra clothing, items for making a shelter…