Another former Doctor Who star won’t be back for the 50th anniversary

We now know that Chloe Grace Moretz hasn’t auditioned for Star Wars — but Saoirse Ronan may have auditioned with a lightsaber in her hand. There’s new footage from Ender’s Game, Thor 2, The Hobbit and NBC’s Dracula. Plus, the World War Z sequel needs a new director. Spoilers now! Star Wars: Episode VII Instead…

Cheese Spiders take the Statue of Liberty in Cloudy 2 concept art

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is a cute, pun-filled movie, and it’s no surprise that the concept art by Aaron Spurgeon is great fun, especially when the Cheese Spiders are on the attack. Over on his blog, you can see Spurgeon’s numerous Cheese Spider attacks—on the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, the Sydney Opera…

Mesmerizing video speeds up Alaska’s salmon-filled nutrient cycle

Paul Klaver’s timelapse short film Alaska: The Nutrient Cycle takes us swiftly through Alaska’s ecological cycles, where salmon crowd the rivers, spawn, get themselves eaten, and rot into the ground. A warning to the squeamish: this video features fish being eaten by maggots, greatly sped-up. But if you enjoy the beauty of life and death,…

Infrared film turns a war zone into a pink fantasy landscape

Many photographers play with the way infrared photography transforms mundane landscapes into cotton candy fantasy lands. The Richard Mosse-directed video installation The Enclave goes a step further, juxtaposing those landscapes against the lives of rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the video above, Mosse discusses the project, and we get to see…

Gravity has earned $55.6 million in its opening weekend, trouncing early predictions that Alfonso Cuarón’s space film would open at $35 million. It earned $11.2 million in IMAX tickets alone, the biggest October opening for an IMAX film. [USA Today]

Meet the heroic rats who are trained to sniff out land mines

No, the HeroRATs of APOPO are not a new fantasy series like The Owls of Ga’Hoole. These are actual rats trained by an NGO to detect land mines. APOPO stands for “Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende Product Ontwikkeling” (or “Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development” in English), and was officially founded in 1997 in Belgium. Today, it’s administrative headquarters…

Two previously lost Doctor Who episodes come out this week!

We’ve heard tons of rumors about the discovery of lost Doctor Who episodes, and while many of those rumors remain unconfirmed, at least a few episodes have been rediscovered. The Radio Times has announced that two previously lost episodes from the Patrick Troughton era will be available for download this Wednesday! According to the Radio…

Crowdfund a USB device that charges electronics with fire

Want to launch a functional satellite into space for a mere $20,000? One Kickstarter campaign promises to build the satellites to do it. There’s also an off-grid electronics charger, a fantasy trilogy by Harry Connolly, and a new anthology of horror comics all looking for crowdfunding. Top image: the FlameStower. Also, don’t forget about the…

This quiz pinpoints your American dialect down to the town

There are a bunch of quizzes out there that purport to tell you what American dialect you speak. But now there’s one that tells you what city your accent and dialect is from. For some of you, it’s an amazing thing that pinpoints your hometown exactly. For others, it’ll tell you that, for whatever reason,…

Huge LEGO Helm’s Deep made with 150,000 bricks and 2,000 minifigs

Goel Kim and Big J’s massive recreation of the Battle of Hornburg from The Lord of the Rings looks like more than just a playset; it’s an all-out LEGO war. The pair spent roughly a year and a half constructing the 150,000-brick diorama and six months actually building it. With its 2,000 minifigs of various…

Mr. Potato Head goes missing in this Toy Story of Terror clip

The Toy Story gang is back for some spooky hijinks in this clip from Toy Story of Terror. When one of their number goes missing, some of the toys wonder: could there be a ghost in their midst? Toy Story of Terror airs Wednesday, October 16 at 8pm/7pm Central on ABC. [via The Awesomer]

Defend your hands against the cold with these dragon mittens

Winter isn’t coming quite yet in the Northern Hemisphere, but it isn’t too early to think about staving off the chill. What better way to keep your hands warm than with a pair of dragon mittens? Lyndal B knits up these spiny paw warmers and sells them at her Etsy store HotScones. And if dragons…

WB CEO: “We need to get Wonder Woman on the big screen or TV”

Impatient to see a Wonder Woman movie? Apparently, so is Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara. Speaking at an entertainment law conference yesterday, Tsujihara talked a bit about the state of DC characters in film and television. The Hollywood Reporter quotes him as calling the lack of DC feature films beyond the Batman and Superman franchises…

Sick of Jack O’Lanterns? Light your house with nuts instead

Are pumpkins passé? We understand. Instead of forcing yourself to peer at a grinning jack-o-lantern, or resorting to appallingly old-fashioned candles, why not set some nuts on fire? If you’re huddling in the dark as Halloween approaches, and you need some produce to set on fire in order to appropriately light your house, why settle…

An absurdly funny short film about a grotesque dinner party

Denis Villeneuve’s allegorical short film Next Floor plunges us into an opulent dinner party in which the carnivorous rich gorge themselves on a panoply of meats. But all that consumption comes with a consequence, one that pushes the film further into unreality. Beautifully shot with some truly stomach-churning food porn, Next floor was inspired by…

13 Places on Earth People Believed Were Entrances to Hell

While in some belief systems, the afterlife can only be accessed by spiritual means, in others, the underworld could be accessed directly from the Earth. Here are 13 real spots that people have thought (and in a few cases, still do) lead straight to the lands of the dead. Photo of diorama from Fengdu by…

The Fin-Shaped Buildings of the Mighty Shark City

It had been six generations since the Shark People had colonized their own, watery world. Still, the sharkitects could not resist building their towers toward the sky. Digital painting by Douglas Batista. Batista has more artwork from his shark world in his deviantART gallery. Shark Civilization [6Doug9 via reddit]

Watch the Welcome to Night Vale podcast live show now!

This weekend is LA Podfest, during which various podcasters are recording their shows live in front of an audience—and a camera. Right now, the Podfest is streaming our favorite horror podcast, Welcome to Night Vale. Update: Video is up! Hopefully, there will be a video of the complete performance up later for anyone willing to…

PSA: If you live in Haven, never EVER take your eyes off your kid

Seriously. Don’t leave the room. Don’t blink. Don’t fall asleep—or else risk losing your little ones to Haven’s latest Trouble. Sometimes Haven goes a bit overboard with its Trouble of the week, getting so heavy-handed with the special effects that it’s hard to care much about the Trouble or the people it affects. But this…

National Weather Service hides furlough message in forecast

Thousands of employees of the National Weather Service are currently working through the US government shutdown, but don’t know when they’re getting paid. And someone from the Anchorage office has expressed their displeasure in a secret message hidden in the forecast discussion. The Washington Post points out that there are currently two versions of this…