The Only Kind of Sentence You Should Use in Your Fiction

People will advise you to write all sorts of sentences. Snappy sentences, lyrical sentences, Hemingway-esque short sentences, long Faulknerian sentences. But there’s really only one kind of sentence that actually works: a sentence that carries the reader forward from the previous sentence. This is harder than it sounds. I don’t care what kind of fiction…

Rogue planets can form without a parent star

Scientists call them free-floating planets — massive celestial wanderers that have broken free from the confines of their original solar system. Or perhaps not. New research suggests that these so-called rogue planets may have formed completely on their own — and that there could be billions of them. Scientists have only recently learned about the…

What’s your favorite moment where a victim turns the tables?

There’s just something so satisfying about a story where someone’s been hunted or terrorized for ages and ages — and then, they stop running and fight back, decisively. What’s your favorite moment from science fiction or fantasy where a victim suddenly turns the tables? Please include a picture or clip of this moment, so we…

Amazing Casting. Bob Odenkirk, Patton Oswalt and Ian Roberts join the cast of The Kitchen Sink, a genre-spanning high-school comedy, set in a town where vampires are at the top of the pecking order, with humans in the middle and zombies at the bottom.

Thor, Jane and Loki reveal new worlds in The Dark World featurette

This new behind-the-scenes video of Thor: The Dark World contains the requisite talking heads of the stars, director and producer all saying large the “scale” of the movie is going to be. But watch carefully and you might see a few new locales of Asgard, Midgard, and possibly a few other -gards as well. This…

This “futuristic gender exploration” is actually a dull anti-abortion rant

The 3rd Gender, at the New York Fringe Festival, is advertised as a futuristic exploration of gender and sexuality. But what I actually saw was a dull anti-abortion lecture, full of clunky plot devices. Spoilers ahead… Note: I am writing this review in a bar a block away from the theater, because I need a…

The Kids and Adults Inside of Us Can’t Wait For This Imagineering Doc

Even if you think Disneyland and Walt Disney World are too artificial, too sappy, too cutesy, you still have to admit they completely redefined the idea of a theme park. Visiting them makes you feel like you’re entered another world, and all of the ‘magic’ responsible for that feeling comes from the hardworking designers, engineers,…

This fall’s greatest comics will blow your mind

It’s completely insane how many great comics are coming out his fall. I mean, almost no one could afford them all, and those people who had the cash to buy them would be hard pressed to read them all in a mere three months. Here’s the greatest comics of September, October and November — budget…

What exactly is a Blue Moon, anyway?

Tonight you’ll have a chance to witness a rare “Blue Moon” with your very own eyes. But what does that mean, exactly? You’ve probably heard the term “once in a Blue Moon” used to refer to rare events — but just how rare is a Blue Moon, really? And what’s so special about them in…

The Real Reason Why Grown-Ups Love Young-Adult Fantasy Books

Marie Rutkoski’s young-adult novel The Winner’s Curse is already getting early raves. We’ve got the exclusive reveal of the book’s gorgeous cover, plus an essay in which Rutkoski, an English professor as well as a YA author, explains why adults love young-adult novels. Liminal Fantasy Eat the goblin fruit. Walk with the wolf. Kiss the…

What really causes that amazing “after the rain” smell?

After a rainstorm, especially a rain storm that breaks a long dry spell, the world smells different. What causes that strange, clean, earthy smell? A few things that aren’t so clean. One of the benefits of living in California is the extraordinary smell you get after the first rain of the fall. Generally it’s in…

How do “Citizen Scientists” stack up against the experts?

Anybody can contribute to the progress of science! There are plenty of “Citizen Scientist” projects that let you help with scientific research. But one question lingers: How reliable are the results produced by non-experts? A new study provides some good news. The new research, which was published last month in the open-access journal PLOS ONE,…

10 Influential Movies (Where Everybody Copied the Wrong Thing)

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that changes everything. A film that rewrites the rules and influences a generation of film-makers. But all too often, the people who imitate these ground-breaking movies miss the point. Here are 10 science fiction and fantasy movies from which everybody copied the wrong thing. https://gizmodo.com/19-science-fiction-movies-that-could-change-your-life-5963166 1)…

New high-res maps of Earth’s surprisingly inconsistent gravity field

Though it seems hard to believe, Earth’s gravitational pull is not the same everywhere you go. And as these gorgeously detailed maps now show, these variances are much greater than we thought. Top image: The low gravity atop Mount Everest (credit: GGMplus/Curtin University). Gravity varies on our planet owing to a number of factors. It’s…

The gut-wrenching, organ-puréeing truth about the death care industry

In one of the most compelling reddit threads we’ve come across, an anonymous funeral-director has spilled the grisly, swindle-tastic beans on his/her entire profession. “It hasn’t always been like this,” s/he writes in this scathing tell-all diatribe, “but with the corporatization of the death care industry, the almighty dollar is the only consideration anymore.” Top…

Best look at the live-action Gatchaman‘s awesome superhero suits

You’ve seen a glimpse of them in action, but Toho has put the bird-themed superhero outfits of the live-action Gatchaman movie’s new team outside the 109 Men’s department store in Shibuya, and my god, are they fantastic. https://gizmodo.com/see-the-all-new-live-action-gatchaman-team-in-action-530345244 They’re updated without being overdesigned; they’re clearly indebted to the originals without being beholden to them; they’re…

This Ancient Egyptian Jewelry Came from Space

Archaeologists working at the UCL Petrie Museum have shown that ancient Egyptians made jewelry from chunks of meteorite. Even more remarkable is the realization that they made these items over 5,000 years ago — nearly two millennia before the emergence of iron smelting. Top image: The meteoric iron beads, which are now heavily corroded, are…

Take a breathtaking bird’s-eye tour of Greenland and the Arctic

We can’t get enough of this aerial arctic footage, captured by pilots of IceBridge, the NASA mission charged with surveying the changing state of ice at both of Earth’s poles. https://gizmodo.com/our-clearest-view-yet-of-antarctica-stripped-of-all-its-511636795 This vistas in this video are effectively a highlight reel of the most stunning footage recorded from the forward and nadir cameras aboard NASA’s…

Starting in 2016 Netflix streaming subscribers will have first dibs at Weinstein Company flicks released that year. [AP]

How to completely traumatize your child after watching Tron

Calve12 showed the movie Tron to his young daughter, who promptly had a nightmare about her father getting sucked into a computer. Here is what the daughter encountered when waking up the next morning. Ha ha, it’s funny because he’ll be paying for years of therapy! [Via Neatorama]