Make your own DNA

We love the idea of the Glowing Plant Project, which will teach you about synthetic biology by allowing you to do some. The group has a Kickstarter campaign that, if successful, will allow anybody to grow a glowing plant from jellyfish DNA and a mustard flower. What’s amazing is all the technology that already exists…

What would it be like to grow up as Superman’s kid?

There’s no doubt that Mark Millar and Frank Quitely’s Jupiter’s Legacy, a look at superheroic family dysfunction, is the comic event of the week. Meanwhile, Atlantis has a new king, two thieves steal a curse and a vampire eats a crimelord, all in this week’s comics! New Issues Dark Horse: • Amala’s Blade #1: The…

Handy charts reveal why you’ve never heard of most female SF authors

Over at Strange Horizons, the editors have done their yearly assessment of the state of gender in genre publishing. The good news is that men and women are published in almost equal numbers. The bad news is that books by men are reviewed far more often. So when women get published, you rarely hear about…

Brand New Exclusive Concept Art from the Animated Adventure Epic

Amanda Seyfried gets shrunk to tiny size and joins a race of strange little people as they fight against evil monsters, in the animated fantasy adventure Epic. This film is based on the children’s book by William Joyce (Rise of the Guardians), and we’ve got some lush, fairy-tale-themed concept art from the film, exclusively at…

Japan solves your “giant Evangelion-themed bowling pin” cosplay needs

Have you ever thought, “Man, I wish I could go bowling while I was wearing a giant bowling pin costume — and it would be even better if those bowling pins were designed like the giant robots featured in the popular anime Evangelion!” No, of course not, because you’re not insane. Yet Japan has filled…

The four-winged dinosaur Microraptor had a rare taste for fish

Four-winged and clad in iridescent black plumage, the dinosaur known as Microraptor is among the most intriguing subjects of paleontological inquiry in recent memory. Now, fossilized guts reveal the crow-sized creature is also one of the few dinosaurs known to have dined on fish. This strange, shiny-feathered reptile just continues to amaze. https://gizmodo.com/this-four-winged-dinosaur-is-helping-rewrite-the-book-o-5891617 Top image…

Watch three years in the life of our sun

For the past three years, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has had an uninterrupted view of the sun. This exquisitely detailed video now shows those three years at a pace of two images per day, chronicling the sun’s rise toward solar maximum. Watching this video you can easily see the sun’s 25-day rotation and how its…

Got any plans this summer? No? Good. Because io9’s list of 33 must-see summer flicks will be keeping you plenty busy.

Ender’s Game went to insane lengths to fake Zero G fight scenes

The most important thing that needs to be executed correctly from the novel to screen adaptation of Ender’s Game is the Zero G battle room. But how on Earth did director Gavin Hood shoot this? Ender himself, Asa Butterfield, explained everything in our exclusive interview. We sat down with Butterfield and talked mind games, freeze…

New After Earth trailer shows M. Night has no idea how evolution works

I wouldn’t say I was at all optimistic that M. Night Shyamalan would ever make a decent movie again after the Airbender debacle, but I did assume he knew the theory of evolution. I guess not, though. Seriously, watch this new After Earth TV spot. So… every animal on Earth has evolved specifically to kill…

Summer Movie Preview: 34 Movies To Watch Out For

Will this be the summer that all your favorite icons reach their true potential for greatness on the big screen? Or will all your favorite characters be stuck in generic tentpole films about angst and terrorism? We’ll find out soon! Here’s the complete guide to this summer’s science fiction, fantasy and comic book films. Top…

In Salsa Nocturna Stories, the people of New York dance with the dead

Daniel José Older’s collection of short stories from Crossed Genres Publications, Salsa Nocturna Stories, gives us a glimpse at a supernatural New York that feels surprisingly realistic. The NYCOD’s (New York Council of the Dead) only half-alive agent Carlos hunts rule-breaking spirits animals through the city nights. The older musician Gordo communes with dancing spirits…

Curiosity is not the fastest rover on Mars

How does Curiosity compare to NASA’s other roving Martian robots? The Agency has placed a total of four robotic rovers on the Red Planet. The first, Sojourner, touched down in 1997. Twins Spirit and Opportunity came next, followed lastly by Curiosity, which landed via skycrane last August. Curiosity is obviously the biggest, and the most…

Will the universe end in a “Big Rip”?

There’s overwhelming evidence that the universe is accelerating. This means that the future is going to be a relatively lonely place, with galaxies getting ever further from one another, and no hope (if there ever was any) of traveling between them. But could the accelerating universe be even more grim than that? https://gizmodo.com/are-physicists-just-making-up-dark-energy-5607692 For this…

The Greatest Game of Thrones Joke You’ll See All Week

Warning: Mild spoiler for this past weekend’s Game of Thrones episode below. The folks at Grantland managed to track down the shipping information for the rather special package Varys received in “And Now His Watch Has Ended.” I know that if I had ordered a box containing the severely beaten but still living wizard who…

Everything Wrong With Iron Man

It’s hard not to be won over by the charms of the original 2008 Iron Man movie. But it’s possible—just possible—that you were so busy appreciating Marvel’s whizzbang treatment and Robert Downey Jr.’s roguish charms that you missed these GIANT GLARING PROBLEMS. Some are jokes. Many are not. And all of them ultimately aren’t going…

Lost Girl‘s season finale leaves you wandering

In the Lost Girl season finale, Isaac reveals the details of his sinister scheme: he wants humanity to ascend to a new level of terrible acting. For some reason the first few minutes of this episode felt really abrupt and detached. I had the strange feeling I’d missed an episode. But no. It was just…

A baby crib fit for a Time Lord!

One crafty Whovian has cobbled together The Doctor’s crib, which was also Melody’s crib, who is really… well you get the picture. The whole Gallifreyan creation is just super adorable. We tip our fez hats to you, Baby Andred Gallafraigh and Kathleen Gallafraigh. [via Doctor Who Crafts]

Things That Will Make Literary Agents Throw Your Novel Across the Room

The first chapter of your science fiction or fantasy novel absolutely needs to hook readers, and that goes double for any literary agents or editors who might be looking at it. But at the very least, you don’t want your opening chapter to contain any of the red flags that make agents toss books in…

The 9 Sexiest Doomsday Scenarios

We already know there are some pretty smokin’ disasters that await us in real life, like mega-volcanoes (what could be hotter?) and flooded coastal cities (everybody in bathing suits!). But it’s only in fiction that doomsday gets truly sexy. Here are nine of the most alluring. https://gizmodo.com/ten-of-the-kinkiest-science-fiction-books-youll-ever-re-5096491 1. Lair of the White Worm Demon-worship in…