An awesome behind-the-scenes look at the baby alien from Alien 3

We live in an era in which spectacular movie monsters tend to live on hard drives, so it’s always heartening to see footage of practical effect artists just building the damn creatures. This video comes to us from the production of Alien 3 twenty years ago — watch as the film’s crew makes sculptor Steve…

The Pentagon has created a database of every bomb they’ve dropped since the First World War

For the past six years, the U.S. Air Force has been compiling an exhaustive list of every bomb their planes have dropped since World War I. The database, which is part of a project called THOR (Theater History of Operations Reports), was put together by Lieutenant Colonel Jenns Robertson using thousands of historical documents. And…

The Future Is Unevenly Distributed

One of the big questions of futurism is what kind of world we want to live in tomorrow. But as attendees at a recent conference on futurism discovered, “tomorrow” is relative. People in Egypt look at the future very differently than people in Canada do. This was a heated topic of discussion at the recently…

For $1,230, you too can own a 3D-printed model of your unborn fetus

This is how you impress your horrified progeny’s date during prom photographs. The Japanese engineering firm Fasotec is teaming up with Tokyo’s Parkside Hiroo Ladies Clinic to offer expecting mothers 3D-printed models of their gestating bundles of joy. A mere ¥100,000 will get you a 90x60x40 millimeter “Shape of an Angel,” an MRI-scanned keepsake that…

Why we should look for extraterrestrial ‘bubbles’ in neighboring galaxies

There’s been an exciting shift in scientific thinking about life beyond Earth recently. Extraterrestrial-seeking group SETI has started to recognize the importance of detecting alien artifacts along with radio signals. The most viable target for these searches is the Dyson sphere, a massive shell that envelops an entire star. But as Discovery’s Ray Villard rightly…

Children’s chemistry sets used to contain cyanide

Do you ever long for the good ol’ days? When a rickety school desk was enough to protect you from a nuclear blast, and chemistry sets contained real (read: deadly) chemicals? The first half of the 20th century was the golden age of children’s chemistry sets. “By the 1920s and 30s,” writes BBC’s Alex Hudsen…

Deep-sea squid can break off all its arms to fight enemies

If you grew up on a diet of 1980s cartoons, as I did, you will have seen many a giant robot shoot many a rocket-propelled fist into many a big monster. Sadly, there are no rocket punches in the real world, but I can give you the next best thing: a squid that can grab…

10 Foods You Crave — And Why You Crave Them

We’ve all experienced food cravings. In general they tend to be for things like potato chips, ice cream, and other high-calorie foods that doctors say will murder us. Some cravings, though, are the result of deep and correct instincts, telling us what we need to eat to stay alive. Here are ten ways your body’s…

Photographs of Secret Government Technology from the 20th Century

Thought you knew everything about secret government projects in the 20th Century? Think again. Macedonian artist Damjan Cvetkov-Dimitrov created this series of simple, but surprisingly compelling, photoshopperies of “ancient high tech.” Each combines historical photographs from World War I, II and the Cold War with evocative bits of CGI. The effect is slightly cheesy, but…

In the trailer for Paranormal Activity 4, the demons have gone viral

The supernatural cash cow Paranormal Activity has churned out another addition to the franchise. After the series covered the original couple, the couple’s sister, and went back in time to show what happened when the sisters were babies, we thought they ran plum out of story. Well, we were wrong! The fourth installment follows the…

A CliffNotes Guide To The Wishbone Episode About H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine

Thank you for purchasing CliffNotes: Wishbone – “Bark To The Future,” an educational guide for those readers requiring assistance in understanding the fundamental plot points of H.G. Wells’ science fiction novella The Time Machine, as depicted in the defunct 1990s PBS children’s show Wishbone (ages 5-12). Whether you use this guide for the classroom —…

Meet the future of medicine: an ingestible microchip that monitors your medications

Can’t be bothered to remember if you took your meds this morning? Soon you won’t have to. The US FDA has approved a line of ingestible microchips which, when embedded in a pill, tell you and your doctor whether you’re taking your medications as prescribed. Is it futuristic? Yes. Useful? Tremendously. Creepy? Kind of, yeah.…

Marvel making a TV show set in The Avengers universe

Marvel isn’t ready to let go of their death grip over all of your money — next stop, the small screen. Rumor has it the comic book heads are eyeing television to expand the Avengers universe. Deadline reports that this new series’ “connection to the Avengers franchise would be light as the project is expected…

What is “blood doping,” and why does it matter?

Any time someone breaks a record, people inevitably bring up the possibility that they had some illegal enhancements. Just yesterday, gold medalist Ye Shiwen was accused of “blood doping” to improve her performance. You may be familiar with steroids and other drugs — but what on Earth is “blood doping?” And why would injecting yourself…

China to make its first ever moon landing in 2013

China may have gotten off to a slow start in its efforts to explore space, but they are quickly catching up. The state Xinhua news agency has announced that China will be sending an exploratory lunar probe to the surface of the moon next year, marking an historic step forward in their space program —…

The Roku Stick’s Got a Motley Group of TV Partners

Roku is launching a streaming stick later this year, and now it’s announced some hardware partners for the upcoming device. Problem is, they’re like that weird friend you always call when you don’t have any plans and all your more interesting and exciting friends are busy. https://gizmodo.com/roku-is-now-a-stick-5872912 They’re all pretty second-tier, which is a little…

Will Marc Webb direct the Amazing Spider-Man sequel after all? Plus an awesomely insane Doctor Who rumor!

Check out two different trailers for James Bond’s return in Skyfall.James Cameron explains the future of Avatar. Kick-Ass 2 adds a villain. Why can’t The CW figure out how to copy The Hunger Games? Plus a Total Recall clip! Spoilers from here on out! Top image from Skyfall. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 The big question…

CERN physicists report 5.9-sigma level of certainty that Higgs-like particle exists, July’s results now “even stronger.”

This Wednesday, Hawkeye and dog detectives are in your neighborhood comic shop

What’s up comic-wise for the first day of August? Marvel has a litany of new books on the stands tomorrow, including issues of Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe (“What if everthing you thought was funny about Deadpool was actually just disturbing?”), Neal Adams’ The First X-Men (interview about that here), and Matt Fraction and David…

Why So Many Remakes!

10 Upcoming Science Fiction and Fantasy Movie Remakes (and Why They May Not Suck) https://gizmodo.com/10-upcoming-science-fiction-and-fantasy-movie-remakes-5929951 Hollywood loves remakes. After all, old movies have instant name recognition, and material that’s already been proved to work on the screen before. When remaking a book adaptation, you can draw on the previous movie as well as the source…