Old Twilight Zone comic demonstrates why cryonic life expansion is a dumb idea

We’ve made our love of Gold Key Twilight Zone comics abundantly clear. The comics’ twists were abrupt and frequently deranged. In this deliciously absurd strip from 1973’s Twilight Zone 50, a rich old codger buys immortality for approximately 15 minutes. https://gizmodo.com/this-twilight-zone-comic-is-one-of-the-funniest-example-5672686 This strip, “Nature Way,” was illustrated by Walt Simonson and showcases why waking up…

Is Jeremy Renner the next Snake Plissken?

Breck Eisner’s Escape From New York remake just took a strange and interesting twist. Rumor has it, Jeremy Renner is being courted for Snake Plissken… Say what? Bloody Disgusting is reporting that The Hurt Locker’s Renner is in very early talks for the role of the one-eyed antihero Plissken. The new film, which is shadowing…

Its body was eyes, mouths, and tentacles

Jon Schindehette, a creative art director at Wizards of the Coast, issued a challenge to art students at the Rhode Island School of Design: Make creatures based on H.P. Lovecraft’s stories. These are just a handful of the awesome results. You can see more eldrich horrors on Schindehette’s blog ArtOrder. By Craig J. Spearing By…

Welcome to the House of Contamination, a city made of junk

For the Artissma International Art Fair last weekend, German design firm raumlabor built the House of Contamination, an indoor structure made of garbage and appliances. The village isn’t built to last, but it resembles some post-apocalyptic dwelling out of WALL-E. As for the last photo, I’m not sure if the bodysuit clown comes with the…

Alien slugs want to leap down your throat: It’s Thailand’s latest slapstick comedy!

One-eyed alien blue slugs have a burning desire to invade people, via their throats. It sounds like a remake of Slither, but Thailand’s Cool Gel Attacks is a slapstick comedy. Watch people’s hilarious attempts to avoid throat-violation, in the trailer. I haven’t been able to find a version of the trailer with English subtitles, but…

The strange connection between beer and the bends

Find out why warm beer goes flat and divers need to pause before they resurface. A while back there was an entry about how most water, which looks so pure and clean, is actually a filthy mess of tiny solid particles. That’s what helps it boil, when it’s heated up on the stove. Vaporization sites…

True Blood’s resident werewolf could be the new Superman. Plus definitely no Mary Jane in the new Spider-Man!

Green Lantern’s production designer explains what the Lantern’s mental constructs will look like. See Captain America on a motorcycle and Hydra in action in new set pictures. The story of a time-looped, alien-fighting marine might have found its star. Spoilers! Superman Reboot: Joe Manganiello, who plays Alcide on True Blood, reportedly said that he is…

Tower Prep clips

The Walking Dead teaches us that racism will survive the zombie apocalypse

Tonight’s episode of The Walking Dead, “Guts,” wasn’t as pensive at the season premiere, but it offered up an enjoyable, panicked escape from Atlanta. We also learned that being a crazy white supremacist is an old habit that dies hard. NOTE: For this recap, I’ve assumed the Pro/Con format of my colleague Meredith’s ridiculously entertaining…

Smallville promises exhibitionist sex, delivers a very special Thanksgiving

Oh, Smallville. Remember how you teased us with Darkseid and Lex Luthor’s machinations from beyond the grave earlier this season? Well, that’s all been swept under the rug. Friday’s so-so episode, “Ambush,” gave us a clichéd holiday from hell. To be fair to “Ambush,” it did start with perhaps the most pornoriffic Smallville opening in…

Our minds use syntax to understand actions, just like with language

Syntax is found in all languages: verbs, subjects, and objects are arranged in predictable patterns that allow us to comprehend the action being described. And syntax goes deeper than language, as it’s actually hardwired into our understanding of the world. Although different languages arrange the main parts of a sentence in different ways, all languages…

The official plot synopsis for Duncan Jones’ new mind-swapping thriller, The Source Code

Want some spoilers from Moon director Duncan Jones’ upcoming flick The Source Code? Here’s the official synopsis of the film from the American Film Market — Jake Gyllenhaal must relive the fates of doomed individuals on one extremely bad day. The Source Code comes out April 15th, 2011; here’s the official rundown: Captain Colter Stevens…

In Arthur Clarke’s Fountains of Paradise, man makes tidy work of the heavens

If cleanliness is next to godliness, then I can’t help but think God must like 1980’s Hugo-winning novel, The Fountains of Paradise, by Arthur C. Clarke — even if it’s all about getting in His face. It maybe seems odd, at first, to learn that Clarke ultimately identified himself as an atheist. Given how much…

Plants evolve multiple genes to avoid the perils of inbreeding

Humans aren’t the only organisms that possess taboos about inbreeding, although for plants it’s not cultural, it’s genetic. in order to keep plants from producing weaker offspring, they have evolved many genes to ensure they don’t mate with themselves. Although the dangers of inbreeding are somewhat overstated, it is true that the practice can increase…

Religious ritual has altered the evolutionary path of Mexican cavefish

For centuries, a group of Native Mexicans have poisoned and harvested cavefish as part of an annual ceremony. Now the cavefish have gotten wise, as they have evolved increased resistance to the deadly toxins in order to adapt and survive. The Zoque people are an indigenous group in southern Mexico. For centuries, they have traveled…

Scientists discover how to turn human skin into blood

Scientists at McMaster University have discovered how to transform human skin into blood. The researchers had previously used chemicals to transform mouse skin cells into neurons, but this is the first time human cells have been altered in this way. This process differs from modifications involving stem cells as it relies on a chemical brew…

Tickling robots in Siena

“Under what conditions can we engage in a meaningful, expressive interaction with an electronic device?” Say, for example, by ‘tickling’ a robot? This question is examined in a new article by Patrizia Marti, assistant professor and senior lecturer at the Department of Communication Science, University of Siena, Siena, Italy, which features in the latest issue…

1970s French art from classic science fiction books

Here are some gorgeous illustrations from the French science fiction compilation Club Du Livre D’Anticipation. Check out the works of Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick depicted by French artists like Moebius. It’s not entirely clear who some of these illustrations are by, but we’ve labeled those that we could get some confirmation on. If…

The mystery of England’s 2000-year-old headless gladiators

An ancient Roman cemetery in northern England is home to 80 corpses of strong, muscular men who quite literally lost their heads. These decapitated skeletons leave behind a 2000-year-old archaeological mystery that spans all of Europe. The skeletons were first unearthed during archaeological digs in York in 2004 and 2005. The bodies date back to…

Sunday Matinee: “Return of the Ewok,” a bizarre Ewok promotional film from 1982

In 1982, a 15-year-old Warwick Davis starred in a short promotional video about his tryout for Return of the Jedi. This comic oddity, Return of the Ewok, was never released and featured Boba Fett and Darth Vader hunting Wicket. Given that the mockumentary was scrapped in post-production, copies of Return of the Ewok are incredibly…