Where Is My Cure for Cancer?

Welcome back to Ask a Biogeek, a column where you ask biology researcher Terry Johnson any question you want – no matter how weird. Reader Charlie writes: How about an article on the current cutting edge cancer research/treatments? Is there anything out there that is promising? Will there be a cure in our lifetimes? Sadly,…

Was The X-Files Movie A Victim Of Bad Press?

What do X-Files: I Want To Believe and newly-announced Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin have in common? Well, if you believe the RNC and X-Files producer Frank Spotnitz, both have been victims of press reporting that would rather focus on the negative instead of the positive. But what is the positive takeaway that we’ve been…

Fincher’s Wrath Over Heavy Metal Remake Could Sink Benjamin Button

In a surprising turn of events, many online movie critics are calling The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button so-so. David “Fight Club” Fincher’s film follows a man’s life as he ages backwards through time, and was hailed as the new Oscar darling even before an English trailer debuted. Now the film, starring Brad Pitt and…

Gladiatorial Combat In 80-Ton Battlemechs

As pilot Boris Vassilev directs his heavy-class ‘Mech into the five-acre arena, the thundering footfalls are nearly drowned out by the crowd’s roars of delight. Viewers in five systems are watching this live, as Boris prepares for a one-on-one battle against top-ranked pilot Inese Lassonde and her heavily modified Nova Cat. There’s cash on the…

Green Lantern Concept Art Shows The Origins Of The Glowing Space Cops

Click to viewIllustrator Brian Murray has shared the package he crafted with Eli Stone creator Greg Berlanti, which helped him win the right to make a Green Lantern movie. So far we’re just getting peeks at the Green Lantern space cop convention, and a few looks at the chiseled jawline of Earthbound Green Lantern Hal…

T-Shirts That Advertise Atomic Structures

Uranium is one of the most notorious elements — it’s gotten a pretty bad rap due to its tendency to show up in nuclear weapons. Also, it’s kind of radioactive. That’s probably why it’s such a great element to show your support for in t-shirt form. Woot! has uranium tees that pay tribute to this…

5 Fall Shows That Could Be Improved With A Little Scifi

Click to viewTry as hard as you like – and we’ve tried, trust us – but a fan cannot live by scifi alone. That’s the only explanation we have for the fact that we’re all secretly also addicted to non-SF shows like Gossip Girl, Psych and Grey’s Anatomy. But even while we watch these shows,…

It’s Shia LaBeouf’s Transformers Happening, And It’s Freaking Him Out

Spoilers and felicitations! Instead of more explosions, the latest Transformers 2 set video gives a keen insight into Shia LaBoeuf’s mental process, and reveals a plot twist in the new movie. There are new Lost set reports, and we finally identify two people on Heroes who aren’t related. And there are some new Sarah Connor…

TiVo HD XL Review: The Same Great TiVo Taste, Just More Of It

The TiVo HD is a good, cheap alternative to the recently de-listed TiVo Series 3 for people who didn’t need all that much storage and all that many fancy features. But what if someone wants even more built-in storage than the 20 hours of HD that the TiVo HD provides? They’ve now got the TiVo…

Best Future Dystopias Where The Liberals Have Won

The Republican Party is gathering in St. Paul, to put forth its vision of the future. And over the next few days, you’ll be hearing a lot about the horrendous futures that could take shape if gormless liberals were allowed to run the show. Which makes us wonder: what does science fiction, the literature of…

Possible Cure for Ebola Could Revolutionize Antivirals

Ebola is the poster virus for outbreak scares because it spreads extremely fast and kills 90 percent of its victims by causing them to bleed uncontrollably. Featured in science-scare book The Hot Zone and countless cheesy movies, Ebola is considered ripe for development into a bio-weapon. But now it seems that a group of U.S.…

Vin Diesel’s Underground Website Still Rocks Our World

Even the wreck of Babylon A.D. hasn’t dampened our enthusiasm for Vin Diesel, whose performance in near-future 2002 spy flick xXx still just plain rules. He plays Xander, a guy whose politically-subversive Jackass-style stunts have made him a hit on “underground websites.” This scene, from early in the film, shows Diesel in full action-geek mode,…

Are Webcasts The Future Of Television?

NBC announced that both Chuck and Knight Rider will be streaming their premiere episodes on Hulu a week before they air on the network. Fox will also be streaming Fringe and the Sarah Connor Chronicles via college internet at the same time as their television premieres (so you need to be on the schools domain).…

Battlestar Galactica Returns in January — So Say We All!

Yesterday we told you about rumors that Battlestar Galactica might not return until April of next year. Happily, SciFi Channel issued a press release today saying they are on track to air the final season starting in January 2009. Still a long time to wait, but at least we know they’re staying on schedule. [SciFi…

Watchmen Heads To Trial Before Theaters

The ongoing legal battle over ownership of the Watchmen movie has taken another step closer to resolution with the federal judge in charge of the case telling both sides to prepare their cases for a January trial date ahead of the movie’s planned release in March of next year. Does this mean that the judge…

Star Trek Isn’t Just About Exploring The Past After All

One of the frustrating things about the Star Trek universe is that it stopped moving forward at some point. Deep Space Nine, the Next-Gen movies, and to some extent Voyager created a whole tapestry of stories about the Cardassians, the Romulans and the Borg. And then it all ends with Future Janeway smushing the Borg,…

“Bayos” and “Bayhem” Rule The Transformers 2 Set

Wal-Mart has posted a behind-the-scenes video peek into the bayotic world of Transformers: Rise Of The Fallen. True to Michael Bay form, lots of things go boom, and the director even has a pair of specially made Nike kicks which he called, “Bay-os, aka chaos, cause I’m going to beat up all your asses. Because…

Plastic Packards Whiz Through The Steamlined City of Tomorrow

Shortly before the end of the Second World War, Army-Navy Screen Magazine (a newsreel version of what would later be called a television news magazine) began a new series on the world of tomorrow to be faced by soon-to-be veterans. The first installment was called “Tomorrow Television,” and while most of it is not very…

Curious about how science fiction has treated transgender people? Critic Cheryl Morgan has a run-down of science fiction books with gender-switching themes, from John Varley and Joanna Russ to Ian McDonald and Maureen McHugh. I didn’t know that Joanna Russ had modified her views since writing The Female Man, but apparently she has. [The Bilerico…

Will The City Of Ember Kids Team Up With Brendan Fraser?

The new City of Ember poster is out and I can’t help but wonder if those two crazy kids ever bumped into Fraser and company from Journey To The Center Of The Earth on their subterranean journey? Also, I did not know the little girl could walk on air. The full poster image is below.When…