A Century-Old Flying Car

Tooling through the clouds in a personal aircraft dating from the first decade of the 20th century, a stylish couple anticipates the trend for oversize vehicles. As the spammers say, why settle for a tiny rocket when you can pilot a blimp? Illustration by Harry Grant Dart, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-13554.

Sails Of Steel And Glass Cut Through Future Cities

The Jewish community in Poland wants to build a sail-shaped skyscraper like this one, from Japan. The planned building will tower over the old Warsaw ghetto as a monument to green self-sufficiency. The skyscraper (artist renderings in gallery after the jump) would use its voluptuous curves to generate enough wind power to keep the building…

Spaceship Lamp Made of Recycled Computers

Alex Andromeda calls himself a science fiction artist who wants to connect the far future with the mystical past. He uses recycled computer parts to make lamps, sculptures, eyeglasses, and ancient Inca symbols. Here is just one of his amazing creations, a ceiling lamp made from old hard drive cases, called Spaceship Sirius. Another view…

Gerard Butler’s Game Is Tron 2.0

Directors Brian Neveldine and Mark Taylor brought the hyperactive film Crank to theaters last year, and now they’re hard at work on Game with 300’s Gerard Butler. We know it’s a science fiction film set in the future when video games control the world, but what the hell is the movie all about? We’ve heard…

Battlestar Galactica Dubbed “Too Expensive” and “Star Wars Ripoff”

Back in 1978, Time magazine published a scathing review of a brand-new TV show called Battlestar Galactica. In the wake of BSG’s triumphant return to TV with Saturday night’s special episode Razor, it’s interesting to take a look back at where the franchise began. Costing $15 million, the original BSG was the most expensive TV…

LEXX Creator Resurrects Jesus’ Evil Twin Brother

Robert Sigl, co-creator of the bizarre Canadian scifi show LEXX (seen above), announced today that he’s directing a new movie that will resurrect Jesus’ evil twin brother in the present day. What, you didn’t know that Jesus had an evil twin brother? It’s probably left out of most New Testament translations. Sigl’s new film, The…

Bionic Woman may be sagging in the ratings. But a portfolio of bionic stocks — companies that make replacement body parts — has been outperforming the market since the new show launched, says Susanne Owen the Trading Nymph. So the show may not be worth your time, but the dream of brand new legs or…

Journeyman Coming To A Premature End

NBC’s time-traveling drama Journeyman will be journeying to a very abrupt series end with episode 12, set to air in either December or January. Too bad he couldn’t hop back in time and fix the writer’s strike before it started.

Douglas Adams’ Widescreen Imagination

When the movie came out, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had already been a radio show, a TV show, a book series and a computer game. So why make a movie? For the amazing spectacle of planet-making technology, judging from this clip. Arthur Dent visits the “factory floor” where his new friend Slartibartfarst creates custom-made…

New Pix From The Incredible Hulk Reveal… Ed Norton In A Red Hoodie

Ed Norton wears a red hoodie in these new pictures from the set of The Incredible Hulk in Rio De Janeiro. While we haven’t seen the big green machine much from this film, it’s an interesting twist on the red hulk / green hulk ploy from Marvel. http://io9.com/scifi/hulk/you-may-not-like-him-when-hes-angry-but-what-about-when-hes—-red-322991.php

Antidepressants Promise Long, Happy Lives to Roundworms

A recent clinical trial involving several members of the Caenorhabditis elegans species in Seattle showed that the worms that given antidepressants lived up to 31% longer than their unmedicated brothers and sisters. Of course, the scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center hope to someday apply this longevity trick to expand humans’ time on…

What Kind of Outer-Space God Will Batman Be?

Rumor has it Batman will ascend to the next evolutionary level and become a New God. This move would remove Batman from his pulp detective roots and make him firmly a science-fiction hero because the "New Gods" in DC Comics aren’t supernatural. They’re more like ultra-powerful aliens in outer space. The most important question now…

Other NBC Shows Could Teach Bionic Woman A Few Things

Our truncated TV season will soon draw to a close. Luckily, all of the network TV shows seem to be drawing all of their loose ends together towards some sort of climax/cliffhanger, judging from this week’s episodes. All except one: Bionic Woman. Minor spoilers follow. If you were going to judge from the above promo…

Shazam’s Magic Word Is Fan-Wank

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson let the fans dictate which role he should play in the upcoming Shazam movie, according to About.com. Johnson was trying to decide between playing Captain Marvel (the good guy) and Black Adam (the bad guy). Really, the only difference between the two is that Black Adam is evil. And an Arab.…

Robots Will Be the Perfect Casual Sex Partners

Seth Lloyd, an MIT engineering professor, has published a bracingly sniffy review of David Levy’s new book on sex and love between humans and robots. Bottom line: No robot love anytime soon, but get ready for lots of robot sex. [L.A. Times Book Review]

“Battlestar Galactica: Razor” Delivers Old-School Awesome

The entire fall season of SciFi Channel’s acclaimed humans vs. cylons show Battlestar Galactica was contained in a two-hour “television event” called Razor. In a smart move, show creator Ron Moore takes this episode back to an intriguing era during season two of the show when Galactica discovered Battlestar Pegasus, commanded by tough-as-shit Admiral Cain.…

Pollution is a Great Source of Clean Energy

Today’s top science news story today will make Hedorah the Smog Monster happy. Heat emitted by smokestacks belching gloop could be harvested for thermal energy. Apparently there are nearly 50 thousand smokestacks in the United States alone whose emissions are hot enough to produce 50,000 megawatts of power. [Worldchanging] A University of Minnesota researcher has…

“Space Prison” Started the Whole Exiled-On-An-Alien-World Thing

What is with abandoning humans on alien planets lately? Marvel Comics started the meme last year with their Planet Hulk series, which saw the Jade Giant exiled to another planet in response to one real-estate-ruinin’ rampage too many, and DC Comics have just hit back with their new Salvation Run series, in which lots of…

Car Of 2017 Will Mix High-Tech With No-Tech

The car of the future will have sleek plastic on the outside, but hand-woven seats on the inside. Harsha Ravi’s designs for the car of 2017 won Wheels magazine’s design prize. They’re an awesome mixture of high-tech (cutting-edge carbon-neutral bioplastic) with zero-tech. It’s all part of an urban car that’s customizeable and cheap, but also…

Britain’s First Space Hero Returns

Richard Branson and Deepak Chopra’s Virgin Comics are reviving Dan Dare, and the first issue hits shelves Thursday. Dare, Britain’s longest-running science-fiction character (created in 1950, he’s thirteen years older than Doctor Who) is returning to print courtesy of Garth Ennis, creator of Vertigo Comics’ Preacher series, ahead of a rumored movie adaptation. Image courtesy…