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It Makes Us Realize That We All Do Exist On One Small Globe

Welcome to this week’s Reading List, where you’ll find the best popular technology and science stories on the internet assembled in one delightful package. This week: cheap microscopes, physics and saving the planet. How a microscope that costs less than one dollar will revolutionize global health. [New Yorker] What came before the Big Bang? Alan…

Here’s How Captain Phasma Got Her Silver Armor

Gwendoline Christie has certainly made her mark in the Star Wars universe as the silver-armored Captain Phasma. This short video shows where that armor came from, and it’s hilarious. Awesome. [ ]

How Video Games Might Actually Help Our Brains

In October, 29,000 neuroscientists gathered in Chicago to discuss new research in their sprawling field at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting. Amid mountains of abstracts on every conceivable aspect of brain science, there were a surprising number of studies about an unlikely subject: video games. Plenty of pop cultural bandwidth has been devoted to…

Here’s How Complicated It Is To Don A Kylo Ren Costume

Kylo Ren has a pretty neat costume for The Force Awakens, and there’s a lot of costumers out there who are looking to replicate it for their own fun. While it looks simple, the costume is way more intricate than you’d think. Dawn Bright, SL-13377 of the 501st Legion has been working to construct her…

Weekend Matinee: Santa Claus Conquers The Martians

The holiday season is just about over, but for this weekend’s Weekend Matinee, lets go back to 1964’s Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, just got get one last bit of cheer out this weekend. Or something like cheer. This film is often featured on lists of the worst films ever made, and it’s been roundly…

There’s Some Complex Physics In These Photos of Ink Falling Through Water

Spherical Rayleigh-Taylor Instabilities, to be exact. That’s what happens when two fluids of different densities collide under the force of gravity. The pattern can be seen in everything from the mushroom clouds of nuclear explosions to cosmic supernovae. But as science photographer Linden Gledhill demonstrates, you can also recreate the fluid dynamics phenomenon at home,…

The Force Awakens Almost Shared The Title With This Expanded Universe Novel? 

Well, this could have drastically changed the conversation about how The Force Awakens fits into the rest of the Star Wars saga: it almost shared the same name with one of the novels from the Expanded Universe. According to Pablo Hidalgo, a creative executive who sits on the LucasFilm Story Group, indicated that an early…

Liu Cixin’s novel, The Three Body Problem earned the Hugo Award for Best Novel earlier this year. It was a triumphant moment for Chinese SF, which has enjoyed its own incredible history over the 20th century. Over on the Barnes and Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy blog, I’ve looked at how the genre came to China.

Will Barnes And Noble Save Itself By Selling Alcohol?

Barnes and Noble hasn’t been doing so hot this year. The book retailer has struggled in the face of stiff competition and recently began looking into getting liquor licenses for a location in New York: will this save the chain? Disclaimer: I also write for Barnes and Noble’s Science Fiction and Fantasy blog. Probably not,…

Go To Mars With These Fantastic Scenes From Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars

Artist Travis Smith is a big fan of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, and inspired by the recent news that there will be a television show, he went and illustrated several scenes from the first novel, Red Mars. Here’s how the images came about: Last year when news first broke that Spike TV was considering…

Check Out The First Creepy Teaser For Orphan Black‘s Fourth Season

The next season of Orphan Black drops in April 2016, but BBC America has just released the first, super creepy teaser for it. There’s not much there, but it certainly does set the tone, doesn’t it? [BBC America]

Inside a WWII Air Raid Shelter Cube That Protected Factory Workers 

In the first half of the 20th century, the Manfréd Weiss Steel and Metal Works was the largest machine factory in Hungary, located on Csepel island outside the capital, Budapest. In 1944 and 1945, the Allies attacked this important industrial target several times, dropping thousands of incendiary and demolition bombs onto the buildings. The factory…

A Breathtaking View of the World’s Oldest River System

West Virginia is probably best known for coal mines, followed closely by pepperoni rolls. You know aspect of the state doesn’t get nearly enough attention? Its absolutely breathtaking scenery. Take New River Gorge, the latest under-appreciated American wonder to get a spotlight from astrophotographers Harun Mehmedinovic and Gavin Heffernan, who are running around the country…

Radiohead Recorded The Original Theme Song For The Latest James Bond Film, Spectre

This is … unexpected. Radiohead had been asked to write the theme song for the latest James Bond film, Specre. According to the band, it didn’t work out, but they recorded it anyway, and released it to the web. The band released the song to SoundCloud yesterday, and it’s a gorgeous song, something that feels…

RIP George Clayton Johnson, The Man Who Started Star Trek On Its Epic Voyage

Yesterday, science fiction author and screenwriter George Clayton Johnson passed away at the age of 86. He’s best known for novels such as Logan’s Run and shows such as The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. Johnson was born in 1929 in Wyoming, and served in the United States Army for a short while, eventually using…

27 Stylish Airliner Liveries From The Past

There was a time when passenger airplanes wore more sophisticated outfits than they do these days. If you look back in time, we find elegant typography, minimalistic paint jobs, low-key colors, simple lines and dynamic curves, streamlined lightning bolts, remarkable-yet-discreet logos. The following selection of photos takes you back to the golden age of airliner…

Control the Volume on Your Mac Using the Trackpad

With the aid of a third-party utility you can get this set up pretty easily, and we’ll show you how.

Open Channel: What Cool Stuff Did You Get For The Holidays?

Christmas is now over along with most of the big holidays. So, now that the big day is over, what cool stuff did you get for the holidays? I got a book by Tim Parks: Where I’m Reading From: The Changing World of Books, which looks awesome, as well as a robot tea infuser. Show…

Open Channel: What Cool Tech Did You Get For The Holidays?

The holidays are now over! Now that the chaos of the Christmas (and other) holidays are now over and done with, it’s take to take an inventory. So, what cool gadgets / tech / geek stuff did you receive this holiday season? Image credit: kirill_makarov / Shuttershock

Watch How Stormtroopers Changed Over Three Trilogies

The stormtrooper is one of the iconic images of the Star Wars film saga, and this gif takes you through the three major variations between the prequel, original and sequel trilogies. [Original Stormtrooper]