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There’s always been some level of tension between genre and literary fiction, but according to novelist David Mitchell, avoiding genre is a “bizarre act of self-mutilation”.

Imagination Is The Way To Escape Every Day Drudgery In Tokyo Cosmo

Escaping from everyday drudgery is hard, but in Takahiro Miyauchi’s short animated film, Tokyo Cosmo, imagination is key. I really like this short, and I particularly like his attention to detail, such as when he leaves the action running in the kitchen, letting the viewer take in the mundane elements and objects that make up…

Can These Glasses Help the Colorblind? We Put EnChroma to the Test

A company called EnChroma has built a pair of glasses that claims to restore color vision for the colorblind. Predictably, the internet has erupted with excitement. But it’s not the first instance in which a piece of technology has made this bold assertion, and the science behind color perception isn’t straightforward. We decided it was…

Droid Turbo 2 Review: Definitely Shatterproof, But Also an Eyesore

There is no shortage of high performance Android phones out there, and it can be hard to find a good reason to go with one over the other. The Droid Turbo 2 has a couple of features that say hey over here, pick me. pick me!! But a great phone has to feel right in…

Sierra Leone Celebrates The End Of The Ebola Outbreak

After a year and a half since the first case was reported in the West African country, Sierra Leone has been declared Ebola free, 42 days after the last case was cleared. The announcement is one further step forward in the fight against the 2014 outbreak. Since the start of the outbreak, the virus has…

New Evidence Is Challenging What We Know About the Deadliest Mass Extinction in History

The extinction at the end of the Permian period 252 million years ago was one of the darkest chapters in the history of life. Up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial life forms vanished in a geologic blink. But was the Great Dying really as sudden and devastating as its name…

The Construction Of This Halo Gravity Hammer Knocks Our Socks Off

Man at Arms is a reality-style web series where the folks at Baltimore Knife and Sword build some of the weapons you see in games and movies. This week, they’ve constructed one of the massive Gravity Hammers from Halo. As a somewhat competent amateur when it comes to prop building, the work these guys put…

Watson Will Break All The Bones In Your Body While Naming Them In The New Sherlock Teaser

There’s a new teaser out for the upcoming Victorian-era Sherlock special. In it, Watson will break all of the bones in your body while naming them, because he’s a doctor. What I’ve found interesting about these teasers is that this upcoming special, The Abominable Bride, looks like it’s a bit of the origin story between…

Here’s The Winners Of The 2015 Chinese Nebula Awards!

On October 18th, the World Chinese Science Fiction Association held their 6th annual Xingyun Awards ceremony, the highest award for science fiction in China. Liu Cixin, who just earned the 2015 Hugo for best novel, earned a lifetime achievement award. Launched in 2010, The Chinese Nebula Award is akin to the Hugo Awards, and took…

Soon We Will Hunt Like Predator With This New Night-Vision Sensor

Graphene could make it possible to build ultra-thin, flexible thermal sensors for built-in night vision technology — just like that lethal alien in the Predator franchise. Modern night-vision equipment exploits the generation of heat by living bodies by focusing the thermal emissions with a special lens. The signal is then transmitted to IR detectors, which…

This Video Explains Everything That is Wrong With Kickstarter

Kickstarter has made countless dreams come true and changed the way many companies do business. But over the past few years, it’s also become bloated with scams, half-baked product pitches, and brilliant, well-intentioned ideas that somehow never see the light of day no matter how much money we sink into them. There’s a reason most…

This Space Shuttle Test is Serious Science Wrapped in Pure Visual Extravagance

A mahogany wind tunnel for testing spacecraft aerodynamics is just too delightfully steampunk for real life. Or is it a real-life simulation of a 1980s-style overly-exuberant display of photographic superposition? Take a tiny space shuttle, suspend it with magnets, and you have this beautiful low-speed wind test in a transparent hexagonal tunnel wrapped in mahogany.…

Sherlock’s Father Makes Recovery Miserable in Season Premiere of Elementary

Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson are back in the season 4 kickoff of Elementary, and it’s all about mistakes, forgiveness, and recovery. Holmes relapsed on heroin in the finale last season, and now he has to cope with the fallout with his daddy issues on full display. Ready to brave the many, relentless spoilers to…

More Nightmare Stories of Your Worst IT Jobs Ever

After we published reader IT job horror stories, we received more than a 1000 comments, and you kicked it up to a whole other level. From finding porn on church systems to working IT in actual warzones, you’ve been to computerized hell and back. OrbitalGun wrote: I’ve been at my IT job for 11 years,…

Architects Say This Apartment Complex Is the Year’s Best Building–Here’s Why

What do villages look like in a world where most people live in cities? Can close-knit communities even exist in the megapolis of the future? The Interlace, an unusual apartment building that was just crowned Building of the Year, thinks so. The Interlace is an apartment complex in Singapore designed by Ole Scheeren, a German…

Think Cat Pics Are Worthless?  This One Sold for Nearly a Million Dollars.

You’re looking at “My Wife’s Lovers,” a painting done by Carl Kahler in 1891. It represents forty-two felines of an eccentric California millionaire, and it sold for $826,000. Kate Birdsall Johnson was what a polite person might call “well-situated” and “eccentric,” meaning she was rich and crazy. Among her favorite pastimes was feeding the many…

This wall of clouds creeping over a city is so ominous

If I saw these clouds coming at me like this, I would drop everything, turn around, and start running. It’s absolutely what I envision the end of the world looking like. These shelf clouds popped up and rolled into and over Sydney’s Bondi Beach earlier today and look absolutely terrifying. Nothing really happened but it…

Aurora and solar panels seen from the International Space Station are even more beautiful in combination than they are apart. Image credit: NASA/Alex Gerst

Let’s Break Down The Fantastic Spectacle That is the Warcraft Trailer

At last, after years of teasing, the first trailer for Duncan Jones’ Warcraft movie is here. If you’re familiar with the smash hit video game franchise, it’s packed with secrets, hints and Easter eggs. And if you’ve got absolutely no idea what’s going on? Well, we have you covered to as we take a deep…

New Horizons is Officially Off to the Kuiper Belt!

With Pluto receding into the distance, New Horizons is speeding merrily along toward its next destination. On Wednesday, the spacecraft completed its fourth and final engine burn, placing it on course for 2014 MU69, an ancient, frozen body located more than a billion miles beyond Pluto in the Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is like…