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Philip Pullman’s fantasy novel The Golden Compass turned 20 in July, and over on NPR, Weekend Edition host Scott Simon interviewed Pullman about the book’s legacy in the last two decades.

In Comic Crits, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora Is All About Earth

I’m a big fan of John Bonner’s Comic Crits, and in his latest installment, he’s reviewed Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel, Aurora. As usual, he has some astute observations about the book. https://gizmodo.com/seveneves-is-an-engineers-wish-according-to-comic-crit-1716787875 Aurora is about a generation ship headed to Tau Ceti, but after reading through the book, Bonner comes to the conclusion that…

More Sad Remains Of The Soviet Buran Space Shuttle Program

Pictures of the Soviet Space Shuttle in its hanger have been making the rounds on the internet recently, but there’s another shuttle out there. Russian photographer Aleksander Markin came across the remains of the original wooden model, used for wind tunnel testing. https://gizmodo.com/these-are-the-sad-remains-of-the-soviet-space-shuttle-p-1710827956 The pictures were uploaded back in 2013, and show off the 1:3…

NASA Is Sending Bacteria to the Edge of Space to See if They Can Hitchhike to Mars

Discovering life on another planet, only to contaminate that world with our own pesky microbes, is one of NASA’s nightmare scenarios. To find out whether single-celled Earthlings can hitchhike to Mars and survive on the Red Planet’s surface, NASA is going to see how they like it 120,000 feet up. Today, weather permitting, a helium…

Fun Data Visualization Predicts When You’re Going to Die

It’s a morbid question but one that we humans tend to obsess over: When am I going to die? Only a highly trained Seer can give you a firm answer, but if you want cold hard statistics, we Muggles have that bit covered. Flowing Data recently produced an enlightening interactive graphic that pulls numbers from…

Duncan Jones Is Fighting To Film His Passion Project, Mute

Mute is one of those passion films that directors want to make. Duncan Jones has been talking about it ever since his fantastic film Moon came out, and it looks like he’s still fighting to make it happen. In a tweet yesterday, he indicated that he’s still working on it, and that there’s been some…

The patent trolls strike again! Minero Digital LLC, a shell company with ties to the patent-holding giant Intellectual Ventures, is taking Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and two dozen other companies to court over USB hubs. Minero demands the companies pay royalties on said hubs, based on a patent it acquired from IV in April, 2015. Learn…

NASA Will Unveil “Major Science Finding” On Monday

Time to start speculating: NASA announced a press conference that will take place on Monday that will “detail a major science finding” and that a major Mars mystery has been solved. The event will take place on 11:30 AM EDT, and will include the following: Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters Michael…

Jessica Jones Shows Off Her Strength In The Show’s Latest Teaser

We got our first glimpse of the upcoming Nexflix Marvel outing, Jessica Jones earlier this month, and now, a new short teaser shows off Jones’ strength. https://gizmodo.com/marvels-jessica-jones-tv-series-has-a-trippy-new-traile-1729802220 There’s not much here, but it does set a bit of the tone, doesn’t it? Jessica Jones will debut on Netflix on November 20.

There are Hints of Sunbeams and Fog Buried in Pluto’s Atmosphere

Earlier this month, New Horizons released a batch of absolutely breathtaking photos of Pluto at dusk, including the one above. In these images, particles in Pluto’s thin atmosphere are causing sunlight to scatter, revealing a complex, layered haze. Now, by studying that haze more closely, the New Horizons science team thinks it’s found yet another…

Check Out Some Glorious Pulp Art From University of Iowa Hevelin Collection!

We reported back in July that the University of Iowa has been digitizing their holdings, including fanzines and pulp magazines. They’ve been documenting their collection for future generations, and they’ve posted some stunning pictures online. https://gizmodo.com/the-university-of-iowa-brings-fanzines-to-the-digital-w-1720155978 These types of magazines are in dire need of preservation: The paper on which they were printed was the…

Hear A New Track From Astronaut Chris Hadfield’s Space Album, Daughter Of My Sins

Astronaut Chris Hadfield became a viral musician when he recorded a cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity from the International Space Station a while back. Now, he’s releasing an album of songs that he recorded while in space, Space Sessions: Songs From a Tin Can. To preview it, he’s released a lyric video for one…

Elon Musk: Dieselgate Proves It’s Time to Go Electric

While the EPA is promising to toughen up emissions tests in the aftermath of the Volkswagen cheating scandal, Tesla founder Elon Musk has a slightly different take: Gas is dead and it’s time to go electric, people. While speaking to a room full of reporters yesterday, Musk was asked whether dieselgate would cause people to…

Costa Rica: Stay Away From Our Sea Turtles, You Terrible Humans 

Last week, we learned that thousands of selfie-snapping garbage humans drove hundreds of thousands of olive ridley sea turtles away from their nesting grounds in Costa Rica. But the turtles are back, and this time, the Costa Rican government isn’t messing around. Two weeks ago, the guides on duty at Ostional Beach were overwhelmed by…

Everyone Thinks Sam Smith’s New Bond Tune is Rubbish

We’re just weeks away from the release of the latest James Bond epic Spectre, and now we know what the theme music will be. This time around the film-makers have opted to commission Sam Smith (the singer, not the beer as everyone knows that Bond drinks Martinis), and he’s come up with a track titled…

This December’s New Star Wars Books Include Some Galactically Gorgeous Art

This December is going to be a crazy orgy of Star Wars obsession. And that’s going to include a dozen new tie-in books, besides the official novelization of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The official Star Wars site just unveiled a dozen pretty insane looking book covers. Check them out below, and there are more…

This totally crazy wingsuit video made me stop breathing

Okay, which guy is crazier. Graham Dickinson, the guy we see in the video below who’s so impossibly close the ground and the trees and the mountain face and basically inches away from crashing the entire time during this wingsuit video. Or the camera man, Dario, who is seeing all the ridiculous things Dickinson is…

io9 Newstand Thinks Werewolves and Mermaids Should Hook Up More Often

This week’s stories are about falling in love during a full moon, going back in time to fix your biggest mistakes, and deciding whether or not existing is honestly worth it. Werewolf Loves Mermaid by Heather Lindsley | Lightspeed Magazine They met at a wedding. He was in the wedding party. She was serving canapés…

Here’s Your Handy Guide To Everything That’s Been Happening on Continuum

A brand new episode of Continuum airs tonight at 11 PM on Syfy—and this time-travel show is even more complicated than ever. So just in time for tonight’s brain-popping adventure, here’s a quick primer to get you up to speed… Continuum is a show about Kiera Cameron, a police officer (Protector) from the year 2077,…

An Inside Look at How VFX Artists Created A “Digital Double” For The Flash

“We really are trying to make it as much like a live comic book as possible,” The Flash executive producer Gabrielle Stanton explains—and this video delves into the technical aspects that ambitious goal demands. Including the seamless mixing of CG and live-action in fights and cityscapes, and in scenes with characters like Gorilla Grodd. Watch…