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Wastewater from the Colorado mine spill that turned the Animas River orange this week has made its way to northern New Mexico, the Associated Press reports. Officials in the cities of Aztec and Farmington have temporarily shut down the river’s access to water treatment plants. Meanwhile, containment crews are building makeshift ponds to catch and…

We Want To Play District 9 As An 8-Bit Game

District 9 certainly has some video game-like elements to it, and this short video that adapts the film as an 8-bit video game is just perfect. Someone make this happen, because we would play the hell out of it. Director Neill Blomkamp seems to think so as well:

Listen To The 1973 Audio Drama Of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation 

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy is one of the landmark works of science fiction: it’s big, epic and has attracted a following in the decades since it’s original publication. In 1973, it was turned into an audio drama, and you can listen to it online! The drama was commissioned by the BBC in 1973, and was…

Five Places Where People Have Turned the Water a Crazy Unnatural Color

On Thursday, a breach during an acid mine cleanup effort sent a million gallons of wastewater seeping down the Animas River. Overnight, the popular waterway was abandoned as its color quickly changed from blue to an acrid, neon orange. It’s not the first time we’ve managed to turn a large body of water an eerie…

Dawn Reveals Two-Faced Mountain on Ceres in Latest Flyover Animation

The tallest mountain on Ceres is a split-toned creature that would be at home in Alaska. Explore it, and the still-mysterious white spots in Occator Crater in the latest flyover animation of the dwarf planet. Ceres is the largest object — dwarf planet, asteroid, or other — lingering in the main asteroid belt between Mars…

Examine Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris With This Short Film Critique

Vimeo user kogonada has put together a neat look at Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris and some of the background of the movie and how it was different from other science fiction films of the same era. In contrast to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tarkovsky wanted to focus on the characters, rather than the technical spectacle, and…

Elephants Discover Public Toilets Are Great Watering Holes

Your dog isn’t the only one who likes drinking from the toilet. Clever elephants at the Elephant Sand Lodge campsite in Botswana have also wised up to the most refreshing water source around. According to Laughing Squid, the elephants are so accustomed to their human visitors they’ve got no qualms throwing their trunks over the…

Target Begins To Move Away From Gendered Advertising

Over the course of this summer, we’ve seen a trainwreck when it comes to toy companies selling toys to girls, whether it’s Jurassic World or Captain America: Winter Soldier. Now, Target has announced that they’re starting to move away from gendered advertising in their stores for some items. Obviously, there’s a long way to go…

This Material Could Turn Greenhouse Gas Into Fuel

In the energy world, carbon capture technology is often seen as the Holy Grail: Imagine if we could just suck all pesky climate-changing CO2 out of the atmosphere. Scientists at the DOE are hot on the problem. They’ve just identified a new material that not only captures CO2, it helps convert the greenhouse gas into…

Netflix’s Dystopian Show 3% To Be Developed Entirely In Brazil

Netflix has ordered a dystopian thriller series titled 3%, which will be developed entirely in Brazil. The series, which is scheduled to begin shooting in early 2016, looks like an intriguing one. According to the streaming company, the show will be directed by Cesar Charlone, known for City of God and Blindness, will be written…

Watch Summer’s Extreme Weather Move Around Earth With This Animated Map

If you’re interested in data design, you’ll probably be very jealous of the developers and scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Visualization Lab. The Lab is charged with taking the government’s vast trove of data about the Earth and building public-facing tools that communicate that information visually. The latest, which the NOAA announced…

The First Set Photos From Star Wars: Rogue One Are Here

Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn’t even in theaters yet, and we’re already starting to see images from the set of the next Star Wars film, Rogue One. Potential spoilers ahead. The UK’s Mirror newspaper has posted up a couple of photographs that are reportedly from the set of the first anthology film. It should…

Retweets Kinda are Endorsements if You’re Retweeting ISIS

You can claim your retweets aren’t endorsements, but if you’re retweeting known terrorists on a regular basis, the feds may just use that as evidence to arrest you. A detailed report by the Huffington Post describes the myriad ways in which the FBI is ramping up its monitoring of social media, including, yes, busting people…

Halo Makes The Jump From Video Game To Tabletop Miniatures

File this under awesome: the Halo universe is being turned into a tabletop miniatures game, thanks to Spartan Games. Halo: Fleet Battles is the latest expansion of 343’s universe, after it’s taken control of console and – hopefully soon – PC gaming. Polygon got a chance to take a look at the game last weekend…

When Authors Duel, The Results Are Hilarious

What happens when you throw the typical author reading on its head? A couple of weeks ago in Vermont, Phoenix Books of Burlington and Geek Mountain State put together a reading event called an Author Duel, and hilarity ensued. No authors were harmed in the course of this event. Full disclosure: this is part of…

Sense8 Has Been Renewed For A Second Season!

Netflix announced via Twitter that their science fiction show, Sense8, will return for a second season. The J. Michael Straczynski/Wachowski siblings show debuted on Netflix in June, and followed eight strangers from around the world who were mentally linked to one another. August 8th marks the birthday of the eight characters in the show, which…

Explore the Surface of Mars With NASA’s Latest Web Tools

Most of us will never set foot on Mars, but thanks to NASA’s unceasing public outreach campaign, now we can all imagine what that might be like. To commemorate the three year anniversary of the Curiosity rover’s Martian landing, NASA has unveiled two new web tools that allow you to explore the Red Planet’s surface…

Science Fiction Characters Get Their Own Straight Outta Album Cover 

F. Gary Gray biotopic Straight Outta Compton is coming next week, and as part of the marketing for the movie, they’ve launched a website that allows you to make your own album cover: so, what happens when your favorite science fiction characters get their own? Here’s a couple that I’ve put together using their web…

These Glasses Block Facial Recognition Technology

Facial recognition software is cropping up everywhere, so it was only a matter of time before anti facial recognition tech started to catch up. Naturally, Japan is leading the way. That’s right: Japan’s National Institute of Informatics is now developing ‘privacy glasses’ that make human faces unreadable to machines. An earlier (and way amazingly dorkier)…

One misunderstanding helped to create and shape a great part of science fiction in the 1870s and beyond. Over on Barnes and Noble’s science fiction site, Adam Rowe takes a look at how the mistranslation of Canali led astronomers and science fiction authors to believe there was life on Mars.