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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.

Russians Blamed for Cyberattack on Pentagon Email Systems 

Russia is the leading suspect behind a cyberattack that prompted the Pentagon to take an unclassified email system offline last month. According to NBC News, that the email system has been offline ever since. The breach occurred around July 25th and affected about 4,000 military and civilian personnel who work for the Joint Chiefs of…

The Video For Nero’s Two Minds Is Like A Lost ’80s Cyberpunk Flick

The video for Two Minds, the latest single from British electronic trio NERO looks just like it’s a lost cyberpunk film from the 1980s. It’s got that early digital look to it, and the story that plays out wouldn’t be out of place on a stack of forgotten VHS tapes. The video single, which is…

“The Moomin Project” Gives Tove Jansson’s World A Creepy New Look

Better call Moominpappa, because this is kind of intense. Artist Ingela Hallberg has been reimagining Tove Jansson’s beloved children’s books, with a series of artworks called The Moomin Project. And the results are pretty striking. If you grew up reading the Moomintroll books, then these artworks will bring back a lot of memories. Hallberg tells…

A Warm Ocean “Blob” In the Pacific Is Feeding a Toxic Algae Bloom 

The Blob has been there for over a year—a cauldron of extra-warm ocean temperatures off the coast of the Pacific Northwest that just won’t budge. The Blob has already affected food availability and habitats for marine life, and now scientists are starting to see at least one dangerous side-effect of the Blob: A harmful algae…

Even The Dome Isn’t Watching Under The Dome Any More

So I guess a new episode of Under the Dome aired last night. To be honest, I totally missed it. There was a snail-eating competition on the Gastropod Channel, and it was neck-and-neck for a long time, so I got fascinated. But I gather some stuff happened. I gotta come clean, or as clean as…

The Best of Gizmodo This Week

RIP hitchBOT. RIP iTunes. Hello lab-grown meat and zero emissions. Here’s the best of Gizmodo from this hot summer week. Hitchhiking Robot Lasts Just Two Weeks in US Because Humans Are Terrible When hitchBOT the hitchhiking robot started his journey in Boston two weeks ago he wanted to see the entire country. Unfortunately, he never…

A giant crane lifting a huge crane lifting a big crane lifting a crane

This is my favorite thing. A few years ago Liebherr showed off the power and strength of its giant mobile cranes by lifting each other. That is the small crane (which is pretty damn big already) gets lifted by a bigger crane which gets lifted by an even bigger crane which gets lifted by the…

Plane Makes an Emergency Landing in the LA River

If you’re a small plane looking to make an emergency landing, there’s really no better place than the LA River. Mostly because large stretches of it aren’t so much a river, as it is a long concrete wasteland. Ever seen the movies Drive or T2? Then you know what I’m talking about. According to CBS…

Astronauts Will Eat Space Lettuce for the First Time Next Week

In a rather science fictional moment, the Expedition 44 crew members on the International Space Station are about to eat the very first space crops. On Monday, a batch of red romaine lettuce will be harvested from the Veggie plant growth system on the ISS orbiting laboratory. Cosmically delicious. It’ll probably be the most scientific…

Via the American Psychological Association: “In an effort to build better bodies, more men are turning not to illegal anabolic steroids, but to legal over-the-counter bodybuilding supplements to the point where it may qualify as an emerging eating disorder.” See also, at Aeon: “Rise of the Ripped.” Contact the author at [email protected].

The Man Who Invented Corn Flakes Really Really Really Hated Masturbation

We know John H. Kellogg as the man who invented Corn Flakes and unleashed bran-filled diet fads on an unwary 19th century public. But he was also the author of an influential sex education book that was all about the dangers of self-pleasuring. Plain Facts about Sexual Life was first published in 1877, with an…