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What’s The Worst Science Fiction And Fantasy Date Movie?

It’s almost Friday night, which means it’s date night for many of us! And there’s nothing better than taking your sweetie (or prospective sweetie) out to the movies. But which science fiction or fantasy movie is least likely to result in nookie or happy fun times on a date? Please include a picture, poster, clip…

The coldest case ever? The discovery of a 430,000-year-old skull in Spain’s “Pit of Bones” may offer “the earliest evidence of lethal interpersonal violence,” a.k.a. murder. Pieced together from 50 fragments, the skull has two lesions above one eye, implying a series of blows and “an intention to kill.”

Let’s Talk About Whatever You Want Right Now

Howdy friends! It’s Friday and you know what that means… everybody in California should be dead right now! Seriously, some dude on YouTube predicted it. But it didn’t happen. 🙁 Maybe next time. Anyways, tell us what you’re thinking. Did you have a good week? Are you looking forward to the weekend? Seen any good…

What The @#$% Is Happening In These Chinese Agents Of SHIELD Coke Ads?

The Agents of SHIELD take on a new mission—shilling Coca-Cola—in these delightfully surreal Chinese commercials. I have absolutely zero idea what’s going on in them. All I know is that if Agent Ward doesn’t take orders from a polar bear in season 3 I’m gonna be seriously disappointed. Here’s a slightly less wacky but still…

Google’s New Hands-Free Feature Will Let You Pay With These Magic Words

“I’d like to pay with Google.” Say that phrase at a shop’s register, and you could soon check out without even touching your wallet—or phone. It’s called Hands Free, and it comes on the heels of Google announcing its upcoming payments app, Android Pay, at I/O. With this hands-free method, it seems you simply approach…

Our Closest View Yet Of Ceres’ Pockmarked Surface

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is getting progressively closer to Ceres. And we’re getting some amazing views — this remarkably detailed shot shows the dwarf planet’s cratered surface from a distance of only 3,200 miles (5,100 km). This shot, taken by Dawn’s OpNav9 camera on May 23, shows some previously unseen features, including secondary craters formed by…

Video: The underrated importance of chairs in movies

Tony Zhou of Every Frame a Painting focuses in on something that’s not always noticed in movies but is incredibly important in how we view a film: chairs. Yep, the things we sit on. By focusing on chairs, he’s making a larger point about production design but it’s really interesting to see how something as…

Why Brewers Are DNA-Testing Beer for Bacterial Infections

It’s a feeling I hope you never experience: You crack open an ice cold beer after a long day, take a sip expecting the familiar hoppy, bubbly goodness to hit your taste buds, and instead, you get a mouthful of flat, acrid sludge. You’ve just tasted rotten beer. And no one’s higher on your shit…

Silk Road Drug Kingpin Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison

Ross Ulbricht, the California hippie convicted for founding notorious online drug market Silk Road, has been sentenced to life in prison. The man once known as the “Dread Pirate Roberts” was found guilty on seven counts earlier this year, including a “drug kingpin” charge that carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.…

The Best YA Vampire Romance Series You Will Ever Be Privileged To Read

The passing of Tanith Lee made me think about my own favorite genre authors from childhood. While there were a few that I liked, there’s only one whose books have really stuck with me throughout the years. It’s Meredith Ann Pierce, author of the amazing Darkangel trilogy. I’ve hesitated mentioning this series because it’s from…

io9 Newsstand: This Ted Chiang Story Will Make You Cry, Guaranteed

This week’s stories are about the things we overlook — such as ghosts and intelligent life. They’re also about parents — the ones we cling to and the ones we pull away from. Also: Parrots, monkeys, and turtles. The Great Silence by Allora & Calzadilla & Ted Chiang | e-flux journal The universe is so…

Watch How Los Angeles Boomed Over 125 Years With This Gorgeous Map

Contrary to what New Yorkers would like to tell you, Los Angeles is freaking old. Older than the United States of America, in fact. And it’s easy to see just how old the city is with built:LA, an interactive map that color-codes the age of over three million LA buildings. Each building is assigned a…

This Is How Penile Erection Actually Works

Your spam folder is probably full of the offers. (Mine certainly is.) But none of the emails promising to let you “please your partner” by making you a “giant for girls” with “strong erections” say a thing about how the penis gets erect in the first place. Here’s how it really works. Image: Dr. Horrible’s…

Everyone should watch this ridiculously awesomely fun movie right now

YES. If you don’t remember the crazy bananas movie that was Kung Fury, go and watch the trailer again. You’ll see a completely over the top preview that includes Kung Fu, dinosaurs, DeLoreans, time travel, killing Hitler, Vikings and more. It was glorious. Now the entire movie is online for free to watch on YouTube.…

Ash’s Chainsaw Is Already Bloody In Teaser For Ash Vs Evil Dead

This is just a tiny little snippet, but it’s good to see that Bruce Campbell’s chainsaw is primed and ready for deadite-slicing action when Ash vs Evil Dead. In a recent interview, Evil Dead creator Sam Raimi told us that Campbell has been holding onto his chainsaw rig for the last 30 years so that…

The New Poltergeist Has One Redeeming Feature: It’s Only 90 Minutes Long

The new remake of Poltergeist was a modest box office success in its opening weekend, and it’s pretty much already made back its production budget. But it’s not a good movie, even if you divorce it from the 1982 movie. It’s not horrible, either. But its best feature is that it’s mercifully short. Full disclosure:…

Which is More Technologically Advanced–Star Wars or Star Trek?

Let’s compare the two, side-by-side. Transportation First up, we have Star Wars’ hyper engines that go through hyperspace compared to Star Trek’s warp drives that travel through normal space at FTL (“faster than light”) speeds. Technical data books indicate that the speeds and range of hyper drives are greater, however. We have also repulsor craft…

Project Ara Update: Still Not Available, But Looking Cooler Than Ever

At this morning’s ATAP session at Google I/O we got another little tease of Project Ara, Google’s modular smartphone. I mean, it was a tiny tease. Basically, it still a thing that exists. But! We got to see a little of it in action and it was pretty damn impressive. Google engineer Rafa Camargo came…

The Town’s Mystery Deepens (And Gets Even Weirder) On Wayward Pines 

We’re up to Wayward Pines’ third episode, and despite its title, “Our Town, Our Law,” it features multiple instances where Sheriff Pope tells one of the Burkes that “this is MY town!” But whoever’s town it is, it’s just keeps getting weirder. Spoilers follow! The ep picks up immediately where last week left off. We…

Someone Will Livetweet Vox Day’s Debut Novel For Charity

Before Theodore “Vox Day” Beale was the central figure in the Sad/Rabid Puppies Hugo Awards hacking, he wrote a series of religious-inspired fantasy novels for Pocket Books. And blogger Natalie Luhrs is going to live-tweet his debut novel, Eternal Warriors: The War in Heaven, for charity. Here’s how it works: You donate money to RAINN,…