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And now, the nominees for the Nebula Awards

Every year, the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFFWA) vote on the best works of science fiction and fantasy released in the previous year. Today SFFWA announced the 2012 nominees. Winners will be announced at the Nebula Awards weekend May 16-19th, 2013, in San Jose at the San Jose Hilton.…

The Science of What Makes Junk Food So Addicting (And Delicious)

It’s basically impossible to stop eating junk food. And it’s like that for a reason. There are billions and billions of dollars at play in Big Snack, and those corporations want to keep it that way. The New York Times has an exhaustive and fairly massive feature about how junk food companies use everything from…

No one does crazy quite like will.i.am., be it in tech or—as our Jalopnik pals exclusively illuminate—cars. [Jalop] https://jalopnik.com/exclusive-will-i-ams-900-000-one-of-a-kind-car-is-ac-299528633

Never-Before-Seen Video Shows Fire Raining On the Sun

“On July 19, 2012, the Sun produced a medium-size solar flare,” NASA says on this new video captured by its Solar Dynamics Observatory, “what occurred with the flare was amazing.” It’s true. It’s amazing. Fire started to fall down like rain—a hell waterfall many times the size of planet Earth. You have to watch this…

15 Uncanny Examples of the Golden Ratio in Nature

The famous Fibonacci sequence has captivated mathematicians, artists, designers, and scientists for centuries. Also known as the Golden Ratio, its ubiquity and astounding functionality in nature suggests its importance as a fundamental characteristic of the Universe. We’ve talked about the Fibonacci series and the Golden ratio before, but it’s worth a quick review. The Fibonacci…

Guillermo del Toro’s Mama could be a franchise

Feral ghost baby horror flick Mama (produced by the great monster whisperer Guillermo del Toro) might get a sequel, or even a franchise. The little horror movie was a great success for Universal and now the studio’s President of Internationa, David Kosse, is teasing more. Kosse spilled the beans to Screen Daily stating, “We think…

Take a Tour of Rancho Obi-Wan, The Largest Star Wars Collection in the Galaxy

Steve Sansweet is a bit of a rebel among hardcore Star Wars collectors. While many afficianados will specialize a single type of memorabilia—Rob Foster’s 2,000-piece set only includes figurines for example—Sansweet will pick up anything from the series for curation in his massive, 300,000-piece museum, Rancho Obi-Wan. https://gizmodo.com/the-biggest-star-wars-collection-in-the-galaxy-357908 Rancho Obi-Wan is located in Northern California…

Brooklyn Nets Now Stream Their Games Live for Free—While You’re at the Arena

Starting with last night’s game against the Bucks, the Brooklyn Nets enabled a new feature to the already pretty impressive Barclays Center app. You can now watch a live stream of the game while on the arena’s Wi-Fi network. This is either brilliant or deeply depressing. The benefit of the stream, obviously, is you can…

Your Brain at Work Looks Like Pyrotechnics Exploding In the Sky

In the future, when doctors read your mind they won’t see repressed scenes from your childhood—they’ll see neurons exploding like chains of firecrackers. Scientists at Stanford have developed a method for observing real-time activity in the brains of mice. You can see the stunning results of the work in the video above. One day, scientists…

This guy’s got some planets he wants to sell you

The Universe is full of exoplanets. But what do we call them? PSR 1257 12 b. GJ 317 c. Oph 11 b. BORING. Now, a new company wants to sell you the privilege of naming planets outside our solar system. Is this petty planetary hucksterism, or a good idea? Right now, planetary nomenclature — the…

ProxToMe App Lets You Send Files to Anyone Nearby Because The World Needs More Lawsuits

The newest app just begging to be hijacked by sexting tweens and exhibitionists alike has come to us in the form of ProxToMe, a file-sharing app that lets you send anything you want directly to any stranger’s phone in your proximity. Surely, nothing could go wrong. ProxToMe, thankfully, only allows you to send your file…

New still from Ender’s Game reveals what fuels that baby genius army

Gavin Hood’s Ender’s Game has released a brand new still showing off the many screened walls of the Battle School’s cafeteria. Check out the big board behind the kiddies’ lunches — looks like it’s displaying the winnings of the day. Also check it out, it looks like the character Dink Meeker is wearing a Salamander…

The Best Google Glasses Analogy Yet

Google Glasses might be a neat version of the future, but they’re also awkward and unnecessary. You know, kind of like a Segway? From what we can see from the new video of the UI Google just released, they could be really cool. But ultimately, it’s hard to envision a future where Google Glasses are…

SwiftKey 4 Adds Flow So You Never Have to Stop Typing

SwiftKey 4 is the latest version of one of the best Android replacement keyboards. The update introduces “Flow,” or swipe to type, new gestures, and word prediction for 60 languages. Flow is a that feature lets you slide your finger to the space bar, rather than lifting it and pausing while you’re typing a sentence.…

The Secret to Doing Dallas Right is a Ton of Bourbon and Meat, Glorious Meat

What goes best with a Knob Creek® cocktail? That’s what Andrew Steinthal and Chris Stang from Immaculate Infatuation set out to find. They’ve already crushed San Francisco and ate their way through Seattle. For this, their final stop, they discovered that, yes, everything is bigger in Texas, especially in Dallas/Ft. Worth. https://gizmodo.com/heres-how-you-turn-san-francisco-into-a-bourbon-fueled-5969028 When we first…

Italian Jet Company Converts Passenger Plane Into the World’s Most Stylish UAV

Dubbed the P.1HH HammerHead, this UAV is the result of a collaboration between Piaggio Aero and Selex ES based on the P-180 Avanti II, a twin-engine turboprop. The Avanti II is primarily utilized as a business jet with a 1400 NM range, though a “Special Mission” piloted derivative is also available for both emergency response…

Emoji Dick, A Novel Translated into Emoji, Accepted by Library of Congress

Emoji Dick, the oh-man-how-did-this-actually-work-out emoji translation of Moby Dick, is now in the Library of Congress. Why wouldn’t it be. Emoji Dick originated in 2009, on Kickstarter. The book was compiled by Fred Benenson, who contracted thousands of people to translate one sentence of the book into emoji—each sentence of the book three times—and had…

A Gallery of Great (and Not TV-Inspired) Game of Thrones Art

If you picked up your copy of Game of Thrones season 2 on Blu-ray or DVD yesterday, you’ve likely checked out some of the set’s many extras. One thing you won’t find on there is this gallery of awesome fan art, created by artists who have ignored the TV series to bring their own vision…

A Year With the Cheapest Unlimited Phone Plan You’ve Never Heard Of

Remember Republic Wireless? Those guys who promised to change the world of mobile with a $19 per month unlimited talk, text, and data plan? Remember how it sounded too good to be true? I dove in head first when it came out as a beta last year, and I can tell you from experience that…

Police Informed a Mother About Her Son’s Death Over Facebook

On January 24th, Ricky Lamb was hit by a car and killed. His body sat in the morgue until Valentine’s Day, though, because the incompetent local police only contacted the family over Facebook. It took a month for Lamb’s mother to find the message. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports the ordeal of Anna Lamb-Creasey, who had…