What happens when a dead star meets a black hole? The answer appears to be a brief zombie awakening, according to a new paper. Let me explain.

Cameos from aging, check-cashing celebrities who helped make the original Star Wars trilogy great have made it especially challenging for fans working hard to convince themselves the recent Star Wars sequels were anything other than a disappointment. Disney and Lucasfilm should really just give us two hours of…

As the value of precious metals fluctuates over time, the U.S. Mint has to constantly find new ways to keep currency manufacturing affordable. A five-cent nickel that costs as much as seven cents to make is a problem, but so is a coin that suddenly looks and feels different because its metallurgic ingredients were…

When you’re flying around in space, where there’s no air or wind resistance, aerodynamics aren’t important. That’s why the Star Trek Borg ship is just a giant cube and still works just fine. But when ships are also visiting planets with atmospheres, aerodynamics do come into play—and apparently neither the Rebels nor…

Unless we find a way to travel infinitely faster than the speed of light, there’s no way you’ll ever see the farthest reaches of the galaxy in person. But that harsh reality is made somewhat easier to digest thanks to this short film by Teun van der Zalm, featuring fly-bys of computer-generated nebulae that even our…

Jedi were supposed to be the peaceful protectors of the galaxy, only resorting to fighting when needed, or whenever a conversation at a bar got too heated. But thanks to a PC game called Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator, we can finally watch the Jedi become the galaxy’s biggest bullies.

Thanks to all those Star Wars movies we know the Jedi can barely survive an attack from just a pair of evil Sith lords. But pit a small battalion of 300 lightsaber-wielding Jedi knights against a giant army of 60,000 medieval soldiers armed with only swords, and it’s not even a challenge.

When The Lost World (the first sequel to Jurassic Park) came out, audiences weren’t really interested in another sermon on the risks of cloning. All we wanted was more dinosaurs, ideally fighting, which is what this CG simulation mostly delivers. After all, chickens are just tiny dinosaurs, right?

If you’ve ever been blasted by the downwash of a drone when it flies over you, you know how much air four spinning rotors can move. But to help improve the design and flight characteristics of future drones, NASA had its supercomputers simulate what that air movement actually looks like, and it’s impossibly complex.

A computer model developed by researchers at MIT shows that just 3,000 Uber and Lyft vehicles, when carpooled, could replace New York City’s entire 14,000-strong taxi fleet. It’s a finding that highlights the potential for ridesharing apps to revolutionize transportation in big cities.

The most powerful supercomputer simulation of the Universe is providing important insights into how matter is distributed across large scales. Surprisingly, a significant portion of matter resides outside of galaxies and in the cosmic voids that permeate the cosmos.

When it comes to a “typical” day, most of us are too wrapped up in our own routines to think about what others might be doing. Thankfully, this fascinating visualization by statistician Nathan Yau shows exactly how America runs—right down to the minute.