Weekly Roundup

WEEKLY ROUNDUP: 4/24 -4/30 | Cthuluhusaurus Rex by KnowDunnyBlowsEther.

How to remember and discover Joanna Russ

One of the twentieth century's greatest science fiction authors, Joanna Russ, died peacefully Friday after suffering a series of strokes. Controversial, political, poetic, and full of crazy action, Russ' work has seduced and troubled readers for decades. More »

Bootsy Collins tells us how to get a seat on the Mothership

Few musicians have been as science fictional, for as long, as William "Bootsy" Collins. He's been the cartoon character at the heart of George Clinton's UFO-inspired Mothership. More »

Scenes from a weird abandoned amusement park outside Beijing

On the outskirts of Beijing lies Wonderland, the skeleton of an amusement park that just never came to be. Despite its meticulously maintained exterior, the interior looks like a veritable Disney-wasteland. More »

25 Geeky Weddings that are just as fantastical as the Royal Wedding

While the rest of the world dons their fancy hats for the Royal Wedding, we wanted to pay tribute to the great amazing science fiction and fantasy-themed weddings that have rocked our universe. More »

May Day, 1871: The Day "Science Fiction" Was Invented

This Sunday is the 140th anniversary of May 1, 1871. On that date Lord Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race and George Chesney's "The Battle of Dorking" were both first published, and on that date Samuel Butler delivered to his publisher the manuscript of what would become Erewhon. More »

The first sign that humans are on the verge of evolving into another species

A scientist who studies the small, silver elephantfish may have stumbled on the key to speciation, the process that allows one species to evolve into two or more. More »

Where do fossils come from?

Ana Balcarcel's job is to carve the fossilized bones of ancient creatures out of rocks. Every day, she works with animals who haven't seen the light of day for millions of years. More »

How to raise a language from the dead

How do we know what ancient Egyptian sounded like, or Old English? Linguistics gives us the tools to reconstruct lost languages from the words we speak today. More »

We'll miss you, SETI!

With SETI shut down, is the search for extraterrestrial life over? This week, the SETI Institute announced that it would have to shut down its large radio telescope facility, called the Allen Telescope Array, near the California mountain town Hat Creek. More »

Badass Fantasy Roundup!

Barbarians, dragons, former cyberpunk authors, and more! More »

Saying "I love you" is a matter of evolutionary economics

Men and women say "I love you" at different points in their relationships, and they say it for very different reasons. It turns out that even the timing of "I love you" is all about following our ancient evolutionary drives. More »

10 other superheroes who possessed the powers of Thor

Throughout Thor's illustrious career, his powers have been appropriated by a slew of other comic book heroes. Not all of these heroes carried his official hammer, Mjolnir, but almost all of them dressed as lunatics while imitating the Thunder God. More »

Rabbits with Horns: Meet the Human Papillomavirus

The stories about rabbits with horns circulated for centuries. Eventually they crystallized into the myth of the jackalope. If you go to Wyoming and twirl a rack of postcards, chances are you'll find a picture of a jackalope bounding across the prairie. More »

Daniel Abraham Calculates the Economics of Fantasy in Episode 35 of The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy

Daniel Abraham, author of the new epic fantasy novel The Dragon's Path, joins us. More »

By 2040, you can eat (and excrete) your diagnosis

Right now we have probiotic yogurt, but with genetically-engineered, color-changing bacteria, we may soon have diagnostic yogurt. I wonder who will be picked as the spokeswoman for that. More »