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13 awesome and awful pilots for sci-fi series we never got to see.
comment posted at 8:38 AM on Dec-14-10

The Center for Sexual Health Promotion, Indiana University, has investigated in 2009 sexual practices in the USA. The results are reported in this month's Special Issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. (The full text is available behind a short anonymous online survey.)
comment posted at 10:12 AM on Oct-15-10

The Universe, with relative scales. Who knew there were earthworms 7m long? Or that drinking water involves Mickey Mouse heads?
comment posted at 8:31 AM on Oct-6-10

In the wake of high-profile "take this job and shove it" reenactors Steven Slater and Jenny Fictional, New York magazine sought out some other amusing walkouts.
comment posted at 3:28 PM on Aug-11-10

Daniel Schorr is dead at 93. Schorr began a career in journalism which spanned more than six decades at 12 years old, when he wrote a story for the Bronx Home News about a suicide. A woman had jumped from the roof of his building, he phoned the police and then wrote and article about the event, for which he was paid $5. After serving in military intelligence during World War II, he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times before joining CBS in 1953 as one of the legendary "Murrow Boys".
comment posted at 10:59 AM on Jul-23-10

Yesterday was the birthday of Dr. John Dee (1527-1609) (wiki). This extraordinary and brilliant man was a mathematician, astrologer, astronomer, navigator, map maker, alchemist, hermetic philosopher, and adviser in matters practical and arcane to Queen Elizabeth 1st. History has sometimes been unkind to him because he embraced science and mysticism together (previously), believing both to be facets of the same universal thing. His unfortunate experiments in conjuring angels with the alchemist Edward Kelley are probably to blame. Kelley asserted that the angel Uriel had instructed him to swap or share wives with Dr. Dee. This, unsurprisingly, led to the end of their association. 16th century celestial wife-swapping was going too far. However, Dr. Dee was a true Renaissance man and a gifted scholar. You can visit his black obsidian magic Aztec mirror at the British Museum.
comment posted at 10:37 AM on Jul-14-10

Friday Flash Fun Ashes 2 Ashes - Zombie Cricket
comment posted at 5:32 AM on May-14-10

Way Down Under The Ground. The tale of Orpheus's journey through the Underworld has been retold so many times, on stage, in film. Tennessee Williams saw it as Orpheus Descending. Neil Gaiman took the myth on in the pages of Sandman. Today, we have Hadestown, a new album from Anais Mitchell. Mitchell recorded "Hades & Persephone" for a previous release, but Hadestown is a fully-realized folk opera, five years in the making, a collaborative effort featuring contributions from Greg Brown, Ani Difranco, The Haden Tripletts and Justin Vernon (the voice of Bon Iver).
comment posted at 11:16 AM on Mar-9-10

Cat + sushi + flash game = Sushi cat!
comment posted at 1:05 PM on Mar-4-10

Strange & wonderful album covers.
comment posted at 9:11 AM on Feb-26-10

Have you ever been watching TV or a movie and pointed to the screen and said, "Hey! It's That Guy!"? Well, here is where you'll find him. This page is dedicated to the character actors collectively known as "That Guy".
comment posted at 2:03 PM on Feb-11-10

Why Dollhouse failed. Lengthy interview with Joss Whedon at the Chicago Tribune's TV blog. May contain light spoilers for the last few episodes of the show.
comment posted at 3:51 PM on Dec-3-09

Roger Ebert on the owning of books.
comment posted at 2:15 PM on Oct-9-09

King of an Endless Sky is a new graphic story by Teetering Bulb, AKA Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon. A new page every Thursday, published at Tor.com.
comment posted at 9:31 AM on Sep-17-09
comment posted at 10:59 AM on Sep-17-09

LIFE magazine publishes new photos of a 24-year-old Marilyn Monroe, with interesting captions explaining why they've never been seen before.
comment posted at 10:07 AM on Jun-2-09

Ruined Endings... because you fell asleep during the last part of that movie and you just want to know what happened, this site exists.
comment posted at 12:46 PM on May-29-09

"It is by turns aloof and affectionate, serene and savage, endearing and exasperating." The origins of the house cat, when and how it was domesticated, have been matters of scientific debate. However, according to this article, it looks like we didn't adopt them; they adopted us, and a lot earlier in our history than has been supposed.
comment posted at 9:57 AM on May-26-09

Violin. Them Heavy People. Egypt. The Kate Bush 1979 Xmas Special (QLYT)
comment posted at 1:23 PM on Apr-27-09

As it turns out, binge drinking is bad for you! Or so say the researchers at UCSD, a school with a penchant for stripping college life of any kind of fun.
comment posted at 1:09 PM on Apr-24-09

This is what cheerleaders and jello look like at 1000 frames per second. (For comparison, standard film is shot at 24 fps, and animation at 30 fps.)
comment posted at 11:26 AM on Apr-24-09

What's your NPR name?
comment posted at 10:19 AM on Apr-15-09

Meet Liam Hoekstra. He is a remarkable toddler with a rare genetic disorder called Myostatin-Related Muscle Hypertrophy, which causes him to have accelerated muscle mass and development, which leads to enhanced strength, speed, and agility. Supposedly, the same genes were manipulated to create these beefcakes [previously].
comment posted at 1:47 PM on Mar-31-09

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage premiered on PBS on September 28, 1980. (Previously). With Carl Sagan as guide, on a "cosmic journey across space and time," on a "spaceship of the imagination," few shows inspired as many people to investigate science, many of whom went on to be scientists.
comment posted at 4:32 PM on Mar-23-09

An article describing the experience of getting (and recovering from) hypothermia.
comment posted at 11:24 AM on Mar-15-09

Confused about the banking crisis? Confused by banks in general? This American Life's latest show Bad Bank (streaming, mp3) is a highly informative (and entertaining) overview of how banks work, and what problems they--and we all--face in this current crisis. Produced by another great NPR show, Planet Money.
comment posted at 3:57 PM on Mar-2-09

Want to play a swashbuckling pirate, space opera hero, or monster-fighting Victorian dandy? How about a supervillain fighting against alien invaders? Or a mutant snack cake? Welcome to Savage Worlds.
comment posted at 2:46 PM on Feb-25-09

Estranged father and son Chucho and Bebo Valdés, both pioneers of Cuban jazz, sat down and immediately played a duet after years of being apart. This recording of their reunion beautifully captures the range of emotions that could only be expressed without words.
comment posted at 9:54 AM on Feb-23-09

With all the excitement in the air about Watchmen, let's take time to celebrate another team of heroes, a band of outcasts with unusual powers, brought together by a man in a wheelchair. Yes, of course, I'm talking about the Doom Patrol.
comment posted at 3:50 PM on Feb-19-09
comment posted at 4:24 PM on Feb-19-09

North Dakota's House of Reps has passed a bill granting personhood to fetuses, making abortion murder and creating a challenge to Roe vs. Wade.
comment posted at 3:05 PM on Feb-18-09

An erupting stratovolcano poses numerous hazards for nearby habitation, but none nearly so terrifying and deadly as the pyroclastic flow. Pyroclastic flows, comprised of tons of superheated sulfuric gases, particulate rock materials and ash, can reach temperatures of 1,830 °F and travel at alarming speeds up to 450mph. Convection of materials within the clouds causes them to become a suspension, fluidizing and thundering noxiously across the surrounding landscape for miles, in some cases even uphill or across open water. Wherever these clouds come in contact with humans the result is catastrophe, as the residents of Herculaneum and St. Pierre, Martinique learned within minutes of the eruptions of Vesuvius in 79AD and Pelee in 1902-- both towns were overwhelmed by pyroclastic clouds, igniting all flammable materials and incinerating and suffocating the inhabitants. None survived Herculaneum, while just two of St. Pierre's 26,000 survived, one of whom was a prisoner condemned to death and awaiting his execution in a dungeon cell. Despite their incredible capacity for violence, pyroclastic flows are also capable of producing mesmerizing, awe-inspiring beauty.
comment posted at 12:54 PM on Feb-18-09

16 Mindf**k Movies. There’s a certain brand of movie that I most enjoy. Some people call them “Puzzle Movies.” Others call them “Brain Burners.” Each has, at some point or another, been referred to as “that flick I watched while I was baked out of my mind.”
comment posted at 1:48 PM on Feb-12-09

German-born Kim Petras may be the world's youngest transsexual. Wanting to be a woman since the age of 2, she began taking female hormones at 12 and had gender reassignment surgery at 16. She's also an aspiring pop singer.
comment posted at 3:23 PM on Feb-7-09

How We Kill Geniuses. "[Elizabeth Gilbert recalls] a story that musician Tom Waits told her years ago. One day he was driving on a Los Angeles freeway when a fragment of a melody popped into his head. He looked around for something to capture the tune -- a pencil or pen -- but had nothing to record it. He started to panic that he'd lose the melody and be haunted by it forever and his talent would be gone. In the midst of this anxiety attack, he suddenly stopped, looked at the sky, and said to whatever force it was that was trying to create itself through the melody, 'Excuse me. Can you not see I'm driving? Do I look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment ... otherwise go bother somebody else today. Go bother Leonard Cohen.'" Gilbert explores the idea that we might stifle genius by demanding that creative people be somehow larger than life and something more than human.
comment posted at 2:51 PM on Feb-6-09

A high school teacher's account of an LSD trip he didn't mean to take.
comment posted at 3:37 PM on Feb-5-09

Comic book lettering has some grammatical and aesthetic traditions that are quite unique. What follows is a list that every letterer eventually commits to his/her own mental reference file.
comment posted at 2:21 PM on Feb-3-09

The Dollar Dreadful Family Library offers gripping tales of scientific adventures in matrimony, mysterious Appalachian woodsmen, macabre travels in the ether, exotic travels in distant lands, itinerant prospectors, and cunning detectives who pose as genteel dressmakers. Assorted amusements are offered in the form of downloadable PDF booklets, perfect leisure literature for "the distinguished reader or the particularly wealthy dunder-head".
comment posted at 8:54 AM on Jan-23-09

Alone among major Western nations, the United States refused to sign a United Nations declaration calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality. The U.S. was joined by China, Russia, the Roman Catholic Church, and members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in rejecting the declaration. In 2004, the Vatican and Islamic Conference had lobbied vehemently and successfully to prevent the U.N. Human Rights Commission from outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation.
comment posted at 11:20 AM on Jan-15-09
comment posted at 2:13 PM on Jan-15-09
comment posted at 4:10 PM on Jan-15-09

The Buffalo Beast's 50 Most Loathsome People of 2008.
comment posted at 2:07 PM on Jan-12-09

The Recently Deflowered Girl. The Right Thing to Say on Every Dubious Occasion. Full text and illustrations of an etiquette parody from 1965, illustrated by Edward Gorey. via Jezebel
comment posted at 4:39 PM on Jan-8-09

Scientists at the Auckland Museum will be performing a necropsy of a great white Shark between 11am and 1pm New Zealand time on Thursday. Though they will be examining the contents of its gut, they will also, among other things, look at its sex organs (female) and jaw. The necropsy will be viewable on the web from 2pm NZ time (when's that?).
comment posted at 9:01 AM on Jan-7-09

Photographer Jeffrey Silverthorne takes beautiful, quiet photos of disquieting subject matter. His early works included two series on morgues and transvestites. [nsfw, via]
comment posted at 3:52 PM on Jan-6-09

Viewing the Penanggalan of Malaysian folklore usually takes intestinal fortitude [NSFW], but there are also emotional, wistful, girlish, and playful depictions of this monstrous creature. (Previously)
comment posted at 10:36 AM on Jan-4-09

Build your squid, name him, and let him play in the ocean. Come back later to see whet he's got up to. I named mine 'Albert'.
comment posted at 8:30 AM on Dec-31-08

My new hero is Alton Brown because of his show Good Eats on my lady friend's favorite TV network, the Food Network. She was watching Good Eats one night and I heard him announce he was going to demonstrate his recipe for Perfect Popcorn. I am here to testify that it works like a charm. I don't recall ever attempting a recipe from a cooking show but I am always looking for a way to improve my popcorn makin' skills. A video is available here if you need more instruction.
comment posted at 8:32 AM on Dec-19-08

How to bake a potato. I've got mine in the oven right now.
comment posted at 4:27 PM on Dec-18-08

RIP Majel Barrett-Roddenberry. Executive producer of Andromeda, Earth: The Final Conflict, Nurse Christine Chapel of TOS, and the always comforting voice of the Federation, passed away today at 78. A sci-fi legend has left for the stars.
comment posted at 3:11 PM on Dec-18-08