Author Archives: JD DeLuzio

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Higher Education:

A team from the University of Toronto successfully launched a human-powered ‘copter, winning a prize that has remained unclaimed for three decades:

Meanwhile, another team of university students will be getting a lift from NASA later this month to see how fire burns in microgravity.

I’d love to go stargazing with you, but…

Ever wonder how to wash your hair in space? Astronaut Karen Nyberg shows you how.

I know rats can carry plague, but….

The U.S. Economic Development Administration spent a fortune destroying computers– including printers and mice– attempting to rid their system of suspected, commonplace, easily-purged viruses and malware. Tax dollars at work, in an agency designed to deal with economic issues.

The best thing since this long-neglected timeline?

If you haven’t stumbled on it yet, a blogger named Joe Negroni has folded all the Pixar films into one universe-building timeline.

Nerd love, Superman’s punch, and more, after the jump.

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Weekend Review: Pacific Rim

Summer’s here, so we need a film that spends several hundred million recreating a childhood wish-fulfillment fantasy about a brave band of misfits who overcome personal differences, physics, and plot logic in order to save the world by fighting back the invaders and closing the portal between the alien world and ours. The filmmakers, recognizing the inherent silliness of the premise, cast strong actors but balance the dramatic elements with knowing humor. Look for videogames, action figures, and an amusing bonus during the final credits.

I preferred last summer’s Avengers, but this one’s pretty good.

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Defiance: Season One

The videogame-inspired series has apocalyptic landscapes, aliens, monsters, and a really convoluted backstory. It ended its first season this week and has been renewed for another. Here’s the place to discuss your thoughts, feelings, observations, and speculations.

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Under the Mountains of Madness…

Researchers confirm that Antarctica’s Lake Vostok, frozen under layers of ice for longer than humanity has been around, contains a unique ecosystem with numerous living things.

Let’s not count out Europa as a haven of life forms.

…To the Gulf of Mexico

A forest has been discovered uncovered in the Gulf, buried for at least 50,000 years and remarkably well-preserved.

First, is it plugged in?

NASA will attempt this month to revive the Kepler Telescope, shut down since May due to a technical problem.

Where are those meddling kids, when you need them?

Many people played today with Google’s doodle, which commemorates the sixty-sixth anniversary of the original Roswell crash. But how many people know this week marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Nith River Monster’s first appearance? Yeah, well, I hadn’t heard of it, either, until about a month ago, but I wrote an article about Nithy just the same.

Google Glasses, Despicable Me 2, and cosplay, after the break.

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Voyager One will soon be the first manufactured object to reach interstellar space!

Planetary Resources, which plans to mine near-earth asteroids, has raised over one million through crowdsourcing on Kickstarter for their, well, kickstarter project.

Contact Indy! Archaeologists have found an untouched Pre-Inca tomb in Peru.

Below? Genre entertainment and video, including a prologue for Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, a word on Avengers 2, a restored piece of Trek, and more!

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Discussion “Under the Dome”

The adaptation of Stephen King’s bestseller premiered this week to top ratings. The series concerns a mysterious dome that appears around the small town of Springfield Chester’s Mill, sealing the people in forever.

What did the Bureau think?

Legend Richard Matheson, R.I.P.

Author Richard Matheson died June 23 at the age of 87. He was best-known for his screenplays and Twilight Zone scripts– and for penning “I am Legend,” adapted many times to film, minus its remarkable ending. Another bio appears here.

Matheson’s stories tended to place ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. He will be missed.