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You may have read Arthur C. Clarke's 1993 space-disaster novel Hammer of God — but have you read the original 1992 short story it was based on? Originally published in Time Magazine, that story is now available for free over at Lightspeed Magazine, and it's a potent dose of cosmic wonder. More »
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Some economists are referring to our current economic malaise as the "Lesser Depression" — but it could be getting worse soon. Europe is unraveling, China's October output fell off a cliff and the U.S. Supercommittee is about to push a round of austerity. More »
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Last year was the first year that the Arctic Ocean became a major shipping route — but in 2011, the "Northeast Passage" is blossoming with trade, now that ice has melted enough to allow smooth passage in the summertime. More »
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Sakyo Komatsu's 1973 novel Japan Sinks hit a nerve for a whole generation of Japanese people, and spawned two movie versions. (Just as the name suggests, it was a novel in which the tectonic plates under Japan suddenly shift, setting off volcanos, earthquakes and tsunamis, killing millions.) More »
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Last year's Gulf Oil Spill released 205 million gallons of oil — such a huge amount, it's hard to get your mind around. To help conceptualize it, Chris Harmon created this amazing animated infographic. More »
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How can we prevent another nuclear disaster from happening here in the United States? One way is to be more systematic in how we handle spent nuclear fuel. Stored nuclear waste was a huge factor in Japan's Fukushima reactor disaster. More »
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You can read a new piece by William Gibson and help donate to the Red Cross efforts in Japan at the same time, thanks to a new anthology that just went on sale at Amazon. More »
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Oh my! You must watch George Takei's video audition for the floundering Spider-Man musical. Yes! This is a great way to save this flop - geek stunt casting! Someone get Wil Wheaton on the phone. More »
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Imagine a life of almost complete isolation, spent on a barren island constantly hit by a mix of volcanoes, tsunamis, and long, brutal winters. For thousands of years, that's what people have endured on the Kuril Islands, an archipelago stretching from Russia to Japan that just might be the most extreme place humans have ever lived. More »
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The Sun is entering a period of seriously intense solar activity, releasing huge volleys of charged particles and plasma blobs into space, including the recent Valentine's Day X-class flare, the most extreme in years. So how much of a threat do these flares really pose, and how prepared are we for a seriously disruptive solar storm? That, as it turns out, is a seriously tricky question to answer. More »
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Our excitement for HBO's Game of Thrones adaptation was in danger of being squelched when we heard that the production company had trashed a nature reserve. So we investigated — and thank goodness, it seems early reports were somewhat exaggerated. More »
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What do Viking colonies teach us about space colonization? The former offers a dire lesson about why the latter may become necessary. Paul Gilster of Centauri Dreams discusses the circumstances that could force humanity to avoid a "planetary Greenland." More »
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Why are pre-apocalyptic stories so popular? We get why everyone loves post-apocalyptic worlds: Everybody wants to fantasize about surviving, rebuilding, remaking the world in a new image. But why do people love stories that take place before a horrible disaster? More »
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Every great disaster movie has some moments of pure, epic destruction, where everything collapses, burns or blows up real good. Bonus points for destroyed landmarks and victim cameos. Here are 30 amazing money shots from the greatest disaster porn flicks. More »
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Some of the world's most terrifying disasters are also breathtaking to behold. In this gallery are awe-inducing photographs of some of the worst disasters of the last hundred years. More »
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In George R.R. Martin's A Game Of Thrones, nobles wreak unimaginable destruction in their power-lust. But one environmentalist is calling HBO real-life Lannisters: They covered a protected beach in Malta with fake sand, resulting in "total elimination" of the ecosystem. More »
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The recent shortage of food in the Arctic Circle has forced plenty of Russian bears to get creative and starting feasting on tasty corpsicles conveniently buried at various cemeteries. More »
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Thanks to a joint investigation from academics and the Department of Homeland Security, the culprit in the Case of the Honeybee Killer has been found. More »
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Baltimore's inner harbor has been taken over by milky-white creatures with long, trailing tentacles. The jellyfish swarmed into the harbor last week, and were last seen heading downtown. More »
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In the 1980s, the Soviet Union built nuclear-powered ice-breakers, hoping to open a shipping route through the Arctic. They needn't have bothered — there's no ice left now in the summer, opening the fabled Northeast Passage to shipping. More »
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Scientists were caught by surprise when Indonesia's Mount Sinabung suddenly erupted over the weekend, and an even stronger eruption on Monday sprayed soot and debris more than a mile into the air. Plumes of white smoke continue to pour out. More »
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Chile's 33 heroic mineworkers already survived 17 days trapped alone, with only two mouthfuls of tuna and a sip of milk every other day. But the coming weeks before they're rescued will be like a long haul on the ISS. More »
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You've probably seen the horrifying pictures of the 20 million victims of Pakistan's unprecedented flooding of the Indus River. But this false-color image from NASA's Terra satellite really drives home the extent of the devastation wrought by rising water levels. More »
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Handle with care. That's the advice of coastal ecologists and geologists to those who are planning the clean-up of the Gulf ecosystems threatened by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. More »
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Delicate patterns in the water, that look nauseating after you stare at them a moment. [Guardian via Roger Ebert on Twitter] More »
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Boneshaker author Cherie Priest writes a heartbreaking, unsettling essay about the Gulf of Mexico disaster, and the responsibility we all share. More »
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Science fiction should pay more attention to the rise of drug-resistant bacteria and other "super bugs," argues M.G. Ellington at the Science In My Fiction blog. And one of the main breeding grounds for these super bugs may be space. More »
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The Deepwater Horizon oil leak is still spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico, but just how much oil is being wasted daily? This infographic breaks down the disaster with absolutely depressing lucidity. [David McCandless via Information Is Beautiful] More »
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The fallout from the Louisiana oil rig explosion is continuing to be horrendous, and efforts to stop the damage aren't looking promising. But this isn't the worst fossil fuel disaster we've ever had. Here are 10 of the worst. More »
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This white, foamy oil slick appears almost beautiful in this satellite image — but it's set to become the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The Coast Guard is considering setting it on fire to save the environment. More »
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If you're trapped in a mall at the end of the world, at least you can still get an Orange Julius — until all of the lights go out and people start to go all Lord of the Flies. The new Japanese natural disaster flick 252 takes place after the world's largest typhoon crashes through Tokyo. Buried beneath the rubble and muddy water are 252 survivors all trapped inside a mall. Now it's up to the rescue workers to get them out before they all start to lose air, and their minds. Click through for the trailer. More »
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It's practically a truism to claim that the giant monster movie craze of the 1950s was inspired by the atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the hundreds of atomic tests done afterwards. And some have argued that the Cloverfield monster's attack on New York was a not-so-subtle reference to the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center in 2001. But is there a real historical basis to these claims? We've charted some of the biggest disasters of the last century, and lined them up next to a timeline of giant monster movies, to see what the temporal correlation is between giant disasters and giant monsters. The results revealed an interesting giant monster cycle in pop culture. More »
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