For 10 million dollars, the coastal area belonging to Wisconsin's Concordia University went from eroding wasteland to a beautiful park. According to landscape architecture firm JJR:

Concordia University came to JJR with a clear problem: It was literally losing acres of its waterfront campus to Lake Michigan due to a continually eroding, 130-foot high bluff that steeply dropped down to the Lake Michigan shoreline. JJR's master plan and final design focused on stabilizing the bluff and providing armored shoreline revetments and beaches to halt the continued erosion caused by the severe Lake Michigan wave environment. This project also included recreational and environmental enhancements down the face of the bluff itself.

Read about more runners-up for 2009's best engineering projects via the American Society of Civil Engineers and Popular Mechanics.

Images of the Concordia University project via JJR.

Since the mid-2000s, Mishka NYC has been at the vanguard of popular streetwear. A cornerstone of their success has been designing clothing influenced by gonzo horror, Z-grade sci-fi, and the overall dank and stanky underbelly of pop culture. Indeed, their gear is worn with equal aplomb by metalheads and hip-hoppers (Lil Jon and Lady Sovereign have sported Mishka in music videos), and the label's past collaborators have ranged from everyone from Iron Maiden album artist Derek Riggs to erotic photographer Ellen Stagg to electro-reggae supergroup Major Lazer.

Label heads Mikhail "Mike" Bortnik and Greg Rivera were nice enough to sit down with io9 and answer some questions about Mishka's design philosophy, winter line, and how Stan Lee cold lamps it at Comic-Con:

What's the Mishka origin story?

Mikhail Bortnik (left): It started sometime in '03. My job I was working at was going to close, so I decided to take a stab at t-shirt design, which I had wanted to do since college. This was about the same time I met Greg. A few months into it, I realized I was in over my head so I asked Greg to join on-board and sell the line. Greg immediately came on as a full-time partner. The basic idea was we wanted to sell street wear, but we soon realized there were so many fans who were into both street wear and scifi that there was absolutely no reason we couldn't incorporate these two things.

In terms of scifi, what were your earliest influences?

Greg Rivera (right): A lot of our influences have come from B-horror films, straight-up scifi films, and comic books, especially for Mike. I was big into horror comics when I was kid and also things like The Twilight Zone, Tales from the Darkside, anything with the ironic twist at the end. Both of us are also big toy fans. Being in our early thirties, we grew up with 1980s toys, which ended up being a huge influence in our designs.

MB: One example of this influence was in our Fall 2008 Skyway Trippers collection – we tweaked an Israeli Special Forces design to include the phrase "Spaceknights" in Russian, as a homage to the old Spaceknights comic and toy line.

ROM Spaceknight allusions? That's wild. On a similar note, Mishka has a roster of kaiju-like characters who appears on a lot of your apparel – i.e. the half-serpentine, half-ursine Death Adder and the Cyco Simon skull. What's the story behind them?

MB: Actually the notion of bringing characters into the clothing brand goes back to metal bands. Cyco Simon is a reference to [Megadeth's ] Vic Rattlehead and Eddie from Iron Maiden, and we wanted our own. As for the Death Adder, we use our designs to tell a story with him – he's often seen teaming up with our Soviet super-soldier character.

Are we going to see an Adult Swim series with these guys anytime soon?

MB: I'll be honest, Greg and I would love to be able to a comic book or cartoon series with them.

What was the first sci-fi influenced Mishka piece?

GR: "They Live" was probably one of the first ones. It's hard to remember since we've had so many designs over time.

One of my early favorites was your Judge Death-inspired "Kill Motherfucking Depeche Mode" logo.

MB: That was a mixing of the old Brian Bolland artwork with what people guessed [what the name of German industrial band] KMFDM stood for. KMFDM actually gave us a cease-and-desist for that one.

Really? Not the 2000 AD people?

MB: We figured we'd get something from them or Depeche Mode, but no, it was from the KMFDM people!

On a similar note, when was that moment when you said to yourselves, "Holy crap. We can't believe we just put that on a t-shirt."

MB: The "Tom of Eternia" t-shirt.

GR: Mike had the idea of doing a Tom of Finland-style shirt [featuring He-Man].

MB: If you've never hear of Tom of Finland, he's like the homoerotic artist. There was this impetus [to create this shirt] early on when someone made the comment that all we do is put naked girls and 80s cartoon characters on our shirts. Street wear on a whole seems more macho than we are as a brand, so Greg and I were like, let's do this.

GR: Our friend Robin Nishio – who is this amazing illustrator – met up with us and Mike pitched him the idea. Robin actually went and bought two big books on Tom of Finland and aped the style exactly. That was the coolest because we got so much shit from our customers because it was like, "Here's Skeletor as the master and He-Man down on his knees, gay porn style."

What sort of pieces are in the pipeline at the moment?

GR: We did this series of shirts for [the new heavy metal-themed video game] Brutal Legend and we're working with Dark Horse Comics on a project.

Oh wow, are you at the liberty to talk about that right now?

MB: Not really, but if anyone has followed our brand, you'll know that one particular Dark Horse character particularly sticks out.

As far as the Winter 2009 line goes, you seem to have strong robot theme going. You have the Terminator cyclops, the Decepticon hearse, and my favorite, the Ultron bear. Why robots this season?

MB: We've gone so far doing themes that this season just happened to be robots. This was probably one of our most rigid designs themes. The Ultron shirt's been particularly popular.

You guys hit up the San Diego Comic-Con this year. How was it being a street wear brand at what's been historically a comic and scifi show?

MB: We were selling some things there, but we were mostly there as fans.

GR: It's been a little calculated – and not to reveal all our secrets – but if a lot more other brands saw the potential of that market, you'd see a lot more people doing it. It's hard for us to do business, because Mike and I go and we're just geeking out. Besides going out there to meet Tim and Eric [from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!], we're both really into Japanese kaiju and we had the chance to show off our own kaiju designs.

MB: Comic-Con 2008 was my first one. We wanted to see the Lost panel, but after we saw it spilling into the street, we just said "fuck it" and went to the Battlestar Galactica panel. That crowd was pretty big too, but Dean Koontz was still speaking. So yeah, we killed two hours listening to Dean Koontz.

Any good Mishka Comic-Con party tales?

GR: We crashed an Activision party at the Hard Rock Café and saw Stan Lee. If you're at a Comic-Con party and you see Stan Lee, you know you're at the coolest party.

MB: He was just hanging out with this girl on his arm.

GR: (laughs) She looked like she was twenty years old.

MB: I don't if she was, like, hitting on him or he was hitting on her, but Stan Lee's exactly how you picture him. He really says "true believer."

I wouldn't want him any other way. Do you find yourselves getting calls from influences who've enjoyed your work?

MB: Other than the artists who we're huge fans of and end up working with – like Derek Riggs and L'Amour Supreme – no, not really. A lot of our influences are grumpy old men.

What would you say is the most quintessential Mishka design?

GR: On our first trip to Japan, we stayed in this little town outside of Tokyo and found all these old Japanese horror and sci-fi press kits. These kits would take the coolest part of the movie and turn it into poster art. We found this great Westworld kit and Mike added some comic book stuff, like Ultron and Cyborg from Teen Titans to the design. To this day, it's still one of my favorite ones.

MB: We also found this Motel Hell kit in which we used for our "Electric Funeral" shirt. We electrified the faces and it turned out great.

Alright guys - some final lightning round questions. Kim Cattrall in Big Trouble in Little China or Kirstie Alley in Wrath of Khan?

MB: Kim Cattrall. I'm a Next Generation fan, what can I say.

Zardoz or Troll 2?

GR: Troll 2.

MB: Zardoz.

Would you rather have John Carpenter compose you a personal theme song or direct a movie about your life?

MB: I'd rather have him direct the movie because then he'd have to compose the film's theme song.

Shit! I hadn't thought of that loophole. Any final words to io9 readers?

GR: By all means check Mishka out - you'll definitely find something you like.

Mishka apparel is available at their website and their Brooklyn store at 350 Broadway in Williamsburg, NYC. Store photography courtesy of Dave Digioia.

Cameron has promised us that Avatar represents a huge technological advancement, a blending of real-world performances and imagination that will transport us to the foreign world of Pandora in an immersive, visceral way. But developers of medical technologies are looking to achieve the same sort of experience with the world we have, and the entertainment industry's advances in image capture and graphics processing are paving the way.

Certainly medicine is no stranger to computer animation, something they have long used to explain concepts and train personnel. And motion capture has been used for years in gait analysis. Physiotherapists often film patients wearing reflective motion capture markers to analyze their gait, in much the way that filmmakers use motion capture markers on their actors.

But the demand for improved computer graphics technology graphics from the entertainment industry means more sophisticated applications in medicine as well. Just this fall, Nvidia, which develops graphics processing technology for, among other things, gaming systems, demonstrated how the technology used to create immersive 3D experiences for games can also create immersive experiences of the human body. Along with Siemens Healthcare, Nvidia has developed an ultrasound viewing experience that sounds like it was scripted by Cameron: parents and healthcare workers can put on a pair of stereoscopic glasses and examine a fetus as if they were looking directly inside the womb. The demonstration comes just months after Nvida released its GeForce 3D Vision system, with a pair of stereoscopic glasses to improve the immersive experience of playing video games and watching 3D movies.

For filmmakers like Cameron, the goal is to capture the detail of the human experience, down to the most minute muscle movements and to create worlds that are so detailed as to appear real. If he's successful in creating an experience with Avatar that gives audiences both a fully immersive experience of a world that's completely invented and manages to translate the twitches of the human face onto an animated alien, imagine what his technology could accomplish when simply reflecting a world that actually exists. Perhaps the legacy of Cameron, Zemeckis, and other filmmakers working in these fields will include advances in virtual surgery, diagnosis, and other innovations in the medical field.

Traditionally, cloud seeding has involved dropping a vapor into the clouds (usually silver iodide) that's designed to bond with the water, making it heavier and creating rain or snow. But this ground-based generator is designed to spray upwards into the clouds. According to the Associated Press, many people believe the U.S. is falling behind in the cloud-seeding arms race:

Government agencies and utilities from California to North Dakota spend an estimated $15 million a year on cloud seeding, and the number of projects has jumped by nearly a third in the last decade.

But spending in the United States is far lower than in many other countries. China spends an estimated $100 million a year on cloud-seeding efforts that include using anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers to blast the sky with silver iodide.

"What's going on in the U.S. is tiny," said Arlen Huggins, an associate research scientist at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev. "There's more being done outside the U.S. than here."

Other countries conducting cloud-seeding research include Australia, France, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Venezuela.

But the National Research Council reported in 2003 that there's no evidence this technique actually works. At the same time, scientists involved in the report say more study and research are needed, and utilities like Pacific Gas & Electric have been doing cloud-seeding for years, saying they've seen an increase in precipitation as a result. (PG&E uses snowmelt in turbine-power plants.)

Another question: whether silver iodide, the chemical used to make water heavier, is safe. Residents of one area where PG&E wants to install seven 20-feet-tall generators are raising questions — but the charmingly named Weather Modification Association insists it's perfectly safe. I love the fact that there's an interest group called the Weather Modification Association.

So with clean water growing scarcer and more precious, are we going to lose the weather-control race before we even know it's happening? And is water laced with silver iodide still considered "clean water"?

Image by AP. [Associated Press]

PLAGUE - OFFICIAL SCREENER from Matt Simpson on Vimeo.

British site Den Of Geek ran a summary of everything we know about Caprica\, and this line caught my eye:

The story arc of the show will take us from the creation of the first Centurion cylons, and is due to end with the very first cylon war.

This was marked as fact, rather than fan speculation, but I can't find any basis for it. The only other place I can see any support for this claim is a speculative comment on Ain't It Cool News from last summer.

My question is, is this even possible? Battlestar Galactica: Razor showed us the last day of the first Cylon war, featuring a grown-up William Adama. Willie Adama is supposed to be nine years old in Caprica, and the first Cylon war supposedly lasted twelve and a half years. So I guess it's barely possible that if the series ends with Willie Adama as a tween or teen, you could see the start of the First Cylon War, if Adama joined the service as a 18-year-old.

In any case, I sort of hope this story is true, since it would actually make Caprica a bit more compelling if it had a defined end point. At the same time, going from the creation of the first Cylon to outright war with the Cylons within just a few years feels a bit speedy. What do you think?

The Cassini spacecraft recently sent back images of Saturn's strange hexagon, which was last photographed 30 years ago by Voyager. So what is so unusual about it? In comparing the pictures now from the pictures 30 years ago, scientists have found that the shape of the hexagon has remained unchanged, making it an extremely long-lived weather pattern, perhaps akin to Jupiter's Great Red Spot.

Researchers are trying to determine what causes the weather pattern — which has a diameter more than twice as long as Earth's — how it gets and expels its energy, and how it maintains such a rigid shape. Fortunately, the improved images from Cassini and the fact that Saturn probably has a relatively simple weather model should help the researchers get a better understanding of the hexagon and how weather works on other planets.

Saturn's Mysterious Hexagon Emerges from Winter Darkness [PhysOrg]

Hastings Borough Council in East Sussex has announced that it is investing in technology to reclaim some of the energy lost in the cremation process. Although the technology is still in its proving stages, the crematorium hopes to have new generators that will capture and reuse the excess heat created by the cremation process to heat and eventually power the facility.

The spokespeople say it's still several steps away from actually using human bodies as fuel; the energy will come from the machines themselves rather than the bodies. But given how much fuel crematoria consume, it seems plausible that bodies could someday help fuel their own cremation process.

Crematorium to use burning bodies to generate electricity [Telegraph via Xenophilia]

Nobody knows. According to the Denver Post:

There by the trough - past the locked gate a quarter-mile from U.S. 350 east of Hoehne - was the calf. Its front legs and torso were gone. Its back legs were hanging by hide to a shattered pelvis and a meatless backbone. [Rancher Tom] Miller thought a pack of coyotes had torn into the calf the night before.

Then he saw the ears: sliced off the head in circular, surgical-like cuts. He noticed that there were no tracks. And no blood anywhere . . .

Colorado Brand Inspector Dennis Williams [said] "I've heard about it. It was weird, to say the least. Totally unexplainable. To me, it looked like that calf had been dropped from a high distance, the way its hips were dislocated and all its broken bones," Williams says . . .

"It's weird and unexplainable," says [rancher Mike] Duran, who lost a healthy 27-year-old Red Angus cow on March 8, her udder and rear end removed with what he describes as "laser cuts, like when somebody cuts metal with a torch."

Apparently cattle mutilations like these are found on a fairly regular basis in Colorado and parts of Mexico. Is this the creepy, meat-oriented version of crop circles?

via Denver Post (Thanks, Nick Lightner!)

Photo by Chuck Zukowski.

Whiplash is in good company. Here are a few more counter-intuitive weapons from pop culture history.

This isn't a poll about which CGI creature looks the coolest - instead, we're aiming at which one felt the most like an actual character in the movie. In other words, which one made you forget you were watching CGI? Which stirred up your sympathy?

The experiments were undertaken on patients who already had electrodes in their brain to monitor epilepsy. Readings were taken via electrocorticography (ECoG), as the subjects were shown a grid of letters and numbers. As each symbol was illuminated, the patient was told to focus on the letter or number, and data was recorded. Once this calibration data was taken, the patients would think of a letter or number, and their brain waves would be appropriately translated to the screen. The theory is that this technique will allow people to communicate and type far more easily when they suffer from Lou Gehrig's disease, MS, or paralysis.

The lead scientist on the project, Dr. Jerry Shih, says the program is able to perform near or at 100% accuracy for the patients. While this isn't far from the results from studies using non-invasive EEG, Shih believes that ECoG has advantages, as the scalp and skull distort the information coming from the brain, which means that ECoG has potential to be faster and more accurate. Shih also said that with EEG, "the accuracy isn't terribly great, and it takes a long time for the computer system to learn an individual's brain signals and to correctly interpret."

It is early days yet, and there are still numerous hurdles for the research. The initial study was only with two patients, but they're now on to the sixth, with plans for a wider study, to ensure that this technique is universally applicable. Shih's system does require a craniotomy, which is not a surgery to be taken on a whim; and an interpreter device is required, which must be tuned to an individual user. There is also the fact that EEG based interfaces don't require the invasive surgery, and are similarly accurate, even if they are slower and not quite as precise. So in terms of market adoption, the implant is at a disadvantage. Most people would be willing to deal with the speed loss to avoid dangerous procedures.

Shih is currently working on ensuring the method's effectiveness. He believes it could be used for controlling prosthetics as well as typing. It could also possibly be trained with images instead of letters. Imagine an item, and an image or word for it would appear on your screen.

The device could be available in as little as 5-10 years.

It's just a matter of time before this technology filters down from medical to elective, and we can all live out our cyberpunk dreams of plugging our brains directly into a computer.

Via American Epilepsy Society and Mayo Clinic

THR reported that Disney has picked up the rights to the brand new YA series Fallen. The first book is already out and there are three more yet to come, all of which Disney now own.

The story is strikingly similar to Meyer's vamp series. A misunderstood girl meets a mysterious boy that she's strangely drawn to. What's his ace in the hole? Why he's a fallen angel, doncha know, hence the title. Plus there's another angel, also fallen, that she's also drawn to, and they fight over her, as men are wont to do. Sign me up. And while we're at it bring on Legion, Hush Hush and Going Bovine.

via THR

Sillof showcased his latest set of figures as part of this week's virtual Custom Con, and it looks like there are plenty of goggles and mad inventions to go around. You can also see the customs alongside their heroic counterparts at TheFwoosh.

[via Super Punch]

While the situation is quite weird - few icebergs this large have ever drifted so far from Antarctica - it will not end in an iceberg vs. landmass smackdown. As the huge sheet of ice drifts into warmer waters, it will break up and melt. In fact, scientists studying this phenomenon have seen other enormous icebergs, like the one pictured above, reach as far as New Zealand.

In this satellite photo, you can see where the enormous iceberg originated. According to CNN:

Named B17B, [the iceberg is] about 1,700 km (1,056 miles) off the coast of West Australia, according to the country's Antarctic Division.

"B17B is a very significant one in that it has drifted so far north while still largely intact," said Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young, who spotted the slab using satellite images taken by NASA and the European Space Agency. "It's one of the biggest sighted at those latitudes."

Researchers aren't sure whether this iceberg migration is part of a natural cycle, or has been affected by recent climate change.

All I can say is that it sounds like the great setup for an action movie: Giant Landmass vs. Mega-Iceberg!

Satellite photo via AP/Australian Antarctic Division.

The Fiction: The Motorway

In Martha's second trip on the TARDIS in the new Doctor Who, the Doctor takes her to New New York. Much like its present-day namesake, this city is trapped by traffic.

In fact, the only living residents of the city have been stuck in a quagmire called "the Motorway" for decades, all trying to get to a better place. Some even resort to kidnapping so that they can drive in the HOV lanes, which they've heard can cut years off their travel time. Once Martha is kidnapped she finds out they'll make it the ten miles to their destination in a short six years.

The Reality: Traffic and congestion.

It's been said that Americans spend an average of over 100 hours a year commuting, so it's no wonder that scientists are constantly trying to find ways to improve the driving experience. Writers are always imagining new ways for their heroes to get from point A to point B. But how many of those writer's dreams are coming true? Read on.

The fiction: Computer driven cars

Seen in: I, Robot
Pros: You can read, nap, or solve crimes while you're traveling. Accident cleanup is a snap.
Cons: Should the computer system decide to become murderous, you're in a lot of trouble.

The Reality: The Darpa Challenge

(image courtesy of the Team VictorTango website)

DARPA presents prizes to teams creating cars that drive on their own using "various sensors and positioning systems." Their 2007 challenge asked the vehicles to navigate an urban environment and "executing simulated military supply missions while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections, and avoiding obstacles." Three and a half million dollars in prizes were awarded and six teams finished the course.

The Fiction: Mag-Lev Cars

Seen In: Minority Report
Pros: You can pave everything and make it a road, giving D.C. residents as many lanes than they could ever want. Pull right up to your 200th floor apartment.
Cons: Imagine an accident at those speeds, on the side of a skyscraper. Makes car chase a lot more dangerous.

The Reality: Mag-Lev trains.

While we haven't started putting mag-lev systems in cars yet, we have put them into trains. Japan has the most famous trains using the technology, where magnets are used to both levitate and propel the train. Using magnetic levitation for travel has a lot of advantages, including speed. Not to mention the potential benefits to the environment, and the noise reduction. As we pointed out earlier, the future of rail transport in the U.S. might very well lie with mag-lev technology.

The Fiction: Flying Cars

Seen In: The Fifth Element, many many others
Pros: No need for roads anymore, the sky is open to everybody.
Cons: The sky is open to everybody. The view becomes nothing but cars, and traffic is a nightmare still.

The Reality: Hovercraft

Vehicles that float on a cushion of air are actually more popular and widely used than most people think. They're good for going over any terrain, and they're used by militaries around the world. It also is the technology on this list that you are most likely to make in your own garage, if all the YouTube videos are any indication. It is unlikely that the flying cars in science fiction are powered by jets of air, but so far it's the closest thing we've got.

The Fiction: Vehicle A.I. that talks to you

Seen in: Knight Rider
Pros: Can let you know when it needs maintenance, keep you entertained on long drives, drive for you if you need to beat up some bad guys.
Cons: Can get a little snippy. Might lock you out.

The Reality: turn by turn GPS, cars that talk to each other

While we're not quite to the point where our vehicles are having conversations, we do have plenty of robotic female voices telling us to "turn left" and after we make a wrong turn, they scold us with a "recalculating." But GPS systems have become commonplace. What's the next frontier of the technology? Cars that converse with each other.

In this video from cNet, we see that systems are being designed where two vehicles will send signals back and forth in order to keep track of their distance from each other, their speeds, and other relevant information. The same system can also get information from stop lights to relay to the driver, letting you know if you really should try to gun through that yellow light, or maybe you should try to stop.

Does it seem like these innovations are too far outside our grasp? Well there are two famous fictional cars that science has managed to replicate, at least to some degree:

The Fiction: The Batmobile

The Reality: Voice recognition software, OnStar, and "the Tumbler."

The Batmobile's features change from model to model, in fact there is even a website devoted solely to tracking the changes in the vehicle. There have been numerous defensive innovations, as well as offensive weaponry installed over the years. While most cars aren't driving around with side-mounted spherical bombs, the Batmobile has long had voice recognition software. Now the Ford Sync system comes standard in many of their models, one of the many ways our cars are starting to obey our vocal commands.

In a set of ads using the Batman/Batman Returns style Batmobile, audiences discovered one feature that they could have installed in their own cars: OnStar. Of course, Batman has had hands free calling to his support network (namely Alfred) for years.

The most important thing to note is that when Christopher Nolan brought his own spin to the Batmobile in Batman Begins, the "Tumbler" was actually a functional vehicle. According to The History of the Batmobile:

"Their primary focus was to make this Batmobile as real as possible: at 9 feet wide and 15 feet long, the car weighed in at 2.5 tons but was still capable of 0-60MPH in under six seconds with a top speed of 110MPH. Thanks to its unique design, it is also capable of making unassisted jumps up to 30 feet."

One of the best car shows in the world, Top Gear, was able to actually have the car in the studio for a segment where they talk about its actual working features. There's a rumor that The Stig even took it on a lap around the track:

The Fiction: James Bond's Scuba Car from "The Spy Who Loved Me."

The Reality: The sQuba Submarine Car

James Bond was able to tool around underwater in a modified Lotus Espirit without getting his impeccable suit damp. The sQuba Submarine Car is not quite so watertight, but it still is a car that handily swims around underwater, just like the vehicle in the film. As Jalopnik reports:

"Though you're not going to stay dry if you want to go diving, because theres no airtight canopy to enclose you. To breathe, you'll have to wear a scuba mask connected to the car's integrated compressed-air tank. But who cares?! This is a car that goes underwater!"

You can read a complete write up of the car here.

See the car in action and learn about all its other features:

Since the sQuba is just a concept car at the moment, if you want a car that will travel land and water, you might have to settle for an amphibious car. In one of their most infamous segments, the gentlemen at Top Gear were challenged to make their own amphibious cars, and then cross the English Channel. You might be surprised at the results:

What's next in the future of transportation? The best place to find out is probably the science-fiction section of Netflix.

It looks much campier then Eli Roth's original, which could be either a bad or a good thing, depending on whether it actually ends up being funny. The first film managed to balance horror and hilarity pretty well, so here's hoping.. Either way it's nice to see Rider Strong again. Cabin Fever 2 will be out on DVD and Blu-Ray February 16, 2010.

[via Shock Til You Drop]

We interviewed creature designers Wayne Barlowe and Neville Page, plus concept artists James Clyne, Ryan Church and Daphne Yap, about creating a whole new universe from scratch. Plus we've got some stunning concept art, from the new book The Art Of Avatar. In a year that's seen some amazing books of movie concept art, The Art Of Avatar features 106 pages of lush full-color paintings, interspersed with the industry's greatest design minds geeking out about every little aspect of Avatar's creation.

So here are a few things you didn't know about the design of James Cameron's Avatar:

Avatar Started As A Four-Month, Late-Night Jam Session At James Cameron's House

"[We'd be] working late at Jim's house, and having him come back after a three week spell of being down at the freaking Titanic, and having him tell us a story [about being on the ocean floor]." Read the rest of the story.

Pandora's creatures were partly based on cars

Early on in the process, James Cameron "mentioned the core idea" of having Pandora's creatures be "superslick and aerodynamic, and be like a race car with racing stripes," says creature designer Neville Page. Read the rest of the story.

Those crazy color schemes are from the ocean floor — and Art Nouveau

"In the real world, we didn't invent these colors. They exist on animals today. We didn't invent a whole new palette. I think the problem is — the challenge is — you don't often see large creatures with this much color on them." Read the rest of the story.

The human hardware, including those crazy battlesuits, is all based on real stuff

"One thing I worked on big interior for the mech suits, and the whole interior had to have a reason and function for why the suits were lined up the way they were, and how they could work on them like a pit-stop at an F1 race. It had to have that functionality." Read the rest of the story.

Avatar concept art from The Art Of Avatar (Abrams 2009)

New Jersey custom bike shop Pitstop Motors built this Predator motorcycle as a commission. It's a fully functional machine, but the owner reported that he earned two tickets on the motorcycle's maiden voyage — thanks to gawkers holding up traffic. Pitstop Motors has made a number of other theme bikes, including a black Spider-Man bike, a dragon bike, and a cyberpunk machine.

More pictures and information about the Predator motorcycle are available at Super Streetbike Magazine.

[via Super Punch]

AICN pointed out a very interesting blog post from the personal site of Thomas Dolby:

My host is friend and former collaborator Paul Sebastien, who over the years has worked for Xbox, Playstation, and now LucasArts. Last night he was telling me a little about the forthcoming Star Wars-related TV show, movie and online games-very cool indeed. I'm not a huge fan myself (and definitely not a gamer) but it sounds like Mr Lucas has got his head into a good place. I met him several times when I was working on a movie in the 80s called [name suppressed to protect credibility!] and he's a decent chap, but I could have done without the last three SW movies.

And there you have it: he wrote "movie." Everybody freak out! First off, we have no idea what context this was said in. Since he started talking about the live action TV show, one could guess that there may be a two-hour TV movie to introduce the series. Or maybe Lucas is making our dreams come true and giving Sam Witwer a chance to bring the Force Unleashed video game to life on the big screen. Maybe it was a slip of the tongue, and he didn't mean movie at all — instead he meant web series. Who really knows?

Whatever it may be — and it may be nothing at all — we're exceedingly skeptical that it would be a brand new film with little to no tie-ins besides the original series. Which we can safely assume is something everyone secretly wishes would happen, new movies to make us all forget the dreaded Prequels. But if wishes were Tauntauns, right?

And we're not alone in our doubts, Bonnie Burton over at StarWars.com's twitteredsimply "bahahahahahahahaha!"

Still, we're excited for the live action series, and if that's a bigger hit than the Clone Wars animated series, who knows what may happen?

Created by Nick Murphy, this is a pitch-perfect blob of weirdness, a slo-mo romance montage featuring the Monarchs frolicking in a sunset field, drinking wine, and contemplating how they are masters of all they survey. The costumes are great, and the final FX scene with their evil lair is just plain cool. After a minute or two of this, you start to think of how poignant the love affair between The Monarch and Dr. Mrs. Monarch really is.

The magazine quotes Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who identifies it as the failure-prone Bulava ballistic missile, launched from a submarine. McDowell said the Russian Navy is in the right geographical position to launch it. He added that Russia has denied that it was their missile, but "this could be because another Bulava failure is a huge and embarrassing setback for their programme."

As for why the perfect spiral shape was created:

McDowell says the shape suggests the failure occurred well above the atmosphere. If it had occurred at lower altitudes, atmospheric drag would have caused the missile to fall quickly to Earth, creating a downward-pointing corkscrew pattern whose contrails would have been blown "this way and that" by wind, he told New Scientist.

The Bulava missile has three stages that fire in succession as it climbs up in altitude. "Probably what happened is that stages 1 and 2 did just fine and were discarded in turn, and then stage 3 started burning and almost immediately went wrong," McDowell says.

He says the third stage's nozzle, which directs the rocket's exhaust plume, may have fallen off or been punctured, causing the exhaust to come out sideways instead of out the back. "The sideways thrust sends the rocket into a spin, spewing flame as it goes," he says.

"If thrust was terminated right away, then you wouldn't see the spiral," he continues. "The unusual thing this time is that the missile was allowed to carry on firing for a bit after it went wrong."

UPDATE: Jonathan McDowell writes in to say:

The Russians did send out a 'notice to mariners' in advance warning of a rocket launch, and they have now (Dec 10) admitted that there was a launch of the Bulava and that the third stage failed. Hope that answers some of the comments on your page.

via New Scientist

Doctor Who:

Someone posting over at the IMDB forums claims to have seen "The End Of Time Part 1," and says Bernard Cribbins and the Doctor travel to "the vast wastelands of London" as well as visiting the Time War. Wilf wants to save his granddaughter, Donna, who's once again struggling with her own mind. The villains are Joshua Naismith and his wife, who resurrect the Master as part of a plan to bring back the Time Lords, but this is just part of a larger scheme. At the end of the first part, the Time Lords materialize through the Immortality Gate and arrest the Master. And meanwhile, Donna's eyes are on fire. Take of all this with an immense grain of salt. [Gallifrey Base]

Meanwhile, Russell T. Davies explains more about what's going on in this episode:

The Doctor went through hell, on Mars. I think its important to note the angry, vengeful Doctor glimpsed in that climax is gone-that was the point of Adelaide's death; she saved the future, and saved the Doctor from himself. He was brought back to his senses. And as you've seen from the Children in Need clip, a lot of the old, chipper Doctor has been restored. Which is only right and proper, because that's the Doctor we want to see in his final story - the classic hero, the good man, the lovely funny, skinny fellow in the suit and trainers... and as ever, there's a melancholy beneath the smile - he's still aware that he's facing the end of his song, and the ominous four knocks. He can't know whether this means regeneration or actual death - and neither can you, cos we might have some tricks up our sleeves!

And he adds, in reference to the Master:

In 'The Sound of Drums" and 'Last of the Time Lords', he mirrored the Doctor by being powerful, suave and megalomaniac. Now, it's a new opposite - lost and raw and savage. Something's gone very wrong with his return - you'll have to watch to find out what! - but that x-ray effect see in the trailer, where he's all skull and bones, is the just the start of the trouble....imagine all the pent up forces of a Time Lord body - artron energy, regeneration energy, all the stuff - ripping open and broken loose. A dying timelord is a terrifying thing! So with the Master dying, the Doctor's end approaching, and both determined to survive, they're hurtling along an almighty collision course. And that's just part one!

Also, Minnie Hooper is helping Wilf track the Doctor down because people have had bad dreams, and Wilf is hiding out at a church. And there's a mystery involving a silver cloak, which Wilf knows about. And the Doctor gets strapped down to a table at one point. [Doctor Who Magazine via Fanatical Whovian]

Meanwhile, RTD tells Time Out Magazine that this episode includes the homeless in London getting burgers from a charity van, and Donna's middle-class family sitting down for turkey dinner, and then the obscenely rich Naismith family, with a mansion and servants. And then of course there are monsters and a chase, and all of these elements are leading in one direction. [Life The Universe And Combom]

Lost:

Rumor has it that some of the leaks and set reports from this show's final season have caused some scenes to be reshot and changed. According to unnamed sources, nothing major has been reworked, but some minor details were changed to differ from what's leaked out so far. Bear in mind, this is only a rumor, and there aren't actually any details about what's allegedly been revamped. [SpoilersLost]

There's a pretty huge spoiler hidden as an Easter egg on the new season five BluRay set: This scene breakdown of the end of the last episode, in which apparently we were originally supposed to see Jack's group absorbed by a white light, and then Richard Alpert sees a mushroom cloud off in the distance. [SpoilersLost]

An unnamed source claims that Richard Alpert meets both the Man In Black and Jacob in his flashback, and Richard Alpert fights Jacob in the 1800s, and a "special" knife is involved. [SpoilersLost]

And here are some new promo pics of our castmembers, which aren't spoilery unless you consider who's included among the cast. [Doc
Arzt]

Day Of The Triffids:

Here are a ton of new promo pics from this British remake, which airs in the U.K. on Dec. 28 and 29. Cannot wait! [Den Of Geek]

Jonah Hex:

There are some reshoots going on, and apparently they include some scenes with Jonah's wife, who hasn't previously been included in the film. At least, that's what people are speculating based on a new casting call:

[CASSIE] - wife of 'Jonah Hex' (Josh Brolin). Native American. Pretty, young, sexy.

[TRAVIS] - age 9 (to play younger)... Must be a match to Josh Brolin and Native American 'Cassie'.

[JEB TURNBULL] - son of 'Quentin Turnbull' (John Malkovich). 30 - 35. Skinny, southern accent. Needs one or two days for prosthetics.

[PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON] - 50-60. Look alike, if possible.

[ADVISOR] - to President Johnson. Younger, 1870's version of a "West Wing" character.

[DEAD GUY] - late 20s/30s. Scary looking.. May need a day for prosthetics/possible make-up.

[SpoilerTV-Movies]

The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus:

Terry Gilliam talks about his inspiration in a couple of new interviews, one of which is partly in Russian except the parts where he talks:

The Hobbit:

Peter Jackson hopes that both Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett will return for this duology, even though Blanchett's character, Galadriel, doesn't appear in the book. [MTV]

Nightmare On Elm Street:

It seems like they're filming a new scene in a diner where Nancy (the main character?) works, judging from a new casting call, seeking the diner's owner and waitress. Plus some teenagers hanging out there. It sounds as though this additional scene is meant to clear up something that confused test-screening audiences. [SpoilerTV-Movies and BloodyDisgusting via IGN]

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows:

The cast still hasn't shot the infamous epilogue scene yet, and they're waiting to hear if they'll do it themselves or have other actors replace them as adults. [MTV]

And even as this two-part movie is filming, there are tons of on-the-fly rewrites and new scripts and last-minute changes because "We're terrified we're not going to get it right," says Daniel Radcliffe. Also, after Rupert Grint's bout with swine flu, his new name is Pigboy Heart Attack. [MTV]

Fringe:

A casting call went out for a guest star whom we'll meet in episode 2x16:

[HEATH] 30-35... Interesting look, lean and wiry. Open ethnicity.

[SpoilerTV]

Asked whether Peter's mom is from our universe or Over There, Jeff Pinkner replies cryptically: "In a show exploring two alternate universes, there is more than one of everything… and everyone." [EW]

Chuck:

This season, there's more international travel, taking Chuck out of the U.S. and dropping him into hotspots. And don't worry, Chuck's still a bumbling hero even though he knows kung-fu. His emotions interfere with his new abilities, and the new intersect is sometimes "fritzing out." The first episode is a "heist episode," In which Chuck and Sarah have to rappel Mission Impossible-style into a vault. One thing that Chuck is getting better at, though? Lying. Which is both good and bad. [TV Guide]

Sarah will go from being Chuck's caretaker to something more like his boss this season. Chuck's training as a real spy will bring up more backstory about Sarah's own entry into the spy biz, including her real name. [TV Guide again]

Flashforward:

There are a ton of casting calls for episodes 15 and 16. In episode 15, we'll meet Spiller, a white guy whose affable veneer can't hide the fact that he's a dick. And Lilliana, an older Latina woman who distrusts the FBI. There are also a couple of hospital nurses who encounter a frantic man searching for his loved one who's a patient, a tattooed Latino tough guy mechanic, a motherly Japanese waitress who takes an interest in a female customer, a mysterious dreadlocked man named Geoff, a driver on a sensitive assignment, and a teenager who offers to help an obvious drunk guy. (Mark? Does Mark get drunk and then wind up in the hospital?)

And then in episode 16, we meet Secret Service agent Freddie Ochoa, who gossips about a former colleague, and Marlene, the world-weary director of a group foster home. Plus Daniel, a Korean family man, Wanda, an African American mother, Raymond, an African American father, a federal prosecutor, a judge, a stenographer, a local TV host, a local TV weather girl, an older drunk who startles the wrong person, and a cute young guy and the girl he gets to know better in a humorous scene. Then there's Kat, a 27-year-old girl next door who's hiding a dark secret. [SpoilerTV and SpoilerTV]

Heroes:

Nathan's death is really "the big one that sticks" this time around, says Adrian Pasdar. And then he adds, "You never really know with this show." [MultipleVerses]

Just because Gretchen let Claire go off and become a carny, doesn't mean we've seen the last of her, says actor Madeline Zima. Right now, Gretchen is doing the whole "if you love someone set them free" thing, but it's not going to work out that great, reading between the lines. [TV Guide]

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

Over at the Food Futurist, Christophe Pelletier describes a new study from BioScience on the viability of offshore fish farming. He writes:

From an environmental point of view, the idea of shifting the production of animal protein from the land where it uses scarce resources such as land and water, to the ocean where space and water are no limitations anymore sounds very sensible. From a nutritional point of view, replacing meat and dairy by seafood that is rich in healthy components such as omega-3 fatty acids is quite attractive, too.

He could easily be describing the future of farming, especially in areas like Hawaii or Japan.

Meanwhile, Inhabitat points to a real-life ocean-industrial setup that's coming online soon in Honolulu. It's an energy-efficient cooling system for the city that uses cool water from the ocean to keep buildings cool too. They write:

Frigid seawater pumped in from the ocean's depths will soon help cool more than half of the buildings in Honolulu's downtown. Honolulu Seawater Air Conditioning LLC, which is undertaking the $240 million project, expects its technology to cut the Hawaiian city's air conditioning electricity usage by up to 75 percent while slashing carbon emissions and the use of ozone-depleting refrigerants.

Ocean engineers, your time has come.

Winston Rowntree's text-laden webcomic Subnormality frequently features demonic ladies, a world-weary sphinx, and the drunken bonding between Metroid's Samus and Tomb Raider Lara Croft. In this installment, he introduces us to Shango the Atomic Cowgirl, whose most fearsome foe is prejudice and society's strict adherence to traditional gender roles.

[Subnormality]

The third movie in the Twilight Saga, Eclipse, will be on the big, big screen. Which means giant Bella lip biting, hot puppy fight action and abs as far as the eye can see.

The director for the third film, David Slade (30 Days of Night), will have to tackle the tricky plot details which are an all out vampire war with the red-headed Victoria, played by Bryce Dallas Howard who replaced the original actress from the first two films. Should be interesting to watch this all happen on a giant screen, but that also means giant drama sessions as Bella is still stuck in this wolf/vamp love triangle. And nothing says IMAX fun like a nice long talk about love between to teenagers, one in jean shorts.

[via Variety]

We've seen cities around the world ruined by radiation, pollution, political shifts, and depleted resources. At first glance, Zabbaleen looks like another set of modern ruins, a city crushed beneath our waste — a real-life version of Futurama's "Big Piece of Garbage."

But Zabbaleen is actually a thriving community built on the use and repurposing of waste. Residents of the city, which sits just outside of Cairo, collect trash from wealthier cities and use or reuse some 80 to 90 percent of it. Some of the waste is fed to livestock or burned for fuel; what can be repaired is fixed and sold. Much of their business consists of sorting and cleaning items and then selling them as scrap. Zabbaleen residents performed the service for the government, and now many waste management companies outsource their business to the city. But the citizens still live at poverty levels and amidst heaps and heaps of garbage.

Incredible ‘Garbage City' Rises Outside of Cairo [Inhabitat]

After Coupland published the groundbreaking novel Generation X in the early 1990s, surly speculative writer Kurt Vonnegut gave a grumpy speech to some college students in which he scoffed at the term "Generation X" and suggested that they should instead be called "Generation A" since they were "at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures." Clearly, that comment is the inspiration for this novel.

Like all of Coupland's novels, Generation A is written in immediately engaging, genuinely funny prose. He's the kind of writer who calls GMO corn a "carb dildo" and gives one of his characters a hilarious obsession with the show Starblazers. Shuttling quickly between the first-person perspectives of his five bee-stung characters - from Sri Lanka to New Zealand - Coupland quickly sketches in a five-mintues-into-the-future world where everything is just a little bleaker than it is today. Transportation has gotten incredibly expensive due to impending peak oil, and everybody seems to have gotten hooked on an antidepressant called Solon that makes time seem to pass more quickly and calms people's fears of the future. And somehow, all the bees in the world have gone extinct, which means no more wildflowers, very little fruit, and (of course) no honey.

Still the world is recognizably our own, especially once it's made familiar to us via the goofy, heartfelt patter of Coupland's characters. Harj survived the Indian Ocean tsunami (but his family didn't) and now he works in a Sri Lankan call center for Abercrombie & Fitch. In his spare time, he's created a fake e-commerce website that sells "celebrity room tones" - audio files that capture what silence sounds like in rooms that famous people live in. Zack creates cock-and-ball-shaped crop circles in his own cornfields; Julien is obsessed with World of Warcraft; Samantha is obsessed with various geotagging games online (creating "earth sandwiches" by taking a picture of a piece of bread on the ground in New Zealand, while somebody across the globe in Spain takes a picture of another piece of bread on the ground); and Diana is an evangelical Christian with Tourette's. And all of them have one thing in common: After they're stung by supposedly-extinct bees, they're scooped up by a team of scientists and forced to undergo weird tests in an underground facility in Atlanta.

The setup for the novel is simply terrific, and the subtext is intriguing from the start. Flowing beneath the surface of this quirky eco-thriller is a meditation on the way media consumption has become both an addiction and form of redemption for our characters - and, by extension, the whole human species. Locked into their quarantine cells in Atlanta, the main characters aren't allowed to have any books, computer, or television. They're forced to contemplate how stark and freaky their lives would be without reading and engaging with the world through everything from music to World of Warcraft. What's particularly smart is the way Coupland makes no distinction between the addictive allure of reading and the distractions of the internet. All are, ultimately, ways of feeding our minds with a combination of beauty and "carb dildo" garbage.

Once the bee-stung are released, they discover they can't return to their old lives. Something about them has changed profoundly, and they need to come together and talk about it. So they accept an invitation from Serge, one of the scientists who studied them, to visit a remote island together where he can study them further - and they can get to know each other. It turns out what Serge really wants them to do is tell stories. He hints mysteriously that this is part of what he's researching, and that storytelling is related to why the bees chose to sting them. We also begin to realize that somehow this research is related to the drug Solon.

The entire second half of the novel is taken up with the stories that our characters tell teach other. Some are clearly based on their life experiences; others are parables about storytelling itself and the meaning of human connection. Taken together, these tales begin to form an organic whole, a portrait of people obsessed with finding the words to explain their experiences even while they are unable to find other people to share those experiences with. It's a risky and weird right-turn for the novel to take, though not unexpected for Coupland. He's known for his joyful experiments with language and form.

While most of the stories were amusing to read, I wound up feeling like this section of the novel was fairly uneven. There were simply too many stories, without any exposition between them, and we lost the thread of the compelling tale that Coupland had set up for us in the riveting first half of the novel. Though the book has a great ending, Coupland simply gets derailed when the characters tell stories instead of figuring out what connects them to each other and the bees. Arguably, storytelling is what connects them, and we get hints from very early in the book that there is a molecule called an "eon" that is released into the bloodstream when humans experience stories. But many readers will grow frustrated with Coupland's way of exploring this idea.

Despite these problems, this is one of the rare science fiction novels that will make you laugh out loud. Coupland's comic prose is simply terrific, but never in a way that feels cheap or mean. He's completely in love with his characters, and their weird observations about the world are achingly true. Regardless of whether you adore or ignore the storytelling half of the novel, you'll be amused and diverted. Especially if you've liked Coupland's other novels, you won't want to miss this one.

Production Weekly reports via Twitter that Cameron is developing a science fiction "event" film set in the future and scripted by Shane Salerno, who worked on the screenplays for Armageddon, Ghost Rider, and both Alien vs. Predator movies. Production Weekly hasn't elaborated further, but speculation is that the script is Doomsday Protocol, which Salerno sold to Fox last year. The Hollywood Reporter has the synopsis:

Plot details are being kept under wraps, but it is known to be an epic science fiction adventure in the vein of "The Seven Samurai" involving a group of aliens and humans with various abilities who are brought together to save Earth.

So what's it ultimately going to be for Cameron — space age samurai, post-apocalyptic cyborg, or another swing through the Avatar universe?

James Cameron's next film may be a sci-fi samurai epic [SCI FI Wire]

Top image by Daniel Conway.

As we all know, Batman's alleged death in DC's big Final Crisis series actually just saw him dumped amongst cavemen with his trusty utility belt, while Dick Grayson took over the cape and cowl in current times. But today's announcement of the six-issue Return series shows that getting him back to the future is going to require a lot of pitstops - and alternate Batman costumes. Writer Grant Morrison explains:

The first episode is set in the Late-Paleolithic Era, the second is in Pilgrim-era Gotham Village, and we also get to see Gotham in Western or noir style. Each of the stories is a twist on a different "pulp hero" genre - so there's the caveman story, the witchhunter/Puritan adventurer thing, the pirate Batman, the cowboy, the P.I. - as a nod toward those mad old 1950s comics with Caveman Batman and Viking Batman adventures. It's Bruce Wayne's ultimate challenge... So far I've had him overcome the Devil, Madness and Death; now we see him, truly lost, amnesiac, and stripped down to basic human survival mode in some extremely hostile environments and unfamiliar situations. He's the best fighter in his world, he's one of the smartest and most driven men who ever lived, but we've seen him outwit the Joker 10,000 times. This was a way of taking the character off the grid, as they say, and reminding readers what kind of man he is and what he's capable of. If you wonder why Batman is so cool - here's why Batman is so cool.

With each issue illustrated by a different artist, The Return Of Bruce Wayne is set to launch in April next year. We were sold as soon as we saw those costumes. Is it too late to lobby for 1980s New Wave Dandy Batman?

Grant Morrison on return of original Batman [USA Today]

Corto Maltese was an extremely influential comic of the 60s and 70s, chronicling the laconic sea-captain's adventures in the early years of the 20th Century. Created by Hugo Pratt, Corto was a laid back rogue, whose adventures sprawled from the historic to the surreal, and influenced a generation of artists. He was recognizable enough that Dior used him in an ad campaign, and rivals Han Solo in rakish charm.

Maltese was usually seen in a black pea coat and white sailor's cap, the former of which was adopted by fashion designers this year in a line called "Hugo Pratt For Corto Maltese". Originally created by French designers Collette, the coats are now available throughout Italy. They can be found available in either short or long versions, with the option for a pre-aged look. So far, I've only found one place online that has any in stock, and they range in price from €300-€600. But what price is wearing something comic related that isn't a faded print t-shirt, or utterly tasteless?

Witnesses throughout Northern Norway reported seeing a bright object spinning through the sky this morning, forming a brilliant spiral. According to air traffic reports, the phenomenon lasted for two minutes, too long to be an astronomical event, and it doesn't resemble any previously reported aurora.

So what caused the mysterious spiral? No one is sure, but the prevailing theory is fairly mundane. Several astronomers are speculating that an errant, spiraling rocket is responsible. Since no rockets were fired from the local Andøya Rocket Range this morning, the hypothetical rocket may have come from Russia.

Or, as one poster on Reddit suggests, it could just be the Sliders breaking into our universe:

[VG Nett (Translated) via Reddit]

Wow, Disney is riding that cyberpunk idea fast and hard. Just look at Olivia Wilde on the left. Interesting how the new light-up suits look so much less like something I could make in my basement and more like actual battle suits. Are those built in muscles and SKIN we see? This helmet-free new life of a program has undergone one sexy upgrade.

[Images via MSN]

The comic is called Paranormal Activity: The Search For Katie, A Case Study by Dr. Johann Averys DMN. And if you remember the end of the film, Katie has vanished and Micah is... well, gone as well, sadly. Apple paired up with IDW to continue the story. The comic app picks up right after that, with the demon expert Dr. Averys finally showing up to their home, and searching for Katie, and some answers. It was written by Scott Lobdell and drawn by Mark Badger. Here are the first set of exclusive stills from the beginning.

We emailed Lobdell asking why he thought the story must go on, since the ending seemed so definite, we didn't think there could be a sequel even in a comic book series. To which he responded:

I have to disagree! Even before I left the movie theater my mind was racing though a hundred different questions! Where did Katie go? How long had she been in thrall to the demon? Why did he do what he did to Micah... or have Katie do it? What about the mysterious Dr. Johann Averys — often mentioned but never seen? Could the case he was working on in Europe have anything to do with the case in San Diego? What would the investigation into the murder be like? One part cop forensics, one part study in demonology? The demon seemed like it had much larger fish to fry to scaring young women... could it have followers? A lot of this is set up in the first installment of the online comic book, and I can't wait for the opportunity to further explore the world of Paranormal Activity.

The application is available now at itunes, For 99 cents.

Coleman explains that most bones in forests are, of course, picked clean by predators. So that explains why we don't find dead Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) everywhere, as well as the carcasses of creatures like tigers and moose. Still, that begs the question: Where are the bones? Apparently, porcupines eat bones, as well as hoarding them:

One important behavior of some species of porcupines is that they hoard bones of other animals in or around their dens. Porcupines sometimes are found with bones in their living spaces. For example, the North African crested porcupine (Hystrix cristata) and the Cape porcupine (Hystrix africaeaustralis) of sub-Saharan Africa, especially in areas deficient in phosphorous, will practice osteophagia, or gnawing on bones. These porcupines will often accumulate large piles of bones in their dens . . . In North America, studies of situations in which bones accumulate today and in the past often include porcupine caves. For an intriguing article on what Pleistocene mammal remains were found in one such gathering of bones, see "Bears and Man at Porcupine Cave, Western Uinta Mountains, Utah" by Timothy H. Heaton, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, in Current Research in the Pleistocene, vol. 5, pp. 71-73 (1988).

The odds are more highly in favor of Bigfoot bones and bodies never being found . . . But if they are ever found, Bigfoot teeth or old bones possibly might be discovered near or in porcupine habitation sites . . . We won't know unless we look, and reexamine past and future "unidentified" finds from porcupine caves, digs, and dens.

via Cryptomundo

Bigfoot photo by Douglas E. Egolf.