As we approach the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack, we can be grateful that nothing like it has happened since. But that doesn't mean that something very much like 9/11 — or even worse — couldn't happen again. In fact, new research suggests that we may be seriously underestimating the risk of another…
10 Ways 9/11 Changed the Way We Build
Ten years ago today, Chicago developer J. Paul Beitler — who once aspired to build the world's tallest building — told The Chicago Tribune that governments would cease to approve plans for skyscrapers, for fear that they would become "magnets for future terrorism."
A seismological recording of 9/11
On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, sound artist Mark Bain has released the full audio file of the sound of the Twin Towers collapsing, a melancholic howl terrestrially amplified by the region's geology.
Where would superheroes be without 9/11?
There's a meme going around lately, saying that the September 11 attacks gave rise to our current boom in superhero movies. And there's definitely some truth to it — superheroes gave us a nice escapist fantasy in the wake of a terrible tragedy, and allowed us to talk about some stuff we couldn't have addressed in…
How 9/11 Changed Science Fiction
In the decade since 9/11, the US government has cracked down on civil liberties at home and invaded nations abroad in the name of national security. And a whole crop of futuristic and fanciful tales have sprung up to satirize and justify "the war on terror." These tales generally deal with one of five crucial post-9/11…
The Forever War remains timeless, especially on September 11
It's been nine years since our own interminable War on Terror started. Can we learn anything from 1976's Hugo-winning novel, Joe Haldeman's The Forever War?
Five Ways Reality Went Sci-Fi So Far This Century
We love a good science fiction story, but sometimes reality is just as strange. While we may have seen 2001 come and go without an actual space odyssey, the last eight years have been full of events that - had they not actually happened - could easily pass for science fiction. Here are five real life events that still …
Nicholas Cage Takes On Sept. 11
The monster-trashes-New York movie Cloverfield disarmed the "third rail" of dealing with Sept. 11 on film — and now Nicholas Cage is all set to dance on it. Cage's movie Knowing, now being filmed, uses Sept. 11 as a major plot point to set up its apocalyptic storyline. And it plays very explicitly with 9/11-style…
Video Game-Turned-Movie Channels 9/11 Fears
Movie deals aren't just for comic books that nobody's read any more — now they're for video games that nobody's played as well. Fox has optioned a science fiction game still in development, Zero-G, about a new "never before seen" superweapon that destroys a major U.S. city. It sounds like it's coming a bit late to the…
A Camera Made of Blood and Copper
Wayne Martin Belger is a freaky pinhole photographer who makes cameras out of titanium, brass, wood, glass, human skulls, human organs, formaldehyde, HIV positive blood, and other relics that are tools of what he calls "the horrors of creation and the beauty of decay." Pictured above is a creation of his called The…
