Density Design created this infographic for the new issue of Wired Italia based on predictions made by the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto. You can view the full-sized chart on Flickr, but the individual pieces are laid out below.

We Will Be Here — The Map of the Future [Behance via Nerdcore]

[xkcd]

I recently finished a thesis project on post-apocalyptic genre fiction, and in my research I made a list of 423 books, poems, and short stories about the apocalypse, published between 1826-2007, and charted them by the way their earth met its demise (humans, nature, god, etc.) to see the trends over time.

It's not the idea of Ending itself that has faded – that will be around until we are actually mopped off the face of the Earth. It's the actual moment of disaster, the blood and guts and fire, that has been losing ground in stories of the End. Post-apocalyptic fiction is a 200-year-old trend, and for 170 of those years, the ways writers imagined the end were pretty transparently a reflection of whatever was going on around them – nuclear war, environmental concerns, etc. In the mid-1990s, though, everything just turned into a big muddle. Suddenly, we'd get a post-apocalyptic world whose demise was never explained. It was just a big question mark.

That was the idea behind this chart – I wanted to see if there were patterns in how writers saw the monster. As it turned out, the patterns were clearer than I imagined. Nuclear holocaust was really popular after 1945; that's to be expected. But the precipitous and permanent drop in nuclear war's popularity after the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 (see chart)? That surprised me.

Predictably, the human-made apocalypse is a perennial favorite. The way we go about it, though, is always changing, as you can see on the chart, where I've broken up the "human made disaster" into subcategories.

The post-apocalyptic technological utopias of the turn of the century are replaced by dystopias and robot rebellions after World War I (the first expansion of the green region devoted to human-made disaster), when everyone began to suspect that technology was only going to help us go about killing each other more efficiently, not cure us of the need to kill in the first place. Other trends are there, too: anxiety about pollution and global warming tend to spike whenever nuclear fears fade, for example.

The easily spotted trends make the patterns' total collapse in the mid-1990s even weirder. Human-created apocalypses shrink dramatically, and there's a sudden spike of unexplained apocalypse scenarios at the turn of the century. What happened? One possibility is that every End started to feel clichéd. The terror of a possible nuclear war faded, and no new extravagant ways to kill ourselves appeared to replace it.

That's an overly simplistic way of looking at it, though. It's not that the moment of destruction is boring; it's that it doesn't even matter anymore. There are an increasing number of books and films, like The Road and Zombieland, which pick up after the catastrophe and sometimes don't bother to explain what happened at all.

Disaster porn is no longer the point of the apocalypse. It doesn't matter how the world ends, just that it does. Making it to the End doesn't mean the story's finished; much of the time, it's only just gotten started. Stories of the End have never been about ending – they're about the beginning that comes after.

Preceding victory with annihilation disguises how dizzily optimistic some of these narratives are. Stories about the End are so beautifully paradoxical; they are some of the most powerful affirmation stories we have. They can hardly be classified as optimistic, but no matter what happens, even if the End came by human hands, in most stories we are fixable. For the most part, we have faith that though we may screw up, and very badly, we will learn from our mistakes and the world will be better for it.

When the survivors wander around, they're looking at a burned-out shell of a world, but it's still a clean slate. A clean slate full of radiation and cannibals, maybe, but still. I think everyone's had that feeling of wanting to just heave everything out the window and start over. That's what is at the heart of apocalypse stories: the opportunity to rebuild the world in a radically different way.

During the pilgrimage through the wasteland, the survivors – and the readers – are left feeling ostracized from reality. The characters are probably more concerned with where their next meal is coming from, but the reader sees how they are cut loose from the anchors that previously protected us from being overwhelmed by the meaninglessness of existence. The only way to fix it is to find new ways of looking, new patterns to create meaning in the new world.

Destroying the world in books about apocalypse is one way we can entirely take ownership of it. We can only see the world the way we have been raised to, the way our parents saw it, so we need to raze the old world and build a new one in its place in order to have a world that is really and entirely our own. The story of the End, after all, is not nearly as compelling as the story of the Beginning that comes after it.

This is hardly the final word; more a collection of observations and theories. I won't claim any more than that, because if there's one thing I learned while researching apocalypses, it's just how much humans like to see patterns in things – and that when patterns start getting too neat, you've done something wrong. There are still some things about the chart I don't understand – the three points where the natural apocalypse overtakes the human apocalypse, for example – and it doesn't take into account the effect that movies or television had on books. As will any discussion of a large genre, there are some necessary overgeneralizations. But it's a starting point – have at it.

Chanda Phelan just graduated from Pomona College, where she completed a thesis on post-apocalyptic literature. You can read her blog at phnuggle.wordpress.com.

Chart by Stephanie Fox!

Click the chart to enlarge. Vampire Graph By Julia Carusillo.

I first spotted this chart on Laughing Squid, and it was created for IEEE's special issue on traveling to Mars.

See more brilliant and weird concept design at Bryan Christie.

These posters come from Visual Aid and Visual Aid 2, and are available as posters from the Visual Aid shop. Incidentally, they also have useful posters if you want to know how to make a balloon animal, how to play Cat's Cradle, or the different processes for mummification.

[Visual Aid via Core77]

The "Fifty Years of Exploration" map, created by Sean McNaughton and Samuel Velasco for National Geographic, outlines humanity's journeys into space, starting from the early failed mission to Mars and Venus to the current flight of New Horizons. A complete, but scaled-down version of the map is shown below, but you can see the giant, full-sized map here.

Fifty Years of Exploration [National Geographic via Stevey via Metafilter]

We looked at over 300 science fiction and fantasy television shows from 1970, the year after the original Star Trek series ended, to the present. In this chart, we list a few of the most iconic shows, but those are just a sampling of the hundreds we surveyed.

Then we looked at which shows on the air in any given year featured any one of the most common science-fiction themes: aliens, space travel, robots, time travel, and magic.

(Shows that contain multiple themes were counted once in each category, so Star Trek: The Next Generation would add one point each to aliens, space travel, robots and time travel.)

One thing the graph tells us is that the popularity of the different themes are increasingly linked as time goes on. Space travel and aliens are closely linked throughout the graph, since shows about space travel almost always include aliens, but as the graph transitions from the 1970s into the 1980s, shows with robots are increasingly linked to shows with aliens. This is in part because the more recent shows featuring robots and more recent shows featuring aliens are more likely to be one and the same, whereas in the 1970s, shows like Batman and The Bionic Woman would feature artificial intelligence but not extraterrestrials.

But it's interesting to note the way magic trends as well. In 1970, the gap between shows featuring magic and shows featuring more science-based themes is fairly wide, which may be related to the relative cost of producing the different types of shows; Captain Kirk required pricey sets and a makeup crew while Samantha Stevens just needed a film editor and the ability to wiggle her nose. But as audience expectations for shows involving magic become analogous to their expectations for science fiction shows, magic's peaks and valleys start to correspond to those of other themes, though supernatural shows may be a bit more resilient to overall drops in television spending.

The time-travel line is especially interesting, less for what it indicates about the popularity of time travel than for what it says about the variety of stories being told. Although time travel is sometimes the focus of a show (as in Quantum Leap or Seven Days), it more frequently appears in a handful of episodes of a show that tells a diverse set of science fiction or fantasy stories. Shows like the various Star Trek series, Lois and Clark, and even Xena feature the occasional obligatory time travel episode.

But the graph's most striking feature is the boom all the themes apparently experienced in the 1990s, and which now seems to be on the decline. It seems to suggest a huge investment in genre television shows (and perhaps in television in general) that we simply aren't seeing any more.

Interestingly, space travel shows were the first to go as circumstances changed, and although shows about managed to hang on longer, they, too are on their way out. Does this indicate that science fiction and fantasy shows are on the decline? Or does it represent a shift to less expensive, near-future science fiction with different speculative priorities, shows like Dollhouse, Chuck, and Fringe?

Here is a full list of all the shows we surveyed to create this chart.

Graph by Steph Fox and additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

David McCandless created this visualization as part of his upcoming book of chart porn, The Visual Miscellaneum. Here, he charts the temporal paths of different TV and movie time travelers (Doctor Who was omitted for the sake of sanity, though he hasn't ruled out making a separate chart for the Time Lord), and, just for fun, imagines what might happen if time travelers who landed in the same year happened to meet up (I suspect that, despite his ingenuity, Marty McFly would not fare well against the Terminator). McCandless did feel that his research revealed one key deficiency in time travel stories: nearly all time travel journeys he mapped originate and land between the years 1900-2100.

[Information is Beautiful via Reddit]

After having just tracked the most popular fantasy book cover art elements, Holman has turned his eye to urban fantasy's rise among speculative book genres. Using sales data from Nielsen/Bookscan, Holman shows that urban fantasy accounts for only 14 percent of the genre's titles — but it claimed 45 percent of SF/F bestsellers.

This chart shows the rise of urban fantasy among fantasy (not SF/fantasy) bestsellers in the last several years:

So if a large number of urban fantasy books are outselling all other science fiction and fantasy books, but publishers are still putting out relatively few urban fantasy books, it doesn't take a marketing whiz to see what comes next. Says Holman:

The rise of urban fantasy has without any doubt been the biggest category shift within the SFF market of the last 10 years in the US...

How does this affect SFF publishers? Naturally, publishers respond to trends (and publishers tend to spend more time and energy trying to follow trends than setting them). If, for example, higher sales can be expected from an urban fantasy debut than a hard-SF debut, more publishers will be more inclined to publish more urban fantasy debuts than hard-SF debuts. More authors being published in one category will generally mean fewer authors being published in another. Particularly when the alpha category starts to dominate bestseller charts...

It's up to individual publishers, of course, to determine the balance of their lists, and thankfully we don't all end up with the same strategy. However, publishers are still likely to reconfigure to some extent when there is a significant category shift in the market. For example, editors with expertise in the urban fantasy field are likely to be in higher demand (others less so). Why hire an editor with a brilliant publishing instinct for hard SF if hard SF only makes up 2% of the publisher's business?

Holman concludes that urban fantasy may not always be on top, and there may be another seismic shift down the line. And his company, Orbit, has made a strategic decision to focus on other types of science fiction and fantasy in addition to urban fantasy. He winds up hopeful that the rise of swords-and-skyscrapers lit is indicative of a surge of interest in speculative fiction generally. Here's hoping that these books are reaching a new audience, and might serve as a "gateway drug" to other kinds of stories that use our world as a departure point for journeys into the fantastical and the bizarre.

Bigger versions of the charts are at the link. [Tim Holman via MediaBistro]

And not surprisingly, swords are pretty much required if you want to let people know that they're about to read a novel set in a fantasy world. Or the present day with fantasy elements. I like that "glowy magic" is a close second to swords - anyone who has ever browsed a fantasy book aisle at the bookstore knows what that is. A blop of photoshopped shininess, often streaming from a sword or from the hands of a nubile creature in flowing robes. Or perhaps enveloping a dragon?

What remains to be done is an economic analysis of these cover elements, charting which ones tend to sell better.

Tim Holman, publisher of Orbit Books, writes:

I wonder if [this chart] will prove that glowy magic, while prevalent, might not guarantee glowy sales? Or if unicorn-lovers represent a vast untapped market? It wouldn't surprise me. More research is clearly needed, but this is an important starting point and I'd be prepared to devote literally minutes to the task if that's what it takes.

via The Publisher Files

Well, first off, it looks as though people in the early 1990s mostly saw UFOs in major metropolitan areas — although it looks like there were a lot in Hull. Also — and this might just be obsessive fandom speaking –- but doesn't it look like there's a correlation between the number of UFO sightings per year, and the popularity of homegrown science fiction classic Doctor Who? You'll notice the sightings drop off almost completely after Who gets canceled in the late 1980s.

Head over to the Guardian for the nifty interactive version of the map. [Guardian]

Levin, who has also written a beautiful, fascinating book about physics called How the Universe Got Its Spots, gives a technical explanation of her periodic table of black hole orbits:

Understanding the dynamics around rotating black holes is imperative to the success of the future gravitational wave observatories. Although integrable in principle, test particle orbits in the Kerr spacetime can also be elaborate, and while they have been studied extensively, classifying their general properties has been a challenge. This is the first in a series of papers that adopts a dynamical systems approach to the study of Kerr orbits, beginning with equatorial orbits. We define a taxonomy of orbits that hinges on a correspondence between periodic orbits and rational numbers. The taxonomy defines the entire dynamics, including aperiodic motion, since every orbit is in or near the periodic set. A remarkable implication of this periodic orbit taxonomy is that the simple precessing ellipse familiar from planetary orbits is not allowed in the strong-field regime. Instead, eccentric orbits trace out precessions of multi-leaf clovers in the final stages of inspiral. Furthermore, for any black hole, there is some point in the strong-field regime past which zoom-whirl behavior becomes unavoidable. Finally, we sketch the potential application of the taxonomy to problems of astrophysical interest, in particular its utility for computationally intensive gravitational wave calculations.

Kerr black holes are black holes that rotate, and that affects the gravity waves they generate. I love these charts of the many possible ways that objects might approach, orbit, and eventually get swallowed by a black hole. If you want to delve into the math Levin used to create these images, check out the whole paper. It's free online.

"A Periodic Table for Black Hole Orbits" via arXiv

Click to expand the image below.

Chart design by Stephanie Fox!

Contributor Valentin D. Ivanov, who is our new hero, went through the "notable books" feature and book reviews in Locus Magazine since 1998, and created a statistical analysis of the trends. The trend in sequels is especially fascinating: It looks like there was a huge spike in sequels from 1998 to 2001, and since then the number of sequels has grown at the same rate as all other books.

Ivanov notes that "there are only two fourth or fifth volumes in 1998/9, eleven in 2001/2, and forty-one in 2007, corresponding to a nearly 20-fold increase." In other words, we're not just talking about trilogies, we're talking about a massive increase in series spanning four or more volumes. (And I believe he's separating out media tie-in books, so we're not talking about Star Wars novels here.)

A few other trends Ivanov notices: There's the rise in prominence of fantasy books that you've already noticed elsewhere, except now it has statistical validity. The number of fantasy books being reviewed in Locus went up by 26.7 books per year, as opposed to 11.5 for science fiction. Also, the number of multi-author anthologies went down slightly, despite a number of anthology series making waves in recent years. And there's an overall increase in the number of books being published generally. Finally, it's interesting to see which publishers get their books reviewed in Locus most often — Tor has had 210 books reviewed in the past decade or so, more than double the next biggest publisher, Harper Collins.

The whole article, with more charts, is well worth reading and wrangling over. [StrangeHorizons via BoingBoing via Making Light]

The term grew out of futurism and science fiction that dealt with what humanity would look like in a world of cyborg implants and rampant biological engineering. In many ways cyberpunk told some of the first post human stories, with its plug heads and neuro-enhanced fighters.

What Anissimov found was that the term entered into people's searches just about three years ago, and then began showing up in news stories roughly one and a half years ago. Science fiction fans and futurists, however, have been using this term for over a decade. Most likely we're seeing a rise in the use of his term in mainstream media because biotechnology is catching up to science fiction. People really are turning into cyborgs, with smart implants – and we even have the technology to tissue engineer new organs for ourselves.

So it's no wonder that transhumanism has emerged from science fiction into everyday speech.

Via Accelerating Future

You probably already knew that Spock and Nero created an alternate universe, where Vulcan got vulcanized and James Kirk's dad died when he was born. So the TNG continuity still exists, just as an alternate reality. But just in case you got confused, here's a chart to explain it all for you. Also, is this the first time we've seen official dates for the events of J.J. Abrams' recent Trek movie?

[Star Trek Online]

Look at who was President of the United States when the last Terminator movies were released (Or, for that matter, when Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles got launched on Fox). Notice a trend?
Apparently, Republican administrations mean good things for Terminators (Insert your own robotic overlord joke here)... Weirdly enough, the inverse can be shown for Star Trek, which got its start (and a couple of rebirths) under Democrats, as well as seeing its most popular period while Clinton was in power... before dying an awkward death under a Republican regime (As long as you ignore the fact that The Next Generation got its start while Ronald Reagan was president. I get around that by pointing out that the show wasn't any good until the third season, and then saying that it's the exception that proves the rule, before looking at the ground, embarrassed).

Coincidence, or something more sinister? You be the judge, but maybe there's a case to be made for the connection between audiences feeling more in tune with the end of the world when there's a right wing President in office, compared with the more utopian values a liberal president inspires in us. Causation or correlation? You be the judge.

(* - This may not be entirely true.)

The chart above shows Nielsen Ratings that measure audience numbers on the Y axis, and every episode of Battlestar by season and episode number on the X axis. (We left out the final two episodes, as that data wasn't in yet when we did the chart.)

One thing you'll notice right away is that the show's ratings decline very gradually, which is a normal shape for audience stats to take with any TV series. So that doesn't indicate that the show went downhill. It just means that most TV shows tend to shed audience numbers over a period of years. Another thing you'll notice, if you cross-reference with this handy episode guide on IMDB, is that many of the biggest audience spikes are associated with season finales and season premieres. These "event" episodes don't always reflect the trends we're looking for here.

So now there's the question of how you determine which episodes are shark jumpers. Obviously this is fairly subjective, but we did have at least one semi-objective measure. We ran a poll last year asking readers which episodes of BSG they thought were shark-jumpy. So three of the episodes we list above got votes from 500 or more people who thought they were shark jumpers. These were: "Epiphanies," (where Roslin was "cured" of cancer by hybrid Hera's fetus blood); "Crossroads, Pt. 2" (when Bob Dylan was in the cupboards and we learned who the Final Five are); and "He That Believeth In Me" (when Baltar founded a love cult).

Other shark-jumpy episodes were fingered by opinion-makers we polled informally at South by Southwest's Interactive Conference this year. These included "Collaborators," when Baltar went to live on the Cylon Base Ship, which many critics also agreed was a bad turning point for the show; and "Unfinished Business," the boxing episode which divided fans over the question of "good or ass." Pretty much everyone agreed that "No Exit," where we find out about Ellen and Cavil's icky relationship, was a stinker. And I personally threw in the episode "Kobol's Last Gleaming, Pt. 1," when crazy Roslin decides to get the Arrow of Apollo and stick it in the Temple of Athena, because it was a terrible low point in season 1. Just because a show recovers from a shark jump doesn't mean it isn't one.

So now to the actual question at hand: Did the show suffer when it jumped those sharks? If people were recoiling from a shark jump, you'd expect to see audiences decline or at least not go up after that episode. Not too surprisingly, nearly all the shark jumps were followed by such a decline or flatline. In fact, the only shark jumpers not followed by declines were "Unfinished Business," which many people actually didn't hate (so it might be an outlier example); and "Crossroads, Pt. 2," which as you'll recall was followed by the TV movie "Razor," which aired so long after Crossroads that it became an event episode rather than a strict follow-on.

As a result of our brilliant, semi-scientific research, I think we can tentatively say that audiences are in fact fairly reactive when a show jumps the shark. They immediately tune out the following episode, not even giving it a second chance for an episode or two. We also see that they will come back, however, especially if the show goes off the air for a while and returns with an event episode like "Razor."

CONCLUSIONS: Using Battlestar Galactica as an example, we've examined how audiences respond when a show jumps the shark. What we found is that a significant percentage of them almost immediately abandon the show for an episode or two. But then we see them returning again, often in larger numbers. TV watchers are more discerning than you might think, but only in the short term. They won't come back the following week if you serve them something that tastes like shark with jump sauce. But they might return to chow down in two weeks, and invite their friends along.

APPENDIX: Battlestar Galactica Nielsen Ratings By Episode (Compiled by Alyssa Johnson!)

At BLDG BLOG, Geoff Manaugh talks about the history of "nuclear urbanism," calling this map mashup by CarlosLabs in Australia as its latest example. The mashup, called Ground Zero, is disturbingly simple: You can pick your city, then pick your weapon (anything from 1950s "Fat Man" to an asteroid collision), then hit the button that says "Nuke it!". Then the map blooms with flame and destruction. I chose to send an asteroid into my fair city of San Francisco, just to enjoy the destruction. Perfect distraction for 4:20 in the afternoon.

Ground Zero via BLDG BLOG

As part of Popular Mechanics' special report on UFO sightings, the magazine has put together a map showing where people report UFOs most often. Los Angeles tops the list, which isn't terribly surprising given its proximity to an industry which has churned out hundreds of movies about alien invasion.

Other top cities, like San Diego, are in close proximity to "special use airspace," areas the military reserves for aircraft testing. That might mean residents are more likely to see unexplained things zooming across the skies and report them. In fact, several regions close to special use airspace have high UFO sighting rates.

Popular Mechanics speculates that other areas, like tiny Westmoreland County, PA, have (proportionally) such a huge number of sightings due to local history. An alleged UFO crash happened in that region in the 1950s, and so locals may be more likely to report UFOs to authorities.

via Popular Mechanics

Design by the amazing Stephanie Fox.

What you're seeing here is just a chart of industrial robots, and how many there are per 10,000 human industrial workers. So this does not account for all the AIBOs, Roombas, and other kinds of robots you might have in your home. It also does not include robot hospital workers, which are quite common in Japan. So Japan's lead when it comes to total robots might be even greater than its already-impressive lead here.

IEEE's Erico Guizzo says, "By 2011, the world’s industrial robot population is expected to rise to 1.2 million." Holy crap.

SOURCE: IEEE Spectrum; Tokyo Mango

As I promised on Sunday, in response to the many people who were wondering just how Star Trek could meet X-Men without the world ending, here is the list - including explanations - behind the chart. Now you too will understand the beauty of Avengers Vs. Godzilla.

(And. yes, there are some that I missed unintentionally — Sorry, fans of Silver Surfer/Green Lantern, I knew about you and really didn't care that much — that should be retrofitted into the graph. I mean, man, I love Micronauts/X-Men, and I completely missed it. Maybe in the new year, we'll do an updated version - if Stephanie doesn't try and kill me for suggesting it.)

PLANET OF THE APES
Direct Crossover: Alien Nation (Met in Ape Nation comic)

ALIEN NATION
Direct Crossover: Planet of The Apes (Met in Ape Nation comic)

TRANSFORMERS
Direct Crossover: Spider-Man (Met in Transformers comic)
Direct Crossover: The Avengers (Met in New Avengers/Transformers comic)
Direct Crossover: GI Joe (Met numerous times in comics and cartoons, most notably here)
Direct Crossover: Death's Head (Met in UK Transformers comic)
Brand Crossover: Star Wars (Transformers: Crossovers line)

GI JOE
Direct Crossover: Transformers (Met numerous times in comics and cartoons)

STAR TREK
Direct Crossover: The X-Men (Met in Star Trek/X-Men comic)
Easter Egg: Cloverfield (Slusho)
Easter Egg: Heroes (Slusho)
Easter Egg: Alias (Slusho)

CLOVERFIELD
Easter Egg: Star Trek (Slusho)
Easter Egg: Heroes (Slusho)
Easter Egg: Alias (Slusho)
Easter Egg: Lost (DHARMA Initiative logo appears)

HEROES
Easter Egg: Cloverfield (Slusho)
Easter Egg: Star Trek (Slusho)
Easter Egg: Alias (Slusho)

LOST
Easter Egg: Marvel Universe (Find815 promotion in Marvel Comics)
Easter Egg: Fringe (Oceanic Airlines airline ticket found)
Easter Egg: Chuck (Oceanic Airlines appeared in one of Chuck's flashes)
Easter Egg: Alias (Oceanic Airlines announcement in airport)
Easter Egg: Pushing Daisies (Oceanic Airlines poster in a travel agency)
Easter Egg: Cloverfield (DHARMS Intitiative logo appears on video)
Easter Egg: Mission Impossible (Hanso Foundation thanked in credits for M:I3)

FRINGE
Easter Egg: Lost (Oceanie Airlines airline ticket appears)

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
Easter Egg: Lost (Hanso Foundation thanked in credits for M:I3)

THE MASK
Direct Crossover: Lobo (Met in Lobo/The Mask comic)
Direct Crossover: Marshal Law (Met in The Mask/Marshal Law comic)
Direct Crossover: Batman (Met in Joker/The Mask comic)

MARSHAL LAW
Direct Crossover: The Mask (Met in The Mask/Marshal Law comic)
Direct Crossover: Hellraiser (Met in Marshal Law Vs. Pinhead comic)
Direct Crossover: Savage Dragon (Met in Marshal Law/Savage Dragon comic)

HELLRAISER
Direct Crossover: Marshal Law (Met in Marshal Law/Savage Dragon comic)

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
Direct Crossover: Savage Dragon (Met in Savage Dragon comic)

SAVAGE DRAGON
Direct Crossover: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Met in Savage Dragon comic)
Direct Crossover: Mars Attacks! (Met in Mars Attacks Savage Dragon comic)
Direct Crossover: Marshal Law (Met in Marshal Law/Savage Dragon comic)
Direct Crossover: Superman (Met in Superman/Savage Dragon comic)
Direct Crossover: Hellboy (Met in Savage Dragon/Hellboy comic)

MARS ATTACKS!
Direct Crossover: Savage Dragon (Met in Mars Attacks Savage Dragon comic)

BATTLE OF THE PLANETS
Direct Crossover: Thundercats (Met in Thundercats/Battle of the Planets comic)
Direct Crossover: Witchblade (Met in Battle of the Planets/Witchblade comic)

THUNDERCATS
Direct Crossover: Battle of the Planets (Met in Thundercats/Battle of the Planets comic)
Direct Crossover: Superman (Met in Superman/Thundercats comic)

STAR WARS
Direct Crossover: The Muppet Show (Luke, C3-PO and R2-D2 appeared in character on The Muppet Show)
Easter Egg: ET The Extra Terrestrial (Appears in background of Episode 1)
Easter Egg: 2001 A Space Odyssey (SpacePod appears in Episode 1)
Easter Egg: Indiana Jones (Appears on stairs during podrace in Episode 1, and also this)
Brand Crossover: Transformers

ET THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
Easter Egg: Star Wars (Appears in background of Episode 1)

INDIANA JONES
Easter Egg: Star Wars (Appears on stairs during podrace in Episode 1)

DEATH'S HEAD
Direct Crossover: Doctor Who (Met in UK Doctor Who comic)
Direct Crossover: Transformers (Met in UK Transformers comic)
Direct Crossover: Fantastic Four (Met in Death's Head and Fantastic Four comic)

DOCTOR WHO
Direct Crossover: Death's Head (Met in UK Doctor Who comic)
Easter Egg: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (Doctor reads book by Oolong Caloophid)

HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
Easter Egg: Doctor Who (Doctor reads book by Oolong Caloophid)

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
Direct Crossover: Machine Man (Spun out of 2001 comic)
Easter Egg: Star Wars (Spacepod appears in Episode 1)

THE MUPPETS
Direct Crossover: Spider-Man (Appeared in episode of Muppet Babies)
Direct Crossover: Star Wars (Luke, C3-PO and R2-D2 appeared in character on Muppet Show)

MARVEL UNIVERSE
Easter Egg: Lost (Find815 promotion in Marvel Comics)

THE AVENGERS (MARVEL UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: Transformers (Met in New Avengers/Transformers comic)
Direct Crossover: Superman (Met in JLA/Avengers, DC/Marvel comics)
Direct Crossover: Batman (Met in JLA/Avengers, DC/Marvel comics)
Direct Crossover: WildCATS (Met in World War 3 comic)
Direct Crossover: Godzilla (Met in Godzilla comic)

THE FANTASTIC FOUR (MARVEL UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: WildCATS (Met in World War 3 comic)
Direct Crossover: Death's Head (Met in Death's Head and Fantastic Four comic)

MACHINE MAN (MARVEL UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Spun out of 2001 comic)

SPIDER-MAN (MARVEL UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: Transformers (Met in Transformers comic)
Direct Crossover: Red Sonja (Met in Marvel Team-Up)
Direct Crossover: The Cast of Saturday Night Live (Met in Marvel Team-Up)
Direct Crossover: The Muppets (Appeared in episode of Muppet Babies)
Direct Crossover: Godzilla (Met in Godzilla comic)
Direct Crossover: Superman (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Batman (Met numerous times in comics)

THE PUNISHER (MARVEL UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: Painkiller Jane (Met in Punisher/Painkiller Jane comic)
Direct Crossover: Batman (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Archie (Met in Archie Meets The Punisher comic)
Direct Crossover: Witchblade (Met in Witchblade/Punisher comic)
Direct Crossover: Hellboy (Met in Andy Warhol's Dracula by Kim Newman)
Direct Crossover: Scooby Doo (Met in Andy Warhol's Dracula by Kim Newman)

BLADE (MARVEL UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: Hellboy (Met in Andy Warhol's Dracula by Kim Newman)
Direct Crossover: Scooby Doo (Met in Andy Warhol's Dracula by Kim Newman)

THE X-MEN (MARVEL UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: Star Trek (Met in Star Trek/X-Men comic)
Direct Crossover: The New Teen Titans (Met in New Teen Titans/X-Men comic)
Direct Crossover: WildCATS (Met in WildCATS/X-Men comic)
Direct Crossover: Cyberforce (Met in X-Men/Cyberforce comic)

MARVEL ZOMBIES (MARVEL UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: Evil Dead/Army of Darkness (Met in Army of Darkness/Marvel Zombies comic)

THE TERMINATOR
Direct Crossover: Robocop (Met in Robocop/Terminator comic)
Direct Crossover: Painkiller Jane (Met in Terminator and Painkiller Jane comics)
Direct Crossover: Aliens (Met in Aliens Vs. Predator Vs. The Terminator comic)
Direct Crossover: Predator (Met in Aliens Vs. Predator Vs. The Terminator comic)
Direct Crossover: Superman (Met in Superman Vs. The Terminator comic)

ROBOCOP
Direct Crossover: The Terminator (Met in Robocop/Terminator)

PAINKILLER JANE
Direct Crossover: The Terminator (Met in Terminator and Painkiller Jane comics)
Direct Crossover: The Punisher (Met in Punisher/Painkiller Jane comic)
Direct Crossover: Hellboy (Met in Painkiller Jane/Hellboy comic)
Direct Crossover: Vampirella (Met in Vampirella/Painkiller Jane comic)
Direct Crossover: The Darkness (Met in Painkiller Jane Vs. The Darkness comic)

HELLBOY
Direct Crossover: Painkiller Jane (Met in Painkiller Jane/Hellboy comic)
Direct Crossover: Batman (Met in Batman/Hellboy/Starman comic)
Direct Crossover: Scooby Doo (Met in Andy Warhol's Dracula by Kim Newman)
Direct Crossover: The Punisher (Met in Andy Warhol's Dracula by Kim Newman)
Direct Crossover: Blade (Met in Andy Warhol's Dracula by Kim Newman)
Easter Egg: Sin City (Appears as hallucination in Sin City: Hell And Back comic)

TARZAN
Direct Crossover: Superman (Met in Superman/Tarzan comic)
Direct Crossover: Predator (Met in Tarzan Vs. Predator comic)
Direct Crossover: Batman (Met in Batman/Tarzan comic)

FIREFLY
Easter Egg: Battlestar Galactica (Serenity appears in background during BSG miniseries)
Easter Egg: Aliens (Aliens' Weyland-Yutani company produces Firefly background elements)

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
Easter Egg: Firefly (Serenity appears in background during BSG miniseries)

ALIENS
Direct Crossover: Predator (Met numerous times in comics, movies etc.)
Direct Crossover: The Terminator (Met in Aliens Vs. Predator Vs. Terminator comic)
Direct Crossover: Batman (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Superman (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Green Lantern (Met in Green Lantern Vs. Aliens comic)
Direct Crossover: Judge Dredd (Met in Judge Dredd Vs. Aliens comic)
Direct Crossover: WildCATS (Met in Aliens/WildCATS)
Easter Egg: Firefly (Aliens' Weyland-Yutani company produces Firefly props)

JUDGE DREDD
Direct Crossover: Batman (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Lobo (Met in Judge Dredd Vs. Lobo)
Direct Crossover: Predator (Met in Predator Vs. Judge Dredd)
Direct Crossover: Aliens (Met in Judge Dredd Vs. Aliens)

EVIL DEAD/ARMY OF DARKNESS
Direct Crossover: Nightmare on Elm Street (Met in Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash comic)
Direct Crossover: Friday the 13th (Met in Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash comic)
Direct Crossover: Xena: Warrior Princess (Met in Army of Darkness/Xena comic)
Direct Crossover: Marvel Zombies (Met in Army of Darkness/Marvel Zombies comic)

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
Direct Crossover: Friday the 13th (Met numerous times in comics, movies)
Direct Crossover: Evil Dead/Army of Darkness (Met in Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash comic)

FRIDAY THE 13TH
Direct Crossover: Nightmare on Elm Street (Met numerous times in comics, movies)
Direct Crossover: Evil Dead/Army of Darkness (Met in Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash comic)

XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS
Direct Crossover: Evil Dead/Army of Darkness (Met in Army of Darkness/Xena comic)

GODZILLA
Direct Crossover: The Avengers (Met in Godzilla comic)
Direct Crossover: Spider-Man (Met in Godzilla comic)
Direct Crossover: King Kong (Met in King Kong Vs. Godzilla movie)

KING KONG
Direct Crossover: Godzilla (Met in King Kong Vs. Godzilla movie)

SCOOBY DOO
Direct Crossover: Batman (Met in The New Scooby-Doo Movies)
Direct Crossover: Hellboy (Met in Andy Warhol's Dracula by Kim Newman)
Direct Crossover: The Punisher (Met in Andy Warhol's Dracula by Kim Newman)
Direct Crossover: Blade (Met in Andy Warhol's Dracula by Kim Newman)

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE
Direct Crossover: Superman (Met in DC Comics Presents comic)

SUPERMAN (DC UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: Masters of The Universe (Met in DC Comics Presents)
Direct Crossover: Savage Dragon (Met in Superman/Savage Dragon)
Direct Crossover: Thundercats (Met in Superman/Thundercats comic)
Direct Crossover: The Avengers (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Spider-Man (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: The Terminator (Met in Superman Vs. The Terminator comic)
Direct Crossover: Tarzan (Met in Superman/Tarzan comic)
Direct Crossover: Aliens (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Predator (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Witchblade (Met in JLA/Witchblade comic)
Direct Crossover: Looney Tunes (Met in Superman/Bugs Bunny comic)

BATMAN (DC UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: The Mask (Met in Joker/The Mask comic)
Direct Crossover: The Avengers (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Spider-Man (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: The Punisher (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Hellboy (Met in Batman/Hellboy/Starman comic)
Direct Crossover: The Darkness (Met in Darkness/Batman comic)
Direct Crossover: Tarzan (Met in Batman/Tarzan comic)
Direct Crossover: Aliens (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Predator (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Judge Dredd (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Scooby Doo (Met in the New Scooby-Doo Movies)

LOBO (DC UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: The Mask (Met in Lobo/The Mask comic)
Direct Crossover: Judge Dredd (Met in Judge Dredd Vs. Lobo comic)

GREEN LANTERN (DC UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: Looney Tunes (Met in Duck Dodgers cartoon)
Direct Crossover: Aliens (Met in Green Lantern Vs. Aliens comic)

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA (DC UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: The Avengers (Met in JLA/Avengers, DC/Marvel comics)
Direct Crossover: Witchblade (Met in JLA/Witchblade comic)
Direct Crossover: WildCATS (Met in JLA/WildCATS comic)
Direct Crossover: Cyberforce (Met in JLA/Cyberforce comic)

WILDCATS
Direct Crossover: The X-Men (Met in WildCATS/X-Men comic)
Direct Crossover: The Fantastic Four (Met in World War 3 comic)
Direct Crossover: The Avengers (Met in World War 3 comic)
Direct Crossover: Justice League of America (Met in JLA/WildCATS comic)

CYBERFORCE (IMAGE UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: Justice League of America (Met in JLA/Cyberforce comic)

THE DARKNESS (IMAGE UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: Painkiller Jane (Met in Painkiller Jane Vs. The Darkness comic)
Direct Crossover: Witchblade (Met numerous times in comics)
Direct Crossover: Aliens (Met in Witchblade/Aliens/The Darkness/Predator comic)
Direct Crossover: Predator (Met in Witchblade/Aliens/The Darkness/Predator comic)
Direct Crossover: Batman (Met in Darkness/Batman comic)

WITCHBLADE (IMAGE UNIVERSE)
Direct Crossover: Tomb Raider (Met in Tomb Raider/Witchblade)
Direct Crossover: Aliens (Met in Witchblade/Aliens/The Darkness/Predator comic)
Direct Crossover: Predator (Met in Witchblade/Aliens/The Darkness/Predator comic)
Direct Crossover: Justice League of America (Met in JLA/Witchblade comic)

LOONEY TUNES
Direct Crossover: Superman (Met in Superman/Bugs Bunny comic)
Direct Crossover: Green Lantern (Met in Duck Dodgers cartoon)

We've concentrated on three types of crossovers between series: Direct Crossover, where characters from one series or another have actually met in a story; Easter Egg, where elements of one series have appeared in another (often as geeky in-jokes), and Brand Crossover, where market forces have brought two disparate things together for no good reason (See Transformers/Star Wars). I'm sure that there are some that we've forgotten, but that's what the comments are for. For now, just enjoy the fact that Aliens theoretically can be said to exist in the same world as Battlestar Galactica... and get your fan-fiction typewriters revving.

(A pro-active word to the haters - No, this isn't an entirely comprehensive list; there are various crossovers that we've left off the list because we figured that no-one really cared about Warrior Nun Aurela or Cyberfrog anymore... and because we didn't want to give Stephanie any more reason to go blind in working out how to visualize all of this.)

The Center for American Progress created the map to provide scientific information on the dangers of global warming. Contributors suggest points on the map that, according to scientific research, have recently experienced or are predicted to experience increases in storm activity, flooding, heat waves, and fires due to global warming. The map also looks at endangered fisheries and possible threats to human health, such as increases in vector-borne diseases and algae blooms. Clicking on individual points on the map brings up a detailed prediction of the future weather patterns.

Most of the points currently on the map are focused on North America and Europe, but future contributions should offer a look at the possible consequences of climate change worldwide.

The Human Toll of Climate Change [Science Progress via bioephemera]

The WHO report updates information on the global burden of disease based on measurements from 2004 and projects how disease will affect the human population through 2030. Perhaps the most significant change it predicts is a global decline in deaths from communicable diseases. HIV/AIDS, the sixth leading cause of death in 2004 worldwide, is expected to peak around 2012 and drop to the number ten position by 2030. Other communicable diseases are expected to decline more quickly; tuberculosis, the seventh leading cause of death in 2004, is expected to plummet to number 23.

The sharp decline in communicable disease death will mean an increased aging population, especially in lower income countries, which means a greater proportion of the global population will die from diseases developed later in life, such as ischemic heart disease and cancers. But changes in global development and behaviors will also contribute to increases in certain causes of death. The WHO indicates that a global increase in tobacco smoking in middle- and low-income countries will bolster deaths from cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and some cancers. And increased transportation development and more crowded roads will help increase deaths from traffic accidents.

[WHO Burdens of Disease via Foreign Policy via Metafilter]

Above, you can see a nice introduction to so-called epigenetic ways your body passes information from cell to cell, or creates the proteins that make your body thrive. At one time, it was believed that each gene was a tidy strand of molecules in a row on you DNA, and that each gene created one kind of protein. Now it turns out the story is far more complicated.

Not only can a "gene" be located all over the place — part on one chromosome and part on another — but not all information is even carried in the DNA proper. Some is carried in proteins, and some in RNA, the molecules that move between DNA in the cell nucleus, and the cellular cytoplasm beyond. There is also DNA located outside your nucleus in your mitochondria, an energy-producing organelle, or mini-organ, in the cytoplasm.

If you want to understand the next wave of biotech that's going to be living in your body and medicines, check out this article. Zimmer has done a great job making the big concepts comprehensible without dumbing anything down.

Now: The Rest of the Genome [via NYT]

In this series of images taken from the "charts" section of the City of Work site, Lewy toys with imagery ideas borrowed from typical PowerPoint presentations about things like "leadership" and "success." Then he twists them until they tell a disturbing truth about a life devoted to productivity.

As the slideshow progresses, the charts become more weird. Is all of time collapsing? What do today and tomorrow even mean?

As silly as these diagrams are, they also have an air of sadness and desperation to them. A cloud of failure hangs between all beginnings and ends, and every arrow leads through that blob of failure.

Slowly, the charts themselves begin to lose shape entirely. I love this one, where the bar graph crumbles into an unreadable, incomprehensible haze where you can't tell the difference between enthusiasm and false enthusiasm.

At last, the charts become crazy, abstract shapes that suggest bar graphs or pie charts that have melted into some kind of PowerPoint twilight zone.

There's a lot more weirdness and social satire to enjoy on Lewy's City of Work site, including advertisements for fake TV shows and bizarre letters that Lewy has exchanged with the "Human Potential" division of the city. He's recently added a bunch of new stuff, and he continues to build out the site. For anybody who has had to sit through presentations on getting jazzed about cubicle drudgery, City of Work will feel uncomfortably and hilariously familiar.

City of Work [official site]
The 9 to 5 Artist [via Brainiac]

Mostly we've focused on movies from the U.S. and Europe, and we've included the living dead among zombies — so mummies are included, but vampires and ghosts aren't. Obviously as you look at this chart, you have to correct somewhat for the fact that more movies are being made as we get closer to the present, and (more importantly) there are better records of those movies with better tagging. So it's easier to research movies with zombies in them if you're looking at productions from the 1980s onward. In addition, there's been a huge boom in indie and low-budget horror movies over the past ten years, and that undoubtedly accounts somewhat for the giant spike you see during the last 8 years or so.

Still, even correcting for the fact that there are more movies being made today, you can see that there are distinctive spikes in zombie popularity - and they always seem to fall slightly after a huge political or social event has caused mass fear, chaos, or suffering. That's why World War II, Vietnam, and the current Iraq War are all followed by a zombie rush at theaters. Obviously, if you're going to look at these historical correlations, you have to consider that movies inspired by a real-life event aren't going to show up in theaters for at least six months to a year, so we've accounted for that.

You can see that most of these spikes in zombie popularity do seem weirdly close to periods of historical trauma like wars or the AIDS epidemic. Is there a causal connection, or is it just coincidence? You be the judge.

Chart by Stephanie Fox. Additional reporting by Katharine Duckett.

Appendix: Zombie movies we included in this study.

1910: 1
Frankenstein

1911: 1
The Mummy

1919
J’accuse!

1931: 1
Frankenstein

1932: 1
White Zombie

1933: 1
The Ghoul

1935: 2
The Lost City
Bride of Frankenstein

1936: 4
Revolt of the Zombies
Ouanga
Midnight Blunders
The Walking Dead

1938: 1
J’accuse! (Remake)

1939: 1
Son of Frankenstein

1940: 1
The Ghost Breakers

1941: 1
King of the Zombies

1942: 1
Bowery at Midnight

1943: 4
Dead Men Walk
I Walked With a Zombie
Revenge of the Zombies
Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man
The Mad Ghoul

1944: 1
Voodoo Man

1945: 1
Zombies on Broadway

1946: 1
Valley of the Zombies

1952: 1
Zombies of the Stratosphere

1953: 1
Scared Stiff

1955: 1
Creature with the Atom Bain

1957: 3
The Zombies of Mora Tau
Voodoo Island
The Unearthly

1958: 4
Womaneater
The Revenge of Frankenstein
The Brain Eaters
Misterios de la magia negra (Mysteries of Black Magic)

1959: 6
Invisible Invaders
Teenage Zombies
The Mummy
Plan 9 From Outer Space
The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake
Night of the Ghouls

1960: 1
Creature of the Walking Dead

1961: 3
Muñecos infernales (The Curse of the Doll People)
The Dead One
Dr. Blood’s Coffin

1962: 2
Carnival of Souls
Santo contra los zombies (Invasion of the Zombies)

1963: 1
They Saved Hitler’s Brain

1964: 7
Roma contro Roma (War of the Zombies)
The Curse of the Living Corpse
El Secreto del Dr. Orloff (The Secret of Dr. Orloff)
The Last Man on Earth
Monstrosity
Zombies
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Zombies
Der chef wünscht keine Zeugun (No Survivors, Please)

1965: 2
Earth Dies Screaming
Terrore nello spazio (Planet of the Vampires)
Cinque tombe per un medium (Terror Creatures from the Grave)

1966: 2
The Plague of the Zombies
The Death Curse of Tartu

1967: 2
They Came From Beyond Space
Dr. Terror’s Gallery of Horrors

1968: 6
Night of the Living Dead
Dr. Satán y la magia negra (Dr. Satan Versus Black Magic)
The Wild Wild West: Night of the Undead
Astro-Zombies
Blue Demon contra cerebros infernales (Blue Demon vs. El Crimen)
Autopsia de un fantasma (Autopsy of a Ghost)

1969: 2
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed

1970: 4
Night Slaves
Dream No Evil
El mundo de los muertes (Land of the Dead)
Santo el enmascarado de plata y Blue Demon contra los monstrous (Santo and Blue Demon Against the Monsters)

1971: 4
La muerte viviente (Island of the Snake People)
La noche del terror ciego (Tombs of the Blind Dead)
Escape
The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler

1972: 7
Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga (The Torture Chamber of Baron Blood)
L’Etrusco uccide ancora (The Dead Are Alive)
La Notte dei diavoli (Night of the Devils)
Blood of Ghastly Horror
Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things
Tales From the Crypt
(Las momias de Guanajuato) The Mummies of Guanajuato

1973: 15
El espanto surge de la tumba (Horror Rises From the Tomb)
La invasión de los muertos (Invasion of the Dead)
La orgía de los muertos (Beyond the Living Dead)
El ataque de los muertos sin ojos (Attack of the Blind Dead)
Christina, princesse de l'érotisme (A Virgin Among the Living Dead)
El castillo de las momias de Guanajuato (Castle of the Mummies of Guanajuato)
Horror Express
Dead People
La noche de los brujos (Night of the Sorcerors)
La rebelión de las muertas (Vengeance of the Zombies)
Psychomania
Flesh for Frankenstein
Santo contra la magia negra (Santo vs. Black Magic Woman)
House of the Living Dead
Vudú sangriento (Voodoo Black Exorcist)

1974: 13
Dead of Night (Deathdream)
Garden of the Dead
Corpse Eaters
House of Seven Corpses
House on Skull Mountain
Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires
Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti (Let Sleeping Corpses Lie)
Shanks
Sugar Hill
El buque mandito (Horror of the Zombies)
El pantano de los cuervos (Swamp of the Ravens)
Young Frankenstein
Kung bakit dugo ang kulay ng gabi (Night of the Zombies)

1975: 7
Macchie Solari (Autopsy)
The Dead Don’t Die
Frozen Scream
La noche de las gaviotas (Night of the Death Cult)
Lord Shango
Shivers
La Perversa caricia de Sátan (The Wicked Caresses of Satan)

1976: 1
Gou hun jiang tou (Black Magic II)

1977: 3
The Child
Shock Waves
La fille á la fourrure (The Porno Zombies)

1978: 4
Dawn of the Dead
Les raisins de la mort (Grapes of Death)
Salinnabileul ggotneun yeoja (Living Dead Girl)
Within the Woods

1979: 4
Zombi 2
Io Zombo, Tu Zombi, Lei Zomba (I Am a Zombie, You Are A Zombie, She Is A Zombie)
Phantasm
The Day It Came to Earth

1980: 10
Zombi Holocaust
John Carpenter’s The Fog
Alien Dead
The Children
Bloodeaters
Paura nella città dei morti viventi (City of the Living Dead)
Fiend
Virus
Incubo sulla città contaminata (City of the Walking Dead)
Más allá del terror (Further Than Fear)

1981: 13
Night of the Zombies
L’aldilá e tu vivtai nel terrore (The Beyond)
Heavy Metal
Quella villa accanto al cimitero (The House Outside the Cemetery)
Le notti del terrore (Burial Ground)
Dawn of the Mummy
Dead & Buried
Le Lac des morts vivant (Zombie Lake)
Frankenstein Island
L’abîme des morts vivants (Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies)
Kiss Daddy Goodbye
Evil Dead
Rosso Sangue (Absurd)

1982: 9
Aftermath
Creepshow
Raw Force
I was a Zombie for the F.B.I.
Wu long tian shi zhao ji gui (Kung Fu Zombie)
O segredo da Múmia (The Secret of the Mummy)
Pengabdi setan (Satan’s Slave)
The Curse of the Screaming Dead
Revenge in the House of Usher

1983: 5
Frightmare
Natas: The Reflection
One Dark Night
Sole Survivor
Zeder

1984: 6
Surf II
Night Shadows
Night of the Comet
Zombie Island Massacre
Frankenstein 90
Rocktober Blood

1985: 12
Hard Rock Zombies
Return of the Living Dead
Re-Animator
The Midnight Hour
The Dark Power
Attack of the Beast Creatures
Dead End
La mansión de los muertos vivantes (Mansion of the Living Dead)
Day of the Dead
Lifeforce
Warning Sign
Cementerio del terror (Zombie Apocalypse)

1986: 12
Zombie Brigade
Zombiethon
The Supernaturals
Loves of the Living Dead
Diamond Ninja Force
Deadly Friend
Nightmare Weekend
Goremet: Zombie Chef From Hell
Night of the Creeps
Raiders of the Living Dead
Zombie Nightmare
Abracadabra

1987: 14
Bad Taste
Evil Dead 2
I Was a Teenage Zombie
Dak Bangla
The Gate
Zombie 5: Killing Birds
Redneck Zombies
Killing Spree
La revanche des mortes vivantes (Revenge of the Living Dead Girls)
Zombie High
Video Dead
Zombie Vs. Ninja
Night of the Living Babes
Una notte al cimitero (Graveyard Disturbance)

1988: 11
The Serpent and the Rainbow
Return of the Living Dead Part II
Dead Heat
Waxwork
Phantasm II
Zombi 3
FleshEater
Zombie 4
Pet Semetary
Meng gui xue tang (The Haunted Cop Shop II)
Curse of the Blue Lights

1989: 17
The Laughing Dead
The Dead Next Door
The Vineyard
Curse of the Zombie
Beverly Hills Bodysnatchers
The Chilling
The Dead Pit
Blood Nasty
Zombie Rampage
Hellgate
Zombie Party
Working Stiffs
The Nutzoids at Cannibal Cove
From the Dead of Night
Ginseng King
Monster High
Night Life

1990: 5
Bride of Re-Animator
Night of the Living Dead
Voodoo Dawn
Demon Wind
Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout

1991: 9
Chopper Chicks in Zombietown
The Boneyard
Demoni 3
Nudist Colony of the Dead
Teenage Exorcist
Zombie ja Kummitusjuna (Zombie and the Ghost Train)
Zombie Army
Zombie Cop
Zombie ’90: Extreme Pestilence

1992: 11
Brain Dead
Batoru garu (Battle Girl)
Netherworld
Waxwork II
Zombie Rampage 3
Pet Semetary II
Death Becomes Her
Army of Darkness
Urban Scumbags vs. Countryside Zombies
Dead is Dead
Zombie Rampage 2

1993: 7
My Boyfriend’s Back
Return of the Living Dead 3
Zombie Bloodbath
Space Zombie Bingo!!!
The Killing Box
Zombie Genocide
Drag

1994: 7
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Shatter Dead
Shrunken Heads
Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead
Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics
Dellamore Dellamore
Gore Whore

1995: 6
La Cage aux Zombies
Legion of the Night
Zombi I
Zombie Bloodbath 2: Rage of the Undead
Voodoo
Zombie Holocaust

1996: 4
Living a Zombie Dream
Zombi vs. Mardi Gras
Avaruuden teurastajat (Space Butchers)
Frankenstein and Me

1997: 10
Plaga Zombie
Premutos: Lord of the Living Dead
Uncle Sam
The Necro Files
Night of the Living
Le Zombi de Cap-Rouge
Zombie Ninja Gangbusters
Striker Bob
Bryllupsnatten (The Wedding Night)
The Viscious Sweet

1998: 9
Bio Zombie
I, Zombie: A Chronicle of Pain
Zombie Cult Massacre
Laughing Dead
Tale of the Mummy
Into the Woods…
The Cabin
Hollywood Mortuary
Zombie Toxin

1999: 5
Hot Wax Zombies On Wheels
The Mummy
VS3: Infantry of Doom
Mutation
The Collegians Are Go!!

2000: 12
The Dead Hate the Living!
Flesh Freaks
Junk: Shiryô-gari
Meat Market
Prison of the Dead
Versus
Wild Zero
Zombie Bloodbath 3: Zombie Armageddon
Teenage Zombie House Massacre
Reign of the Dead
Heavy Metal 2000
The Horrible Dr. Bones

2001: 15
Cremains
Mulva: Zombie Ass-Kicker!
Biohazardous
Dead in America
Stacy
Meat Market 2
Zombie (zero)
Biker Zombies
Children of the Living Dead
Plaga Zombie: Zona Mutants
The Mummy Returns
Zombie Chronicles
Night of a Thousand Screams
R.I.P.
The Resurrection Game

2002: 9
Bubba Ho-Tep
Deadline
Cremaster 3
Mark of the Astro-Zombies
Necropolis Awakened
Resident Evil
Zombie Campout
Roni vs. Lincoln
Evil Night
28 Days Later…

2003: 22
House of the Dead
Beyond Re-Animator
Cadaver Bay
Flesh For the Beast
Maplewoods
Mummy’s Kiss
Xombie: Dead on Arrival
Undead
Graveyard
Corpses Are Forever
Noctem
Zombie Beach Party
I’ll See You in My Dreams
Gory Gory Hallelujah
Zombiegeddon
Night of A Thousand Screams 2
Necro Files 2
Zombie Night
Exhumed
Wiseguys vs. Zombies
The Mental Dead

2004: 29
Jigoku kôshien (Battlefield Baseball)
Dawn of the Dead
Dead and Breakfast
Shaun of the Dead
Choking Hazard
Les Revenants
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Vampires vs. Zombies
Beaster
Zombie Vegetarians
Dawn of the Friend
Corpses
Angry and Moist: An Undead Chronicle
Bad Friend
Bone Sickness
Curse of the Maya
Dead & Breakfast
Feeding the Masses
Ghost Lake
Hide and Creep
Hunting Creatures
Night of the Living Dorks
Rotten Shaolin Zombies
Khun krabii hiiroh (SARS Wars)
Shadows of the Dead
Shao Lin jiang shi (Shaolin Vs. Evil Dead)
Zombie Honeymoon
Zombie Nation
Zombie Planet

2005: 29
Day of the Dead 2: Contagium
Land of the Dead
The Wickeds
Zombiez
Boy Eats Girl
Bubba’s Chili Parlor
Day X
Dead at the Box Office
Dead Creek
Dead Life
Dead Men Walking
Die You Zombie Bastards!
Die Zombiejäger
Le divan vert
Doom
Hood of the Living Dead
House of the Dead 2
Livelihood
Living Dead Lock Up
Pot Zombies
Raiders of the Damned
Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis
Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave
Rise of the Undead
The Roost
Severed
The Stink of Flesh
Swamp Zombies
(Tôkyô zonbi) Tokyo Zombie

2006: 34
After Sundown
Awaken the Dead
Automaton Transfusion
Awakening
City of Rott
Dead & Deader
Dead in the Water
The Dead Live
Deadlands: The Rising
Die and Let Live
Doomed to Consume
Dorm of the Dead
Electric Zombies
Enter the Zombie
Fido
Gangs of the Dead
L’isola dei morti viventi (Island of the Living Dead)
Last Rites of the Dead
Meat Market 3
Mortuary
Night of the Dead: Leben Tod
Night of the Living Dead 3-D
The Plague
The Quick and the Undead
Shadow: Dead Riot
The Slaughter
Slither
Special Dead
Storm of the Dead
Stoned Dead
War of the Dead
Wicked Little Things
The Zombie Diaries
Zombies by Design

2007: 33
28 Weeks Later
American Zombie
Awaken the Dead
Beneath the Surface
Brain Blockers
Days of Darkness
Dead Heist
Dead Moon Rising
The Dead Undead
Evil Keg
Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane
Forest of the Dead
Forever Dead
Living Dead Lock Up 2: March of the Dead
The Mad
Motocross Zombies from Hell
Mutation-Annihilation
Otto; or Up With Dead People
Planet Terror
The Rage
REC
Resident Evil: Extinction
Risen
Street Team Massacre
Undead or Alive
Undead Ted
Wasting Away
Z: A Zombie Musical
Zibahkhana-Hell’s Ground
Zombie Farm
Zombie Town
Zombies Gone Wild
Zombi: La creazione (Zombies: The Beginning)

2008: 9
Quarantine
Day of the Dead
Diary of the Dead
Outpost
Sabbath
Retardead
House of the Damned
Zombie Strippers
Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!

One question remains. What caused the precipitous drop in his "good evening" right at the end of last year?

So we can be expecting naked Hodgman any day now. I, for one, welcome our naked Hodgman overlord. Also, I'm looking forward to his new book, More Information Than You Require.

John Hodgman, More Information than You Need [via BoingBoing]

The beauty part of the chart below is that if you go to C-SPAN's website it lays out each debate like this, and you can easily mouse through it and click through quickly to videos and transcripts backing up the chart's claims. I'm telling you, this is pure information crack.

Keywords in the Debate and Timeline [via Information Aesthetics]

We've labeled all the futuristic features of this home, and color-coded it so you can see which gadgets don't exist (red), sort of exist (yellow), and are in your kitchen right now (green). Below, you can see which movies each device came from, and a bar graph that measures how many greens the movie got vs. reds. We also included domestic vehicles like cars in our "home of the future."

The documentary New Horizons turned out to be most accurate — at least when it came to domestic improvements that are possible with modern technology. This reel commissioned by General Motors focused on realistic advances in the automotive industry, looking only 20 years ahead. After all, why overreach? Googie’s had yet to be built in its landmark style, and human spaceflight was but stardust in scientists’ eyes.

In all the flicks, two of the most accurately-predicted items were large screen TVs and videoconferencing. Wireless technology, implied often by The Jetsons, is now ubiquitous. Less popular devices available today include the Master Cook (in the form of kitchen computers), fins on cars, and thumbprint entry.

Though the Scene Screen doesn't exist as such, it gets a yellow because it could be created by the do-it-yourself crowd. Just set up a projector display for your window. And you can create a Garden Center by winching a hydroponics rig above your dining room table.

In the red zone are a lot of technologies we wish we had — or maybe not. You’ll have to wait for the three seashells, walk-in Orgasmatron, and gigantic fruit (though we’re already genetically modifying produce) — but anti-grav space boots probably aren’t on the way anytime soon.

Of course, what would a piece on everyday life in the future be without mention of the notorious flying car? The roadable aircraft in development today leave us with hope… as well as something to be desired. Even the promising Moller Skycar falls short, lacking the ability to be driven as an automobile.

The self-driving, self-repairing, foam spewing car technology of Demolition Man is also unavailable to today’s motorist. When compared to the domestic conveniences afforded to us now, this film’s gorgeously grandiose vision of modern LA was the least in tune view of the future reviewed (we’ve got at least a couple of decades before 2032 to fix that, but we’d better get cracking).

Personally, I’ll be happy with a simple populuxe revival.

The categories in the chart should be pretty self-explanatory. But here's some explanation anyway:

We love our heroes to be super rich, and to have an excuse for self-pity. If your fabulously wealthy parents got killed in front of you when you're a kid, so much the better. (Seriously, a tragic past seems to be a crucial ingredient for many escapist heroes, because it lets you project all your own real-life pain onto your hero, even as you're imagining rising about that pain and becoming a mega-adventurer. )

And it makes us happy when our heroes have two or more devoted acolytes/sidekicks, who follow almost without question, and awesome gadgets. Superhuman powers means what it says. "Gets laid" doesn't just mean your hero hooked up one time.

"Marked for greatness" requires slightly more explanation. If your hero is the subject of a prophecy (like Starbuck), or is "the One" like Neo, then he/she is marked for greatness. Captain Kirk wasn't marked for greatness on the original Star Trek TV show, but we have a strong suspicion that the new Trek movie, by revisiting his origins, will show that he was marked for great things from the beginning.

"Not tied down" doesn't just mean being single: it means that you get to roam around having adventures. And at the end of an adventure, you jump in your spaceship and zoom off to the next adventure somewhere else. Captain Kirk wasn't tied down, but Captain Sisko was.

"Becomes a god or king" means your character ends up with a lot of people looking up to him/her. The Hulk, for example, is destined either to become a ruler, the Maestro, or the last survivor of Earth. Captain Kirk becomes an admiral, but more importantly he becomes a legend in his own time. The Doctor becomes the last of the Time Lords, and gets called a god a lot. Neo turns into the blind buddha Jesus monster, or something.

There's actually a pretty good range here, with bots falling all across the grid. It's interesting to note that there appear to be more evil box-shaped robots, and there's a pretty good clustering of bots who seem to be good and humanoid-shaped. Notably, there are two completely neutral bots who are box-shaped, but no neutral humanoid bots. And most of the evil humanoids are women, except the Original Terminator. (All but one of the good humanoids are male, as are all but one of the good boxes.)

Here's a quick rundown of the bots we included:

C3P0: Not a mean circuit in his system. But that metal body makes him not super high on the humanoid scale.

Lt. Cmdr. Data: Mostly good, but with a few quirks. Green skin makes him off-human.

Robby the Robot: He lives to please everyone, C3P0 style. The tire-shaped body pushes him very close to box-land.

David: This kidbot from the movie A.I. is as humanoid as you can get, though his terrible treatment at the hands of humans makes him less than good.

Gort: Kinda human-shaped. Sorta good?

RoboCop: Built like a human tank, nearing box-shape. Hard to be totally good when you've been programmed by an evil, union-busting corporation.

Crow T. Robot: Too capricious to be super good, and too goofy-looking to qualify as humanoid.

7 of 9: Humanoid except for those implants (I mean the ones in her brain). Not exactly a nice bot, though not evil either.

Marvin the Paranoid Android: Nearly box-shaped, and too annoyed to be good.

Iron Giant: Super-mega-good. Too giant to be humanoid.

R2D2: Postbox shaped. 100% good.

Wall-E: A box, but with limbs that give him a slight humanoid feel. Basically a good creature, but with a disobedient streak.

HARLIE: This AI from David Gerrold's novel When HARLIE Was One is pretty much an AI in a box. But he's naughty and does drugs.

Krell technology: Basically brain in a box. Entirely neutral — only manifests the subconscious desires of other creatures.

Eve: A sleeker version of R2D2. Not evil, but only good once she's overcome her programming.

WOPR: The computer from Wargames is entirely neutral. And he lives in a box, except for those missiles he can launch.

HAL: Lives in a box with a glowing red eye. He's only evil because evil humans have given him contradictory programming. But he does kill people, which puts him over into the evil category.

Proteus: He lives in a box and rapes Julie Christie in Demon Seed. I call that evil.

MCP: The Master Control Program from Tron lives in a box, where he can take humanoid form. He's totally evil and wants to enslave every other program in the system.

Daleks: They look like trash cans and want to exterminate. Evil.

Skynet: Total evil, totally living in a box. Connection? You be the judge.

Buffybot: Buffy the Vampire Slayer's evil mecha-twin isn't totally evil — she was just programmed that way.

Cylons: The skinjobs look human, but they can get pretty evil. Not totally evil, but most of the way there.

Cybermen: Sort of humanoid, and perhaps a bit too dorky to be totally evil.

Ro-Man: The creature from Robot Monster wears a diving bell on his head and a gorilla suit. This cuts down on the humanoid factor.

Original Terminator: Mostly human except for that metal skeleton. Evil except when reprogrammed.

Futura: The evil bot from Metropolis will stop at nothing to carry out the mad doctor's evil plans.

Amazing image by Stephanie Fox. Awesome robot research by Nivair Gabriel.

NASA's list of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) currently numbers 959. That's 1,000 asteroids that astronomers pretty much know are going to get closer than 7.5 million kilomters to Earth, about 20 times the distance from here to the Moon. Five of those are expected to come between Earth and the Moon over the next century.

So we'll have a few close shaves but nothing to worry about, right? Not so fast. The total number of PHAs and comets astronomers think are out there is probably more like 20,000. That means we've mapped about 5% of the objects that stand a good chance of hitting us. So take the future part of this chart as a best-case scenario. The past five close encounters, however, show just how vulnerable we are:

1) The Comet of 1491. This one must've scared the hell out of some folks. At a little less than four times the distance to the moon, this was the closest pass ever recorded at the time, and no one knows for sure how big it was. Little did our ancestors know how much more interesting things would get.

2) Tunguska, 1908. One of the most famous Earth lcose calls of all time, it was also a pipsqueak. For a long time scientists believed a comet perhaps 60 meters in diameter exploded over Siberia with a force of as much at 30 megatons, or about 2,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, though nothing solid ever hit the planet. All those pictures of flattened forest certianly look impressive, but last year, scientists re-crunched the numbers and found that the comet oculd've been as small as 30 meters, and the blast just 5 megatons. In other words, much smaller objects can do way more damage than we ever thought before. Gulp.

3) The Great Daylight Fireball of 1972. The name says it all — it doesn't get much closer than this. Size estimates range from 3 to 14 meters in diameter, depending on whether it was ice or rock. Whatever it was, the object called US19720810 burned through the atmosphere from Utah to Canda for about a minute and a half. Luckily, the space rock struck a glancing blow — had it hit Earth directly, it could've blasted us with 1/2 a Hiroshima worth of energy.

4) 2004 FH and 2004 FU162. At 30 meters in diameter and made of solid rock, 2004 FH would be a thumper of Tunguska proportions if it ever hit home. In the right (or wrong) place, it could detroy a city. As it was, it passed 43,000 kilometers above Earth on on March 18, 2004.

Three weeks later, FU 162 came whizzing along. Astronomers basically discovered it at bascially the same time as the 6-meter in diameter rock soared just 6,400 kilometers above Earth's surface.

5) Comet Hyakutake. Now we're getting into civilization-threatening territory. At 2 kilometers in diameters, this comet only got within about 40 lunar distances to Earth in 1996. Compared ot our other close calls, that's pretty comfortable, but considr this: it was discovered less than two months before its closest pass. Had it been on a collision course with Earth there's almost nothing we could've done other than brace for the millions dead, massive climate disruption, crop failure, 500-foot high tsunami...you get the idea.

FUTURE:

6) 1999 AN10. In a little less than 20 years, our usually quiet Earth-Moon system is going to have a lot of visitors. In August 2027, AN 10 is going to get about one lunar distance from Earth, and we'll get a chance to see just how big this bad boy is. Estimates range from 1/2 to 2 kilometers in diameter, plenty large to leave a dent in humanity if it ever gets closer.

7) 2001 WN5. Just six months after AN10 comes a callin' WN5 will get even closer, just about splitting the difference between Earth and the Moon. At 700 meters in diamters, this asteroid has a got potential for major dmaage, but current odds of impact are rated a negligible.

8) 99942 Apophis. By far the most famous of the end-bringing objects we know about in our solar system, astronomers thought for a while that this 270 meter-wide rock had an almost 3% chance of hitting us. Since then, odds have been lowered to 1 in 43,000 that it could slam into Earth in 2029. But if it passes through a gravitaitonal keyhole — a tiny region in space that could tweak its orbit ever so slightly — an impact could still happen on April 13, 2036.

9) 2005 WY55. Just 200 meters wide, astronomers think this asteroid could still pack a wallop. Right now it's scheduled to get within about 75,000 km of Earth, but impact odds are big enough to kep in mind — currently they're rated at around 1 in 70,000. If our number comes up on that faeful dayin May 2065, look out — blast yield estimates from this rock range to 1100 megatons.

10) 2000 WO107. Depending on how well humanity holds up under climate change, bird flu, and all the other things that could potentially kill us off, we might be able to look up and see WO107 zoom by in December 2140. The 400 meter-wide rock isn't scheduled to hit us — it should get about half way between Earth and the Moon — but if calculations are off by even a little bit (and all of the future examples here have some uncertainty) we could care a lot.

Sources: NASA's Near Earth Object Program, Harvard List of PHAs

Additional research by Nivair H. Gabriel. Image by Stephanie Fox.