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San Francisco, 2:43 PM
Fri Jan 1
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British UFOs Choose Their Times And Places With Great Care
Britain's National Archives disclosed every reported UFO sighting from 1959 through 1992. This chart shows the prevalence, by year, and the locations of the sightings in 1990-1992. Can you spot the pattern in this chart from the Guardian newspaper? More »When Sequels Took Over Science Fiction Books
If you feel like you've noticed more and more science fiction books labeled "Book Seventeen of the Outer Explosions saga," you're not imagining things. A plague of sequels has overtaken science fiction books, judging from a statistical study in StrangeHorizons. More »How Does Your Hero Measure Up On Our Wish-Fulfillment Checklist?
Where Do Scifi Fads In Mainstream Lit Come From?
Do Real-World Politics Affect Star Trek's Prime Directive?
Bad Movie Physics: A Report Card
The Science vs. Scientology Timeline
Why All Female Superheroes Look the Same
This chart compares the body mass index (BMI) of superheroes in Marvel comics with those of typical American women and men. Researchers Karen Healey and Terry Johnson used physical stats from Marvel's Web site to show that the vast majority of female superheroes are underweight, though the males are mostly normal. Just to remind you, in the BMI scale, below 18.5 is underweight, 18.5-24.9 is normal, and over 25 is overweight. Healey's analysis of what this means is hilarious and thought-provoking. More »When The Economy Booms, Dystopias Rule
Economists agree the U.S. is sliding into recession, and that can only mean one thing — fewer movies about oppressive systems that crush the souls of ordinary people. We charted the number of dystopian movies in the U.S. for each of the last 30 years, against economic downturns, and found that dystopian movies are counter-cyclical. That is, dystopian films do best when the economy is booming, and a fall in the number of dystopian movies may predict a recession. Click through more details, including a bigger version of the chart and a list of dystopian movies by year. More »The Rise And Fall Of Cyberpunk
New Proof That Every Scifi Epic Is Based On Joseph Campbell
Doctor Who: Revolutionary Or Tool Of The Man?