How do you post to forums? Easy! Just visit the forum, and either respond to comments that are already there, or start a new thread by typing into the "share" box at the top of the page.

There are a couple of forums we've created for you to play around with. The first one, called Let's Go to the Movies, was my idea because I can never find people who want to go see horror movies with me. This is a forum just for finding local io9ers to come out to the movies with you. If you hop over to the forum, you can post about movies you want to see in your local area - and see if anybody else wants to come along!

Another pre-made forum is our Calendar forum, which you can post to right from the top of the front page. Post here about upcoming scifi and science-related events in your area that you think io9ers would like to know about. UFO festival? Horror movie retrospective? Science fiction convention or author reading? All of these are great things to post about.

Want to create forums? Here are some technical details.

First of all, you may have already figured out that forums are based on tags. So if you see a post that contains the tag #heroes, for example, there is already going to be a forum at www.io9.com/tag/heroes. You can go there, see posts related to that tag, and start chatting in the forum.

Starred commenters can also create forums. Say you want to start a forum related to a convention in your local area - let's call it GoofyCon. Go to www.io9.com/tag/goofycon. You'll see something that says "We can't find any comments with those tags." That means you're the first to comment. Make a post about GoofyCon in the "share" box, and it will appear on the page (you may have to hit reload). Now you've got a forum called #goofycon.

If you've got more questions about our comment system, you can always read our FAQ.

Let's start with the basic changes.

For one thing, all our tags look like Twitter-style #hashtags now. Why did we do this? Basically because hashtags are cool. If having no spaces between words was good enough for the Romans, it's good enough for you.

As you can see, we also have some new tabs at the top of the page. One says "science" and the other says "overmind." These are handy ways to access a slice of io9 content. If you want to see all our science coverage and nothing else, click "science." If you want to see all our reviews, commentary and rants, click "overmind." We post a lot every day, and these channels can help you filter out what you don't want to read.

Now let's get to the really cool stuff. There are now three ways to comment on io9.

1. Comment on the topics you want, when you want.

Now you can send us tips, comment on recent TV shows, and let everybody know about scifi or science calendar events by posting in the "share" box at the top of the page.

Here's how it works. Say you want to post about a scifi-related event in your area, but the io9 calendar has come and gone. Now you can post about an event to the io9 #calendar page. Just fill in the box where it says "begin communication" and add the hashtag #calendar. Now your comment will show up on io9.com/tag/cmt/calendar. Or you can just click the #calendar hashtag on the front page.

2. Forums!

You've been asking for commenter forums ever since io9 launched, and now you'll have them. Want to create a forum to discuss #lastnightsheroes? All you have to do is go up to that share box that we discussed earlier, type in a comment like "I can't believe they are doing the whole mutant lesbian sorority plot," and tag it with #lastnightsheroes. Magically, a forum will now be created at io9.com/tag/cmt/lastnightsheroes. And anybody can go there to add their comments too.

3. Screw this - I just want to do things the old way!

Feel free. Comments work exactly the way they did before. You don't have to add these pesky #hashtags that all the kids are using. Feel free to ignore everything we just told you and go on your merry way.

But wait there's more!

You can read our Comment FAQ for all the nitty gritty details.

We also have this handy "notification" bar at the top of the page now, which will let you know when people have replied to your comments.

You can send us bugs!

Let's try this whole forum thing, shall we? You can post bugs here. If there's a bug that prevents that from working, just mail bugs to tips@io9.com with the subject line "bug." Please send screenshots if you can.

Thanks!

Our hardworking production and tech folks at Gawker Media worked their asses off on two different continents to bring you this redesign. They are awesome, and we love them. Thanks, folks!

About herself Sarah Williams says:

At an early age I grokked how much cooler the X-men were then Barbie dolls. Screw The Dreamhouse, I thought, I want super powers. I'm a born and raised California native and have lived in and around the Bay Area for nearly a decade, going to all night diners, circus shows, opening night movies at the local speakeasy theater, and various geek gatherings. I am a Film school graduate, a art school drop out, and a start-up survivor. I am currently studying Creative Writing and Film Theory at Mills College. I like making out in planetariums. My favorite animals are Water Bears (Tardigrades). I have a geek crush on Nicola Tesla.I have an addiction to espresso-chocolate-guiness milkshakes. I'm literate in Cyberpunk and Steampunk, although primarily fluent in Goth. My sci-fi female role models are Zoe (Firefly) Molly Millions (Neuromancer), Faye Valentine(Cowboy Bebop),Dana Scully and Diana Prince.

Alexis Brown started her life dodging would-be Hollywood starlets in L.A. proper when she suddenly realized that the life of a box wine drinking hipster in Marin County might be the life for her. After a three-week, Two-buck-chuck bender, she awoke with a degree in Creative Writing from Dominican University of CA. Then, with a shrug, she opened another bottle, thought "two times the charm" and decided to pursue a Grad degree in the same thing. She is currently slaving away at publishing a YA sci-fi novel and learning how to cure the common hangover.


Stephen Goldmeier says about himself:

Way back in elementary school, my uncle showed me "The Empire Strikes Back." Since then, I've spent time immersed in the usual sci-fi varieties, from "Foundation" to "Firefly." My most recent addiction is to "Lost." I parlayed my fascination with sci-fi into an undergraduate degree from Otterbein College in chemistry and physics. I'm currently in law school at DePaul University, focusing on copyrights and cyberlaw. This summer, I'm also interning with a local intellectual property law firm. I spend a good portion of my time learning about anything I can and reading and writing about media, culture and technology. I spend the rest of it just generally wandering around slightly dazed.

Caitlin Petrakovitz says she is a 21-year-old San Diego State fangirl with a lot of experience voicing opinions and watching television. "Star Trek: TNG" and "Quantum Leap" were her favorite shows as a 9-year-old and she still firmly labels herself a Trekker. A love of all things scifi and tech-related has been reignited by the beauty of the J.J. Abrams gang's "Star Trek" and NBC's "Chuck." Her faith in humanity (and FOX execs) has grown with the renewal of "Dollhouse" and her love of "Fringe" is only slightly overshadowed by her love for former Bad Robot foray "Alias." She loves reading and long naps and dark chocolate and her favorite tv cop will always be Det. Bobby Goren.

CNN Can't Stop Pimping Its Election-Night Holographic Toy
Seven minutes before the polls closed, CNN decided to show off their new super power hologram technology just one more time, by "beaming in" Obama supporter and musician Wil.I.Am, Princess Leia-style, from his Chicago location.

Three Horror Movies That Even a Scientist Could Love
As a scientist I have mixed feelings about SF-oriented horror, which tends to show my lab coat-wearing brethren as myopic, obsessive, morally challenged individuals or as humorless skeptics. When Fringe needed a scientist for its team of white hats, the best they could come up with was a former, vaguely repentant mad scientist. Kind of unfair, considering how many plot ideas they've stolen from our journals. But there are a few bio-inspired scary movies out there that I would recommend.

Bender Fixes The Gas Crisis With His 20-Sided Die
The third Futurama straight-to-DVD movie is out, and it's throwing viewers right back into their parents' basements. Loaded with more references to Dungeons and Dragons than a Weezer song, Bender's Game follows the Planet Express crew as they deal with rising dark matter prices and old reliable villain Mom. After Bender goes mad from an overdose of D&D he sucks the rest of the cast into his fantasy world where Leela is a centaur, Bender is a Knight and Fry is Frydo.

Fallout 3 Gives You the Glamorous Apocalypse
It's nearly dusk as you approach the abandoned supermarket, crouching behind a burned out hover-bus. You nearly make a mad dash to the entrance, dreaming of the food and medical supplies you might find inside. Then you notice the mutilated corpse chained up above the door. Raiders!

Are We Feeling Dehumanized Yet?
Now that we're living in a technological wonderland, you're in constant danger of losing your humanity. It's just a fact — every scientific or medical advance makes us that little bit less human, and every time you play with your Google Android or eat another stem-cell sex donut, a few cells of your body transform into day-glo bubble wrap. Science fiction has been warning us for years! But how can you tell when you're no longer human? We're here to help

Simon Pegg Demands A Return To Traditional "Zombie Values"
Lovable Brit and part-time undead fighter Simon Pegg (Shaun of The Dead), knows a thing or two about whacking the crap out of some zombies. Which is why he is penning his own article, in the Guardian no less, about how he's sick to death of all these speedy zombies. After going to a zombie movie-fest Pegg lets out a little steam about his utter disappointment after watching Dead Set's undead sprinting around the screen, because "ZOMBIES DON'T RUN."

The Man Who Could Turn Anyone into a Torturer in Minutes
Using just the authority of his lab coat and actors paid to scream, Yale psychology researcher Stanley Milgram turned dozens of ordinary people into torturers and murderers. Or at least, that's what his research subjects believed. Now a new radio documentary (free online) takes you inside Milgram's torture chamber.

Batman RIP - Who Dies, And Whodunnit?
The final chapter of the controversial Batman RIP storyline hits comic stores this Wednesday - And if rumors are to believed, the biggest controversy may have been saved for last. But before we find out once and for all who's trying to make Bruce Wayne rest in peace, let's make like the world's greatest detective and look at what we've learned so far, and try and work out why everything may not be as it seems.

Let's Face It: "True Blood" Hates Gay People
It's pretty obvious that the vampires seeking "vampire rights" in Alan Ball's new HBO series True Blood are stand-ins for gay people. And yet this civil liberties fable about sexy creatures who kill and maim the innocent is practically an advertisement for social conservatism.

Has The Middleman Been Cancelled?
While talking to the mighty Hercules, Kevin Sorbo, about his upcoming Illuminatimovie and comic, we couldn't help asking if he'd ever make another guest appearance as frozen-in-time 1969 secret agent, Guy Goddard, on our favorite superhero comedy The Middleman. Sorbo dropped not one but two giant bombs about our beloved show: he'd been in talks for a Goddard spin-off at one point, and the Middleman may be no more. We went straight to the source, Executive Producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach to find out if Hercules' oracle spoke the truth.

10 Suckiest Video Games People Play In Science Fiction
Science fiction is all about advancing into a shinier future — so why are people always playing such crufty video games in scifi shows and movies? In the distant future, will we really be stuck playing bad 8-bit knockoffs, or trying to get a frisbee into a tentacle mouth over and over? Here's our list of the most embarrassing games people in scifi play.

Stephen Colbert’s DNA To Be Sent Into Space, Become Self-Aware
For those who can’t imagine a universe without Stephen Colbert, there’s good news. The satirist’s DNA is going to be preserved for future generations, and perhaps future civilizations. Video game designer and soon-to-be space tourist Richard Garriott is adding Colbert’s genetic code to the Immortality Drive, the digital time capsule Garriott plans to take to the International Space Station to serve as an “offsite backup” for the human race. And should an alien civilization happen upon the archive and decide to clone those inside, Lord British has lined up a few other humans to keep Colbert company.

Frank Miller Gives Batgirl Too Dirty A Mouth For DC Comics
Earlier this week, comic retailers were notified that all copies of All Star Batman And Robin that they receive in this week's shipments were to be destroyed instead of placed on sale. No futher explanation was forthcoming - until someone got a hold of a copy, and discovered that a problem with self-censorship had accidentally created a comic too dirty to be sold. But just how dirty can a Batman comic be?

Anyone Who Thinks the LHC Will Destroy the World is a T***
Particle physics professor Brian Cox of the University of Manchester has pretty much the final word on Large Hadron Collider fear-mongering with the above quote. What prompted such an outburst? Death threats against scientists working on the LHC. Perhaps an even better question - what does "t***" stand for?

That's Ms. Tron If You're Nasty
Janet Jackson came out workin' the Tron unitard hard at the launch of the "Rock Witchu" tour last night in Vancouver. She and the Tron Guy are like a match made in light-cycle heaven. She's trying for a futuristic space-opera look, but did she pull it off? Check out our full gallery of the 42-year-old queen of the Rhythm Nation shakin' across the stage, and decide for yourself.

Sarah Connor Rocks Your Head!
We've seen tonight's season premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and it's one of the strongest episodes of the show so far. It's full of explosions, Biblical references, weird messed-up moments, and Summer Glau and Shirley Manson doubling your psychotic fun. And the episode's last moment (which we won't reveal) is one of the funniest, freakiest events in Terminator history. Very minor spoilers ahead.

The Best Skin Melting Scenes From Scifi

Chances are that on Tuesday night, you settled onto your sofa and wondered, as you flipped on the television, just how J.J. Abrams would kick off his new series Fringe. Then, before you even made it to the opening credits, you watched a planeload of people dissolve into lumps of goo. It was bizarre, distressing, and may well have been the high point of the episode. In case Fringe failed to sate your appetite for disappearing flesh, we have plenty of gruesomely awesome skin-melting scenes to hold you until next week.

What Will Happen When the LHC Turns On? 10 Scifi Stories Have the Answer
Today the mad physicists over at Swiss lab CERN will turn on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and begin the physics experiments that might end the world. While some fringe scientists worry that the LHC will destroy the fabric of spacetime, the rest of us armchair physicists are on the edge of our seats waiting to see what the giant underground magnet will tell us about, well, the universe. Lucky for us, science fiction has already come up with an answer. We've come up with ten crazy scifi tales where physics experiments destroy the world.

"Karl Lagerfeld Is Not Actually A Ninja": The Future Of Magazines
Print magazines are becoming more luxurious on their way to obsolescence, says former Condé Nast editorial director James Truman. Speaking at the "Quickie" performance evening in San Francisco, Truman talked about why he left Condé Nast and what he's learned about the future of print publishing. Hint: It has to do with horses, star-gazing and Burning Man.

Fringe's ARG Upsets Nature, Messes With Your Mind
Despite what you may think, Fringe isn't just some silly little J.J. Abrams show on Fox about a Scooby Gang trying to uncover the secret behind a haunted alien spaceship. Not only do we have to deal with mind-bending scientific explanations for creepy out-of-this-world happenings in the show itself, but there is also an intricate Fringe ARG ready to mind wipe the sense right out of you. Case in point: On one Fringe viral site, the third dot on a sequence of a hidden braille pattern (which spells out the name of a town in Iowa) directs you to a site with videos of man-made tornadoes. Makes perfect sense, right? I journeyed down the rabbit hold of the Fringe ARG and attempted to "find the pattern and follow the clues." Be warned; some spoilers ahead.

Tokyo Zombie: Zombies, Cage Fights, Oral Sex, and Martial Arts
What if zombies took over Tokyo? How would a slow zombie fare in a cage fight against a martial arts expert? Has a zombie ever offered you a blowjob? These questions and more are answered in a funny, slightly X-rated Japanese comic book and movie called Tokyo Zombie. Created by Japanese cult manga master Yusaku Hanakuma, the tale gives us a glimpse into an unimaginably bizarre apocalypse. You'd think a series with such an off-the-wall plot would be cheesy or campy or both. But actually, Hanakuma is a skilled Gary Panter-meets-George Romero-meets-Ayn Rand social commentator who is about to bring a whole new genre of manga stateside. The English translation of the manga was published earlier this month, and the subtitled movie is slated for release in November. Here's a quick preview (and maybe some spoilers).

Best Future Dystopias Where The Liberals Have Won
While the Republican Party was gathering in St. Paul, to put forth its vision of the future. And over the past few days, there might have been talk of horrendous futures that could take shape if gormless liberals were allowed to run the show. Which makes us wonder: what does science fiction, the literature of the future, have to say about liberal-run dystopias? And it turns out, there are plenty of horrendous futures blighted by the heavy hands of our zinfandel-spitting liberal elites. Here are the scifi stories John McCain should mention in his acceptance speech.

What The Dark Knight's $500 Million Means
It's finally happened: The Dark Knight broke the $500 million barrier this weekend like a giant man in a well-armored, bat-themed outfit smashing through a skylight that just happens to be well-placed above a crime in progress. But what does that actually mean in the real world? We consider some possible implications.

A First Look At Dragonball's Live-Action Lord Piccolo
For months, Dragonball fans have worried over the live-action recreation of the demon Lord Piccolo. Will he be green? Will he be all CG? Will it look like a dude in a mask? Dragonball stills have leaked, answering all of your pressing Piccolo questions. And unfortunately, I'm left a little bewildered by the whole look. The man with the cheek bones of steel, James Marsters, layers on the prosthetics to create the character Piccolo and looks pretty bad ass for another world's demon, but there are still a few questions I'm going to need answered.

Cleavagefield Puts J.J. Abrams' Shaky Cam To Better Use
If there was one thing missing from J.J. Abrams' monster movie Cloverfield, I would have to say it was cleavage. Forget the amazing CG parasite tunnel bugs, the crumbling buildings and aerial shots of a monster destroying New York, director Jim Wynorski uses his shaky-cam to film a group of well-endowed ladies getting chased about by Clovey himself in the spoofy erotic remix of Cleavagefield.

Personally, I Preferred Airlock As A VP Choice
Yes, yes, we get it already: the Republican Prez/Veep ticket looks just like Colonel Tigh and President Roslin from Battlestar Galactica. In what is either a sign that BSG has achieved cultural critical mass or that at least one of the two Republican nominees to office is actually an alcoholic robot, the similarities between the two pairs seemed to be one of the most common commentaries about McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for Vice President yesterday. We trace the limited lifespan of this meme.

What's Missing From Edward Norton's Incredible Hulk?
It's official: there's no director's cut of The Incredible Hulk coming to DVD, at least not any time soon. Even though star and scriptwriter Ed Norton complained bitterly about all the vital material that was cut from the film, we're not getting to see the version he wanted us to watch. (Instead, there'll be 14 minutes of deleted scenes on the regular DVD, half an hour on the special edition, and 43 minutes on the Blu-Ray.) But just what was in Norton's Hulk-sized version that didn't make it into the theatrical release? We read Norton's script and found out.

Five Scifi Cycles To Adore
We've given it a lot of thought, and come up with the only possible explanation for why The Dark Knight was such a big hit: The Bat-Pod. From Easy Rider to Ghost Rider, theatergoers have been going wild about tight butts on hot hogs for years, and Batman's sweet ride is just the latest to make those cash registers sing. With that in mind, we'd like to suggest five more motorcycles that Hollywood should consider taking a(nother) look at.

Aaron Eckhart Spills Dark Knight 3 Details
Amidst wild rumors for Dark Knight 3's casting process (think Cher as Catwoman), actor Aaron "Two Face" Eckhart gave us some bat-closure on a few of the many bat-rumors. So are we going to see the former Gotham City DA's pretty deformed mug again? Dark Knight spoilers ahead.

Where Is My Cure for Cancer?
How about an article on the current cutting edge cancer research/treatments? Is there anything out there that is promising? Will there be a cure in our lifetimes? Our Biogeek answers your science questions.

Fall TV's Biggest Face-Offs
The biggest television battles this fall won't be between a girl robot and a guy robot over the future of humanity — instead, they'll be between competing TV shows, struggling for a crucial slice of your eyeballs. In some cases, shows are battling in the same time-slot for the all-important live viewing audience. In others, two way-too-similar shows are fighting to be the one that survives. And in one case, a show is fighting to improve over its own lackluster second season. Which shows will triumph, and which will fail? Our predictions below, with a few small spoilers

Why Not Let Robots Take The Strain?
If there's one thing that science fiction has taught us, it's that technology exists to create machines that will not only do our jobs for us, but do so with comfortingly human characteristics. We think that it's time to salute some of the brave fictional mechanoids that make future humanity much, much lazier.

Is the Earth Quarantined???
Why haven't we met aliens yet? And why aren't we sending rockets all over the solar system? There is only one plausible explanation. Earth is being quarantined! A combination of higher alien civilizations and our own Earth-based military forces are working together to keep the Earth contained and neutralized. The reasons why they would do this are obvious, but where is the evidence? We list the facts on Earth's isolation.

Because You Demanded It: The Villain Cage Match!
There are some differences of opinion that can only be settled with sweet, sweet violence. And surely one of them must be the eternal question: which science fictional villain is the most badass? After last week's poll about weak villains, you demanded a villain cage match — to the death — to help determine which science fictional baddie would rule supreme in infamy. And here it is!

Is SF Too Obsessed With Its History?
The problem with science fiction is that it cares too much about the past. Or, at least, that's the argument being put forward by SF writer Ian Sales, who's growing more and more concerned about the reverence that SF fans have for "classic" SF that's possibly past its sell-by date. Ready to see some of your favorite SF authors put in their place? Check it out, below

Fetish Comes Out Of The Superhero Closet
As anyone who's read the original Wonder Woman comics knows, superhero comics have a proud - or maybe that should be ashamed - history of bondage undertones, whether it's Wonder Woman's Suffering Sappho or Emma Frost's off-panel nighttime activities with the Hellfire Club. But the recent appearances of two new supervillainesses is making us wonder: Have superhero comics finally grown up and become openly bondage-friendly?

Meet Star Wars' Corpse Droid, Who Desecrates The Dead
Concept art for Star Wars' Force Unleashed video game reveals one messed up droid will would murder you for your body parts. We've got a collection of beautiful drawings of this mega-creepy robot, just don't turn your back on him.

Six Office Supply Fetishes of the Future
wenty-five years from now, your lust for office supplies will not have diminished. By then you'll be jonesing for the Macbook File Folder (pictured) and DNA-sequencing fountain pens. We've cranked up our brain implants to eleven and looked deep into the future to figure out which items will be must-haves in offices all over the world in the year 2033.

Kevin Spacey Joins Sam Rockwell in "Moon"
Sam Rockwell's lonely job as a space miner finally gets some robotic company, in the shape of Kevin Spacey. Rockwell, the star of new movie Choke, told io9 that Spacey will be lending his voice to the robot in Duncan Jones' new scifi picture Moon, and he spilled some more details about the space madness he faces during his long lunar sojourn.

In Recent Scifi, Intelligent Design Is Truth
A new crop of science fiction novels focus on what it would mean if Intelligent Design turned out to be the truth. Are these scifi authors carving out a pro-science version of Intelligent Design theory?

The Yellow Peril, Fu Manchu, and the Ethnic Future
Back in the 1920s and 30s, when Asian immigration to the US and Europe was picking up steam, prominent science fiction writers like Philip Nowlan and H.P. Lovecraft created speculative scenarios starring massive hordes of horrible, slanty-eyed, intelligent Asians who were either taking over or destroying the world. Yellow peril science fiction was never large enough to be a genre in and of itself, but I decided it was worth traveling back in time to revisit the trend in its historical context. To kick off this topic, let me introduce you to a character you may already know. Fu Manchu, the Chinese master criminal with the infamous long sinister mustache, was created by British author Sax Rohmer around 1912

Space Pirates And Sex Mechas: The Best Scifi Hentai Without Tentacles [NSFW]
This green-haired alien girl can rip your clothes off AND make you super-horny with just a strobe-flash of her eyes. Some people think science fiction hentai porn is all about tentacle monsters, but they're dead wrong. There are mad scientists who transform women into super-evolved sex-monsters, androids who need human sperm to upgrade their firmware, and women who ride naked on the shoulders of giant robots. Here's our complete guide to the worlds of science fiction hentai, with no tentacles. And yeah, it's not even remotely work-safe, unless you work on a sex-sphere.

5 Manga Movies We Want to See After Akira Blows Everyone's Mind
Just a temporal hop, skip and a jump away is 2009's live-action big screen version of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, but if the American adaptation of the manga/anime phenomenon that launched a thousand otaku is a smash success, what treasured classics of Japanese culture will Hollywood choose to to adapt next?

Dark Knight Inspires Copycat Crimes, Over-reactions
It's taken four weeks, but it's finally happened - Fans of The Dark Knight have started to take some of the Joker's methods into the real world, and are paying the price. But, considering what was actually done in the Joker's name, the price being paid may be far too high.

Why We Deserve Better Villains — And How To Get Them
Why are people still so crazed over Heath Ledger's Joker after a month in theaters? Maybe because he's the first villain we've seen in ages who didn't kind of lick. The problem of villain suckage is endemic in heroic narratives, where villains get redeemed, become sympathetic, or lose their menace too easily. We've got a 7-point diagnosis for villain anemia, plus a "unified theory" of how to make villains awesome, and why they matter.

Who Wants To Watch Three Hours Of Watchmen?
t's already calling itself the movie adaptation of "the most celebrated graphic novel of all time," but if a certain group of masochistic fans have their way, "visionary director" Zack Snyder's version of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' comic may also be the longest comic strip movie ever made - But is the general public ready for three hours of watching the Watchmen?

Darth Vader Slays The Wookiees In Force Unleashed Concept Art
A new behind-the-scenes book on the Force Unleashed video game is out today, and its pages are bursting with fantastic Star Wars concept art. The book, written by video-game writers W. Haden Blackman and Brett Rector, tells the story from the first concept still to the finished game. It also explains their original pitch to George Lucas (under the name The True Jedi Trials), the technology behind the video game and the saddest pictures of a half-naked Vader you've ever seen.

Texas House Sucked Into Wormhole
Last summer, a condemned house in Houston, Texas was sucked into a small wormhole, its wooden facade slowly slurped though another dimension and spit out into an alley behind the backyard. This bizarre mashup of real estate and theoretical physics was created by local artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck, who saw in the abandoned house an opportunity to remind people how fragile the fabric of spacetime really is.

Game Your Way into the Star Wars Expanded Universe with a New GuideA lot of Star Wars fans first discovered the expanded Star Wars universe via the Knights of the Old Republic video games. Now you too can create your own characters and experience the rich, exciting era that took place thousands of years before the saga of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide is a sourcebook for the current edition of the Star Wars role-playing game.

Death Race Is Car Porn For A Dystopian Internet Age
Death Race is full of awesome exploding car-fu, but it's in the service of a crash course (sorry) in dystopia for the Internet age. The race in question is a prison game which nobody can ever really win, webcast to millions of viewers who might as well be in prison. In fact, Death Race is a good object lesson in why subtlety is overrated. Even the fact that Jason Statham only has one facial expression helps keep the movie's bleak message alive.

What Are the Unlikeliest Futures for the Human Species?
There are certainly some futures far less likely than others. I can't prove a negative, but perhaps I can convince you that a few common science fiction or futurist tropes are, shall we say, favored poorly by probability.

The Rules of Quick and Dirty Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is the art of creating an alternate universe where the rules of present-day Earth life don't apply, and you have been appreciating that art for as long as you've been reading or watching science fiction. Some worldbuilding is epic in scale, and other worldbuilders work alone. But worldbuilding doesn't have to be something that just the pros do. You can get in on the cool create-your-own universe action any time you want, and fast. Just follow our five simple rules for whipping up a universe in your spare time.

The Worst Fake Accents From The Yanks (And Canucks) Of Science Fiction
A few weeks ago, we gave you the best and the worst of fake American accents from science fiction's army of Brits, who are slowly taking over the genre. But there's an even bigger problem out there: American and Canadian science fiction actors who mangle and mumble their way through a whole range of fake accents. Click through for our list of the ten biggest accent failures, with clips.

You Could Become Batman, Says Scientist
A Canadian scientist and lifelong Batman aficionado has examined the Dark Knight's skills and figured out how regular people could transform themselves into real-life Batmen and Batwomen in just 6 steps. Betting start training now.

Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves — The Ten Most Gruesome Scifi Death SportsMaybe the Olympic Games are all about fostering world peace and crap like that, but we know that sports of the future will be the stuff of bloody, oil-fueled nightmares. To celebrate all the sports that don't foster cross-cultural understanding, we bring you a list of the very best scifi death sports captured on film.

A Memory-Erasing Chemical That Can Change Your Behavior
Memory is one of the main reasons why drug addicts who have gone sober suddenly find themselves jumping off the wagon. Environmental cues like visiting a place where you were high can make you remember the drug and weaken your resistance to taking it again. But now researchers have discovered a way to selectively erase "drug-associated memories" and make it easier for you to just say no to the needle, pill, or pipe.

10 Comics Creators We Wish Would Make Movies Instead Of Frank Miller
We used to love Frank Miller, before his comics work turned into schlocky self-parody. But even in his prime, Frank wouldn't be our first choice to direct a semi-major Hollywood movie, so we're sad that Miller's getting his shot at the brass ring with The Spirit. We can think of ten comics creators off the top of our heads who would do a better job of helming a movie than Frank, and here they are.

Hey New Lara Croft, Are Those Guns For Real?
Say hello to our new Tomb Raider. Alison Carroll is a former gymnast from Croydon, which means this 23-year-old is a super bendy bad-ass. Click through for a whole mess of pictures of our new shorty-short hero kicking and punching and doing other video gamey things. Seeing pics of this lady kicking in her monster boots makes me wonder which video game vixen would win in a fight, Resident Evil Alice or Lara?

Coming Soon from China: Dystopic Futures, the Next Steve Jobs, and a World Full of Drumming Androids
The opening ceremony confirmed my theory that China is breeding robots. (We already know that the cute girl who performed the patriotic song was lip-syncing and that the fireworks shown on TV were fake. I'm pretty sure that the 2008 drummers who kicked off the five-hour technological spectacularity were androids, too.) But what else is up in the giant nation that many believe will be the next world superpower? I called some experts and came away with a list of five predictions for China's next half-century.

20 Things That Should Be Their Own Genres (But Aren't)
One of the great mysteries of the universe is why some types of story get to repeat, with endless variations, while others just don't. How is that space opera gets to be its own genre? Or the amnesiac detective story? Or time-travel romance? Who decides that these things are genres, but some other perfectly great story ideas are denied genre status? Here are 20 things we think are way overdue to become genres of their own

OMFG Bigfoot
They found Bigfoot! That's right, you heard me: Bigfoot. For all you disbelievers, they have a picture to prove it as well. No, that's not the remnants of a bear with a gorilla mask thrown on top, that's Bigfoot. Ok maybe, its not. But yuck what a mess.

How To Make Smallville Watchable Again
As the story of Clark Kent's awkward young adult years heads into its eight year as a television show, it's time to face an even more awkward truth: Smallville kind of sucks. For the last seven years, the show has had its moments of greatness (Yay, the very existence of Chloe!) and it's moments of... well, not so greatness (Hello, almost every subplot that ever involved Lana Lang). With the show's eighth season being its first without Lana and Lex as regular cast members as well as its first without show creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, we'd like to take the opportunity to suggest some other changes that could make the show worth tuning in to every week.

Move Over Montauk Monster: The Chupacabra Is Taking The Spotlight
One dead, washed up creature has nothing on this crazy hairless Texas monster. Cuero, Texas is a hot bed for Chupacabra action. One incredibly busy police officer managed to catch a supposed chupacabra on camera from his trusty cruiser camera. One big problem: the mutant chupacabra are notoriously nocturnal creatures. You be the judge.

Ten Reasons Why the Clone Wars TV Series is Going to Rule.
Of course you're nervous about the new Star Wars: Clone Wars movie, but have faith little padawan: it will exceed your expectations.
The Best And Worst Fake American Accents From Scifi's Army Of Brits.
We rank all the fake America accents in scifi land from top to bottom. Yep, Bionic Woman is included.

The Greatest Human-A.I. Buddy-Comedy Chemistry Of All Time. The best friendships between humans and artificial intelligences are like Crockett and Tubbs from Miami Vice.

A Glimpse Inside The Filming Of Battlestar's Final Episodes.
A "wrap video" showing the final days of filming of Battlestar Galactica has turned up online, and it gives a tantalizing glimpse inside the show's inner workings.

Why There Will Never Be Another Aliens.
Sorry friends it's not happening. But calm down, we'll talk you through it. Deep breaths.

U.S. Military To Be 30 Percent Robotic In Twelve Years.
The U.S. military is being taken over by robots. Meet our new robot overlords.

Yes, There Is Water on Mars — But You Can't Drink It
Though NASA has been reporting for years that there is water ice on Mars, and today the US space agency held a press conference to announce definitively that the Phoenix Lander has found traces of water ice on the red planet.

Lady Frankenstein As You've Always Wanted to See Her [NSFW].
Pierre Fournier has a terrifically weird blog devoted to one of the earliest science fiction tales ever written. It's called Frankensteinia, and it's not only educational but kind of pervvy.

Bob Eggleton: The Texture of Monsters.
A beautiful collection of Bob Eggleton monster work.

Spock Is Sexy? Illogical!
Everyone always thinks of James Tiberius Kirk as the resident ladykiller of the starship Enterprise, but has another member of Starfleet's most celebrated crew been hiding his pointy-eared light under a bushel?

Why Does My City Scream?
"My City Screams!" It could be a slogan for The Dark Knight. Or any of a host of other movies, TV shows or books. But it's actually the tagline for The Spirit, the new comic-book movie by noir master Frank Miller. We love to imagine cities as hazardous, smelly alien worlds, even as real-life U.S. cities are becoming safer and safer. Why is genre entertainment's portrayal of cities trapped in an era of tenements?

Why Does My City Scream?

How Will Smith Will Save Hollywood
With the continued, somewhat inexplicable, success of Hancock, it seems that the only constant in Hollywood math is "(Will Smith) + (4th of July Weekend) x (Genre Movie) = $$$." Bearing that in mind, we thought that it's be kind of us to demonstrate to some stalled SF movie projects just to how to use the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to get their movies up and running again.

I Love It When A Plan Totally Doesn't Come Together
It happens to the best dashing science fiction hero: You come up with a preternaturally clever plan to stop the bad guys, involving a totally cunning bit of MacGyvering or hustle... and it totally fails. It's what you do after your cunning plan fails that separates the good guys from the great guys. Here are our favorite failed plans.

Wall-E, Right Wing Hero?

You may have thought Pixar's trashbot epic Wall-E was an environmentalist screed about humans ruining the planet through over-consumption. But you'd be wrong, say a rising chorus of conservative commentators. Rather, Wall-E is a right-wing dream come true, a saga about the need to escape big government and return to small-town family values. Not only that, but some progressives are starting to attack the poor little guy for not being hardcore enough.

A Closer Look At Our New Robot Foes From Terminator 4
The future of the human race is looking pretty grim in John Connor's world — especially with all the new-fangled robots director McG is populating the post-Judgment Day world with. We took a closer look at the trailer for Terminator Salvation, and examined each of the new robotic enemies humanity will have to face.

An Anti-Stress Pill that Prevents Your Body from Aging
Stress runs down the body's immune system, which is why people with high-stress jobs or events in their lives are vulnerable to illness. Now a researcher at UCLA has discovered the link between emotional stress and physical damage — and she's going to develop a pill that will allow you to endure stress without the nasty side-effects. And there may also be one good side-effect: Extreme longevity.

Entertainment Industry: Please Stop Pandering To My Generation!
When did I first realize that Generation-X nostalgia was a driving the entertainment industry off a cliff? It turns out Sir John Gielgud is being dug up, resurrected and having frog DNA injected, so he can play Baron Silas Greenback in the new Danger Mouse movie. When will it stop?

How Over-Hyped Is The Dark Knight?
We've been as excited about The Dark Knight as just about anybody, but lately we've been starting to wonder: has the chorus of hype gone too far? With a few early reviews suggesting the movie has a slow first hour and falls apart slightly on the second viewing, could the most anticipated movie of the year really be just... pretty great? Or will it totally live up to all of our loftiest expectations?

You Fools! Why Are You Not Watching The Middleman?
Two or three years from now, you'll be thrusting the DVDs of trainee-superhero show The Middleman at your friends and telling them they must check out this awesome show. It has everything: wit, subversiveness, charm, audacious scifi concepts, and the perfect blend of the spy, superhero and X-Files-y genres. We compiled six reasons why you should be watching The Middleman.

Bruce Wayne's Backstory, Dateline-Style
Gotham Cable News brings us the full tabloid report on playboy Bruce Wayne. Taking a note from flashy entertainment news shows, this detailed report on the scion of the Wayne family catches us all the way up to the new penthouse digs of the billionaire. The piece is titled Billionaire Without A Cause: Bruce Wayne.

The Hulk Almost Trashed Times Square, Designer Tells io9
The designers of The Incredible Hulk spent six months before the movie started shooting, just coming up with cool visions of the Hulk and all the environments they could show him smashing. Along the way, they created some cool sequences that never made it to film, including the Hulk smashing Times Square and Thailand. We talked to Incredible Hulk production designer Kirk Petruccelli, and he explained the creative process behind the biggest street brawl in history.

Wanted Strips White-Collar Rage Bare
Wanted is one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen, but also one of the most beautifully filmed. And its scream of strangulated middle-class frustration will lodge in your mind afterwards.

Could You Shoot Bendy Bullets, Just Like in "Wanted"?
You may have thought that the all-seeing, future-predicting loom of life was the craziest thing about Wanted. As it turns out, however, Mark Millar and J.G. Jones's graphic-novel-turned-film has even more implausible scenarios to feed your fantasies. For example, there's the way Wesley (James McAvoy) can "bend" the trajectory of a bullet shot from his gun. Sounds unlikely, but could a bullet in real life actually be shot in a way that would make it curve through the air?

Militant Blondes Punish Bad Robot [NSFW]
Par Tingstrom's concept art shows that it's women, not the men who will defeat the Terminators in the not too distant future. Tingston who worked on character design in The Chronicles Of Riddick, Enemy Territory Quake Wars really has an eye for lifelike models.

Which Summer Movie Chick Could Carry Her Own Spinoff?
You might have noticed a distinct lack of female heroes at the movies this summer, Sex And The City aside. It's almost as if the studios decided women couldn't carry a big movie — but nah, I'm sure it's just a coincidence. Luckily, the summer's big movies have a wealth of female supporting leads, and almost any one of them could carry a movie of their own

Twelve Books You Should Read at the Beach This Summer
It's boiling hot up here in the Earth's northern hemisphere, so hopefully at some point you'll find yourself vacationing at a beach — or at least lounging near a large body of water. And when that happens, you'll need a really awesome scifi adventure to read while you sip a cold drink and pretend you never have to go back to your desk at the Ministry of Information.

Wouldn't You Prefer a Nice Game of Martian Chess?
If you ever find yourself hanging out a coffee shop with J'onn J'onzz or John Carter, you should know how to play Martian Chess. It's just similar enough to Earth Chess to drive you mad as you move your Queens, Drones and Pawns in an effort to claim the most points. We talk to creator of Martian chess and apparently the idea for Martian chess was inspired by Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.

"The Happening" Is the Biggest Intelligent Design Movie of the Year
M. Night Shyamalan's critically-panned flick The Happening is Hollywood's first blockbuster to promote the anti-evolutionary theory of intelligent design. Maybe you thought Ben Stein's ill-fated documentary Expelled was the only movie to argue in favor of the neo-Christian idea that an "intelligent designer" created the universe. Think again.

DC Comics Heading for Major Shake-Up?
For people who haven't been enjoying the adventures of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman or any other DC superheroes over the last few years, relief may be at hand. It looks as if DC Comics Executive Editor Dan DiDio is about to be removed rather soon.

Is It Logical For A Vulcan To Wear A See-Thru Top? (Maybe NSFW)
They're finally growing models in vats in England, judging from this picture from the Royal College of Art's Summer Fashion Show in London last week. It totally solves the "staying size zero" problem, but these new ultra-supermodels do have the occasional tendency to rip your head off and lay their eggs in your sternum.

Where's Starbuck?
The midseason finale of Battlestar Galactica left us all with a load of questions, like where is Starbuck standing in this photo? Click through to see some panoramic images of the episode's whole sweeping last scene, and take a guess where you think they may be.
The Hulks That Almost Were
Early concept art for The Incredible Hulk from character designer Aaron Sims helps to explain the Hulk's evolution. This more Frankenstein-esque version was part of Sims' attempt to add more humanity to the Hulk... before Sims went in the opposite direction and saw how crazy he could make the green berzerker.

Meet The New Science Heroes
With the anti-science Bush Administration finally groaning to a halt, we may finally be willing to admire scientists. There are three new TV shows with scientist heroes coming this fall, creating a genre that hardly existed until now.

Can a Video Game Teach Evolution?
Spore, a video game that challenges you to guide a single cell on the bottom of the evolutionary ladder out of the ocean and into civilization. It's not easy for a video game to teach the principles of evolution.

How Alternate Reality Helped Me Survive the Dentist
While Dr. Wong was putting dental dam in my mouth, I was watching three hot women singing the penis song in a Chinese restaurant downtown. It happened last Thursday, when I discovered a gadget that can warp my brain to a blissful alternate reality.