Now that the first trailer for Iron Man 3 is out, we've all seen our first glimpse of the Mandarin, Tony Stark's biggest adversary in the comics. The Mandarin is sort of a Fu Manchu knock-off, who was described as a "racist caricature" by none other than Shane Black, the director of Iron Man 3. So even if Iron Man 3…

Is there such thing as a Caucasian, Asian, or African voice? And could you actually identify someone's race just by listening to him or her? Admittedly, the whole notion of race is nebulous to say the least — it's a concept that blends physiological and social differences indiscriminately. But there are still…

Recently, an article over at Salon tackled the portrayal of race in Game of Thrones and the racial legacy of J.R.R.Tolkien. Now, Tor.com's Mordicai Knode notes that another high-fantasy favorite, Dungeons & Dragons, has its own racial issue, namely Eurocentric homogeny. And it's time for that to change.

The Batmobile has gone through more than a few changes over the years, but which Batmobile is the best in terms of raw speed? The new web series Super Power Beat Down pits Adam West's TV Batmobile again Michael Keaton's 1989 movie car. So which one wins the race?

Toronto scholar Jessica Langer has just published a fascinating book called Postcolonialism and Science Fiction. In this excerpt from the book's introduction, she defines what that means, and explores some of the major themes in postcolonial SF. Langer currently works as an adjunct professor in the humanities, and has …

It turns out that something as simple as the clothes you wear can have a profound effect on how people see you, right down to what ethnicity you are. A newly published study chronicled an experiment where social scientists showed subjects pictures of faces that varied between different tones and ethnicities, either…

Scientists may go to great lengths to eliminate bias from their research, but a study published today in Science is raising troubling questions about the nature of racial bias in the Ph.D. grant review process.

Being in prison could save your life - depending on your racial background. A group of epidemiologists studying patterns of death among prisoners have discovered that black men in prison die at much lower rates than black men outside.

Whether it's an alien who might as well be called a "space Jew," or an evil Asian ripping the hearts out of innocent victims in an exotic ritual, racial and ethnic stereotypes in SF often reach facepalm levels of fail.

One of the big puzzles for education researchers is why students of comparable talents fall into a "racial achievement gap." On average, white students outperform black students when it comes to grades in college classes - even when the students are equally capable. Now psychologists have discovered a simple exercise…