If you'd told science fiction writers in the 1930s that food in the early 2000s would be all about heirloom vegetables, micronutrients and artisanal pickles, they'd have laughed you right out of the decade.
The Ultimate History of Cute Robots
Cute robots have been a fixture in the pop culture landscape, ever since C-3PO and R2D2 crashed on Tatooine in the original Star Wars — but there have been cute robots in pop culture for way longer. The history of cute robots is a proud and totally cuddly one, full of beeping, blooping noises.
Build Your Own Eco-Helper Bots from "Silent Running"
In the movie Silent Running, Bruce Dern plays a nice scientist who just wants to tend his garden — his gigantic garden that takes up a huge spaceship. In fact, he has four giant pods that contain the very last vestiges of Earth's four major types of ecosystem. Of course, Earth itself has been destroyed by pollution…
Share Your Sex Memories With All Your Coworkers
Whenever someone urges you to do something dumb in the name of science, it's always a good idea to stop and ponder. That's the important takeaway message in this clip from 1983's Brainstorm, the second movie from Silent Running director Douglas Trumbull. Scientists invent a new method for recording experiences,…
How To Improve Your Starship's Feng Shui
When you're cruising across the galaxy at faster-than-light speeds and battling super-intelligent crystaline beings, the slightest mistake can spell disaster. So it's vital to have good feng shui on your starship's bridge. Just look at this flight deck from the movie Red Planet: cramped, ugly and angular, with no way…
The Robots That Launched The Cute-Bot Revolution
Wall-E may be the cutest lil robot ever to hit our screens, but he's also the latest in a long line. It seems like wherever you go in scifi, you have to step over a cute chirpy little bot, who whistles, or tweets out a little catchphrase — including R2D2 from Star Wars, Twiki from Buck Rogers and K-9 from Doctor Who.…
