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An ancient human skull found in China shows evidence of blunt force trauma, meaning some other human probably hit him on the head. Considering how old the skull is, this might as well be considered the invention of violence. More »
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It's like the ocean has turned into something out a bad 50s biker movie - gangs of young bottlenose dolphins are roaming the seas, taking out their sexual frustrations by randomly killing any porpoises that get in their way. More »
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When groups of red wood ants interact and fight, the smaller groups fight harder and take more casualties. Ants are one of the few non-human animals that engages in close-contact group battles, and how they fight is directly linked to the makeup of that group. More »
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I love it when science explains why human beings are awful. A recent set of experiments proves the punishment you dole out to people is always worse than what they did to you. More »
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An alien drug-dealer is no match for Dolph Lundgren, in the climax of 1990's I Come In Peace. All the fancy weapons, like the razor frisbee and endorphin-draining harpoon, fail against Dolph's rubbery-faced kung-fu. More »
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When a bully picks on you, you might get consoled by grown-ups who say things about how he's just jealous or trying to get your attention. But now a group of psychiatry researchers at the University of Chicago have revealed the true reason behind bullying: That bully beats you up because he enjoys it. Healthy kids' brains (pictured) respond to other people's pain with sympathetic twinges in their own pain centers. But bullies who witness pain show activity in their brains' reward centers. More »
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There's been a huge spike in the production of zombie movies lately, and many of them seem to be inspired by war. Everything from 28 Days Later to Zombie Strippers make explicit reference to wartime, as did seminal 1968 zombie flick Night of the Living Dead. Is there really a connection between zombie movies and social unrest? We decided to do some research and find out. The result? We've got a line graph showing the number of zombie movies coming out in the West each year since 1910 — and there are definite spikes during certain years, which always seem to happen eerily close to historical events involving war or social upheaval. More »
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The new Russian trailer for June's super-assassin movie Wanted shows off a level of brain-splattering poetic violence that wouldn't be allowed in an American trailer. Just look at how much it fetishizes the bullet — it's like the bullet-time from The Matrix, except this time the bullet itself is the star. This version of the trailer also shows off more of James McAvoy's story arc, from office dweeb to fate's hand of death or something. Weirdly, it de-emphasizes Angelina Jolie in favor of exploding brains. And yes, it's in Russian. Sorry. [Slashfilm] More »
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That alcohol causes many deaths every year is a fact widely-accepted by scientists and the public. But now a new study conducted at the University of Toronto suggests that there is a direct relationship between amount of alcohol sold in a given region, and the amount of violence in that region — regardless of whether the people involved in the violence have been drinking. As you can see from this chart the researchers devised, your chances of being assaulted in a given area generally increase as booze purchased in the last 24 hours increases. More »
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Welcome back to Horrorhead, a column where we explore the intersection of horror and scifi. I wasn't born a horror movie fan, I made myself one through years of careful practice and studious watching. Everybody has an origin story, and mine begins with the pulsing, gooey strands of sludge that enveloped and destroyed every single point-of-view character in the 1970s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I was so young that I missed the political allegory about Nixon, and the joke about how Spock plays one of the pod people. I crunched down into the fake velvet movie theater seat, wondering if there was a way to worm out of the narrative but still make it through. My first discovery came then: If I plugged my ears, blocked out the heart-beating soundtrack, I could survive the alien invasion. More »
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