Culture

A hypnagogic animation of mathematical imagery prompts thoughts of spinning fractal symmetries and the history of life on Earth. Video after the jump.

A giant aircraft, a wandering writer's enigmatic death, and a cyborg with can-do spirit�today's hits in the history of science and technology.

In astronomical imagery, false colors abound: ultraviolet, infrared, x-ray�and now, green and red checks.

Slavoj �i�ek says that Wikileaks is hated not because of the secrets it has revealed, but because it exposed the cynicism of a system that has long stopped believing in the values it imagines itself to uphold. It's a problem not only for diplomacy and governance, but for the eroding distinction between public and private life.

Visits to the Antarctic and the farthest reaches of the solar system: today's hits in science and technology.

G. K. Chesterton: "The simplest truth about man is that he is a very strange being; almost in the sense of being a stranger on the earth."

Even before the viewer catches a glimpse his first Mogwai, Joe Dante's Gremlins establishes the link between the titular goblins and malfunctioning technology by way of Randy Peltzer and his many incompetent inventions. It's a film very much of its time, with many fascinating things to say about the way Reagan-era Americans looked at technology. It's also a movie that would be impossible to remake today, for one big reason: the smartphone is our Bathroom Buddy.

The planned Cerro Chajnantor Atacama Telescope, which will sit high above Chile's Atacama Desert, bears an uncanny resemblance to the set of a certain classic scifi spoof. Video after the jump.

French-Canadian kids doing anthropology in the midst of our broken future, contending with the vague stirrings of paleotechnology. Video after the jump.

A sturdy air weapon of the Cold War, a not-so-sturdy rock legend's satellite star turn, and a landing in the outer solar system�today's hits in science and technology.