Gearfuse Technology, Science, Culture & More

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.

GOOD's Nicola Twilley wonders how the industrial analysis of qualities like texture, consistency, and juiciness will transform age-old culinary cultures, in the second in a joint series exploring the science and technology of food.

Reviewing Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal's manifesto of gaming for a better world, Ian Bogost realizes that he likes the messy, repellent, stunning reality we've got.

3D printing and fab labs are cool, but what this guy can do with a bandsaw (and you cannot, so don't even try) is patently awesome. Video after the jump.

Bacteria-like microbes trapped in salt crystals in the ancient sediments of California's Saline Valley may have survived for tens of thousands of years.

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.