Science Fiction & Fantasy

One of the key features of science fiction is the speculation about the future of human technology and its relationship with our kind. Thus, keeping up-to-date with scientific advancements is an important activity for writers of the genre. In the laboratories of research institutes all around the world, true magic is being made right now, [...]

In 2015, the news briefly and erroneously lit up with the announcement that science had revealed that octopuses are actually aliens. The misunderstanding stemmed from a quote from Nature:

“It’s the first sequenced genome from something like an alien,” jokes neurobiologist Clifton Ragsdale of the University of Chicago in Illinois, who co-led the genetic analysis of [...]

The solar system is dying. It’s happening slowly, but inevitably. In approximately six billion years, the Sun will become a red giant: a bloated star burning up hydrogen in its outer shell. It will have engulfed Mercury and Venus and, possibly, Earth. While our beloved planet may survive the event, it would do so as [...]

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been as bad without all the buildup.
Episode after episode, Doctor Who regaled us with stories about Madame Vastra, a reptilian Silurian living in Victorian England, and her prodigious detective skills: The police always went to her with their difficult cases. She was the basis for all those stories about Sherlock Holmes.
And [...]

The idea that we may be living in a simulation is familiar to science fiction readers. Some fine films and many novels explore the theme. But though the idea may be old, one surprising new twist has arisen in recent years: many people now claim that we are likely living in a computer simulation. Such [...]

By the 1970s, no one believed in Communism anymore.
Not in the Soviet Bloc, at least. Least of all those running the system and particularly not the KGB and the State Security Apparat. Which didn’t stop the vast machinery of the Communist State from shuddering on, crushing those who dared to resist, while it slowly fell [...]

The universe around us echoes with the Great Silence. It seems oppressive to some, foreboding to others. We have not picked up any alien transmissions; seen any indications of interstellar travel or construction; met any other civilization. Yet even with propulsion systems based on known technological principles, it should be possible to colonize the whole [...]

A new technology could help save the lives of premature babies—and raises new questions about both age of viability and reproductive control.
It’s called the Biobag, an artificial womb designed by researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Essentially, the Biobag is a fluid-filled bag hooked up to wires and cords. Researchers maintain the bag at [...]

Invented languages spoken by races in imaginary worlds can add credibility to a story, making both the world and the characters feel more real. An author of a science fiction or fantasy novel involving different countries or planets may choose whether to make everybody speak the same language or try to create separate languages. As [...]

In 2001, Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry, a team of astronomers from John Hopkins University, discovered that the universe had a color.
This discovery was somewhat inadvertent. Glazebrook and Baldry had originally set out to study the history of star formation through the use of a major spectroscopic survey known as the “2dF Galaxy Redshift.” The [...]