The latest Captain America casting saga continues. Turns out yesterday's sure thing, John Krasinski, is out, and has been replaced with the Human Torch himself, Chris Evans. More

The Shoot is Sony's first light gun shooter for the newly named PlayStation Move controller, an arcade-style sci-fi shoot 'em up with a twist, in that you have to twist. More

In a universe of supermassive stars and galactic cannibalism, what makes astronomers call a star system "extreme"? Megaspeed. A group at University of Warwick found two white dwarf stars revolving around each other in a blinding 5.4 minutes. You know what that means, don't you? For these two collapsed stars, a year is about five and a half minutes long. I have no idea what that does to the 5-hour workweek, but I think it might be bad. In a release about their discovery, we learn more about this EXTREME situation: The binary system consists of two white dwarfs. These are the burnt- out cinders of stars such as our Sun, and contain a highly condensed form of helium, carbon and oxygen. The two white dwarfs in HM Cancri are so close together that mass is flowing from one star to the other. HM Cancri was first noticed as an X-ray source in 1999 showing a 5.4 minutes periodicity but for a long time it has remained unclear whether this period also indicated the actual orbital period of the system. It was so short that astronomers were reluctant to accept the possibility without solid proof . . . Professor Tom Marsh from the University of Warwick said, "This is an intriguing system in a number of ways: it has an extremely short period; mass flows from one star and crashes down onto the

For years - no, decades - games on the Mac have been a running joke, a constant source of derision from the dominant PC gaming community. But in a single move earlier this week, the Mac made a comeback. In unveiling not only the release of its line-up of first-party titles - classic games like Portal, Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead - but of the company's Steam digital download service on the Mac, Valve has shown how antiquated and out of place its retail competitors on the PC (and even on consoles) have become in the digital age. I'm not talking about the range of games on offer. The Steam Store's debut on the Mac later this year will no doubt contain only a fraction of the hundreds of games available on its PC counterpart. Nor am I talking about performance; the PC will always have the edge there, its ability to constantly be upgraded piece-by-piece placing it at a distinct advantage over Apple's Macs, which come "as is", and are rarely optimised for bleeding edge gaming performance. No, I'm talking about convenience. About accessibility. The real big announcement in Valve's move isn't' the fact Steam will be available on the Mac. It's the way that availability will be linked with a Steam user's PC account, via the new "Steam Play" service. If you own a PC, and already have a Steam account, but also have a Mac - or work with a Mac, or have a Mac laptop - then you can bring any compatible games over. Bought Team Fortress 2 on PC? You can download it again on your Mac. For free . Same story if you own a Mac at home and work with a PC, or have a Mac desktop and a PC laptop. As someone who works on a PC but has a Macbook for road trips, this is amazing news. Especially since it kicks sand in the face of Microsoft's under-performing Games for Windows Live initiative, which also sells PC ...

For those who missed the Academy Awards, here's the list of the 2009 Oscars winners. In case you didn't see io9's Oscar coverage, check out our postmortem and the new Iron Man 2 preview that debuted after the show. Here are the winners. Science fiction winners are in bold. Motion Picture: The Hurt Locker Actor: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart Actress: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker Foreign Film: El Secreto de Sus Ojos , Argentina Adapted Screenplay: Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious: Based on the Novel `Push' by Sapphire Original Screenplay: Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker Animated Feature Film: Up Art Direction: Avatar Cinematography: Avatar Sound Mixing: The Hurt Locker Sound Editing: The Hurt Locker Original Score: Up , Michael Giacchino Original Song: "The Weary Kind (Theme From Crazy Heart)" from Crazy Heart , Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett Costume: The Young Victoria Documentary Feature: The Cove Documentary (short subject): Music by Prudence Film Editing: The Hurt Locker Makeup: Star Trek Animated Short Film: Logorama Live Action Short Film: The New Tenants Visual Effects: Avatar

The issue of Game Informer blowing the lid off Valve's Portal 2 is now in people's hands, and those people are scouring it for details. Most important of which is confirmation the game is going to be available on Mac. Not the world's greatest surprise, what with Valve's not-so-subtle teasing last week , but the thing with teasing - and not outright announcing - is that official confirmation still has to come somewhere down the line. And Game Informer's preview of the game looks to be just that. According to scans from the latest issue, in the details section of the mag's preview, Mac is clearly listed under the "platforms" section, alongside PC and Xbox 360. Should make airport lounge wait times on my Macbook a lot more enjoyable than they are at the moment. While you let this news soak in, why not read up on everything we know so far about Portal 2 . [thanks everyone who sent this in!]

Last night's episode of Caprica , "Know Thy Enemy," introduced us to two new characters, both of whom are pretty damn creepy. But neither could out-creep Zoe the cylon, whose character took a bizarre left turn that could mean almost anything. Meet the New Guys Earlier this season, Daniel Graystone made what promises to be the second-biggest mistake of his career (after creating the cylons) when he asked Joseph Adama to use his Ha'la'tha mob connections on Tauron to steal a prototype computer chip from rival Vergis Corporation. When Sam got the deed done for Joseph, two Vergis employees were killed. And unfortunately they were two guys who were like sons to Tomas Vergis, who invented the chip. Last night, Vergis announced on the Sarno talk show that he's decided to move to Caprica. Partly he's trying to restart his business after losing the chip to Graystone - but mostly he just wants to frak with Daniel. First by buying the pyramid team that Daniel owns, and then by "destroying your dreams," as he puts it during a little tete-a-tete with Daniel. If Vergis has concrete proof that Daniel and Joseph were involved in the deaths of his buddies, serious blood is going to be shed. It could even lead to a Ha'la'tha mob war. But currently it looks as if he merely suspects Daniel, and could care less if his allegations are true or not...

The Shop Contest, it's for breakfast now! Our call for entries for new game-themed cereals produced another raft of strong entries, including two from the same commenter, a first. Update: I apologize for the deleted comments in the original post. This was an erroneous double post and unfortunately the only one the system let me call back was the first one, which most people had commented in. Unfortunately I can't rescue or transfer those comments. Original post follows. Ordinarily I don't like to put more than one 'Shop from the same commenter in, but arrow_six's Bran Turismo was worthy. He later topped it with Elite Wheat Agents. I had to include both. arrow_six takes our (nonexistent) first prize for excellence. smash_bro really thought outside the cereal box with his GameStop advertisement of great deals on used cereals - using ones the community had created. But vernon_v's Kellogg's vs. Capcom is my personal favorite. More than that, it's a game that simply must happen. Again, here are your 20 best from last week. We'll have a new subject tomorrow. Adam Brunsdon ajnewman Alan SexPants Chen arrow_six arrow_six Burning gofunaki22 Gym Master Alex Kobun Madpotator mrjoeyyaya nasserkun Rear Admiral Meatwad sc4ld silferjam smash_bro Snufkin tzibo vernon_v zekeknight

Officially released details on Valve's sequel to Portal were scant. Fortunately, retailer GameStop comes through with some major details, including the addition of a two-player cooperative campaign mode and all-new characters. GameStop 's description of the PC and Xbox 360 game indicates that Portal 2 is due later this year—the online retailer lists an October 26 release date—bringing with a cast of "dynamic new characters" and "never-before-seen areas of the Aperture Science Labs." And yes, as hinted at earlier, players will be reunited with GLaDOS. The only details on Portal 2's multiplayer mode from GameStop are that it will feature its own unique story-driven campaign. The "new mode forces players to reconsider everything they thought they knew about portals," requiring players "to not just act cooperatively, but to think cooperatively." Here's the full product description. Coming this holiday. Portal 2 is the sequel to 2007's Game of the Year and draws from the award-winning formula of innovative game play, story, and music that earned the original over 70 industry accolades. Features single and multiplayer co-op modes. The single-player portion of Portal 2 introduces a cast of dynamic new characters, a host of fresh puzzle elements, and a much larger set of devious test chambers. Players will explore never-before-seen areas of the Aperture Science Labs and be reunited with GLaDOS, the occasionally murderous computer companion who guided them through the original game. The game's two-player cooperative mode features its own entirely separate

This summer's movie slate just got a lot more interesting: Warner Bros. is releasing Vincenzo Natali's Splice on June 4. We've been dying to see this gene-splicing horror for ages, since we saw the NSFW concept art . [ BoxOfficeMojo via Collider ]

To promote the upcoming cyber punk game Deus Ex, game Eidos Montreal posted an image of a lighter. Wow. That's so exciting! Eidos Montreal community guy Ren

Hundreds of thousands of patients depend on small devices called implantable cardio-defibrillators (ICD) to keep their hearts beating regularly. Now it seems that when surgeons test the devices to make sure they work, they have inadvertently been causing brain damage. In 2006 alone, the American Heart Association estimates that 114,000 people had surgery to install an ICD. During surgery, doctors test to be sure the device works by simulating irregular heart beats in the patient. If the ICD corrects the irregularity several times, they are satisfied that the device is working and close the patient up. Unfortunately, a study just published by the American Heart Association suggests that simulating those irregular heart beats lowers blood pressure in the brain and causes medium-term brain damage in patients. The American Heart Association issued a release on the study, and explained: After an ICD is inserted, doctors check its performance by medically causing repeated episodes of irregular heartbeat. The procedure, known as ventricular defibrillation testing, temporarily disrupts brain activity by causing a drop in blood pressure and blood flow to the brain, according to previous studies. However, the long-term thought-processing, or cognitive, effects of these disturbances were unclear. "What's surprising is that this minor procedure, which has very short periods of ventricular defibrillation induction, results in significant decline in multiple areas of cognitive function," said Claire N. Hallas, Ph.D., lead author. The Association explains: Compared with pre-surgery scores on thought-processing exams, more than one-third of study participants had significant cognitive problems six weeks and six and 12 months after ICD surgery. Attention, short-term memory of visual words and objects, and auditory (spoken) words were most commonly affected. Although most patients regained their normal abilities by 12 months after surgery, onset of cognitive problems varied between patients. A small group - 10 ...