Color us a lot more excited about the "robot World War Z" movie , as Robopocalypse has not only picked up Cloverfield, Buffy and Lost screenwriter Drew Goddard to script, but may be about to lure Steven Spielberg as director. More

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

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 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

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...

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 ]

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 ...

There are people on a secret city on the moon, and they are from the future. Find out what the Church of Lunology doesn't want you to know. Plus, the video game Dead Rising gets a live action flick. Lunopolis The little faux-documentary Lunopolis , which received great reviews from the Boston scifi festival , blows the lid off the secret moon city Lunopolis. It's shot like a real documentary, History Channel style (None of this Blair Witch shaky cam nonsense), but it appears as if it starts to unravel in the end. Either way, you've got our attention Lunopolis , can't wait to see more. Dead Rising Dead Rising , the zombie slaying video game which is getting an Americanized version sometime this year, already has a live action film. Just like the game, it's about killing zombies. Sure it's set in a different reality where people have been separated by quarantine zones, but honestly, it's just about killing zombies. Get this: The film is only being released of Xbox LIVE. So ha, PS3. Check out the official site for more information. Devil's Playground Quiet Earth stumbled upon a few promo videos form the UK's Devil's Playground , which appears to be another rage virus film. And since we're sluts for plagues, bring it on. Synopsis: London: The not too distant future. Newgen Industries, a leading pharmaceutical company company, ...

Artist Antonello Silverini has posted a sprawling gallery of Phillip K. Dick book covers he designed for Italian publishing house Fanucci Editore. Silverini's gorgeously fractured collages truly convey the reality-altering aspects and transhumanism present in Dick's oeuvre. These covers - and many more - can be found at Silverini's blog . [via Tor ] "We Can Build You" "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?" "Maze of Death" "Eye in the Sky" "Clans of the Alphane Moon" "The Simulacra" "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said"

2010 sees the 75th anniversary of DC Comics, which launched in February 1935 with the first issue of New Fun . Since then, it's gone on to publish some of the greatest comics ever. Here're seventy-five you really should've read already. The Superman Chronicles Vol. 1 What is it? The first appearances of the world's first superhero. Why you should read it: When it comes to historical importance, the origins of an entire genre seems like a kind of big deal, especially when that genre goes on to take over popular culture in all its forms. The Batman Chronicles Vol. 1 What is it? The first appearances of DC's most popular character. Why you should read it: Because they're the first appearances of Batman. Weren't you paying attention to what I said above? Also: Hello, historical significance, not to mention the chance to see how the original version of the character differs from his current incarnation(s). All-Star Comics Archives Vol. 1 What is it? The first superhero team-ups ever published. Why you should read it: To get a good idea about what superhero comics of the period were like, to see the first super-team in action (Or, sitting around a table telling each other stories, as the case ...

You need to talk about science, comic books, and giant monsters. We understand. That's why we've got a commenter forum where you can talk about anything, any time. It's called Observation Deck, and you can go there right now. That's right - Observation Deck is here for you all day, every day, no matter how long it takes for your planet to rotate or revolve around its sun. We don't care if you're biological, technological, or geological - you're welcome to post. You know, as long as you obey these simple rules . You can reach observation deck by going here , posting in the comments of this post, or making a comment in any post and tagging it with #observationdeck . Yes, it's that easy. Image of Milliways by William Werk .

Breck Eisner, director of The Crazies , is currently heavily involved bringing a new, non-campy, 3-D Flash Gordon film to life. But how do you take the cheese out of Flash Gordon , with all its winged and furry-faced co-stars? Eisner explains. We've read a lot about your upcoming work, after The Crazies . We heard you might be the director for The Brood , and that you are involved with a new take on the Flash Gordon franchise. Which movie would come first? Well, The Brood , I was just approached about it. I haven't decided. I'm not sure if its one I want to take on. I love the original, and I'm not sure if it's a movie that I think is ready for a remake. I've been soul-searching and deciding if I want to do that. Flash Gordon is a project that I've been pursuing for years. I absolutely love that movie, and that strip. It's at Sony, we have the writers on, we've done one draft. I've been brainstorming with them over the past couple months, when I finished post [for The Crazies ]. They are busy writing right now, so we will have a script from that in short order, hopefully. It's a big, giant movie. And these things have a lot of different roads to go down before they get green light. Hopefully we'll get there, but it's always a long-shot, but it's one that I feel incredible passion for. In developing it, I've really gone back to the original Alex Raymond strips and pulled information from those. I read that you really want to strip Flash Gordon of its campiness, what would have to go in order to accomplish this? Yeah. Well inherently there are two key elements, I think, that removes the camp from the movie. When you re-read Raymond's strips, which were drawn from '32 to about the mid-40s you can't read them as a human being living in...