Bridget

Valve has just revealed Source 2, a new, more powerful game engine, at Game Developers Conference 2015.

The Source 2 engine is a successor to the original Source engine, which debuted in June 2004 with the launch of Counter-Strike: Source. Games running off the original Source engine include Valve classics like Half-Life 2 and the Left 4 Dead series, as well as third-party and independent releases such as Garry's Mod, Dear Esther, The Stanley Parable and Titanfall.

"With Source 2, our focus is increasing creator productivity," said Jay Stelly of Valve in a press release today. "Given how important user generated content is becoming, Source 2 is designed not just for the professional developer, but enabling gamers themselves to...

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Left: Wild Woman Voodoo Granny Doily Chrocet (2007/2015). Right: 'Wanderlust' costume (2007)

All photos by Sam Clarke.

This morning, the Museum of Modern Art held a press preview for its blockbuster retrospective of Björk, a multimedia exhibition that includes more than 20 years of work from the artist's career. Featuring photography, music videos, costumes, theatrical performances, sound installations, and a site-specific film project called Blake Lake, we can't think of a more hotly anticipated opening or reason to be excited about Iceland.

The retrospective was brought to life through a close collaboration between Björk and Klaus Biesenbach, chief curator at large at MoMA and director of MoMA PS1. On top of exhibiting a melange of cultural ephemera that ties to the musician's entire discography—from 1993's Debut to this year's Vulnicura—visitors will be able to get a peak inside the mind of the iconic artist through journals, personal photos, and more. While VICE and its sister-sites will continue to cover this landmark MoMA event in the upcoming weeks, we wanted to make your mouths water with some sneak-peek photos from the press preview.

Björk is open to the public from March 8 through June 7. For more information, visit MoMA's website. The retrospective was made possible by a partnership with Volkswagen of America.

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"All Is Full of Love" robot, Chris Cunningham (1999)

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Crystal Mask, Val Garland (2013/2015)

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Left: Coat from "Jóga" music video (1997). Right: Model for 'Debut' (1993)

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Left: Notebooks from 'Homogenic' era (1997). Right: Airmail jacket, Hussein Chalayan (1994/2015)

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Bell dress from "Who Is It" music video, Alexander McQueen (2004)

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Left: Swan dress, Marjan Pejoski (2001). Right: "Pagan Poetry" dress, Alexander McQueen (2001)

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"All Is Full of Love" robot, Chris Cunningham (1999)

William Shatner was not the only mourner missing from the pews at his late “Star Trek” co-star Leonard Nimoy’s March 1 farewell. Never being ones to skip a party, Westboro Baptist Church couldn’t be more upset about getting cut from the list of attendees.

The services, kept private by family and loved ones, ducked under the hateful gaze of the church, and insured that the star was laid to rest with dignity, while forcing the WBC into a sullen bout of digital dust-kicking.

Leonard Nimoy’s funeral is today, but nobody is sharing WHERE. So Westboro AND @WilliamShatner can’t attend https://t.co/FBwkrfmEGM

— WBCVideo (@WBCVideo) March 1, 2015

The church has claimed this digital picketing only enhances their mission.

Shatner, who was aware of the location of the services, but presumably unaware of his assist in Westboro’s SEO ratings, was busy being dragged by The Daily News for missing the funeral, and initiated his own digital memorial via twitter.

[Jezebel | CNN]

Slog Out, is it weird that I, as a lifelong fan of all things Jim Henson and/or Muppets, somehow missed ever seeing, or even knowing about, Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas? The hour-long special, based on the children's book Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas (which I obviously haven't read), originally aired in 1977 on HBO, only once it seems, and then was rebroadcast on ABC in 1980 (Monday, December 15). In my defense, I didn't have HBO in 1977, and who knows what I was doing on a Monday in the run up to Christmas in 1980, so I kinda feel like the odds were against me at the time, but still I somehow I'd totally missed this, um, until this morning.

So I'm DECADES late to this, fine, but what I'm most bummed about was missing the stirring performance by the Nightmare aka the Riverbottom Nightmare Band. Considering the show was meant for children, I'm stoked the song really nails a ridiculous and sweaty Deep Purple-ish vibe.

I'm not surprised this song kinda rates because all the songs for this special were written by one of the (slightly creepy) grandmasters of the late '70s, Paul Williams. The musical performances are otherwise mostly rural-flecked vocal songs along with a couple jug-band-ish good timers. Funny thing tho' about the book's title, after the '60s I always equated "jug band" as slang for dirty amphetamine-addled hippies who had no idea how to play or were, in fact, the Holy Modal Rounders.

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Track: Consumite Furore | Album: Phantasmagoria Soundtrack | Artist: Mark Seibert

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Construction workers renovating a French supermarket in January were probably a little bit surprised (possibly pleasantly so?) when they dug into the store's foundation and found not gold or oil, but hundreds of neatly placed skeletons rotting away beneath the ground in a mass grave.

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If you want

pirumparum:

my first luna moth emerged yesterday. she is beautiful.

Aoshima, aka ‘Cat Island’

I have terrible, awful, allergies to a whole bunch of things, from dust mites to apples to chlorine. And my list is only dwarfed by the number treatments I've tried over the years. I load up on over-the-counter antihistamines like Zyrtec and Claritin and get shots once a week, but it's still not enough.

I'm far from alone — one in five Americans has some type of allergy. And there's still really no definitive way to stop them completely in most people.

The whole thing has always made me wonder — why are allergies so incredibly hard to treat? And why aren't there better options?

What your body is doing when you have an allergy

Your immune system is designed to protect your body against attacks from stuff like bacteria that could harm it, but in the case of allergies, your immune system's efforts are misguided. Cat hair, or dust, or whatever you're allergic to is a false alarm, but your body doesn't know any better and attacks it anyway.

"The body misinterprets the environmental or the food allergen as being harmful," says David Lewis, allergy and immunology researcher at Stanford.

One of the major players in allergies is a class of proteins that the immune system produces called immunoglobulin E, or IgE. transition

For example, dust is one of my worst allergies — I have dust mite-specific IgE. It travels through my blood and attaches itself to mast cells, a type of white blood cell that are most common in the nose, throat, skin, and gastrointestinal tract where they're in a good location to defend against invaders.

In normal immune system reactions, mast cells help to heal wounds and protect against disease. But in someone who's allergic, the allergen, which is contained in dust in my case, triggers the creation of allergen-specific IgE. The IgE attaches itself to mast cells and tells them to release the chemical histamine, which then causes allergic symptoms such as sneezing or hives.

If you had an actual infection, symptoms like this would be your body's way of fighting against it and telling you that something's actually wrong. But in this case, there's no helpful function to all of this. Your immune system is simply overreacting.

And what's even more annoying is that  once you have allergies, there's a good chance you're stuck with them. "The body's very good at holding onto immune responses," Lewis says. It's why vaccines work — because once your body knows to attack a substance, it will continue to do so. But it will also remember how to attack something it doesn't need to, like an allergen.

Variation in allergies makes it hard to find treatments that work for a lot of people

The once-a-week injections I get might be dangerous for someone with hypersensitive allergies. (Shutterstock)

"It’s really hard to come up with specific strategies to deal with allergies that apply to a large population, because there’s so much individual variation," Lewis says.

Right now, treatments for allergies include anti-histamines like Zyrtec, steroids that suppress inflammation, and immunotherapy like allergy shots that can build up someone's tolerance to an allergen.

There are also some fairly recent developments. For example, some people with food allergies can build up tolerance by taking a tiny amount of their allergen each day. And one drug on the market, an injectable medicine called Xolair, can prevent some IgE in the body from attaching to mast cells and basophil cells (but is only approved for allergy-caused asthma in children over 12 and adults).

The options are limited. One reason there aren't more is that the varying degrees of allergies makes finding treatments new difficult. For many people with mild allergies, an antihistamine like Zyrtec might do the trick. But there's a whole range out there. To be considered allergic to something, your IgE level targeting that allergen has to be at least 0.7 IU/ml of blood. My pesky dust allergy, last time it was measured, was nearly 4,000. So what works for someone with mild hay fever might not work for me, and what works for me definitely wouldn't work with someone with hypersensitive allergies and an IgE level in the tens of thousands.

Testing is tricky because lab mice don't develop allergies the same way humans do

Mice and other rodents that scientists research on don't develop allergies spontaneously like we do. (Shutterstock)

To develop a new treatment for allergies, scientists first have to test it. And to try it out in humans, they usually have to show its effectiveness in animals first.

But lab animals like mice and other rodents don't develop allergies spontaneously like humans do. Scientists can understand certain parts of the immune responses, like how allergy symptoms work, but those methods "leave a lot to be desired," Lewis says.

"That has definitely slowed down the field quite a bit," he says. So scientists can only study allergic reactions after inducing an allergy-like reaction in the mice. Researchers do this by repeatedly exposing mice to low levels of an allergen for up to three months. But the resulting response isn't really representative of allergies in people, which means that the drugs tested aren't guaranteed to work in people the same way they work in animals.

It's difficult to track allergies over a long-term period

It's costly and difficult to monitor allergies as they develop through childhood and adulthood. (Shutterstock)

It's important to look at how allergies evolve over time in one person, starting with when they're young and going on for years, Lewis says. That's because while allergies don't usually go away, they do wax and wane.

These types of longitudinal studies could clue researchers in on how best to intervene in an allergy's development. But parents aren't exactly excited about signing their kids up for such long studies, which are also expensive for scientists to perform, he says. And because of that, there isn't as much information available on the evolution of an allergy as researchers really would want.

We don't know exactly what's happening in an allergic reaction

If researchers could track the allergen-specific type of IgE a person has, they might be better able to treat symptoms effectively. (Shutterstock)

IgE antibodies are the key to allergies, but unfortunately for researchers and allergy sufferers alike, they're very challenging to track in the body.

Using a blood test, doctors can see what general type of IgE you have, but not exactly what exact subtype or what specific substances it's reacting to. So take cat hair, for example — my allergist knows from my blood test that I have cat-specific IgE, meaning my body reacts when I'm around a cat. But what my allergist doesn't know is exactly which particles in cat hair my body (and my IgE) is reacting to.

If researchers knew what specifically IgE was reacting with, they'd be better able to create individualized treatments that target that particular molecular interaction and stop allergic reactions from happening.

Right now, scientists use a flagging system to look at IgE. Say someone's allergic to peanuts — a scientist can make a peanut protein with a little fluorescent tag that makes it detectable in a scan. They can then use a technology called flow cytometry, which suspends cells from a blood sample in fluid and passes them over a machine that detects the tagged allergen that's attached to the connected IgE and mast cell.

Researchers use this method to see what allergens an IgE antibody is reacting with, but the technique is so involved that it's not practical for doctors to use every day with patients. Technology is improving to detect them, Lewis says, but he doesn't think it will become significantly easier any time soon. So until researchers can overcome the hurdles to treating allergies, it looks like we're doomed to carry on sniffling and sneezing.

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Psychics, like lots of other forms of paranormal and supernatural nonsense, have a strange foothold in Americana. Because Americans totally believe in magic, and angels, and aliens, and pretty much everything else. James Randi, the 86-year-old magician and skeptic, would change that if he could.

He's been shutting down quacks since the 70s, when bending spoons with your mind was fodder for Johnny Carson. Randi started by emulating Harry Houdini, who died two years before the Amazing Randi was born. But by 60, after sealing himself in a metal coffin in a swimming pool, beheading Alice Cooper every night on tour in 1974, appearing on Happy Days, and writing a bunch of books about magic and fraud, he switched his focus to busting faith healers, psychics, spiritual gurus, and anybody who publicly came out and said they had supernatural powers. He even offered a million actual dollars to "any person who demonstrates any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability under satisfactory observation."

This week, a biopic about Randi's life is being released, titled An Honest Liar, with Bill Nye, Adam Savage, Penn and Teller, and, hilariously, one of the disgraced psychics, Uri Geller.

When I spoke with Randi and his husband, Deyvi, over Skype, he had the energy of someone ready to jump up and start doing calisthenics, just to prove he could. He's quick-witted, self-deprecating, and funny. And so old.

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VICE: With all the bad people in the world, why devote your energy to psychics and fraudsters?
James Randi: Well, that's my expertise. I am a magician by trade. I should say, more correctly, I conjure. We magicians don't do magic. The word conjurer is much more accurate, which is somebody who gives the illusion of doing magic. So I am a conjurer by trade, have been since I can remember. I think there were a few days there at the beginning of my life when I wasn't one, but they don't count. So 86 years ago I started this business and the experience I gained since has given me, I think, a great deal of insight into how these so called psychics and paranormalists do their thing.

So what is it exactly about them sets you off?
I have sat with many people over all those years who've been absolutely hornswoggled, cheated, swindled, lied to, and taken advantage of by the so-called psychic. Because they are very personable, they are not familiar with the fact that they can be fooled like that and they are easily fooled by experts in the field. People like the late Sylvia Brown and John Edward.
Deyvi: Popoff.
Randi: My partner just said Popoff, who is Reverend Popoff, but it's exactly the same thing. A religious angle. They purport that they have direct contact with spirits and ghosts and such, and they can be believed by naive people.

Who do you think is the most dangerous fraudster out today?
Oh, that's very hard to say. It depends; they have different fields of activity. Popoff is back in business. I remember that when we exposed him on the Johnny Carson show, at the end of the program, when the audience was leaving, I was sitting at the table with Johnny, and his producer came over and looked at him and shook his head and said, "We're gonna get letters." John looked right up at him, and he said, "Yes, and you're gonna answer them." And the letters that came in were just from people saying, "Oh, you're all wrong, and this is a man of God." Of course these are the only people who continue to believe, because they find their illusions shattered and they can't quite make it out, even though the program explained the hearing device that he had and how he got the information from his wife. They don't listen to that. They don't want to know about. They'd rather have the wool up and ignore all the evidence.

Why do you think people are like that? Why are people so willing to believe a lie?
They need magic. That's why. They're taught from the very beginning, when they're taught about Santa Claus, and angels, and devils, and demons out of the earth and into the sky. They're told all this fanciful stuff as small children, and they get to believe that. And they want that to be theirs, that kind of magic to visit them. And they want to—pardon me [ noisily sneezes]. Ah yes, that shows my respect for them, so there.

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Your life is obviously, by its nature, entangled in fraud and deceit. What is your most prideful deceit?
That's hard to say. Well, the business that we carried on in Australia. We figured that the only way to prove to people that these folks were fakes was to create a fake, and that's exactly what Deyvi did. We [decided we] would expose the thing immediately after the program, as soon as we could. And we got a lot of very grateful people in Australia after that. We could hardly pay for taxi rides or for coffee.

What was that one? Did Deyvi pretend to be psychic?
Deyvi: No, no, a channel. The Carlos Story.

Oh you're talking about the Carlos Story. I just watched a screener of your movie last night.
Randi: The Carlos Story went down in history for a century. It was very well done. He had never done a thing like that before, but he watched the so-called channelers on video tape and he could pick up those gimmicks rather easily, and he just acted and did very well.

What is the closest thing to paranormal that you've come across?
Sophia Loren. I've never met the lady, but she has a summer home near here in Florida. And for someone to look that good at that age, that's almost supernatural. I may have to give her the prize, I'm not too sure. But no, just joking of course. But I must say it's very hard to give you a specific example of an actual individual or an individual circumstance.

I guess I'm just wondering if anything has caught your attention as something you know is fake but you can't figure out.
Oh, as a magician for 86 years, that's a long time to know about these things and develop your knowledge about it. None of this stuff fools me at all. The only thing that does fool me on occasion is when a master magician like a Lance Burton or Penn and Teller, some of these folks, pull a stunt that suddenly has me saying, "Hold on, I want to see that again." And usually when a magician sees a masterful thing done in the art, they can usually figure it out. But I had a couple of comeuppances like that. And Max Maven, the mentalist, he's done things in front of me that made me gulp a bit. But eventually it gets figured out.

What's the media's part in misinformation?
Well, the media is responsible for a great deal of misinformation because of the system it's based on. You have a newspaper, you have a television program, we go on at six o'clock, we gotta have some stories, get some stories together. And the newspaper is being printed and we need a headline. Anything that comes along that looks attractive, even if it's doubtful. That will go into print or get on the evening news so easily because they need something to scoop somebody else.

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Your movie's just coming out. What's the reaction so far?
We've traveled all over the world to publicize it, and in the Q&A that follows the film, the reaction has just been overwhelming. Well, the occasional person will stand up and walk out of the film because I've threatened their favorite religious belief, maybe, the occasional person. But very very seldom. We managed to get them and I get people coming to me, literally looking me straight in the eye, with tears coming down their face, saying, "You've made a big difference in my life, Mr. Randi." And you can't buy that. I've said this many times, to so many interviewers. It's true, though—you can't buy that. And I'm always grateful to hear it because I know that we have had an effect, and that's important for me to know and for us to realize that the work is worth doing.

Do you think that the general population's ability to spot bullshit is changing?
It depends on their education and their preparation in life. It really does. People who have a scientific background, you would think, would not be fooled by that sort of thing, but my experience has shown me, in cases like Uri Geller, for example, there were scientists that actually, and still to this day, believe that when he bends his spoons he does it with his mind. It's hard to believe, but remember, they would have to say, "I was absolutely wrong, and I spent twenty years of my life being wrong." That's difficult for someone to say, particularly in that profession, like science. I can understand their reluctance to do that.

Speaking of Uri Geller, have you ever had a personal, private contact with him?
Oh yes, several times. I simply told him I have nothing to say to him until he starts to be straight with the world and tell people what he's really all about. And he says, "Oh well, people know." No, they don't know, Mr. Geller, and you are giving the impression and you're saying it repeatedly, "I don't know how to do tricks. It's all real, you know?" That's a blatant lie. That's all there is to it.

Have you spoken to him recently?
Oh no, not for quite some time now.

I was curious, because I saw that they got him for the documentary.
They could hardly avoid it, you see. They asked, first of all, for him to be in the film, and his management said, "Oh we have to have a whole list of questions that will be asked in the order that they will be asked with the same wording and the whole thing." And they just said, "OK, well, then we don't need him," and they hung up. It wasn't more than a few minutes before the phone rang, and it was Mr. Geller saying, "Oh, I want to do this film!" The most dangerous place to be on earth at this moment is between Uri Geller and a TV camera. You can get run down so easily, and the velocity at which he travels is just breathtaking.

You mentioned your million-dollar prize. How many people have actually tried to win it?
Randi, to Deyvi: Do you know what the recent count is?
Deyvi: No. I don't. But there have been quite a few where the foundation agrees with the agreement to go ahead with the procedure.
Randi: Oh yes, we have to come to a mutual agreement with the claimant, and that's hard to arrive at in many cases. But once we go ahead with the test, everyone falls on their collective nose. They just can't do it. Many of them are honestly convinced that they have some sort of power. They're honestly puzzled that it didn't work.

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Do you think that you have a good sense of when someone genuinely believes that they have powers and when someone is just lying?
Oh yeah, I think I can pretty well tell. I think I can have a good notion of that, and most of them are not lying. They really believe they have these various psychic powers, but they don't test themselves properly. They're keeping all this information in their head and making up a score. They make up exceptions as they go along.

What does it take to fool people? How would I become a better liar?
I don't know. I don't know you that well. That would be almost criminal if I were to give you advice on that. But magicians use misdirection. They use language, and they use gestures and such. For example, if I'm on stage, and I look over to one side of stage, everybody in the audience looks over to that side of the stage too. And they do that because they think that I'm looking at something that they should know about. So it's very easy to misdirect people's attention with "What have I got here? You can see a simple little plastic box, right? This is for a memory chip of some kind. Now watch this, I'm going to cause it to vanish or go some place." This is just misdirecting your attention. I'm getting you to look some other place. [ laughs] That will be $25, please.

You've essentially devoted your life to this cause. What do you think when you look back?
I've had very few regrets—the skeptics, including myself, have accomplished a lot. Skepticism has really spread across the world. There are so many organizations that are devoted to skepticism, and I think that's a very healthy attitude. I'm not talking about—what's the opposite of skepticism?
Deyvi: Cynicism?
Randi: Yeah. You can't be cynical about these things, I'd say, because the world is full of all kinds of wonderful developments. Computers, for example, where would we be without them? Where would we be without the electronics that we're using right at this very moment, for example? Where are you located?

San Francisco.
We're looking at one another, and this is costing us zero. We're not paying for this. This is a free service.
Deyvi: Not quite. That's what they make you believe. [Laughs]
Randi: See? He's learning!

An Honest Liar premieres in theaters on March 6.

Follow Jules Suzdaltsev on Twitter.

First launched as a Kickstarter back in 2013, Dysonic's RondoMotion's 3D head-tracking technology is now being used to power trippy acoustic effects in Björk's MoMA retrospective. It's true 3D listening in your earbuds. That and also Björk.

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Charles Peterson is known for being one of the primary photographers on the forefront of the grunge music scene when it emerged from the Seattle underground during the 80s and 90s. He was able to capture images showing the movement from its inception through the days of bands such as Nirvana becoming huge commercial successes in the music industry.

Peterson became the unofficial photographer for the record label Sub Pop, which was started in 1986 and went on to become the first label for bands such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney. In an August 2008 interview with The Times, label co-founder Jonathan Poneman stated that everything just came together for the music and the photos:

It could have happened anywhere, but there was a lucky set of coincidences. Charles Peterson was here to document the scene, Jack Endino was here to record the scene. Bruce [Pavitt] and I were here to exploit the scene.

California-based apparel company Kr3w recently released this short but fascinating profile of Peterson and his work:

The company is partnering with Peterson to release his images on a new line of clothing. Here’s how Kr3w describes the photographer:

It was the late 80’s when a new sound started to emerge; 60’s garage and 70’s punk had awakened the gritty spirit of rock n’ roll and a rebellion was bubbling in underground Seattle. Kurt Cobain would become the unofficial spokesman for the movement, and of a generation, and Peterson would become its photographer.

“Amidst the chaos of a live show, I wanted to find that sense of grace,” says Peterson. “I wanted people to experience what it was like being there; the sweat, the noise, being pushed against each other.”

Here is a selection of Peterson’s work from the grunge era:

Peterson tells us that a retrospective of his music photos captured with the Leica M series will open at the Leica Store at the Bellevue Mall near Seattle, Washington on March 12th 6-8pm. It will be attended by Leica execs, Peterson, and the photographer’s family (including his two-year-old daughter Leica).

You can find more of Peterson’s photography over on his website. A collection has also been published as a book titled Touch Me I’m Sick.

Image credits: Photographs by Charles Peterson and used with permission

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Photos by the author

On Sunday, a homeless man known locally as "Africa" and "Cameroon" was shot and killed after a struggle with five LAPD officers that was caught on video. On Tuesday, protesters massed at the site of the shooting, the corner of Sixth and San Pedro, where a memorial made of silk flowers, notes, books, and other items had sprung up. The initial gathering was punctuated by a moment of silence, which preceded a march to LAPD headquarters just under a mile away.

During the march, protesters chanted the familiar, "Hands up, don't shoot!" and "Hey-hey, ho-ho, the killer cops have got to go!" along with brand new slogans like, "You can't kill Africa!" and "Five to one. You need a gun? Really?"

It's worth noting that the LA Times, citing two law enforcement sources, reported Tuesday that the victim was a 39-year-old French national named Charley Saturmin Robinet, who was convicted of bank robbery in 2000. If nothing else, the report complicates the narrative of a mentally ill indigent man being preyed upon by overzealous law enforcement.

Still, when protesters arrived at the LAPD HQ, speakers demanded the resignation of LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, and called upon District Attorney Jackie Lacey to charge the officers involved in the incident with murder.

Scroll down for photos from the protest.

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HBO Go is FINALLY coming to PS4 today, which is wonderful news for those of us sick of having to switch HDMI cables just to watch reruns of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

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Here are some of my top wine picks.

YES THIS

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I mean, yes, this is funny, but mostly I’m just struck by how AMAZING language and its capacity for evolution and elasticity is. This would be incomprehensible to an English-speaker living in any other time.

Kinda like how Old and Middle English are like “wtf even is? idklol” to us now.

You've thought about this for years and now it's finally happening: a zombie outbreak. Adrenaline rushes. Life flashes before your eyes. Why didn't you travel more, see the world? Your cat shrieks. What do you do? Where do you go? Science might have answers.

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In a SkyMovies interview released last week, Chappie director Neill Blomkamp hinted that his upcoming Alien movie might retcon the franchise, saying “I want this film to feel like it is literally the genetic sibling of Aliens. So it’s, Alien, Aliens, this movie.”

When asked to elaborate on how some of the less-reputable Alien films will influence the series as it moves forward, Blomkamp and Weaver took some time on the Chappie red carpet to talk about how their new project will fit in with previous installments:

So Blomkamp won’t be “undoing” Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection, but all signs do point to him bringing back at least one character from their untimely demise. At Pensacola Comic Con last weekend, Michael Biehn was allegedly asked by a Reddit user if he planned to join the Alien 5 cast, “to which he replied, ‘Looks like it!’ and smiled.”

That’s hardly an official confirmation, but considering Hicks also featured in Blomkamp’s incredible Alien concept art, I suspect more details on Biehn’s involvement are forthcoming (and hey, maybe we’ll hear something about a grown-up Newt as well!). What do you think of the way Alien 5 is panning out so far?

(via GeekTyrant and io9)

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In a recent interview with the Philadelphia Daily News, painter Nelson Shanks revealed that his rendering of Bill Clinton, currently hanging in the National Portrait Gallery, contains a reference to the "shadow" Monica Lewinsky cast over his presidency. Oh boy.

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The last four episodes of The Walking Dead have been the best since the series' inception. For too many episodes to count, fans were subjected to shoddy dialogue and shallow character development—even the dramatic twists, like the Governor's aquarium of heads or the Terminus cannibals, seemed like thin, broadstroke symbols meant to convey post-apocalyptic horror like a club to the head. They were the script equivalents of b-grade special effects make-up. We all kept with it because the zombies, and the killing, were so awesome. But somehow, midway through this season: The Walking Dead has gotten GREAT. Not just great for The Walking Dead, but actually excellent television on its own level. What the actual fuck?

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Onward, steed!

This happened and humans still think they are the only intelligent life form on earth…