Culture

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.

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.

French-Canadian kids doing anthropology in the midst of our broken future, contending with the vague stirrings of paleotechnology. Video after the jump.

A sturdy air weapon of the Cold War, a not-so-sturdy rock legend's satellite star turn, and a landing in the outer solar system�today's hits in science and technology.

Julian Dibbell says that while Second Life seems to have failed to live up to its early promise, it has helped further the baked in gamification of life online and off.

The head of the Philip K. Dick android, which went missing in 2006, has been rebuilt by Hanson Robotics. Who will help it come to grips with its strange and chequered past? Video after the jump.