Trailer: Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium

The first trailer from District 9 director Neill Blomkamp’s new political sci fi thriller Elysium has been released. It takes us to the year 2154, where just two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth.

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Lunar Space Elevator Ideas Rising Again

  (Above  is the LiftPort Group’s basic model for its proposed Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure, also known as LSEI or “Elsie.” LiftPort says the system can be constructed within eight years using commercial technology.)   The space elevator concept has been touch and go — but this year, it looks as if the concept’s proponents are definitely […]

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The Future of Innovation: Can America Keep Pace?

“The first step to winning the future is encouraging American innovation.” That was Barack Obama in his State of the Union address last January, when he hit the theme repeatedly, using the word innovation or innovate 11 times. And on this issue, at least, Republicans seem in sync with Obama

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Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I used to tell my daughter stories about a family of mer-cats–kitties with fish tails–who lived in the East River and how they were persecuted by a mean purple octopus. I spent considerable time and effort coming up with nonviolent ways for the mer-cats to defeat the octopus at the end of each story

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An Eye for an Eye: Iran’s Blinding Justice System

Iran’s judiciary has postponed the blinding of a man as punishment for throwing acid in the face of a young woman in 2004, after she rejected his offer of marriage. The delay came in the face of mounting outcry both inside Iran and in the West over the sentencing, which is permissible under qesas, a principle of Islamic law allowing victims analogous retribution for violent crimes.

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A Spanish Island’s Quest to Be the Greenest Place on Earth

At the moment, the project that will transform the future of El Hierro doesn’t look like much more than a hole in the ground. Or two, to be exact: one on top of a mountain, another smaller one down below, and in between, a long stretch of pipeline tinted the same color as the scrub that grows so abundantly on this volcanic island.

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