For stars at least, the answer is absorption spectroscopy. Different frequencies of light have different energies, and each element has particular frequencies of light it's particularly good at absorbing because the energy of the light matches the energy differences between different orbits of electrons (in quantum…

There's a good page on this issue here, discussing both the science and also the different types of fictional solutions put forth in space opera. In terms of what's currently known, probably the most plausible idea for getting around the light speed limit is traversable wormholes, which are theoretically allowed by…

Might be something where we're more likely to add the "an" for people we don't know very well and more likely to drop it when speaking in a more personal context...in your examples I might drop the "an", but "the author is an American" sounds more natural than "the author is American" to me. Even in the personal case,…

Jeez, I'm no string theorist but I know enough to see this is a pretty distorted (or ignorant) article—as an example, how can you discuss the problem of lack of background independence without acknowledging the string dualities which show that various string theories with different backgrounds (even different number…

It seems to be a really common notion that the ending was tacked on by Spielberg, but as this site discussing the development of A.I. shows, all the basic ideas were already present in the draft Kubrick was working with writers on:

I think that's the alien version of pareidolia. Ridley Scott has said pretty explicitly that we won't see the traditional xenomorph aliens in this movie.

The movie isn't a webseries, it'll be aired on the channel. But any potential follow-up to the movie would be a webseries.

Which pictures are you talking about when you say "these guys"? Aside from the one in the chair, none of these images seem to be of space jockeys or other humanoid aliens, I think they're all crew members (some after being mutated by an infection, perhaps).

No it's not, it's just a slightly modified version of the space jockey in the original Alien. What you're thinking is the "tail" of a facehugger is actually a sort of trunk-like feature you can see in the original, for instance. Also see H.R. Giger's original concept art for the space jockey in Alien here.

With today's technology, prosthetic's definitely are superior to organic counterparts.

I wouldn't say a prosthetic is "vastly superior" to the real thing unless it can do all the things the real one can—a prosthetic leg may allow you to run a bit faster but you won't get any tactile sensations (other than vibrations) from it, for instance, which would in turn affect its usefulness for some other…

It's debatable I think, if a movie's plot isn't mainly about setting up the events of another movie, then even if it does set up one or two elements of that movie I don't think it should necessarily be called a "prequel". For example, I wouldn't call Tolkien's Silmarillion a "Hobbit prequel".

Yeah, what MudkipXD said. Both Scott and Lindelof have explicitly said that the movie takes place in the same universe as Alien, by "not a prequel" I think Scott means that it isn't primarily about setting up the events or characters of Alien like you would expect a "prequel" to do.

Did some quick googling, it's possible either of these titles could have been inspired by Plutarch's description of Cleopatra: "It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another; so that there were few of the barbarian…

Lovecraft was more extreme that "many" but I think those many tended to be the more forward-thinking and liberal people of the day, his sorts of views were still quite mainstream at the time so I think the "he was reflecting the views of his time" argument does hold some sway (obviously it's not an either-or issue).…

The cat in Rats in the Walls is jarring, too bad since in all other respects it's probably the Lovecraft story I would be most inclined to recommend to a newbie (I kind of have a similar issue with the Doctor Who story "The Talons of Weng-Chiang"). It slightly helps to remember that 1) Lovecraft was using the name of…

It's impossible to go into the past without affecting it and thus changing your present.

I've always understood the ontological loop to specifically mean some kind of causal loop, where A in the future is the cause of B in the past, and B in the past is the cause of A in the future. If I just go into a time machine, have some adventures which have no significant causal influence on any of the events or…