I don't know where you got the idea that the Green Revolution is still going strong. Those productivity gains were largely achieved in the 60s-80s, with diminishing marginal returns after that. (Add to that the fact that those GR crops required irrigation in places it hadn't been traditionally used, which led to soil…

Agreed. The premise sounds promising.

Boycott Discovery Channel.

Donate to PBS.

I agree with much of what you write, especially that this study simply documents a phenomenological correlation and doesn't support a particular construction of cause and effect. (Which isn't a criticism of the study, btw. It's significant.)

I haven't read the paper - only the abstract - but the problem in the discussion here seems to be over "cause" and "effect", which gets into the intractable mind-body problem that is a whole new and different can of worms. Rather than fixate on what-causes-what, a better way to think about this study is that there is…

"Competence porn"?!? I've never heard this term before, and hope it dies a quick death. It is a terrible way to characterize this trope.

I'm all for Skylon and hope they succeed, but there is a long way to go from a successful engine design test to an integrated system of systems, to an actual space plane. Even with the UK kicking in $90m, it's going to take a substantial bit more than that.

"Competence porn"?!? I've never heard this term before, and hope it dies a quick death. It is a terrible way to characterize this trope.

Although it's not overtly political, Blade Runner also works as a critique of Western capitalism in its dystopian vision of a polluted, corporate-dominated, cultural polyglot world. While it seemed far-fetched back in 1982, the "little people" - which include even expert technicians - are mere subcontractors to…

Glad to be of service!

That's a very good bet. The space station in Elysium looks like a classic toroidal space colony from this NASA Ames study, which is based on the work of Gerard O'Neill.

Given that these are constructed out of handwavium, don't hold your breath. But they are very cool to look at and be inspired by.

That video is produced by the Population Research Institute, which is driven by an extreme, Christianist, anti-family planning (read: anti-abortion) ideology. Suffice to say that their positions run contrary to scientific consensus.

In short, that video is debunked.

Speaking of calendars, has io9 considered doing a 2014 wall calendar?

"The others.... well they breath air on Red Planet, Armageddon has miniguns in space, Avatar was about blue Indians"

Well, that's kind of the point. Most - almost all, in fact - other movies about humans in space are rather unrealistic. While Europa Report is most definitely science fiction, it's a very plausible…

I didn't because, as I mentioned already, it sounds like you've already made up your mind and that's your business.

But if you insist. Just off the top of my head, just over the last 15 years: Moon, Solaris, Sunshine, Armageddon, Avatar, Mission to Mars, Red Planet have all tried to portray, at least…

Sounds like you've made up your mind based on the trailer. It's a free country.

Negativity much?

As I mentioned in another comment, the io9 presentation of this research is curious. It's not about an association between (high) temperatures and violence - it's about increasing temperatures brought about by climate change and how that is projected to increase levels of violence.

Why did you bury the lede? The paper is specifically about projected levels of increased violence associated with anthropogenic climate change.

From the abstract:

We find strong causal evidence linking climatic events to human conflict across a range of spatial and temporal scales and across all major regions of the…

Why does it have to be a choice between gritty/serious and light/family-friendly? Can SyFy not walk and chew gum at the same time?