Category: News

Ticket sales are already off the charts for this weekend’s kick off of the summer movie blockbuster season. We all take our chances hoping for another Dark Knight and not another Spirit, but what about the creative people who roll the dice risking millions? Meet Michael Uslan who, for over three decades, has been the bridge between properties like Batman and the movie industry. Plus Mike Gold gets nostalgic for a good police riot and Marvel wants to swap comics with you!

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The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) announced the winners of their annual Nebula Awards tonight in Los Angeles, California. The ceremonies was toastmastered by Janis Ian— yes, that Janis Ian. Ian Randal Strock of SFScope stayed up extra late to cover the ceremony and post the results in real time, and we’re shamelessly cribbing from him here.

And the winners are:

Best Novel (presented by Joe Haldeman): Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt, September 2007)

Best Novella (presented by Mary Robinette Kowal): “The Spacetime Pool” by Catherine Asaro (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, March 2008)

Best Novelette (presented by David Gerrold): “Pride and Prometheus” by John Kessel (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 2008)

Best Short Story (presented by M.J. Engh): “Trophy Wives” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Fellowship Fantastic, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes, DAW Books, January 2008)

Best Script (presented by Wil Wheaton): WALL-E by Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon. Original story by Andrew Stanton & Pete Docter (Pixar, June 2008)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy (presented by Karen Anderson): Flora’s Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) by Ysabeau S. Wilce (Harcourt, September 2008)

Other, non-Nebula awards, previously announced but awarded tonight, include:

Grand Master: Harry Harrison

Author Emerita: M.J. Engh

SFWA Service Award: Victoria Strauss

Solstice Award: Algis J. Budrys, Martin H. Greenberg, and Kate Wilhelm

Bradbury Award: Joss Whedon (accepted by Jane Espenson)

Hey, wait, we have Joss’s acceptance speech right here! The wonders of the future…!

Scientists make super-strong metallic spider silk

LONDON (Reuters) – Spider silk isalready tougher and lighter than steel, and now scientists have made itthree times stronger by adding small amounts of metal.

The technique may be useful for manufacturing super-tough textiles andhigh-tech medical materials, including artificial bones and tendons.

“It could make very strong thread for surgical operations,” researcher Seung-Mo Lee of the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle, Germany, said in a telephone interview.

Lee and colleagues, who published their findings in the journalScience, found that adding zinc, titanium or aluminum to a length ofspider silk made it more resistant to breaking or deforming.

They used a process called atomic layer deposition,which not only coated spider dragline silks with metal but also causedsome metal ions to penetrate the fibers and react with their proteinstructure.

Lee said he next wanted to try adding other materials, including artificial polymers like Teflon.

The idea was inspired by studies showing traces of metals in thetoughest parts of some insect body parts. The jaws of leaf-cutter antsand locusts, for example, both contain high levels of zinc, making themparticularly stiff and hard.

Yeah, sure. We know where they really got inspired– Web of Spider-Man #100.

Dave Mack has been pushing this lately, and I can’t blame him: Want To Save Your Favorite TV Show? Stop watching it on television.

The number of viewers that is reported in the press—the 24.4 million people who watch American Idol, say—is extrapolated from the readings from those Nielsen boxes. The “save our show” campaigns are ill-advised because they fail to take into account this all-important gap between the sample size and the size of the sampled audience.The alternative is to drive people where they can actually be counted—and these days that’s online. The Internet offers metrics everywhere you turn. The networks can analyze the number of streams, number of ad impressions, number of page views, number of visits, number of visitors, number of comments, etc. It’s a democratic space where the eyes and participation of fans can actually be seen by the network bosses making the decisions. Unlike with analog TV, online fans can actually speak directly to power. So whether it’s through iTunes, Hulu, or one of the networks’ proprietary streams, the smart way to campaign for a show’s renewal is to stream it after the fact.

You hear that, Sarah Connor fans? Get clicking!

Of course, no one will ask what happens if you click on the viewer, and then go to work while it plays to an empty room. Because that would be wrong.

I’m not sure what’s harder to believe: that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have just hit their 25th anniversary, or that the Empire State Building will be lit up green tonight to honor that fact. But there it is. So take a look tonight as they light the Turtle-Signal. Or something.

Me, I’m going to break out my stash of TMNT Pudding Pies. You can’t tell if they’ve gone bad because the insides are already green.