In its slow ascent up Mount Sharp, NASA’s Curiosity Rover has stumbled upon a mystery fit for the robot’s name: silica. Lots and lots of silica. And the discovery may shape our understanding of the Red Planet’s geologic past, including whether life could have lived there.

Silicon is one of the most abundant elements on Earth, but we hadn’t detected high concentrations of silica minerals on Mars until seven months ago, when Curiosity approached “Marias Pass,” a contact zone between two Martian rock units located near the base of Mount Sharp. It was here that the rover’s laser-firing ChemCam instrument first ID’d sediments chock full of silica, with concentrations of up to 90 percent. The discovery was so surprising that Curiosity’s science team made the rare decision to turn the rover around and hunt for more.

After drilling a few holes and performing elemental and mineral measurements over a period of four months, Curiosity was able to confirm silica enrichment in several different locations. To Martian geologists, this is fascinating, because not only do silica hotspots hint at watery environments, they can tell us what those environments were like.

Route on lower Mount Sharp that Curiosity followed between April and November 2015, while investigating silica-rich rock targets, first in Maria Pass, and later in the Bridger Basin area. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

We already have plenty of evidence that ancient Mars was a water-filled place. Shortly after landing in Gale Crater, Curiosity itself uncovered a lake bed in Yellowknife Bay. As the autonomous Martian explorer travelled southwest toward Mount Sharp, we accumulated more and more evidence for ancient rivers and lakes elsewhere. All of this corroborates decades of evidence collected by prior Martian explorers, including Spirit and Opportunity.

But water alone doesn’t mean that the Red Planet was once habitable. Perhaps Mars’ lakes were far too acidic, salty, or otherwise toxic to support even the hardiest microbes. That’s why we need other lines of evidence, and silica hotspots are the most tantalizing new clue we’ve had in ages.

“These high-silica compositions are a puzzle,” said Albert Yen, a Curiosity science team member at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in a statement. “You can boost the concentration of silica either by leaching away other ingredients while leaving the silica behind, or by bringing in silica from somewhere else. Either of those processes involve water. If we can determine which happened, we’ll learn more about other conditions in those ancient wet environments.”

If the silica concentrations we’re seeing are the result of leaching processes, during which other minerals were dissolved away, that would suggest a highly acidic environment. Then again, if silica was added to the mineral mix post-facto, it could point toward less extreme conditions.

May 22nd, 2015 view from the Curiosity Rover’s Mastcam showing the Marias Pass, an area where a lower, older geologic mudstone unit makes contact with an overlying sandstone. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“If you want life, you want a more neutral pH environment, pH 7 or 8,” Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of the JPL explained in a press conference at the American Geophysical Union meeting today. “That’s the type of pH range you’d expect silica precipitation to occur.”

Another piece of the puzzle comes from tridymite, a rare silica-bearing mineral Curiosity detected in the Buckskin drill hole shown at the top. It’s the first time tridymite has ever been found on Mars, and, while the mineral is usually diagnostic of volcanic environments here on Earth, Buckskin is part of a fine-grained sediment deposit, perhaps an ancient lakebed. Whether that tridymite was eroded, transported and precipitated from somewhere else remains unclear.

“The puzzle that Mars has presented us is very complicated,” Yen said during the press conference. We’re trying to figure out where the high silica comes from and what implications it has for the aqueous history of Mars.”

As the Curiosity rover continues to crawl up Mount Sharp and through geologic time, scientists are exploring different hypotheses for the baffling silica. But if one thing’s clear at this point, it’s that Mars— geologically speaking, at least—is every bit as complex as Earth.

That alone should give us hope that life would find a way.

Image: The first sample collection hole drilled by NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover in Mount Sharp, via NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

We have a vaccine against the virus that causes cervical cancer. It’s as safe as any other vaccine, and getting it for your tween son or daughter—or yourself, if you’re in your early twenties—is a no-brainer. Don’t buy into bogus exposés on “dangers” that don’t really exist.

HPV, the human papillomavirus, comes in many different types, some of which cause cancers of the cervix, throat, and other body parts. Some cause genital warts. The vaccine protects against up to nine types of the virus.

But the HPV vaccine has an image problem, and it’s multifaceted. There are the false claims that it causes serious health problems in girls who get the shot. There’s also a myth that the vaccine encourages kids to have sex. Doctors have become shy about even talking about the vaccine, reporting that they expect conversations with parents to be uncomfortable. As a result, less than half of teenagers get all three doses of the vaccine—a vaccine with no serious safety issues, that prevents cancer.

Why the HPV Vaccine Is Important

Human Papillomaviruses cause several cancers, including the cervical cancer that kills 4,000 women each year. They also cause cancers of the anus, penis, and throat in both men and women, and some types cause genital warts instead of cancer. Where most viruses replicate by turning cells into virus factories and then killing them, HPV makes more of itself by causing cells to divide. If the immune system doesn’t put a stop to this process, the result is a wart or a tumor. (A related virus causes rabbits to grow horns. Nature is weird.)

Most people get the HPV virus, even if they don’t develop cancer: 80% of 50-year-old women have had it at some point in their life. (It’s likely just as common in men.) The virus is a lazy one, taking years to progress from infection to cancer. Most of the time, the immune system kills the virus within a year or two, and no harm is done.

But if the virus lingers, it can cause cancer decades later. That’s why screening is so important. One way is with a pap smear to look for abnormal cells, caused by the virus, on a woman’s cervix. (The cervix is the place where the uterus and vagina meet.) Cancer or pre-cancerous changes are treatable if caught early. Because the virus reproduces so slowly, it’s sufficient to screen every 3 to 5 years with a combination Pap smear and HPV test.

If a woman keeps up with screening, she’s very unlikely to end up with a cancer that could kill her. But not everybody gets screened as often as they should, and there’s no screening for the other cancers HPV can cause, including those in men. That’s why a vaccine makes so much sense. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends the vaccine for boys and girls starting around age 11.

The HPV Vaccine Doesn’t Encourage Kids to Have Sex

This is a vaccine against a sexually transmitted disease, and the vaccine is recommended for children. From a medical standpoint, that makes sense: you get the vaccine before you’re exposed to the virus. If you waited until you were, say, 17 (the average age at which people first have sex), it might be too late.

Any connection between kids and sex makes a lot of parents nervous. But HPV vaccination doesn’t make 11-year-olds think “great, I’ll go have sex now!” any more than the Hepatitis B vaccine, given at birth, makes newborns go out and inject drugs with shared needles. A 2012 study in Pediatrics confirmed that girls who got the HPV shot were no more likely to have sex than their peers that got other vaccines.

Still, parents don’t like to think about their kids having sex. In another study published in Pediatrics, 17% of parents who refused the HPV vaccine said their kid didn’t need it. But half of teens have had sex by age 17, 16% by age 15, and 2% by age 12. Those numbers come from a survey that also had the awful finding that 11% of first sexual encounters were “unwanted.”

I’m not expecting you to stand in the doctor’s office thinking about how likely your son or daughter is to be raped, and whether that’s going to affect their chance of getting cancer in middle age. All I’m saying is that the HPV vaccine should be a routine thing, like the meningitis and tetanus/diphtheria/pertussis vaccines they get around the same age. If your doctor doesn’t offer, step up and ask for it.

Side Effect Controversies are Drummed Up for Eyeballs, Not Based in Science

The latest boneheaded grab for ratings comes from Ireland’s TV3, which aired a special this week about girls with health problems that, they and their families say, occurred after receiving the HPV vaccine. This type of story sensationalizes rare cases that may not even have anything to do with the vaccine, while ignoring a huge body of research on the shot’s safety.

The special was done in partnership with an Irish group that calls itself “Reactions and Effects of Gardasil Resulting in Extreme Trauma”—that’s right, R.E.G.R.E.T. Their “testimonies of regret” page is filled with heartbreaking stories: teenagers with mysterious symptoms, often including seizures and fatigue, visiting doctors and alternative medicine specialists who can’t offer lasting solutions. There are similar groups in the US publicizing the stories of young women who fell ill after getting the shot.

But this isn’t proof of a problem. With these stories, you can play the logical fallacies infographic like a bingo card. Some medical problems are idiopathic, with no easy-to-explain cause, and that doesn’t mean you get to blame them on whatever sticks out in your mind.

If a vaccine truly does cause problems, observations like this would be one of the first clues that something was wrong, but it would take studies on many people to show if there really is a connection. That’s why the US government maintains the VAERS database, where anyone can register an “adverse event”—basically, any bad thing—that happens after vaccination. Anti-vaxxers often point to VAERS as proof that vaccines are dangerous, but that’s not what the reports mean. From a FAQ on the VAERS website:

Just because an adverse event happened after a person received a vaccine does not mean the vaccine caused the adverse event. Other factors, such as the person’s medical history and other medicines the person took near the time of the vaccination, may have caused the adverse event. It is important to remember that many adverse events reported to VAERS may not be caused by vaccines.

Sensationalizing anecdotes like this is part of a pattern. Earlier this year, the Toronto Star published a similarly misguided “investigation” of the vaccine. Julia Belluz at Vox called them out, and they retracted the story. In 2013, Katie Couric dedicated an episode of her show to the same issue. Couric later admitted that the show spent too much time stoking fears and not enough time communicating that the benefits of the shot clearly outweigh its risks.

The Risk Science Center at the University of Michigan has a handy video explaining that calculation:

We know the risks are very low because they’ve been well studied. An analysis was published recently in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal covering 15 studies over, in total, more than a million people. Serious adverse events like autoimmune diseases, blood clots, and stroke were no more common in vaccinated people than in those who did not get the vaccine. The side effects that were more common in vaccinated people are minor ones that can happen with any vaccine: fainting, for example, and skin reactions at the site of the shot. (Teenagers sometimes faint after receiving shots, and we don’t fully understand why.)

Nothing in life is ever guaranteed “safe,” but vaccines come close. The risks are very small, and the benefits clearly outweigh them for almost everyone. The usual “talk to your doctor” advice applies—if you’re pregnant or if you’re allergic to some part of the vaccine, for example, it might not be appropriate for you.

Look, data and studies are important and worth your trust, but it can be hard when we’re talking about your son or daughter. Just know that the overwhelming majority of the data, accumulated over decades, says this is safe and that it prevents cancers that we know are fatal later in life. You can’t give your daughter or son a better gift than that.

Illustration by Tara Jacoby.

Vitals is a blog from Lifehacker all about health and fitness. Follow us on Twitter here.

We’ve made no secret of our slobbering love for Ash vs Evil Dead, which has just three episodes left in its kick-ass first season. What will we do between January 2 and whenever season two starts? Well, we’ll binge-watch season one a lot ... and ponder all the reasons why it’s so freaking enjoyable.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/ash-vs-evil-de...

The most obvious: its characters, starting with his royal awesomeness, Bruce Campbell. Campbell has played a number of memorable roles in his career (a monster-fighting elderly Elvis, a well-connected but down-on-his-luck former spy, etc.), but none so enduring as Ash Williams, who first appeared in Sam Raimi’s 1981 Evil Dead and made Campbell into a horror icon.

The television version of Ash is older, obviously, but not entirely wiser; when the series begins, he’s still clinging to the past (in his choice of music, decor, pick-up lines, and that ever-present Delta 88) while simultaneously trying his best to forget it (what with all the demons and death cluttering his memories). Ash has a huge amount of built-in audience goodwill—and the TV show plays to that perfectly, giving him the puffy-chested bluster and hilarious one-liners that fans are dying to see.

But Ash vs Evil Dead also takes the character a notch further, imagining what it would be like to be a basically good-natured guy who got involved in some pitch-black business a few decades ago that haunts him still. We even get a taste of what Ash’s life might have been like, had he not ventured to the cabin in the Michigan woods that fateful night. (As his vision quest told us, he’d very likely be living it up in Jacksonville, Florida, with two hands and blissful ignorance of what a Deadite is.) And even in a show composed of 30-minute episodes that spend a lot of time unleashing rivers of gore, Ash has evolved. He’s gone from total blowhard who propositions waitresses to a guy who’s started to care for the people around him, even thinking of them as family. (He still propositions waitresses, though.)

Ash is the center of Ash vs Evil Dead, obviously, but Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, and the show’s other writers did him a solid with his supporting characters, all of whom make valuable contributions to each episode and the story as a whole. Pablo and Kelly are Ash’s younger former co-workers who bring energetic back-up to the fight scenes, even as they play audience stand-in by reacting in sheer terror to things that the jaded Ash has seen a thousand times before. Plus, they’re on hand to eye-roll at Ash’s oft-inappropriate behavior and chuckle at his fondness for one-liners. (Kelly’s gotten pretty good at spouting her own one-liners, too.) And they have a sweet dynamic between them; Pablo’s crush on Kelly has never distracted from the main storyline, and Kelly has proven a total badass in her own right.

Then, there’s police officer Amanda Fisher—on whom Ash is nursing his own crush, though as we’ve seen, he hits on practically every woman he meets—who started out believing Ash to be a killer, before slowly realizing he’s fighting for the good guys. She also provides a link to the mysterious Ruby Knowby, played by Lucy Lawless, an actor whose built-in fan appeal rivals Campbell’s. Very wisely, Ash vs Evil Dead has kept Ruby’s true purpose—and indeed, whether or not she’s even human—an enigma, teasing out small details each episode, but clearly building suspense for a big showdown with Ash at the end.

So the characters are a huge reason why Ash vs Evil Dead works so well—but the clever story structure is also no small factor. In episode one, we learn that Ash has drunkenly cracked open the Book of the Dead and awakened evil forces he thought he’d never have to tangle with again. His main mission is to undo that rather giant oopsie, with haste, and the show’s pace reflects that: Each episode begins exactly where the previous left off, and more or less covers the next day on the journey. It’s an ideal formula for the small screen. Every week, we get equal parts character-building and plot advancement, with at least one (and usually more) gushy-great fight scene, plus room for Ash to crack wise whenever he can take a breath.

Which brings us to the third reason why Ash vs Evil Dead is such a successful movie-to-TV adaptation: It keeps the spirit of the films alive, with its gleeful heaps of gore (have exploding heads ever been photographed so lovingly?) and winking sense of humor. The tone is just perfect. What other show would embody evil with a jittery mind-fucking demon—and also with sassy, teeth-gnashing baby dolls?

Even more than that, the show is unafraid to take those elements and apply them to a world that expands way beyond what the movies ever explored. With the Ruby character, we get a hint of a type of creature (a demon hunter? A Deadite who looks human?) that even Ash has never encountered. And with characters like Pablo’s shaman uncle, and the occult bookstore clerk, we start to realize that while Ash may have long believed he was the only one aware of supernatural forces that are just dying to break into our world—he’s not as alone as he thought he was.

At the end of the most recent episode, Ash makes the decision to ditch his loyal crew and go fight his own battle at the cabin, one-man army style. We can guess that Pablo, Kelly, and Amanda will somehow track him down—as will Ruby, and Ash’s wandering severed hand. But what we can’t guess is how it will all unfold, what other body parts will get spectacularly mangled, and what Ash will have to say about all of it. And, of course, what groovy retro rock tune the show will choose to set the mood.

We can’t wait to find out.

You might use an app or VR headset to explore your neighborhood these days, but books still win when it comes to truly understanding where we live—and how those places are changing.

Here are 11 books published in 2015 that helped me to see and interpret cities in an entirely different way. And they all happen to make great gifts for the urbanists in your life, too.

See For Yourself: A Visual Guide to Everyday Beauty

By far my favorite urbanism book of the year is this gem by Rob Forbes. Some of you will remember Forbes from when he founded the modernist furniture company Design Within Reach. Others will know him best from his latest venture, the colorful city cycling startup Public Bikes. For both companies, Forbes penned eloquent email newsletters filled with pretty photographs and keen observations gleaned from his travels while sourcing products.

Working with designers at Volume, Forbes sifted through thousands of his photos for this book, organizing them into categories like Angles, Decoration, Symmetry, Texture. All the photos are labeled by city and are interspersed with essays on interpreting the urban landscape—most formulated from a sidewalk, train, or seat of a bike.

The origin of See for Yourself predates Instagram but as you can see it’s a great primer for using the medium well

Forbes’s book takes its cues from the 1977 book How to See by George Nelson (a designer you’ll recognize from DWR catalogs) which was written for government workers to teach them how to pay attention to the world around them. You can see Nelson’s legacy in Forbes’s ability to pick up on tiny cultural details provided in a city’s infrastructure, from metal stamping on sewer grates to the way fabric is displayed in a store.

He also photographs dozens of examples of the same endemic object found throughout a particular city—bike locks in Amsterdam or food carts in Cartagena. This fascinating concept has changed the way I travel. Now when I visit somewhere I find myself looking for these same repeating cues to unlock the city’s visual language. And Forbes is right: You can only really find these things if you climb out of the car, hit the streets, and see for yourself.

http://www.amazon.com/See-Yourself-V...

Feral Cities: Adventures With Animals In the Urban Jungle

Coyotes and giant slugs and baboons, oh my! As more people move into urban areas, animals are invading our cities at higher rates, too, forcing city-dwellers to re-examine the way we design with nature in mind. Tristan Donovan’s excellent book—check out our interview with him—visits cities around the world, checking out bird-friendly skyscrapers and freeway overpasses for mountain lions to see how we’re learning to cohabitate with our wild friends.

http://www.amazon.com/Feral-Cities-A...

Thirsty: William Mulholland, California Water, and the Real Chinatown

Five years into the worst drought the West has experienced in centuries (maybe millennia) no book could be more timely than this epic explainer of California’s intensely complicated hydrologic system. The story of Los Angeles’s water grab as told by author Marc Weingarten breaks through years of historical misinformation and cinematic license (and in a way, it’s actually more dramatic than the movie). It’s the most factual, contemporary take of our water problems yet, and a must-read for any Californian.

http://www.amazon.com/Thirsty-Willia...

The High Line

The elevated park that occupies Manhattan’s western flank wasn’t the first rail-to-trail conversion, nor is it the longest or largest. But the High Line’s reclaimed railway is one of the most replicated urban design ideas of the past decade. This tremendously gorgeous book focuses on the unique process by architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro and landscape architects at James Corner Field Operations to preserve what was essentially an untouched derelict wilderness while making it into a useable public space. Although the discussion will never end about the High Line’s legacy and what it did to transform the surrounding neighborhoods (for better or for worse) no one can disagree that it’s one of the most exquisite examples of game-changing infrastructure currently on the planet.

http://www.amazon.com/High-James-Cor...

Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars

In the 1980s, New York City transportation commissioner Samuel Schwartz made a decision that was predicted to be a death knell to the city. The federal government had determined that the Williamsburg Bridge was dangerous: Its lanes were too old and narrow for modern-day vehicles, so adding capacity would improve traffic flow. Instead of widening the bridge as told, Schwartz looked at where crashes had occurred, realizing that the safest parts of the bridge were also the narrowest, where drivers took extra caution. He left the bridge alone, saving lives and hundreds of buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn which would have been demolished to make way for “progress.”

Schwartz’s convictions led to a whole new way of thinking about traffic. If you plan for cars, more cars will come. If you take away space for cars... well, not much happens at all, really, and cities end up safer, greener, and more healthy. “Gridlock Sam,” as he’s known now, has authored a bible on how more cities are coming around to this way of thinking. And it has plenty of riveting stories just like this one about how cities can get it right.

http://www.amazon.com/Street-Smart-R...

Sidewalking: Coming to Terms With Los Angeles

The latest meditation on the importance of urban walking comes from Los Angeles author David Ulin, who investigates how LA—and really all cities—is enabling its citizens to get around on foot (again). Part his own journey to understand the sprawling city, part history of changing urban habits, Ulin writes well-annotated prose on what sends us rambling through the streets. Although I’d argue that his main areas of focus—a mall and a museum campus— are probably the least interesting places to walk in LA, Ulin examines what it means to be a flaneur today, with the future of your neighborhood in mind.

http://www.amazon.com/Sidewalking-Co...

The New Bohemians: Cool and Collected Homes

In this age of Pinterest you’d be forgiven for believing that most of the world is living in spare modern boxes lined with blonde wood planks and white subway tile. That’s why Justina Blakeney’s peek inside these visually exciting homes exploding with color, pattern, and texture is so damn refreshing—it’s a real-world antidote for the antiseptic aesthetic too often portrayed on social media. The author and designer and of her own “Jungalow” proves that great residential design doesn’t need to be fussy, overproduced, or expensive. And it never, ever needs to be boring.

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Bohemi...

Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston

When you think of Boston you probably think of Colonial-era rowhouses and cobblestone streets. But in the 1960s, Brutalism—the swooping, heavy-handed concrete modernism from Europe—had a big hand in remaking the city’s neglected public spaces. Any examination of the architectural style that everyone loves to hate is sure to be controversial, but Mark Pasnik, Chris Grimley, and Michael Kubo make a great case for how Brutalism helped revitalize a city on the brink of disaster.

http://www.amazon.com/Heroic-Concret...

An Igloo on the Moon: Exploring Architecture

This is supposedly for kids, but adults will also be able to appreciate this attractive book by David Jenkins that serves as an illustrated guide to architectural history, from the igloo to the 3D printing technology that will allow us to live on another planet. Filled with delightful illustrations by Adrian Buckley, the book is meant to inspire the next generation of architects, but I have to say even as a design writer I learned quite a few things myself!

http://www.amazon.com/An-Igloo-Moon-...

Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia

The counterculture movement of the 1960s and 70s is the subject of this incredible exhibition up through February 2016 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. And the show’s catalogue, edited by curator Andrew Blauvelt, is an exceptionally gorgeous look at how big thinkers of the era from Buckminister Fuller to Archigram to Victor Papanek aimed to reshape society through art, design, and technology. It’s incredible peek at the experimental films, visionary architecture and radical journals that may not have transformed the world they way they intended, but certainly made us who we are today.

http://www.amazon.com/Hippie-Moderni...

Tile Makes the Room: Good Design From Heath Ceramics

The thought of tile might send you fixating on the glazed decorative squares that make up a backsplash, but owners of the legendary tile manufacturer Heath Ceramics Robin Petrovic and Catherine Bailey aim to broaden your horizons, taking readers on a global tour of the ubiquitous building element that’s added graphic complexity to many an urban surface and changed the way our world was built. From wayfinding to infrastructure, gardens to religious buildings, to the tiny rooms where we eat and bathe, our cities wouldn’t be the same without this ancient material.

http://www.amazon.com/Tile-Makes-Roo...

Ridley Scott’s latest entry in the Alien series has found its lead: Katherine Waterston, who was in Inherent Vice and Steve Jobs, and will soon star in the J.K. Rowling adaptation Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/return-to-the-...

As Deadline, which nabbed the casting scoop, reports, Waterston (fun fact: she’s the daughter of Law and Order fan fave Sam Waterston) will play the lead character, named Daniels. But not much else is yet known about Alien: Covenant:

Specific plot details for the new one are being closely guarded, but it is believed to follow the crew of the colony ship Covenant, bound for a remote planet, who discover what they believe is an uncharted paradise but is, in fact, a dark, dangerous world, the only inhabitant of which is David (Michael Fassbender), the “synthetic” and survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.

Covenant is believed to be the first in a conceived trilogy of new films that will link the events of Prometheus with the original 1979 Ridley Scott-directed classic Alien.

In recent interviews, Scott has also noted that the film will delve into the origins of the alien species.

Top image: Katherine Waterston at a screening of Inherent Vice on Saturday, Nov 8, 2014, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Airlifting wild animals is a time-honored tradition in the state of Idaho, where beavers were parachuting around in wooden boxes long before I was born. Nowadays, it’s mountain goats, which are possibly even worse suited for air travel.

Since six individual goats were released in the 1960s, the number of mountain goats in the state of Idaho has swelled to over 2,000. When a group gets too large, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources steps in to capture and relocate some of the herd. It’s a slightly traumatizing experience that involves net guns, tranquilizers, and blindfolds. But at the end of the day, these goats are doing their country a great service, and their descendants will be better off for it. Plus, what a story to tell your kids.

[YouTube]

The new Ghostbusters movie is still half a year away, but at least now we’re starting to get teased with some pretty sweet images. Yesterday, we saw our first official cast picture. Now feast your eyes on four posters, one for each of our new heroes.

Patty (Leslie Jones):

Abby (Melissa McCarthy):

Erin (Kristen Wiig):

Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon):

Guessing a trailer can’t be that far off now. Can’t wait to see our first glimpse!

Contact the author at charliejane@io9.com and follow her on Twitter @CharlieJane

Here’s a beautiful flyby video of the Herbig-Haro object called HH 24 courtesy of the Hubble. We saw the absolutely striking still image earlier which shows a newborn star shooting out twin jets into space. To learn more about this awesome phenomenon, read here.

The video combines a two-dimensional zoom and a three-dimensional flight to mimic a flyby.

SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, andYouTube.

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Simon Pegg promises that Star Trek Beyond has more “Star Trek stuff” than the trailer lets on. Do Civil War toys tease a big reveal in store for Ant-Man? Plus, new looks at The Jungle Book and Lucifer, Power Rangers gets a new release date, and Drew Goddard teases Daredevil season 2. Spoilers Now!

Star Trek Beyond

Simon Pegg has criticized the trailer for the film, saying that there’s a lot more “Star Trek” in the movie itself:

It was very action-packed. I didn’t… Yeah. It was surprising. I find it to be kind of the marketing people saying, “Everybody come and see this film, it’s full of action and fun,” when there’s a lot more to it than that. I didn’t love it because I know there’s a lot more to the film. There’s a lot more story and a lot more character stuff, and a lot more what I would call Star Trek stuff. But you know, they’ve got to bring a big audience in. They’ve got to bang the drum. To the Star Trek fans, I’d say be patient.

[/Film]

Power Rangers/Divergent Series: Ascendant

The films have had their dates updated. Power Rangers will now release on March 24th 2017, while Ascendant releases on June 9, 2017. [Coming Soon]

Captain America: Civil War

Not like you need a reminder that toys don’t always reflect the movies they are based on with 100% accuracy, but much is being made of a new leaked Civil War Lego set based on the airport fight scene in the film including a giant-sized figure of Scott Lang’s Ant-Man labelled as “Giant Man”—a giant persona used by Hank Pym in the comics after he was Ant-Man. If accurate, it appears Scott will be using his suit to grow in size as well as shrink. [CBR]

The Jungle Book

Here’s a new “motion poster.”

The Witch

Speaking of posters! Here’s one for this supernatural horror movie. [Coming Soon]

Doctor Who

Fan website Blogtor Who—which seemingly went into a full-on lockdown shortly after posting this—has released a series of pictures from the London premiere of the Christmas Special “The Husbands of River Song”, featuring several props from the episode... including what appears to be a Christmas gift box containing the sonic screwdriver River ultimately owns by the events of her first appearance (oh, time travel) in 2008’s “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead.”

In that set of episodes, River describes The Doctor as having appeared “with a new haircut and a suit,” giving her the screwdriver knowing she’d ultimately be going to her death (and the first time The Doctor ever met her). It seems like Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor will be the one to send River to her end—and potentially her final appearance on the show.

Daredevil

Drew Goddard teases the second season:

We try never to make pushing the boundary the goal, if that makes sense. You just do what’s right for the character. I think what’s nice about Netflix is that we have the freedom to be a little more adult. But none of sit in the writers room and say, ‘Let’s shock everyone today.’ You know, that’s not really the goal. It’s more about what the characters are going through. Obviously these characters—Frank [Castle/Punisher], deal with darker, dirtier things.

[Collider]

The Leftovers

Damon Lindelof discusses ending the series with its third season:

I’ll be honest with you, that idea — this could be the end — was never articulated. I think we want to design every season of The Leftovers as a novel, as opposed to a piece in a trilogy. After the first season ended, I really felt like that was it. I thought, Okay, we’ve now adapted Tom’s novel, and we ended it the exact same way Tom’s novel did. I kind of get the sense that Nora is there, holding the baby in her arms, and Laurie is probably going to leave the Guilty Remnant, even if that’s not definitive, and, at the very least, she’s reunited with Tom, and Kevin has saved Jill’s life. Kevin and Jill are all there, smiling, staring at Nora and the baby, and I could extrapolate what happens next, and I was cool with that being the ending. All these characters were in turmoil when I first met them, but now they’ve found each other.

[/Film]

Grimm

Actor Bitsie Tulloch says that the new tease of Juliette’s return at the end of the last episode is not all that it seems:

Juliette’s flesh and blood, her DNA, is still alive. But this is not Juliette.

[TV Line]

Legends of Tomorrow

Episode 9 is called “Left Behind.”

Arrow

... and season four’s episode 14 is titled “Code of Silence.”

Limitless

Here’s a new synopsis for the mid-season finale, “The Assassination of Eddie Morra.” [Spoiler TV]

When an attempt is made on Senator Edward Morra’s life by a former member of his inner circle, Brian is tasked with sabotaging the FBI’s investigation into the attack. As the assassin threatens to end the Senator’s career by exposing his connection to NZT, Brian and Morra’s fates become further endangered and intertwined.

Lucifer

A new series of cast photos has been released—find more at the link. [Ksite TV]

Outlander

Finally, some “first look” photos for season 2 have been released—there’s plenty more at the link. [Spoiler TV]

Additional reporting by Gordon Jackson and Charlie Jane Anders. Image: Doctor Who.

The future is scary and, according to these 15 dystopias in video games, it’s going to get a lot stranger before things get better.

This post originally appeared on Kotaku, on January 1, 2015

Remember Me

Paris, the city of lights and memories. But what about memories that can be shared and erased? Neo-Paris has a facelift with bright lights, huge corporations, and rebels called Errorists. Dystopias reach another level when they can shift the fabric of the collective memory, a Jungian unconsciousness subverted in favor of the state. Erasing regrets has its allure, and this mix of science fiction, action, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a reminder that even the worst memories are better than none.

Half-Life 2

What does half a life amount to? In City 17, the Combine is sucking the life out of humanity. Our Benefactors were inspired by the works of Frank Herbert and Ken Kessey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a police state ruthlessly stamping out dissent—a plot behind a plot behind a plot. I’m trying to imagine a world run by Jack Nicholson and Kyle McLaughlin.

Chrono Trigger

In the future, a single seed amongst rotten food hundreds of years old needs only the hope of mankind to sprout. Chrono Trigger’s dystopia is presented in a brown palette that’s devoid of life, with dust storms making visibility difficult. Enetrons, cylindrical chamber technology, are energy sources that, along with the thieving rats and rogue robots, probably make for the most exciting and dangerous things to happen to the lives of people living in the domes. Or unfortunately living hopeless lives as this case may be...

Phantasy Star 2

Phantasy Star is the game that introduced me to dystopias. On the surface, Motavia seems like a paradise. But then there are the masterminds behind Mother Brain who are the true evil, exploiting the system to satisfy their insatiable needs. As it turns out, these aliens are actually human beings from Earth. Thanks, humanity, for ruining Motavia too!

Deus Ex

Why’s the future have to be so bleak? Gray Death is decimating the population and only the elite have access to an Ambrosia that counters the effects. The rich become richer, the poor die, and a machine AI tries to become a god. Where’s the deus ex machina where everyone is saved and lives happily ever after?

Fire Emblem: Awakening

Thankfully, whoever has control of the Fire Emblem can change the fate of Chrom’s and Co.’s future — the alternate timeline future in which the Fell Dragon, Grima, is resurrected and kills many of our present day heroes leaving their children to fight a losing war against the undead.

During the course of the story, the future bloodlines consistently tell tales of death and turmoil while many of the offspring harbor feelings of abandonment leading to resentment of their parents being absent due to death. Unfortunately, possession of the Fire Emblem is no easy task — defined by classes of thieves, magicians, cavalry, wyvern riders and fighters all trying to thwart your plans by way of grid-based strategic plotting.

Beyond Good and Evil

Animal Farm in many ways was one of the scariest dystopias written for the way it allegorized the evils of government in the form of pigs, horses, and birds. Beyond Good and Evil took that a step further by combining Orwell with Nietzsche. The DomZs are trafficking humans and the Alpha Sections, who claim to help the people of Hillys, are actually under their control. Nothing like aliens controlling human sock puppets as defenders of the world.

Bioshock

Underwater haven or sky city—pick your poison. Both have incredible architecture. Both are miserable to live in. Charismatic leaders—men of bold vision who have serious family issues—prop both societies up. Would you kindly forfeit all your freedoms and privacy in exchange for a modicum of happiness? Sure.

Shadowrun

Before the Matrix, there was Shadowrun. Megacorporations and the Computer Crash of 2029 led to the global network. The Matrix is the internet’s shadow, and the big corporations need someone to do their dirty work. Taking out the trash is hard, even in digital form.

Transistor

When we meet Red the singer in Cloudbank, her voice is gone. It’s not just her voice that’s taken, but her lover too. As the journey unravels, revealing bits of information players have to piece together from cryptic messages and machines that vote on things such as the weather, it’s clear that there’s much more that’s been taken from Cloudbank.

Individuality and independent thoughts, it seems, are lost in this world. The people’s freedoms are masked by the glowing green pulses of a technologically-created, sterile world. Then there’s “The Farm” that is located just outside Cloudbank. What’s real and what’s not? We’re still trying to put those pieces of the puzzle together.

Radiant Historia

The promise of what we can expect in Radiant Historia’s future is a world affected by a desertification. The only land would be desert and people would turn to sand and add to a wasteland bereft of life. The power of the White Chronicle could allow its chosen hero to travel through time and alternate branching timelines to slow the process of desertification. Each path is a dangerous choice in ever growing wars and the end game is no different, with sacrifices made to save the world.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

Futurama’s New New York was a colourful mix of aliens and alien invasions, mutants living in the sewers and robot suicide booths. Enslaved’s vision of New York, on the other hand, was littered with beauty amongst the decay. Red flowers on patches of green burst through rubble of famous Manhattan locations such as the Museum of Natural History and Grand Central Terminal. It was a sombering experience, vacant of human life and dominated by vicious machines hunters.

It’s another game where questions were put forth: live in the safety of another’s utopia while sacrificing humanity and choice? Or go forward, enduring excruciating hardships as an exchange for free will?

Zelda series (Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker)

Split timelines, wild theories and the cyclical nature of the Hero of Time confuse but also make for interesting lore in the Zelda series. The removal of the Master Sword in Ocarina of Time plunged Hyrule into a chaos that saw evil envelop the land and leave dark clouds hanging over the Death Mountain while Redead took over Hyrule Castle’s surroundings.

When evil encroached on peaceful times, Wind Waker’s future was one in which a Hero did not return, Hyrule was lost and the Legend forgotten beneath a vast ocean giving rise to dozens of islands, many uninhabitable and crawling with evil. It’s a recurring theme in the Zelda series—lands overrun by dark forces with kidnappings, and people not daring to wander after sunset, or forced into hiding. It takes quite an adventure to restore peace but history proves time and again that happiness is fleeting.

Sound Shapes

You know those websites where people muse about song lyric meanings? A trip to Beck’s “Cities” playable song level in Sound Shapes has us questioning the same. Rhythmic missiles dance to a beat while words from the lyrics appear, move and take shape on the landscape.

It’s the backdrop of the war torn, decimated city while Beck croons, “You weren’t made for this place. It’s not your fault...” that has us trying to decipher whether we’re in the middle of a drawn-out war or if it’s a peek into a bleak future where nuclear-type radiation bursts blanket areas with bass lines facilitating the patterns in which they move. It’s a terrifying, lonely scenario, albeit a catchy-sounding one. Though, we could also be overthinking the meanings behind this one.

Snatcher

The greatest dystopian game very few people had the fortune to play, this Blade Runner-inspired adventure game had bioroids, or snatchers, trying to take their place in humanity. Why can’t we just leave the androids in peace for trying to be humans? Then again, hubris is the greatest crime in Greek mythology. What’s the word for a machine trying to be human? Siri, did you hear my question?

N. Ho Sang has made contributions to Entropymag and SF Signal. She is currently a regular contributor to Talk Amongst Yourselves, rambling about life and RPGs under the username Zarnyx. She can also be found on Twitter under the title @Zarnyx.

Peter Tieryas is a VFX artist who just worked on Guardians of the Galaxy and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. His novel, Bald New World, was listed as one of Buzzfeed’s 15 Highly Anticipated Books and Publisher Weekly’s Best Science Fiction Books of Summer 2014. He scribbles about RPGs at tieryas.wordpress.com.

Not everyone has been able to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens yet! If you have, however, chances are you desperately want to talk about it with others. So I’m declaring this comment section a Spoiler FILLED Zone—where we can all talk about TFA to our hearts’ content.

Again, if you don’t want to be spoiled, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER. Also, you should probably get off the internet entirely until you see the movie. You are doing nothing but courting disaster, my friend.

Contact the author at rob@io9.com.

When tackling something as big as death, it’s sometimes easiest to make it into a single personality. Genre fiction is replete with capital-“D”-Deaths. Some are serious, some are funny, and some are just annoying. Here are ten great representatives from the great beyond.

1. Death, Discworld

The Discworld version of Death looks like the stereotype: skull face, black robe, scythe, pale horse. Of course, his horse is named Binky. And this Death has a fondness for cats and seeing children get full, long lives. Terry Pratchett’s Death does his job, but he also has acquired an interest in humanity and their lives. Death TALKS LIKE THIS. Death is funny, quirky, and compassionate. He’s even a champion of humanity. There’s a reason that people have often wished that Pratchett was right about this one.

2. Death, Seventh Seal

Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film is a classic for its depiction of a knight playing chess with death as a way to delay the inevitable. Even if you’ve never seen The Seventh Seal, you’ve probably seen a reference to it. If there’s a scene on a beach, in black and white, with Death and chess set, it’s meant to invoke The Seventh Seal. Hell, if someone challenges Death to a game, that’s a Seventh Seal reference.

3. Death, Sandman

Outside of being capable of intimidating even the most powerful of creatures, Neil Gaiman’s version of Death eschews every other stereotype. Instead of a implacable male figure in robes, she’s a perky goth woman in casual clothing. As a kind personification of death, with a very distinctive look, it’s not surprising that she became so popular, so fast.

4. Death, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey

Poor Death. This is the personification of the end of life, who loses to Bill and Ted. From the start, they escape him, beat him at Twister, and then has to do what they want. If anything ever proved that Death is the ultimate straight man, it’s this movie.

5. Death, Supernatural

From his very first appearance, it was clear that Death was not to be fucked with. Supernatural took the idea that this was a personification of a fact very seriously, creating a character who has been everywhere for all of time. He doesn’t care about people as much as he does making sure that nothing interferes with the natural order of things. Death has to take the very long view, and Supernatural got that.

6. Death, Harry Potter

Death only shows up as a character in the story of the three brothers. The story is almost like Final Destination: Death shows up because he feels cheated that the three brothers don’t die. He offers them each a boon. Two brothers try to get something which will let them overpower Death, but they end up quickly dead. The brother who chooses to hide until he is ready ends up welcoming Death as a friend. Death acceptance is a major theme and so is the constant reminder that outwitting Death is not the way to go.

7. Death, Adventure Time

Adventure Time’s Death is a horse skeleton who wears shades of white clothing, which is an interesting take on the Revelations 6:8 bit about Death riding a pale horse. (Although most of Death’s look is a reference to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain.) Like many of the new takes on Death, he’s not scary when he goes about his appointed rounds. Of course, he’s got a full arsenal of powers for those that bother him. Including making them play a musical battle for their lives. Which he wins, because Death always wins.

8. Death, Monty Python and the Meaning of Life

What’s so great about Death in this sketch is that he is exactly the “scary” image that is expected. Ignorance and self-absorption turn this reaping into one of the most miserable of Death’s experience.

9. Death, Horrible Histories

Getting into the afterlife of Horrible Histories is pretty much contingent on amusing Death with an amusing story of death. The line is very long and you’d better have your story ready when Death yells “Next!” This version of Death is a sort of eccentric doorman.

10. Death, Family Guy

We’ve had droll Deaths and perky Deaths, but get ready for sarcastic and annoying Death! A Death who lives with his mom. A Death who sprains his ankle and has to outsource his job to the least competent person in the world. The most mundane Death in the world.

Images: Death with a Kitten by Paul Kidby; Image from Seventh Seal, Svensk Filmindustri; Cover of Action Comics Vol 1 894, via DC Comics Database; Screencap from Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey; Screencap from Adventure Time “Death in Bloom”: Screencap from Family Guy

Contact the author at katharine@io9.com.

As if to prove that this is really happening, Showtime released the first teaser for the Twin Peaks revival. It’s got Deputy Hawk (Michael Hoarse) extolling the virtues of the area, the theme song, and a requisite creepy moment.

Contact the author at katharine@io9.com.

One of the least crazy rumors about The Force Awakens was that somehow, James Bond actor Daniel Craig had filmed a cameo. Now we know it’s true, and who he played, so more spoilers for The Force Awakens! Also Daniel Craig, guess.

Ready? Hope so.

Remember when Kylo Ren imprisons Rey, and leaves her in that interrogation chair, guarded by a single Stormtrooper? That would be Craig, who joined the scene for “sh–s and grins,” according to a source quoted by Entertainment Weekly. (He’s the ‘trooper who tells Rey “I’ll tighten those restraints, scavenger scum,” in case you’re still having trouble placing him.)

So one Force Awakens mystery solved! Now, only a few dozen left to go...

Contact the author at rob@io9.com.

Zootopia isn’t just Disney’s latest “talking animal” movie. It’s also co-directed and co-written by Rich Moore and Phil Johnston, the guys behind Wreck-It Ralph. So we were excited to go to Disney Animation Studios and learn all about the making of Zootopia.

Movies about talking animals have been a staple of Disney Animation, from Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck to The Jungle Book and The Lion King. But in Zootopia, no longer can animals just talk. They walk. They build. They wear clothes and commute to work. They’d be humans, if they weren’t animals.

Earlier this Fall, io9 went to Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, CA to learn all about Zootopia, and we overloaded with fascinating information. Here are 23 fun facts about the creation of Zootopia, which opens March 4.

It’s specifically different from every other talking animal movie Disney has ever done

When Disney decided to make another talking animal movie, they knew it had to be different. The biggest change? Every animal had to walk on two feet, so one of the challenges was figuring out how each animal’s walk would be different.

There are no apes

One animal species that you will not find in Zootopia are apes. The crew deemed that our ancestors just looked too human when converted to two feet and decided it took away from the others.

Each animal has completely different fur

Years ago, creating realistic fur was a huge challenge for computer animators. Now, they are getting so good at it, every single different animal species in Zootopia has a completely different fur, with new colors, textures, lengths and more.

That fur is “computationally expensive”

To make sure the fur looks right, animators put it through rigorous amount of light and processes to make it look real. Each hair is created individually—and there are 400,000 on a mouse to about 9.2 million on a giraffe. This is very hard on their computers, but worth it for the look.

Everything is constantly in motion

Look outside. Very few things stay still. So, in Zootopia, the crew developed a new software they called “Keep Alive.” It made sure every leaf, flake, shadow and more was constantly in motion to create a better reality. This is a huge step up even from Frozen, where things were still stationary.

There’s a story for every single character in the frame

Much like the non-living objects all moving, every single background character in the film was assigned a specific backstory. Even if it was just something small, the team gave each character his or her own purpose.

30,000 leaves on every tree

One of the many reasons why the “Keep Alive” tech is so impressive is the amount of things it has to control. For example, every tree in the film has around 30,000 leaves on it.

A city created by animals needs different sized stuff

Zootopia has everything a normal city has: mass transportation, hotels, cars etc. But in a real-life human city, we’re all relatively the same size. Animals are not. So beds, newspaper stands, doors and more all come in various different sizes.

Zootopia is divided by its very own massive wall

Animals have tons of differences, one of the biggest being that some can only exist in specific climates: heat, cold, water, air. In Zootopia, this is all regulated by a massive air conditioning wall that breaks up all the different neighborhoods.

Every neighborhood in Zootopia is completely different

To go with its varied animal population, Zootopia is broken down into tons of different areas, most of which are self explanatory: Tundra Town, Sahara Square (above), Rainforest District, Little Rodentia, the Burrows, Meadowlands, Outback Island, the Nocturnal District and more. It’s kind of like Disneyland for animals.

Yes, these animals have cell phones

If you’re making a movie about animals who live like humans, they’ve got to have cell phones. And in Zootopia, they do. They look just like iPhones except instead of Facetime, they use MuzzleTime. And instead of having AT&T as a carrier, it’s PB&J.

The big crime boss is not what he seems

One of the several scenes we saw in Zootopia was of the two lead characters visiting Mr. Big, the city’s crime boss. Mr. Big, however, isn’t big. In fact, he’s a teeny tiny artic shrew who just so happens to look like The Godfather.

The story changed significantly over the course of production

During production, two major changes happened to the story and themes of Zootopia. Originally the city was run down and broken. But the filmmakers realized that just made things too much of a downer. Also, the movie was originally about Nick, voiced by Jason Bateman—but eventually they flipped it so Judy, voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin, would be the lead. This change also gave the film more much-needed optimism.

The street signs are hilarious

As you’d imagine, every detail in Zootopia has been considered. Some of the funniest are the street signs, like “Get Fixed” and “No Foraging” for the bunnies.

Shakira plays a famous singer in the movie

One of the side characters in Zootopia is Gazelle (above), a famous pop singer voiced by Shakira. Shakira even made a brand new original song for the film called “Try Everything.” It plays when Judy Hopps first moves to the city.

The film’s story group provided their voices

In one early scene from in the film, Judy Hopps hears her neighbors yelling at each other. Those are actually the voices of the film’s story group—originally, their voices were a placeholder in the scene, meant to be replaced with professional actors. But eventually, they just got left in.

There’s a King Kong homage action scene

In one of the film’s action set pieces, Hopps chases a bad guy through the Rodent area of Zootopia, which is obviously much smaller than the others. The result? A King Kong/Godzilla homage with the “large” bunny running through the small area.

Saying stop is the biggest problem in animation

Creating animation is never a finished process, especially at Disney. The filmmakers said the biggest drama behind the scenes on Zootopia happened when they were forced to tell the animators they had to be finished with a scene.

Don’t miss the Frozen easter eggs

Coming off the massive success of Frozen, expect to see some Frozen easter eggs in the snowy Tundra Town area of Zootopia.

80% of the design work doesn’t make it into the actual movie

How much work goes into a movie like Zootopia? Too much. Literally. 80% of the design that goes into the film before hand doesn’t make it into the movie.

The filmmakers spent 18 months studying animals

Before the team even started breaking down story or filmmaking in general, they spent a year and a half researching the movements, hair and personalities of all kinds of animals trying to settle on who would play a role in the movie.

A quick update on the lighting

Disney loves to decorate the walls of their offices and keep everyone updated on production. On a short walk from one room to another, a big board revealed that 58% of the film’s lighting was done as of October 27.

There are over 800,000 characters in the film

Zootopia is a big place. How big? Considering the amount of species there are, and the amount of different outfits and looks for each one, there are around 800,000 different and unique characters in the movie.

We’ll have more on Zootopia, including interviews with the writers and directors, as we get closer to the March 4 release date.

Contact the author at germain@io9.com.

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H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds has been adapted for other media before—notably for the 2005 Spielberg film, and the infamous 1938 Orson Welles radio broadcast. Now a new TV version is in the works, written by Peter Harness (Doctor Who, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell).

UK site Broadcast Now reports that production company Mammoth Screen is developing the story into mini-series “faithful to the period and setting” of the 1897 novel. It won’t be Tom Cruise racing around modern-day New Jersey. The best-known previous TV adaptation of War of the Worlds—a Canada-US co-production which aired in the late 1980s—used the original story for a jumping-off point for what was also a contemporary setting.

This new Worlds adaptation is timed to coincide with the work’s imminent entry into the public domain, as Cinemablend notes:

Mammoth currently has its funding secured in the U.K., and it’ll soon be actively seeking out a company in the U.S. to be a co-producer on the project. The search process, as well as the development process, can be as stringent as possible, since The War of the Worlds won’t be going into production until the early part of 2017, after the novel enters the public domain at the end of 2016 and Paramount no longer has copyright privileges with it.

It feels like it’s been far too long since the heartwarming delight of Steven Universe was in our lives—but the wait for more Crystal Gem goodness is nearly over. Steven Universe is back January 4th, with a whole week of episodes!

http://io9.gizmodo.com/steven-univers...

The event is ostensibly to celebrate Steven’s Birthday, but really, it means we’re getting five episodes, one a day, between January 4th and January 8th—commonly called a “Steven Bomb” by Cartoon Network, who announced the show’s return with a press release today. Here’s a rundown of the new episodes, as well as a new picture from the first episode in the line up, “The Answer”:

“The Answer”– Garnet finally tells Steven the story of how she came to be a Crystal Gem.

“Steven’s Birthday” – Steven has a birthday party out at the barn, and decides he has some growing up to do.

“It Could’ve Been Great” – The Gems take a trip to the moon.

“Message Received” – Steven has doubts about believing in everyone.

“Log Date 7 15 2”– Steven sneaks a listen to a friend’s audio diary.

As the resident Steven Universe fan here on io9, I’m just gonna go and run around in circles wooping for the next five minutes. Okay? Okay.