Julia F. P. Ostmann writes from Southern California about nineteenth-century mushrooms, hybrid burritos, and brain science. Next year she’s excited to move into Stephen Hawking’s old dorm at Cambridge, where she'll be studying history and philosophy of science. If you follow her at @JuliaOstmann, she will probably retweet you.
He loves me, he loves me not: science fiction’s relationship with L. Ron Hubbard. Babies will stop the bullies! The key to reckoning with climate change and nuclear bombs? Stories.
Ladies: we’re more likely than men to cannibalize. Diversity dilemmas and the Hollywood sci-fi industrial complex. Oedipal orcas? Male killer whales need menopausal mom to survive.
Lizard brain, meet the one-sentence novel. Sea slugs: the key to why you’ll remember this article. Are millenials “empty inside”? New books reveal the truth!
Are cheetahs sprinting toward extinction? Chinese-American writer Ken Liu brings “silkpunk” to science fiction. Self-publishing coaches—the new sexy in a Fifty Shades world.
Your new chatbot therapist recommends volunteering. Womp womp: those productivity hacks are making you less productive. A quick-and-dirty primer to the “Anthropocene.”
Is Star Wars the Death Star of science fiction? Rat nirvana: being tickled till your ears turn pink. 250-million-year-old rocks might soothe science-religion conflict.
Want to craft spy thrillers? Learn science writing. The science infusing Fantastic Beasts, and where to find it. This is why you talk like a cowboy. Turn off Beyoncé if you…
Why Finnish women matter to the history of science fiction. Holiday science books: let visions of squid and sarcophagi dance in their heads. Astronauts survive thanks to a black female mathematician.…
Don’t dis slang—it’s older than you are. Regarding the pain of fish (and humanities-loving robots). Fake scientists are real. Sexism messes up men’s mental health, too. Aimee Bender and the Ladies…