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Featured articles from Futurism highlighting today's trending content.
E.O. Wilson Interview
The publication of E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology in 1975 was to use a cliché—a landmark event in the history of biology. This enormous volume (697 oversize pages) is a truly remarkable compendium of a vast, widely dispersed literature on the relationship between biology and social behavior throughout the animal kingdom. It ranges from Homo sapiens to the social insects (Wilson is by trade an entomologist; his speciality—he calls them his "totem animal"—is ants). He intended it to be a scientifically respectable, thorough review, so it is full of tables and charts and extensively referenced. On the other hand, it is well written and handsomely illustrated.
By Futurism Staff10 years ago in Futurism
Jacques Vallee Interview
"When I was beginning my career in science," recalls Dr. Jacques Vallee, "the main argument against UFOs was that astronomers never saw them. I found that argument convincing." Then, in 1961, he and other satellite trackers at the Paris Observatory detected something odd overhead. Stranger still was what happened after that: The project director erased the data tape before an orbit for the unidentified object could be computed. "I thought, here we are at a renowned institution, seeing something we can't explain and destroying data for fear of ridicule. That, for me, reopened the entire question."
By Futurism Staff10 years ago in Futurism
Sci-Fi Artist Vincent Di Fate
A painter of fantastic futures and one of the world's leading visionaries of speculative fiction is sci-fi artist Vincent Di Fate. His work embodies an unrivaled vintage appeal that recalls when drive-in movie theaters scared milkshake-drinking teenagers across the United States. The New York-born artist invented worlds where finned-starships en route to the Messina Dust Cloud sit idly as desperate astronauts shiver awaiting their rescue. Cybernetic humans mutilate their own bodies to integrate with the overwhelming electronic world. Saturn's majestic rings capture irises in their gravity as onlookers gaze from the moon Iapetus. Di Fate has an enormous portfolio stretching across the world of speculative fiction, with more than 3,000 published works of science fiction, astronomical, and aerospace subjects. Considered by many to be one of the coolest sci-fi illustrators, the honors B-movies from the 1950's while envisioning a future life in the cosmos.
By Natasha Sydor10 years ago in Futurism
