This Week in Geekdom

Hey everyone. Hope you're all having a great weekend (or a phenomenal con, if you're among those lucky enough to be at SDCC right now). The news is coming out of San Diego at a breakneck pace so, while this post will include as many of those stories as possible (kudos to DeSlided for that compilation), keep your eyes on the social media sites for additional updates. In honor of Comic Con, let's start This Week in Geekdom accordingly.

Comics

Marvel's concerted effort become a pop-culture juggernaut of its own design is arguably one of the greatest such endeavors in entertainment history. However, despite all the press that's been given over to the movies, the TV show(s), and the comics, little is ever said about the man directing it all. This is the backstory of CEO Ike Perlmutter and just how the universe of Marvel comics as we presently know it came to be.

Movies/TV

Chris Carter, the mind behind the X-Files, intimated to Vulture earlier this week that a reboot of his beloved cult series may be in the works.

Here are your fresh-from-SDCC first glimpses of the Age of Ultron and Wonder Woman as she'll appear in Batman vs Superman.

The film is still technically in pre-production, but there have been quite a few changes to the cast of Ant-Man.

Guardians of the Galaxy will join the Hulk, Spider-Man, and the Avengers as the stars of their own animated TV series.

Since the 50th Anniversary special enjoyed such success in cinematic release, the BBC has announced that the first adventure of the latest incarnation of the Doctor will receive the same treatment.

Do you like kaiju battles? Well, Godzilla 2 promises to give you all the kaiju battles your giant-monster-loving heart can handle.

Legendary Pictures has confirmed that 2016 will feature yet another King Kong movie.

Disney has confirmed that there will be a fifth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. 

This is the highly amusing blooper reel from Game of Thrones season 4:

And this is the trailer for the Walking Dead season 5:

Games

We've covered the subject a few times before, but Polygon featured this excellent encapsulation of the state of the video game industry for the women who work in it.

Science/Technology

Researchers at the German Aerospace Center believe they have come up with a way to grow crops on Mars. Mark Watley approves.

2014 is somehow already more than halfway over, but these past few months have already produced some very interesting inventions. Here are 9 examples of what's been realized in the year to date.

The latest edition of Physical Review B contains this research by Dartmouth scientists that may allow for the transmission of data both to and from a quantum computer. 

Have you ever found yourself getting frustrated in your efforts to learn a new language? Turns out that those efforts may be the very thing that's causing you difficulty.

File this one under All Hail the Robot Overlords: this is a video of a robot adapting to a broken leg, utilizing math to 'teach itself' to be fully mobile again in under 2 minutes.

If you should come across a copy of Nature Communications you'll see this research by a cache of MIT engineers that details their newly developed spongy material as a potential game-changing device for all energy production that currently requires steam.

Image from MIT

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

6-year-old Alex Pring was born without an arm and his parents' insurance refused to cover a prosthetic replacement. After hearing this story, engineering students at the University of Central Florida built him this bionic arm for less than $350 USD. Bonus: the students then posted their blueprints online so that others can readily build their own bionic limbs.

Hot Toys will be releasing this insanely realistic figure of Marty McFly.

As always, best wishes for an awesome week ahead!