This Week in Geekdom

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having a great weekend thus far. The GIR and I are in the midst of preparations for the Mid-Autumn Festival at the moment, so let's get right down to the Week in Geekdom.

Science/Technology

In what's arguably the most exciting technological breakthrough of year, researchers from Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Starlab Barcelona, and Axilum Robotics have successfully achieved direct brain-to-brain transmission between humans.

Image by Dmitri Schidlovsky

It's a trope that recurs in just about every work that includes time travel: a character drastically alters his or her future by interacting with or even killing off one of their relatives while traversing a previous era. Even Stephen Hawking has had fun exploring this idea. So, what would happen if you went back in time and killed one of your ancestors? Here comes the answer (and the science).

How to quickly and cheaply make your own desalinator. 

The Big Bang is fairly well known as far as scientific theories go, but have you heard of the Big Rip?

3D printing has appeared time and again on the blog as these devices spit out everything from artificial limbs to functioning organ tissue. Well now German engineers are taking the technology into new space by printing an entire car.

Image by EDAG

Many areas of the Earth are presently in the midst of a drought and the area around Stonehenge is one of those afflicted places. Turns out that the dry spell may have inadvertently helped solve one of the longest-standing mysteries about the ancient megalith.

Movies/TV

We've been semi-offhandedly calling Guardians of the Galaxy the movie event of the summer for a little while, but it turns out we're not actually far off the mark. Not only has Guardians proven to be immensely popular, but it stands a good chance of breaking records held by its mega-successful Marvel sibling: the Avengers.

While we're in a Guardians frame of mind, check out the Stan Lee cameo planned for Guardians that Disney would not allow to be filmed.

The rumors that have been floating around at least since San Diego Comic Con 2013 were confirmed to be true earlier this week. AMC has ordered a pilot episode for a Walking Dead spin off series.

On Thursday the CW network announced that Ra's al Ghul will be appearing in the next season of Arrow.

Speaking of casting, Dwayne Johnson has finally admitted that yes, he will be playing Black Adam.

There will be decidedly less Hodor and Bran on the upcoming fifth season of Game of Thrones.

Before Lucas decided that he didn't serve this kind of movie, he filmed these 7 minutes of the cantina scene in Episode IV.

Books

George R.R. Martin confirms who his favorite character in A Song of Ice and Fire is, then reiterates that he has absolutely no idea when Winds of Winter will be finished.

Are you a fan of Margaret Atwood? Do you want to see what her next project is? Well, the good news is that yes, there is a next project. The bad news is that you will have to wait 100 years to see it.

Games

Not too long ago we discussed the tributes to Robin Williams that Blizzard was planning on adding to World of Warcraft (which Williams had famously enjoyed playing). We now have a few more images of these forthcoming NPCs.

It's taken him the better part of 9 months, but Many a True Nerd has finished his video series in which he killed everything that could possibly be slain in Fallout 3. 

It's not quite a confirmation, but this is confirmation that City of Heroes may not be as kaput as previously believed.

As always, best wishes for a fantastic week ahead! And 祝你和你的家人中秋快乐 to those celebrating!