fact or fiction

Is it science fact or science fiction? Futurism presents both sides to determine the truth.

I'm Surrounded. Mayday!
It was the morning of May 3rd, 1975. Upon returning from a routine flight from Zihuatanejo to Mexico City, twenty-three-year-old pilot, Carlos de Santos, prepared his Piper PA-24 plane and was soon in the skies, heading for the Benito Juárez International Airport.
By Ryan Sprague9 years ago in Futurism
The No-Win Situation
Hello there, guys and dolls! We’re about to get into a topic I really didn’t want to get into. Or, maybe it’s a topic I thought I’d never have to get into. Either way, here we are, about to discuss vaccines. And anti-vaxxers, of course. And how the anti-vaccination movement is contributing to an upswing in preventable infectious diseases. This is a topic I’m pretty passionate about—as in, it tends to make me angry when I think about it.
By RJ Plant9 years ago in Futurism
Can We Get Smarter?
Do you remember how hard it was to learn how to tie your shoes? For many of us, our initial experience with shoe-tying is buried under a heavy pile of childhood memories. If you have young children, however, this challenge may be easier to recall. How does it go....the rabbit hops around the tree and through the hole? Something like that.
By Mike Ferry9 years ago in Futurism
The Dead Zoo: Dilophosaurus
The way some hipsters talk about bands, hardcore paleo fans talk about fossils. “Oh, you only heard of mosasaurs because of Jurassic World? I was into those aquatic lizards back when they were eating sailors in The Land That Time Forgot.” It’s not necessarily charming behavior, but it happens. And I admit that when the cinematic version of Jurassic Park debuted in 1993, I felt a little swell of pride at already being a big fan of the movie's noxious double-crested dinosaur.
By Brian Switek9 years ago in Futurism
What Is Time?
This article was written by a friend of mine and I. What is time? Why does our life revolve around it? And why are we always running out of it?
By Mo Darasi9 years ago in Futurism
Are We Becoming Robots?
What about old-fashioned mutual voice-into-ear communication then? I thought to myself having spent the best part of an hour tricking the phone network provider’s labyrinthine system to put me through to an actual person to pay a bill that had gone astray.
By Jemima9 years ago in Futurism
Striving Toward the Answer
One way to describe humanity is by their imperfections. Some believe God to have created all that is in existence, and others believe the universe to have been created by chance. Either way, everyone now knows (through magnificent advances in technology) that humanity is not the centre of the universe.
By Mo Darasi9 years ago in Futurism
Why ET Contact Sucks
The alien abduction narrative has been a part of popular culture for a long time, and the UFO narrative has countless allegations by experiencers of alien abduction and contact. Initiated by some intelligent Other, those meetings flow along a spectrum from kind and benevolent visitations to abusive and violent kidnappings. Two general camps arise in the abduction enigma; the benevolent spiritual meeting, generally, but not wholly, accepted as “contact,” and the cruel malevolent snatching of a person, typically known as “abduction.”
By MJ Banias9 years ago in Futurism
The Dead Zoo: Triceratops
Triceratops always seemed like a friendly dinosaur to me. I’m not exactly sure why. It couldn’t have been because of Uncle Beazley. That dinosaur was before my time, and I didn’t encounter him at the National Zoo until after I was already grown up. Jurassic Park couldn’t have been it, either. I wish I could have given the sick Triceratops a hug just like Alan Grant did, but I was already ten before I dragged my family to see the epic cinematic dinosaurs. There must have been something else.
By Brian Switek9 years ago in Futurism
Technology, and the Future of Criminal Justice
A recent New York Times article highlighted a system and part of the criminal justice system that most people aren’t aware of; Risk Management Systems and their use in sentencing convicted offenders, predicting recidivism rates, and even working to the likelihood of children to become criminal offenders later in life. Tools such as these are based in the sciences of Predictive Analytics, Behavioral Analysis, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning.
By James P.9 years ago in Futurism
Bizarre Creatures that Would Look Totally Normal In a Sci-Fi Movie
When people think about all the different animals that have been discovered on Earth, it's hard to pin down a standard "earth look" that we should expect of creatures. That being said, we definitely can tell when an animal looks alien to us.
By Ossiana Tepfenhart9 years ago in Futurism
Are You Aware Of What's Out There?
This world has so many secrets, stories untold, and only a small few can see into those secrets well enough to explain one hundred percent what is truly going on. Is it a mind game? Is it truly happening? How do I make it stop? If these are your questions, I can give you answers.
By Olivia Colley9 years ago in Futurism