Archaeological analysis of human remains can illuminate incredible truths about our ancient ancestors, revealing hidden truths about their daily lives that we wouldn't necessarily be able to find in written records. Other times, it can just be a damn tattletale.

In the 500s, Byzantine monasteries were found throughout the deserts of Africa and the Near East. The remote locations were no accident — these monks were meant to adhere to asceticism, which strictly forbade worldly pleasures and required the monks to live on little else but bread and water. One exception to the isolation of these early monasteries was St. Stephen's in Jerusalem, which afforded its monks access to temptations unknown to those of their desert-dwelling brethren.

Unfortunately, it seems the monks of St. Stephen's weren't able to withstand the temptation. The University of South Alabama's Lesley Gregoricka analyzed bone samples from 55 skeletons in the monastery. The ratios of carbon and nitrogen isotopes in the bone can be used to reconstruct a reasonable picture of the ancient monks' diets. And while some of the monks did indeed only seem to subsist on bread and water with the occasional fruits and vegetables mixed in, that wasn't exactly true of all the inhabitants of St. Stephen's.

As New Scientist reports, Many of the monks were found to have bones rich in nitrogen-15, which has to be derived from consumption of animal protein. That most likely means meat, although it's possible the monks were eating cheese or other dairy-based products. Either way, such foods would have violated the principles of asceticism. What's more, such foods were a luxury item in 6th century Jerusalem, meaning the monks almost certainly would have violated their vow of poverty just to get their hands on the food.

According to Peter Hallie of the University of Dallas, "Only fallen, weak, mad and demonic monks ate meat." So either St. Stephen's Monastery was a dumping ground for every fallen, weak, mad, and demonic monk that the other, purer Byzantine monasteries didn't want, or these monks somehow kept secret their forbidden culinary habits. In any event, it just goes to show that archaeologists can't be trusted with anybody's secrets, even if they are 1,500 years old.

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology via New Scientist. Image of Cretan monastery by Nelo Hotsuma on Flickr.

Bats have already set themselves apart from other mammals as the only members of our class to have mastered flight (sorry flying squirrel, that gliding crap doesn't count). But the secret of flight has given bats some awesome perks.

Relative to their size, bats live remarkably long lives. Rodents of similar stature typically live only one or two years, but bats that survive their hazardous first year often can live for a good 20 years, with rare cases of bats reaching 30. And yet bats are notorious carriers of deadly viruses. "Carriers" is the key word there, because while they can often be the source of viral outbreaks in livestock, their own immune systems are supercharged, leaving them protected against most serious diseases.

Researchers at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, a part of Australia's national science agency the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), teamed up with scientists at the Beijing Genome Institute to sequence a pair of bat genomes. The genomes came from the Australian mega bat, otherwise known rather wonderfully as the black flying fox, and the Chinese micro bat. The genomes were then compared to eight other mammalian species.

According to CSIRO researcher Dr. Chris Cowled, the bats' genomes suggest their strengthened immune response and consequent longevity actually come from their ability to fly:

Bats are a natural reservoir for several lethal viruses, such as Hendra, Ebola and SARS, but they often don't succumb to disease from these viruses. They're also the only mammal that can fly, and they live a long time compared to animals similar in size. Flying is a very energy intensive activity that produces toxic by-products but we can see that bats have some novel genes to deal with these toxins. We're proposing that the evolution of flight led to a sort of spill over effect, influencing not only the immune system, but also things like aging and cancer. They've been around since the time of the dinosaurs, at least 65 million years, and they're among the most abundant and widespread mammals on the earth."

Their research has just been published in Science.

Image by LOLren on Flickr.

Guardians of the Galaxy is closing in on its Star Lord. Check out the first photo from Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost's apocalyptic World's End. Hugh Jackman reveals that The Wolverine is a sequel to a surprising movie. Plus a couple more Doctor Who previews!

Spoilers from here on out!

Top image from Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek Into Darkness

Benedict Cumberbatch offers some more insight into his role as the villainous John Harrison:

"When J.J. described the role to me… he described someone who was, in movie terms, a mixture of Hannibal Lecter, Jack in The Shining, and the Joker in Batman... He's someone who has enormous physical strength. He's someone who is incredibly dangerous, both as a physical entity and through the use of various technologies and weapons and who performs acts of what I would describe as terrorism. He's also a psychological master. He manipulates the minds of those around him to do his bidding in a very, very subtle way."

J.J. Abrams also weighs in on how Harrison's presence shapes the sequel:

So this movie doesn't require you have seen the first movie. The characters are a group of people who have recently come together and find themselves up against this incredibly terrifying force. His name is John Harrison and he is sort of an average –- that is what makes him so scary –- he is just an average guy who works in an organization called Starfleet, and he turns against the group because he has got this back-story and this kind of amazing secret agenda. After two very violent attacks, one in London and one in the US, our characters have to go after this guy and apprehend him. And it is a far more complicated and difficult thing then they ever anticipated. "Into Darkness" is very much about how intense it gets and really what they are up against.

But Abrams also hints strongly that this film has an unabashedly happy ending:

I don't like going to the movies to feel bad. I don't like going to the movies to feel depressed and feel diminished. The reason you go to the movies is to feel bigger and stronger and happier. So this is a movie that they certainly go ‘Into Darkness,' but I would be the wrong director if it was about characters staying there. This is very much a movie about hope, about love, about romance, and about facing something that is truly terrifying and finding a way through the connection of your family and surviving and being stronger afterwards.

[Coming Soon via Trek Movie]

Guardians of the Galaxy

Marvel Studios is reportedly down to two choices for the part of Star Lord, the leader of the movie's titular cosmic superhero team. Writer-director James Gunn's two choices are reportedly onetime Chuck star Zachary Levi and Cloud Atlas and Across the Universe actor Jim Sturgess. Levi is a particularly intriguing option inasmuch as he's already playing Warriors Three member Fandral in Thor: The Dark World, making him potentially the first actor to do double duty within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Chris Evans and Idris Elba have both played multiple Marvel roles, but each played one of their roles for a different studio). Anyway, though Levi and Sturgess would appear to be the finalists, there are also reports that Marvel will screen-test an unnamed third actor sometime this week. [Variety]

The Wolverine

While numerous reports have suggested the new Wolverine movie would exist in a murky place outside the other movies' increasingly tangled continuity, star Hugh Jackman now confirms the movie actually explores the fallout of a previous film:

Okay, the movie takes place after X-Men: The Last Stand. My character is at his lowest. He is supposed to be able to heal himself, but he may encounter someone who has worked out a way to really hurt him. And there is a cameo from one of the past X-Men in it.

[Parade Magazine]

The World's End

Here's the first image from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz makers Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost's new film, which follows a bunch of fortysomething friends attempting an epic pub crawl that just happens to be on the same night as the apocalypse. Here's a first look at Pegg, Frost, their Hot Fuzz costar Paddy Considine, Sherlock and The Hobbit's Martin Freeman, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides actor Eddy Marsan. [Shock Till You Drop]

Snow White and the Huntsman 2

Our long national nightmare is over, people, assuming our long national nightmare centered on whether Kristen Stewart was coming back for the Snow White and the Huntsman sequel. Here's her Cicero-worthy oratory on the subject:

"Oh, it's gonna be fuckin' amazing. No, I'm so excited about it, it's crazy. I'm not allowed [to talk about it]. The other day I said that there was a strong possibility that we're going to make a sequel, and that's very true, but everyone was like, 'Whoa, stop talking about it.' So no, I'm totally not allowed to talk about it. Oh my God. Fuck, yeah. Absolutely. And we've got a really amazing... [smiles] So, yeah. It's all good. [laughs]"

I think we're all better people for having read... whatever the hell that was. [ET Online]

Doctor Who

Here's a sneak peek at tomorrow's Christmas special, "The Snowmen", featuring interviews with showrunner Steven Moffat and stars Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman. [Blogtor Who]

And here's another preview clip. [Life, Doctor Who, and Combom]

Fringe

Here's a promo for the next episode and the final one before the two-hour finale, "The Boy Must Live", which airs January 11. [Fringe Television]

Here's the description for the episode:

TIME TO SAVE THE WORLD IS RUNNING OUT ON AN ALL-NEW FRINGE FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, ON FOX — As time dramatically ticks down toward the end of this acclaimed series, Peter, Olivia and Walter stop at nothing to save the universe from Observer rule. Walter enters the infamous deprivation tank in an attempt to uncover a key piece of information about the mysterious figure, Donald. Meanwhile, Captain Windmark sets out on a revealing mission of his own as long-standing questions are answered

[SpoilerTV]

And here's the first promo photo for the episode. [SpoilerTV]

Person of Interest

Here are some promo photos for episode eleven, "2πR", which is due to air January 3. [SpoilerTV]

And here's a short synopsis for the following episode twelve, "Prisoner's Dilemma", which airs January 10:

CARTER PLAYS A DANGEROUS GAME WITH THE FBI AS REESE IS CONFRONTED BY FOES BOTH OLD AND NEW AND FUSCO RACES TO SAVE THE TEAM'S LATEST POI: SUPERMODEL KAROLINA KURKOVA – While Carter engages in mental warfare with the FBI to help Reese evade Agent Donnelly's narrowing focus, Reese crosses paths with foes both old and new. Meanwhile, Det. Fusco is forced to fly solo to help the team's newest POI: supermodel Karolina Kurkova.

[SpoilerTV]

Once Upon a Time

Here are some promo photos from the midseason premiere, "The Cricket Game", which airs January 6. The official synopsis is below. [KSiteTV]

EMMA THINKS REGINA MAY BE INNOCENT OF MURDERING ONE OF THE TOWN'S MOST BELOVED FAIRYTALE CHARACTERS, AND SNOW WHITE AND PRINCE CHARMING SET ABOUT PLANNING THE EVIL QUEEN'S PUBLIC EXECUTION, ON ABC'S "ONCE UPON A TIME" – Regina is accused of murdering one of the town's most beloved fairytale characters - but only Emma senses that she may be innocent. Meanwhile, back in the fairytale land that was, after capturing the Evil Queen, Snow White and Prince Charming set about planning her public execution in order to rid the land of her murderous tyranny.

ABC has also released these behind-the-scenes photos from the filming of the episode. [SpoilerTV]

Here are full descriptions for the two subsequent episodes, "The Outsider" and "In the Name of the Brother":

The Outsider

MR. GOLD ATTEMPTS TO DISCOVER IF HIS SPELL WILL ALLOW HIM TO CROSS THE STORYBROOKE BORDER AND GO IN SEARCH OF HIS SON, AND BELLE MEETS UP WITH MULAN TO SLAY A FEARSOME YAOGUAI, ON ABC'S "ONCE UPON A TIME" – Mr. Gold finds an unwilling test subject to see if a spell he has concocted will allow him to cross the border of Storybrooke - without losing his memory - and go in search of his son, Bae; Belle stumbles upon a vengeful Hook in the Storybrooke harbor whose main goal is to eradicate Rumplestiltskin; and Mary Margaret and David go house hunting in search of a bigger place to live. Meanwhile, in the fairytale land that was, Belle meets Mulan as the two set out to slay a fearsome beast called the Yaoguai, who has been ravaging the land.

In the Name of the Brother

AFRAID THAT THE STRANGER MAY HAVE SEEN MAGIC BEFORE HIS ACCIDENT, SOME OF THE STORYBROOKE RESIDENTS WANT DR. WHALE TO LET HIM DIE SO THAT HE CANNOT EXPOSE THEIR TRUE IDENTITIES TO THE WORLD, AND VICTOR TRIES TO PROVE TO HIS FATHER THAT HE CAN BRING BACK THE DEAD, ON ABC'S "ONCE UPON A TIME" – Dr. Whale is tasked with mending Hook's wounds and performing surgery on the stranger whose car crashed upon entering Storybrooke. But some of the townspeople fear that the stranger may have seen magic - which could expose their true identities to the world - and think that leaving him to die would be the best solution. Meanwhile, as Mr. Gold tries to reunite with a despondent Belle, Cora attempts to reunite with daughter Regina; and in the land that was, Victor desperately wants to prove to his disapproving father that he can, indeed, bring back the dead.

[KSiteTV]

The Neighbors

Here's the description for episode twelve, "Cold War", which airs January 16:

THE COMMON COLD INFECTS HIDDEN HILLS, PUTTING THE WEAVERS UNDER QUARANTINE — When the entire Weaver family gets sick, it forces the Bird-Kersees to confront something new and terrifying — the common cold. The Bird-Kersees — especially Larry — can't understand why Debbie takes care of her family even though she is exposing herself to their cold. Having learned there is no cure for colds, Larry makes the community quarantine the Weaver house, but Reggie has other plans.

[SpoilerTV]

The Vampire Diaries

Here's the complete description for the tenth episode, "After School Special", which kicks off the second half of season four on January 17:

REBEKAH IS BACK WITH A VENGEANCE - Appearing unexpectedly at Mystic Falls High, Rebekah (Claire Holt) wastes no time trying to force Stefan (Paul Wesley), Elena (Nina Dobrev) and Caroline (Candice Accola) to answer her questions about the search for a cure, leading to a bombshell piece of information from Elena. When Bonnie's (Kat Graham) father, Rudy Owens (guest star Rick Worthy, 'Supernatural'), accepts the role of Interim Mayor, he makes it a priority to protect his daughter, who isn't at all comfortable with the role he suddenly wants to play in her life. Professor Shane (guest star David Alpay) continues to encourage Bonnie to believe in her powers, but he soon finds himself in danger when he reveals too much to the wrong person. Later, Caroline does her best to comfort Tyler (Michael Trevino) after a violent confrontation. Meanwhile, at the lake house, Damon and Matt (Zach Roerig) train Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen), trying to raise his game as a hunter, but Klaus (Joseph Morgan) is impatient with their progress and intervenes to speed up the process.

[SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Amanda Yesilbas. Morning Spoilers will return on December 27.

Kirk may be installed as Captain of the Enterprise at the start of Star Trek Into Darkness, but that doesn't mean he's secure in that role, as some new plot hints make clear. Maybe Guardians of the Galaxy hasn't found its Star Lord after all. Joss Whedon and Patrick Stewart are excited for S.H.I.E.L.D. and X-Men: Days of Future Past, respectively, even if they can't say very much. Could Bubba Nosferatu still happen?

Spoilers from here on out!

Top image from Doctor Who.

Star Trek Into Darkness

We already saw some promo images for the upcoming Star Trek sequel from Empire Magazine, but now here's a new snippet of plot description:

With Earth under terrorist attack from Benedict Cumberbatch's ex-Starfleet employee John Harrison, Kirk is this time forced into a rash decision that breaks a critical Starfleet command, puts his crew in danger & costs him his captain's chair. Now out of uniform and dressed down in space civvies of black leather jackets and boots, our three heroes have separated from the Enterprise and headed off on a mission to try and rectify his mistake...

I imagine the "three heroes" is made clear in the original article, but it probably refers to Kirk, Spock, and Uhura, whom we see in the black leather jackets in the trailer. [Bleeding Cool]

Writer Damon Lindelof explains why the new timeline hasn't quite caught up yet to the time period of the original show:

Our crew is not necessarily caught up to where Kirk and Bones and Spock were, not even Chekov yet, when we first met them in the original series. So if you're going to do something you've got to do your homework... Our guiding principle was that there was a certain level of excitement in that if the first movie was to use Ms. Pac Man terminology, "they meet", the second intermission is going to be the falling in love part. The idea that the characters are all sort of getting to know each other, but don't know each other all that well yet. Certainly Kirk and Bones have a relationship because we established that they met each other and were fairly close all though the Academy. So those guys are tight, and were tight in the first and remain tight. But a lot of the others, especially now that Kirk is in command of these people as opposed to "I'm the insolent rabble-rouser running around the ship trying to tell everybody what I think they need to be doing." Now he's in charge. That was a very interesting dynamic to play with because, again, it wasn't something that we've seen before. The only Enterprise that were familiar with is where Kirk has been the Captain, nobody ever questions his judgment, he knows what he's doing and occasionally gets in trouble, but he has the trust and love of everybody under his command. But there was a phase that preceded that and that's the phase into which Into Darkness plays. So that's very exciting for us.

He also discusses the expanded role of 23rd century Earth in the sequel:

I don't want to get into percentages of how much takes place on Earth and how much takes place off Earth, suffice to say I think one of the things we felt a lot of people didn't know about Star Trek was that they didn't think that Star Trek was the future. You take something like Star Wars; Star Wars is not the future. It's a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and Luke Skywalker is not a human being and isn't from the planet Earth. The idea in Star Trek, they are. They're in the 23rd century and these people are from Earth. The Earth needed to play more of a role in these movies, especially in the sense of giving the audience a degree of relatability. I think that in the same way that New York City becomes this anchor point for people in the Marvel movies; that's Spidey's stomping ground, that was the stomping ground for Tony Stark, that was the stomping ground for The Avengers, it's New York. We wanted to do the same thing with Earth in the Star Trek movies.

Finally, he discusses the inclusion of a younger, alternate timeline version of Kirk's old Wrath of Khan love interest Carol Marcus, as played by Alice Eve. Crucially, it sounds like there's no guarantee she'll follow her prime-timeline path and have an affair with Kirk:

It was an idea that, of all the ideas that we had about the sequel and the movie, having Carol in the second movie was something that we all agreed was a good idea. The follow up question is how are we going to use her? What role is she going to play? Is she going to be a love interest for Kirk or something else? And what would that something else be?... So we had to look at Carol as, as opposed to she's a new character that we want you to pay attention to, how can she interact with all those other guys in a way that doesn't take away from them, but enhances them?

There's a ton more at the link. [Collider]

Guardians of the Galaxy

Writer-director James Gunn wrote on his Facebook page that a recent Variety story contained a lot of inaccuracies — that being the article suggesting that onetime Chuck star Zachary Levi and Across the Universe's Jim Sturgess were finalists for the role of team leader Peter Quill, alias Star Lord. However, he has since also debunked subsequent articles that suggested his comments meant Levi and Sturgess aren't in contention for the role, so really it's anybody's guess just what's going on here. Most likely, there's still multiple actors in contention for the part of Star Lord, a decision isn't especially imminent, and Levi and/or Sturgess might still be in the mix, but then again one or both of them might not. I think that clears it all up quite nicely, really. More details at the link. [IGN]

X-Men: Days of Future Past

The great Patrick Stewart offers another vague update on his return as Professor X for Bryan Singer's X-Men: First Class followup:

I'm very happy to report that Bryan Singer is coming back to direct the movie. I'm very happy that my lovely friend Ian McKellen is going to be with me. I don't know anyone else who is to be involved in the project. Maybe it's just the two of us! That would be a movie! Magneto and Xavier's conversations... I'm not being cute. That's all I know. Maybe once the holidays are over, more information will begin to come through. I have a vague idea of the time commitments, but I don't know where we're going to shoot. But I'm greatly looking forward to it.

[Hero Complex]

Bubba Nosferatu

While it's probably best to not hold out... well, any hope that the sequel to Don Coscarelli and Bruce Campbell's awesome Bubba Ho-tep will ever get made, potential star Paul Giamatti is still holding out hope:

When I first met Don, it was just through funny circumstances. We got together and he told me he had the idea for a sequel to that, and I read the script, which was great. I don't know how much I would want to give away about it, though. The part I would play would be Colonel Parker, who was Elvis' manager, and it was always a sinister relationship between the two of them, with how he had such control over him. The movie answers that question. It's a vampire movie, and that's part of how he has a hold over him. It's a fantastic script! It's different from the other one, but it's still all about aging and compromising yourself. The way Bubba Ho-Tep was about getting old, this one's about being middle-aged, in a great way. I hope that maybe we can still get it done ‘cause it's a really great script.

[Collider]

Doctor Who

Here's the "coming soon" trailer for the final eight episodes of season seven, in case you missed it our recap yesterday. [TV Equals]

S.H.I.E.L.D.

Joss Whedon offers some encouraging if rather cryptic words about his the S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot he's developing for ABC:

There's been enormous progress. We are trundling along, I can't share much. And by much I mean anything. I can say that "S.H.I.E.L.D" came together in a very organic way. And part of my taking "Avengers 2" was that I'd have the opportunity to work in the Marvel universe. I didn't exactly know I'd be running a TV show five minutes later.

On top of your commitment to Bellwether...
Yeah, but it's something I really believe in. Although,"Avengers" is the top of my list of exciting new things, "S.H.I.E.L.D." is really talking to me.

[Indiewire]

True Blood

Rubicon and Medium actor Arliss Howard has been cast as Truman Burell, who is — and this is by far my favorite character the description ever — the governor of Louisiana who is "a good ol' boy politician [with] a major beef with vampires ever since his wife ran off with one, leaving him as a single father to their only daughter." Oh, and he's "politically savvy and perhaps overly ambitious, [and he] tends to let his personal aspirations overshadow his humanity", but really, it's the whole hates vampires because his wife ran off with one thing that's just amazing. [TV Line]

Once Upon a Time

Here's a promo for the show's January return. [KSiteTV]

Showrunner Adam Horowitz revealed the titles of episodes fourteen and fifteen via Twitter:

Supernatural

Here's the official description for episode ten, "Torn and Frayed", which airs January 16:

CASTIEL MUST SAVE A FELLOW ANGEL - Naomi (guest star Amanda Tapping) tells Castiel (Misha Collins) that Crowley (guest star Mark Sheppard) is holding an angel captive and Castiel must rescue him before Crowley finds out their secrets. Castiel turns to Dean (Jensen Ackles) for help. Meanwhile, Sam (Jared Padalecki) meets with Amelia (guest star Liane Balaban) who asks him to make a choice: stay with her or leave and never contact her again.

[KSiteTV]

The Vampire Diaries

Executive producer Julie Plec discusses the fallout of the death of Tyler's mother at the hands of Klaus:

Tyler's first order of business actually is to mourn. This is the last thing he ever expected that would happen, and the loss of his mom is a pretty powerful thing for him. When we come back we're going to see he's not actually doing so well. He's got some stuff to deal with before he's going to pull himself together.

Is it safe to say the cure is the last thing on his mind?
Oh yeah, for sure. He's if anything reeling and looking over his shoulder wondering if Klaus is there to chop his head off. Also, I'm sure [he's] trying to figure out if there's any move he can make or anything he can do to regain the upper hand against Klaus, although it looks pretty bleak. It's not without its solutions, but it ain't pretty.

How is the state of his relationship with Caroline?
It's currently a little bit tested because of the events of this episode, but thankfully they were able to make things right with each other before tragedy struck. Caroline's going to be more concerned about him when we come back and really want to reconnect with him and make him open up to her so that she can help him heal from this experience. Ultimately, both of them as we get deeper into the next chapter, will have to finally sort of face the Klaus problem head on and figure out what to do.

There's a bunch more at the link. [Hollywood]

Additional reporting by Amanda Yesilbas, Rob H. Dawson, and Charlie Jane Anders.

Chris Pine reveals how Benedict Cumberbatch gets inside Kirk's head in Star Trek Into Darkness. Robert Downey, Jr. explains why Iron Man 3 will get darker. Fringe's Seth Gabel discusses his upcoming Arrow villainy. Plus lots of Person of Interest and Once Upon a Time hints!

Spoilers from here on out!

Top image from Pacific Rim.

Star Trek Into Darkness

Even if the name John Harrison is still part of some elaborate bluff regarding the true identity of the Star Trek sequel's villain, everyone now seems more than happy to discuss his plan, starting with the master of secrecy himself, director J.J. Abrams:

"In Benedict Cumberbatch we have a much more emotionally and intellectually challenging villain than we had in the last film. Eric Bana did a great job, but Nero was a much simpler, raving sort of furious dude. The first movie was an origin story. The characters were all new to each other, so all they needed was a scary threat to face. It didn't need to be complex or nuanced. Just by default, given the number of characters and the structure of it, we could only go so deep. By necessity, it had to stop at a certain level. It had a ceiling. And now there is no ceiling. He was within Starfleet and has now turned against the organisation and is hell-bent on revenge. He's responsible for a very violent, horrific attack in London and then one in the States. He believes he and others were wronged and is focused on destruction. He's an incredibly brilliant strategist who is aware of various truths that Kirk is not privy to."

And star Chris Pine offers some of the most concrete thoughts yet on just what the character means for Captain Kirk:

"He is Kirk's shadow of death, his Achilles' heel. He is a big mirror reflecting all of Kirk's insecurities back at him. He is just as intelligent and logical as Spock, but is also one very very bad motherfucker. He's sort of superhuman, pretty much unbeatable. Brainy and brawny. He manipulates situations. He's incarcerated when Kirk is talking to him and yet he still gets Kirk to do his work for him. He pushes him into a corner where the only route to salvation is cooperation. There is a real Hannibal Lecter quality to him."

[Comic Book Movie]

Iron Man 3

Star Robert Downey, Jr. discusses how writer-director Shane Black and Ben Kingsley's villainous turn as the Mandarin have both darkened the film's tone:

"I think Shane's gone for a dark feel in this movie. It's a lot grittier and goes back to its comic-book roots. It's shaped into a really special movie — and Shane as been instrument in that... I always think there's something more terrifying about a villain who's a genius, as opposed to just relying on strength or ability. We all know what a fantastic actor Ben Kingsley is, and he pulls off the evil genius with real terrifying results.

[Comic Book Movie]

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Young Professor X actor James McAvoy discusses what to expect from his character in Bryan Singer's follow-up to X-Men: First Class, including the all-important question of just when and how he goes bald:

"I thought the biggest thing that X-Men: First Class gave the franchise was a real palpable sense of humor that wasn't just for a couple of moments. It was running through the thing. And I hope that continues. I don't know how easy it will be for me to be a part of that as my character's going to be in a pretty fucked up place. It's a shame because I like the fact that Charles Xavier was witty and funny and a bit of a lecherous old guy trapped in a 30-year-old's body... [Screenwriter] Simon Kinberg and I had a chat about it and we came up with a whole bunch of ideas about how, why and where he might go bald. It's got to be linked to the plot though. In the comics, he lost his hair as soon as his powers awakened, and we clearly didn't follow the source material. It can't just be that he looks in the mirror at the end of the film and goes 'Oh fuck, I'm losing my hair.' Although that could be quite funny with all this shit going on... he goes ‘Arge, I'm really stressed...'"

The same article also reveals that neither Rose Byrne nor Caleb Landry Jones have been asked to reprise their respective roles of Moira McTaggart and Banshee, but both would like to come back if asked. [Total Film via Comic Book Movie]

Pacific Rim

Here's a new hi-res image of stars Idris Elba and Rinko Kikuchi from Guillermo del Toro's giant monster movie. Click on the image for a much better look. [/Film]

The World's End

Producer Eric Fellner offers this update on the filming of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost's apocalyptic conclusion to the thematic trilogy that began with Shaun of the Dead and continued with Hot Fuzz:

Well I can tell them that they're all very wet and very cold because they're doing four weeks of night shoots and the weather's brutal. So I bought Edgar a furry hat to try and keep him warm. They're just digging in and doing it. The work is fantastic; very, very funny. There's these great scenes with Nick with these barstools, he's beating the shit out of people; Simon, very funny. Great cast with them: Rosamund Pike, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan and Martin Freeman. Martin was slightly shocked apparently the other day; I just heard this second hand. He had to go to New Zealand for the premiere of The Hobbit. Nira [Park], the British producing partner with Edgar was telling me that he called because he got to the airport and apparently his face is painted on all of the Air New Zealand planes. So he got there and saw this plane and his face was painted on the outside of it. So I think he's slightly shocked at the moment. But it's going brilliantly, and it's going to be funny and Edgar's on very good form.

[Collider]

The Giver

Author Lois Lowry says the long-planned film adaption of her seminal young adult novel appears to be happening at last, and Jeff Bridges is still on board to star as the title character:

"I've just heard within the past couple of days that The Giver, which they've been trying to make into a movie for 15 years, is finally on the road. Things have ratcheted up, and they have producers and money and a director and a star. They hope to start shooting it in the spring. As we speak, they're interviewing young boy actors for the role of Jonas."

[Studio 360]

About Time

Producer Eric Fellner discusses Blackadder and Love, Actually writer Richard Curtis's upcoming time travel movie, which stars Midnight in Paris star Rachel McAdams, Harry Potter actor Domhnall Gleeson, and the always welcome Bill Nighy:

Yeah, I mean Richard's unique. He's made…

Just a few.
Just a few. He's never written a script that hasn't been made. His films have done billions of dollars and he's only had one film that wasn't a success, which is a shame because I really liked it, The Boat that Rocked. But again it's not an expensive film, it's a small film. It's a romantic comedy about two people meeting and falling in love and having a family and that's it. Has a bit of time travel in it, but who doesn't? And it's a beautiful thing. We screened it two nights ago in Los Angeles and the preview was…the numbers were amazing. People absolutely adored it.

[Collider]

Doctor Who

Here's an interview with producers Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner. [Life, Doctor Who, and Combom]

Person of Interest

Showrunner Jonathan Nolan discusses what's ahead in the second half of season two, especially now that Reese has been captured:

I think it is very unlikely that Finch will try as least as hard as Reese to rescue his friend and erstwhile partner. But you have a full team here. You have Carter (Taraji P. Henson) and Fusco (Kevin Chapman) and other people who might be interested in the fact that Reese — or someone who might be Reese — might be locked up.

We did see Reese going to great lengths to rescue Finch at the beginning of the season and, in the mid-season finale, expressing out loud how important this partnership has become to him. What can you say about Reese's character growth this season and how he is changing?

I feel like the promise of the show from the beginning and what Greg and I, the writers and the actors are interested in are four very wounded, very broken characters that are rebuilding themselves. Reese probably the most — but for reasons you will discover; Finch in his own way — there is a lot of damage there. So watching Reese over the course a season and a half and collaborating with Michael and Jim on these performances in which every tiny glimmer of connection you get means so much, and the ways in which we see Reese as this wounded animal who slowly is rebuilding his trust and his connections to the world, we love to do that right to the point where we smash it all to pieces. That is our favorite thing to do. Our writers are sadists, I think.

There's a bunch more at the link. [xfinityTV]

Once Upon a Time

Grindhouse and Conan actress Rose McGowan will reportedly return to the realm of network fantasy she previously explored for five years on Charmed, as she is set to guest star as a young version of Barbara Hershey's Cora, the mother of the Evil Queen, in an upcoming flashback. [Deadline]

Prince Charming actor Josh Dallas discusses the reaction to Cora and Hook's arrival in Storybrooke:

No, it's shocking. It's shocking and exciting, and it's not what you're expecting for their welcome - particularly for Hook. I've tried not to give any of this away, but he gets thrust into the group, as it were, quite violently.

Might there be some thumping of chests with Charming and Hook?
There might be…. I mean, Charming doesn't take kindly to people who are liars and manipulators - he finds that a real weakness in people - and Hook is one nasty character. Of course, they haven't met yet, properly, but I think there's going to be some interesting things for sure between the two of them.

He also discusses what's ahead for Charming and Snow White:

With all great, epic love stories, there are always obstacles thrown in front of the lovers, all of the time - and particularly with our show. And I think certainly in the case of Snow and Charming, that will continue to happen throughout the series. But at the moment, now that they've gotten back together and they're both in Storybrooke, there is time to breathe and think about where they are, who they are, what their relationship was and what it can be now, where they belong….

"Do they expand their family? And what are the ramifications if any of another ‘true love' baby?"
Yeah. There are all those kind of questions going on. Of course, there are things happening in Storybrooke that the Charming family has to deal with first. Besides Cora and Hook showing up, we have something else that's happening that needs the family's attention. There are things that are going on that prevent them from kind of really taking that time [to relax], but they find their way around it and start talking about their future.

There's more at the link. [TV Line]

Supernatural

Episode 17 is reportedly called "Goodbye Stranger." [SpoilerTV]

Arrow

Here's the description for January's midseason premiere, "Burned":

OLIVER HANGS UP HIS HOOD - Oliver's (Stephen Amell) confidence is shaken after being beaten by the Dark Archer and he takes a break from being Arrow. However, when Laurel (Katie Cassidy) calls Arrow for help investigating a firefighter's suspicious death, he reluctantly agrees but his hesitance while fighting almost costs him his life. Meanwhile, Tommy (Colin Donnell) throws a benefit for the firefighters and Thea (Willa Holland) tries to lift Moira (Susanna Thompson) out of her depressive state.

[SpoilerTV]

Seth Gabel, best known for playing Lincoln Lee on Fringe, discusses his upcoming villainous guest role on Arrow:

I play The Count, who's based on Count Vertigo of the comic book series. Instead of having superpowers, the powers are manifested in a drug called Vertigo, that I sell on the street. I'm essentially this street thug/drug kingpin, taking over the streets of Starling City. The way I justified being a super-villain, if you will, is that the character cares so much about money and power that he's willing to do whatever it takes to acquire those things. In being totally consumed by money and power, I can completely ignore any questionable ethics, along that process, and just completely throw myself into doing whatever acts will achieve the acquisition of those things, whether it's evil, wrong or whatever.

With as much fun as you had shooting your guest appearance, are you hoping that the character will return?
Oh, definitely! It's very possible that I'll make future appearances, and it's something that I would absolutely love doing.

[Collider]

Additional reporting by Charlie Jane Anders.

In a 360-acre field in the county of Northumberland, there are large beasts ten times rarer than the mountain gorilla and the Siberian tiger and three times rarer than the right whale. Humans haven't even touched them in centuries.

These are the Chillingham cattle, a wild subspecies that has lived in the same field for nearly a millennium. Unlike almost all other cattle in the United Kingdom — and indeed, the world at large — these cattle aren't domesticated, and it's possible but unproven that they might be direct descendants of the wild aurochs that roamed Europe before domestication. The Chillingham cattle are smaller than their domestic counterparts, weighing in at around 650 pounds, and they are so wild that they can't tolerate any direct human contact, as game warden Richard Marsh explains in a recent BBC article:

"No human hand touches them and they receive no veterinary care either... If humans were to handle them, they would change the way in which they smell. This would lead to any such beast being rejected by the herd and they'd kill them... By this time of year they've flattened the grass to the ground and any grass there is still growing will have no goodness - it'll all have gone into the root for next year. Surrounded with a fence means they cannot wander off and find food, so we have to keep them going, probably through to about March, with a couple of round bales of hay a day."

Outside of that indirect feeding, humans have to stay well away from the Chillingham cattle, and it's an arrangement that's worked just fine since around 1240, when it's believed that the field was first enclosed. The Chillingham cattle likely weren't the beneficiaries of 13th century conservation, but rather were protected as part of an effort to keep Scottish marauders out of royal lands. Despite centuries of inbreeding, these 90 cattle — and another 20 kept at a reserve location in Scotland — are still going strong, a sort of biological oasis from the modern ecological world.

Via BBC News. Image by yellowbook on Flickr.

Located some 150 million light-years from Earth, NGC 922 is admittedly a little far for a quick New Year's Eve getaway. But as this Hubble image reveals, the views are great, just so long as you avoid the black holes.

Situated in the constellation of Fornax, NGC 922 is home to several large black holes. At least seven of the black holes detected in the galaxy are thought to be at least ten times as massive as our Sun, which makes them quite massive for black holes of the stellar-sized class. NGC 922 is what's known as a ring galaxy, meaning that its stars are arranged in, well, a ring. And just how did that ring form? NASA explains:

NGC 922 is a ring galaxy created by the collision of a large and small galaxy about 300 million years ago. Like a rock thrown into a pond, the ancient collision sent ripples of high density gas out from the impact point near the center that partly condensed into stars. Pictured above is NGC 922 with its beautifully complex ring along the left side, as imaged recently by the Hubble Space Telescope. Observations of NGC 922 with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, however, show several glowing X-ray knots that are likely large black holes. The high number of massive black holes was somewhat surprising as the gas composition in NGC 922 — rich in heavy elements — should have discouraged almost anything so massive from forming.

Via NASA APOD. Click on the image up top for a closer look.

Joseph Kosinski explains why M83 is as right for Oblivion as Daft Punk was for Tron Legacy. Mark Wahlberg showers some absolutely ridiculous praise on Transformers 4. Justified star Walton Goggins discusses G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Check out photos from Bryan Singer's gritty fairy tale Jack the Giant Slayer. Arnold Schwarzenegger talks Terminator 5. Plus hints aplenty for The Vampire Diaries and Arrow!

It's all spoilers from here on out!

Top image from Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Oblivion

Tron Legacy director Joseph Kosinki discusses his upcoming post-apocalyptic epic, in which Tom Cruise is the last person living on Earth... or so he believes:

I wrote this treatment for this small character driven science fiction film that I knew I had to keep contained if it was ever going to be my first movie. So I modeled it thinking back to Omega Man or Silent Running, these very character driven stories that had a small cast of characters but set against an epic backdrop with big ideas. In terms of the look and my vision for it I felt that I wanted to do something that I hadn't seen in a while, which was a daytime science fiction film. After Alien, which is one of my favorites, science fiction kind of went into a very dark place for a long time and I thought it would be an interesting challenge to bring it into the daylight. So this aesthetic of taking this kind of very clean refined technology set against a rugged backdrop, which ended up being Iceland. For me that juxtaposition of those two looks felt like something that could be very unique. For whatever reason that was something that came to me very clearly and something that we stuck to and that has worked throughout the whole film.

He also explains why M83 provides the score for this film, much as Daft Punk did for Tron Legacy:

It had to be an artist whose music fit the themes and story I was trying to tell. And M83's music I felt was fresh and original, and big and epic, but at the same time emotional and this is a very emotional film and it felt like a good fit. So I talked to him very early and he was finishing up his latest album at the time and I am so excited. I brought in Joe Trapaese, the orchestrator from Tron: Legacy is now the orchestrator on this so it's very similar arrangement of talent. I'm as excited about what we're doing musically for this film as I was for Tron.

Finally, he discusses Tom Cruise's distinctive, almost entirely white costume:

Right, well the look of Jack Harper's costume had to fit the world he was living in; the bubble ship, the sky tower, all had to feel like one consistent aesthetic. I wanted it to feel like everything is connected. It has to feel consistent the technology, the palate and the materials. Jack's suit, you know, we haven't seen our science fiction hero in a white suit before I don't think, that's a unique look. So that certainly was one of the aesthetic challenges that you have to push through an industry that's used to having heroes in black. Pick any movie all these palates look the same, so having to switch that on its head was one of the early challenges of pushing this aesthetic through, but that's what makes something look different you've got to change the perception around it a little bit. I worked as hard on the design of the costumes as everything else and had a great costume designer to collaborate with on this movie in Marlene Stewart.

There's still plenty more at the link. [Collider]

After Earth

Here's the poster for another post-apocalyptic epic, this one starring the father-and-son team of Will and Jaden Smith. You might notice this poster complete skips over the fact that M. Night Shyamalan is directing — though not writing, which might be a good sign — this thing. [Screen Crush]

Transformers 4

This quote is a little old, but no matter; whenever I come across Mark Wahlberg talking in ludicrously rarefied terms about his starring role in Michael Bay's fourth Transformers movie, it's my journalistic duty — nay, privilege — to pass it along:

I'm really excited about Transformers. Michael Bay and I just did Pain & Gain and we had such a good time making it. He came to me and said, "I'm kind of doing a whole different reboot on Transformers. Are you interested?" I said, "Yeah, I'll do it!" I loved the idea and I think we can make something really cool and kick-ass. This is not something where it's already established and I'm just in there to get a paycheck. I'm thinking this is the most important role of my career and I can do something really special."

Yes, that's right: "This is the most important role of my career." Take that, The Departed, The Fighter, and especially Boogie Nights! [Coming Soon]

Terminator 5

Once again, Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't seem too optimistic about this sequel:

I think producer Megan Ellison owns the rights to Terminator 16, or whatever it is. Yes, five. They have been trying to put a script together but I've not seen it, so I've no idea. There's nothing on the drawing board at this point. Nothing on the plan.

Also, he explains why he doesn't regret playing Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin: "I felt that the character was interesting and two movies before that one Joel Schumacher was at his height. So the decision-making process was not off." [Empire Magazine via Comic Book Movie]

Jack the Giant Slayer

Lost Girl

Here's a poster for Syfy's upcoming airing of the show's third season. [SpoilerTV]

And here's an on-set interview with the cast. [SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Amanda Yesilbas.

This short video reveals how the carnivorous pitcher plant Heliamphora nutans traps its prey with an ingenious two-step method — even if the ants in the video are able to get a grip on the plant's dangerously smooth pelt, some well-placed water means the ants have almost no chance of getting out alive.

Heliamphora nutans is a lot less well-known than the granddaddy of carnivorous plants — the good old Venus flytrap — in part because of its location. The plant is only found atop an isolated plateau in Venezuela, an area so remote and weird that it's commonly known as "The Lost World." As ScienceNOW reports, that means the Cambridge researchers responsible for the video up top haven't even been able to discover with certainty what the plant's preferred prey is, though they do know that the plant really enjoys its ants:

The throat of the little-known Heliamphora nutans, new research shows, is covered with a pelt of tiny, precisely oriented hairs that prey can't easily ascend. The hairs also help to create a slippery, wet film on the pitcher's inner walls, making it nearly impossible for the plant's victims to get a grip. Instead, they plunge into the bottom of the pitcher, where they drown in a pool of water... When the researchers examined H. nutans with a scanning electron microscope, they saw that the pitcher's throat is densely carpeted with more than 100,000 tiny hairs, all pointing downward.

When they allowed an Asian ant species, Camponotus rufifemur, to stroll into a dry pitcher, only 29% fell into the abyss, as shown in the first section of the accompanying video. The bolder ants that ventured onto the longer hairs toward the bottom were most likely to fall, for reasons that are unclear. But when the ants were released into a wet pitcher, 88% went down the slippery slope to oblivion, as seen in the second section of the video. The scientists call it "insect aquaplaning."

For a bunch more on this fascinating creature, check out the full story over at ScienceNOW.

The other day, we learned that parrots love the Scissor Sisters — news that Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears was overjoyed to discover.

But do birds really appreciate music, or do they just treat it like a collection of sounds? There's been a lot of debate over the years, with some scientists claiming that only humans truly appreciate music as music. Creatures ranging from birds to whales are capable of making haunting, melodious sounds — but whether those count as music has remained controversial.

But neuroscience might well hold the real, surprising answer.

Top image: Menno Schaefer/Shutterstock.com

Sarah Earp, a researcher at Emory University with dual specialties in music and neuroscience, devised an innovative study that examined not the structure or complexity of the melodious sounds made by other species, but instead what response these noises evoked in the brains of those who heard it. It's a particularly intriguing idea because, as zoomusicology expert Jean-Jacques Nattiez once argued, music has until now been uniquely human because, "sound is not organized and conceptualized (that is, made to form music) merely by its producer, but by the mind that perceives it." But if we can actually analyze the minds of birds that hear their species' songs and compare them to their human counterparts, we might well be able to say whether or not the birds are really creating music.

Earp looked at the brains of white-tailed sparrows, specifically the activity of the Egr-1, which is part of a major biochemical pathway that lights up whenever the brain responds to a stimulus. She examined how both male and female sparrows responded the males' songs, both while in and out of the breeding state. The response of both males and females to male birdsong resembled how the human amygdala reacts in response to music — although for males the response resembled when humans hear unpleasant music, while females reacted as our amygdalas would when we hear something beautiful and melodious.

In a statement, Earp explains her findings:

"We found that the same neural reward system is activated in female birds in the breeding state that are listening to male birdsong, and in people listening to music that they like. Scientists since the time of Darwin have wondered whether birdsong and music may serve similar purposes, or have the same evolutionary precursors. But most attempts to compare the two have focused on the qualities of the sound themselves, such as melody and rhythm.

"The neural response to birdsong appears to depend on social context, which can be the case with humans as well. "Both birdsong and music elicit responses not only in brain regions associated directly with reward, but also in interconnected regions that are thought to regulate emotion. That suggests that they both may activate evolutionarily ancient mechanisms that are necessary for reproduction and survival."

Admittedly, there is one issue with the study — a big part of the human response to music occurs in regions of the brain that birds don't really share, meaning it's hard to say definitively whether birds really do respond to their sounds exactly like humans do, which of course is crucial to determining if they are really making music. Earp suggests a followup study with baleen whales — themselves famous for their otherworldly songs — could do the trick... but first we'll have to come up with some way to perform neural images on whales, which are just slightly harder to study than white-tailed sparrows.

Check out the entire original paper over at Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience.

Image by Mark (T3i) on Flickr.

A tooth recently discovered in Argentina is an incredible 75 millimeters, or nearly 3 inches long. What's more, the tooth belonged to a member of the titanosaurs, a group of gigantic sauropods similar to brachiosaurus and apatosaurus. And it might just be the biggest of the bunch.

The tooth was discovered by Rodolfo García and his paleontological team at Argentina's National University of Río Negro. It's not even close to the biggest teeth ever discovered, but that's only because plant-eating titanosaurs didn't need chompers the size of their giant predator counterparts. The tooth is 32% longer than the length of any previously known titanosaur tooth, and it's twice the size of those belonging to most other sauropod taxa. The dinosaur that once owned this tooth might well be the biggest animal to ever walk the Earth, or at least very much in conversation for the title.

The problem is that it isn't really possible to extrapolate the size of an entire dinosaur from just a single tooth. We can make reasonable guesses about the size of the skull based on the size of the tooth, and the size of the skull can in turn help us guess the size of the entire dinosaur, but there's way too many leaps of logic involved here to say for certain how big the dinosaur that possessed this tooth really was.

Writing in Cretaceous Research, Dr. Garcia runs down the mysteries surrounding the tooth:

The unusual dimensions of the tooth described here, suggest different hypotheses about the specimen. The MML-Pv 1030 tooth could have belonged to a specimen with disproportionately large teeth, "a big-toothed titanosaur". However, it is also possible that this tooth belonged to an individual with an enormous skull, probably to a short-necked titanosaur or to a taxon of unusual dimensions for a titanosaur. Whatever the option mentioned above, this taxon has characteristics never previously recorded for the Upper Cretaceous (middle Campanian–lower Maastrichtian).

Another interesting aspect with regard to the studied specimen is its total absence of pits on its wear facet or enamel surface, a condition that differs from that of numerous titanosaurs. The absence of pits suggests a diet with scarce grit or an absence of hard vegetable material able to mark the teeth. On the other hand, the tooth scratches on the labial face suggest a feeding mechanism type where the collection of food was performed with the anteriormost teeth, cropping or, stripping of leaves from the branches but in an oblique way.

A photo of the tooth in comparison to other titanosaur teeth is available with the original paper.

Via New Scientist. Image of titanosaur reconstruction by Kabacchi on Flickr.

Get the lowdown on the epic, post-apocalyptic, Ice Age train movie Snow Piercer. Christopher Nolan reveals why Zack Snyder's job on Man of Steel is so much tougher than his own job on the Dark Knight trilogy. Plus a bunch of new Robocop set photos show off the reboot's crazy vehicles!

Spoilers from here on out!

Top image from Man of Steel.

Justice League

Just in time to ring in the New Year, who's up for another round of insane Justice League rumors? These reports, supposedly from an inside source, form part of a larger constellation of Warner Bros. superhero movies, which involve Man of Steel serving as the beachhead for a new shared superhero universe, Darkseid showing up as the main villain, and a new, freshly rebooted Batman movie in 2016 — oh, and also maybe a standalone Aquaman movie, because why not?

Anyway, these latest rumors claim to flesh out the roles of the various group members, with a strong implication that Superman and Green Lantern will be the same versions of the characters as previously seen in their standalone movies... although, just to make this extra-complicated, that maybe doesn't necessarily mean we would see Henry Cavill and Ryan Reynolds take on these roles. Anyway, Zack Snyder is supposedly consulting on the portrayal of Superman — which flatly contradicts Snyder's statements that he's uninvolved in Justice League, but let's push on — and Green Lantern would be the same character, except "freshly written with a more serious tone."

The other characters include Batman (of course), the master strategist who doesn't want to hang out with all these superpowered characters, possibly because of deep-seated concerns that they are all too powerful. Wonder Woman will have been living in our world for only a few months when Justice League begins, Flash is beloved by the public but can be serious when the situation demands it, Aquaman is currently the King of Atlantis, and the Martian Manhunter has, in a bit of a break from the usual comics depictions, been living on Earth in secret for more than a century and has vital knowledge about Darkseid.

Speaking of which, Darkseid's Elite — a wonderfully bizarre bunch that potentially includes the likes of Desaad, Granny Goodness, Glorious Godfrey, Kalibak, Steppenwolf, and of course Virman Vundabar — will serve as the early antagonists in the film before the real threat shows up. Lois Lane and Alfred Pennyworth are also supposedly down for cameos, which means quick appearances by Amy Adams and Michael Caine — who has already said he would reprise the role if asked, no matter what Christopher Nolan has to say about it — aren't out of the question. Also, the military plays a big role, and this could eventually incorporate specific characters introduced in Man of Steel or even Green Lantern — which in the latter case pretty much just means Angela Bassett as Amanda Waller.

All things considered, there's still no reason to think that these rumors are any more true than any other possible Justice League scenario you or I could come up with. So, as long as you take this a big old heaping of grains of salt, feel free to check out the link for more. [Cosmic Book News]

Man of Steel

Producer Christopher Nolan, who also along with screenwriter David Goyer came up with the movie's story, offers some high praise for director Zack Snyder's work on the latest Superman movie:

"Zack was the perfect man to take this on. He is unbelievably skilled at creating a coherent, cohesive world — whether it's a very stylized world, like 300, or something that's more challenging, more varied, like he did with Watchmen. In my honest appraisal, taking on Superman and creating that world is far more difficult than creating the world of the Dark Knight. He has a lot of finishing to do on the movie — it has a very long post-production schedule because, unlike Batman, Superman flies. I actually feel guilty talking about it because I'm sitting here having nothing to do to it. I try to be as supportive as I can, and I'm just amazed by what he is doing. It's not something I would know how to do."

[Hollywood Reporter]

Guardians of the Galaxy

Writer-director James Gunn, whose previous oeuvre includes The Specials, Slither, Super — basically, if it's weird, violent, and starts with an "S", he probably made it — reveals he's doing some serious research for his superhero space opera movie with the talking raccoon:

Yesterday I spent a few hours with one of NASA's representatives from Jet Propulsion Laboratories, part of a group of scientists who consult [with] the movie industry (for free) to help bring a greater understanding of science to films. It was an utterly fascinating few hours with one of the most intelligent and knowledgeable guys I've ever met... [W]e made our way through a ton of information on the possibilities of space travel, alien life, etc...

[James Gunn on Facebook]

Star Wars: Episode VII

As is frequently worth remembering, we only know about two people who are definitely working on the new Star Wars film: screenwriter Michael Arndt and new LucasFilm president Kathleen Kennedy. In the final chapter of a five-part set of retrospective YouTube videos, Kennedy discusses the transition as George Lucas leaves and she slowly but surely takes over:

It's funny — I find it's been interesting between George and I because we've been talking about this for several weeks now as I've started to get to meet people and get to know how the company and whatnot. And usually at the end of my phone calls with him, I end up saying, "So how are you feeling about this?" Because he's going through a transition out of the company, I'm going through a transition out of just producing movies into running this company and so all of my emotions are caught up in new beginnings as he's seguing out. So it is a thing that I think the two of us constantly kind of check in with one another to see, "OK, where's the balance? Is the balance happening here?" You know, I have a tremendous amount to learn from George, there's things that I want to preserve in the spirit of this company and as it moves into Disney, I think it's vitally important to anything we create to hold onto the spirit of what started all this. So I'd say that's what's really important to me.

Here's the full video, and you can check out the four previous entries here.

Snow Piercer

Here's the first poster for The Host director Joon-ho Bong's upcoming adaptation of the French graphic novel, which follows the last remnants of humanity as they navigate a new ice age in a supercharged train. The poster mainly just plays up the movie's cast, but with a cast like that, why wouldn't you?

There's also a couple new interviews with members of the cast. Here's Trainspotting star Ewen Bremner to offer a succinct explanation as to why we should get excited about the film:

One I've just been doing recently is, a really exciting [one], called Snowpiercer, directed by Joon-ho Bong, Korean director who directed Mother and also The Host. That's a really exciting film with Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, Chris Evans, Octavia Spencer, Jamie Bell, and a really great cast. And a really exciting futuristic film, set on a train in an ice age, the last people alive on Earth, and it's about an attempted social revolution on this train and it's really... I've never seen anything like it, I'm really looking forward to it.

And the great John Hurt, who of course has been in everything from Alien to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, explains how his character fits into all this, because you just couldn't make a post-apocalyptic frozen train movie and not put John Hurt in there somewhere. Incidentally, if you've ever wanted to hear how a 72-year-old British acting legend wraps his mind around the out there, graphic novel-based premise of a movie like Snowpiercer, this is the quote for you:

"In Snowpiercer I play kind of a... because there is kind of a microcosm of humanity all on a train, which is going all around the globe. You know, in a small ice age. Um, it all sounds a bit preposterous, but the fact is that it's based on a graphic novel, which is a French graphic novel from round about the 80's. So, it is... kind of not real in that sense. It creates it's own reality, you'll see what I mean. And I'm playing an erstwhile leader, of revolutions, that is held in great regard by the young man who is leading the revolution at the moment. Because all the riffraff is at the back of the train and all the good ones live in the front of the train. So the revolution seizes through the train. And he (Joon-ho Bong) is a remarkable director. So, that is what I do there, but it turns out he is not as admirable as he might have been considered."

Here are the original video interviews. Bremner starts discussing Snowpiercer around the two-minute mark, and it's well worth checking out for his obvious enthusiasm for the project. [Comic Book Movie]

Robocop

Once Upon a Time

Showrunner Adam Horowitz has tweeted one last episode title, this one for episode sixteen. [SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Amanda Yesilbas and Charlie Jane Anders.

Yes, it sounds like the name of an awful horror knockoff (this one, to be exact), but a 22-pound beast known as Megapiranha paranensis once roamed the water 10 million years ago, and its bite was truly something to fear.

An international team of researchers recently provided some of the first authoritative calculations of how hard modern piranhas can bite, something that's easy to estimate but hard to actually measure. Indeed, if you want to really know for certain how hard a piranha can bite, you've got to head into their waters, try to fish one out, then hold it by the tail and then present it with the plates of a gauge that can measure its force.

Only once it bites down on those plates do you have an accurate measurement of its bite — and while it's a myth that piranhas go around in swarms devouring any humans that cross their path, that's still not especially pleasant work. But from that data, researchers have determined that the largest living piranha, the 2.5-pound black piranha, can bite with a force of 72 pounds, or 30 times its body weight.

Here's where the good old phrase "for its size" has to do some heavy lifting. While other predators have fiercer bites in absolute terms, nothing really comes close to the piranha in relative terms. American alligators, for instance, can only bite with about 10 times the force of their body weight, meaning the black piranha has a bite three times harder. Even Tyrannosaurs rex, the most infamous predator in Earth's history, could "only" bite with 3,000 pounds of force, which sounds impressive until you remember they generally weighed around 15,000 pounds.

Based on analysis of megapiranha bones, their bite force could have been anywhere from 280 to 1,070 pounds — potentially as much as 50 times their body weight. Megapiranha's chompers were even more brutally effective than that of its smaller, living relatives, as it could both tear through tissue and crack thick shells and bones. We don't know exactly what it ate, but it clearly lived at a time when some gigantic prey was available for the eating, as study co-author Stephanie Crofts of the University of Washington explains:

"If our calculations are correct, Megapiranha was probably a bone-crushing predator taking bites of anything and everything. We found the Megapiranha teeth had the same maximum strength like you saw in regular piranha, but then the patterns of stress distribution within the tooth was also similar to fish able to eat hard-prey."

You can read the entire original paper at Science Reports.

Image of modern piranha by Instant Vantage on Flickr.

Beyond a few brief trips to the Moon over four decades ago, humanity has never ventured outside of Earth's protective magnetic field. And while it's natural to dream of exploring the stars, such voyages may carry impossibly high medical risks.

That's the finding of researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center, who have undertaken the latest study examining how prolonged time spent in deep space could affect human astronauts. The big issue is radiation — without the planet's magnetic field to act as a shield, astronauts in deep space would be exposed both to the fierce energies of solar flares and the persistent hum of what's known as galactic cosmic radiation.

Now, solar flares can be dealt with — we might have to ground our deep space flights for a couple decades when they get really intense, but that's not the end of the world — but it's the other, more subtle radiation that is harder to overcome. Prolonged exposure to cosmic radiation has previously been linked to increased cancer risk, cardiovascular problems, and musculoskeletal issues.

But the Rochester study points to perhaps the greatest danger of such prolonged exposure: the degeneration of the brain itself. Using the particle accelerators at NASA's Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, mice were exposed to levels of radiation that proportionally matched what humans could expect to encounter on a three-year round trip to Mars. The mice were then given a series of memory tests to track how their brains held up in the wake of such exposure.

The results weren't good. Those exposed to the radiation were significantly more likely than the unexposed control group to fail tests that depended on their ability to recall objects and locations. Worse, these mice's brains showed clear buildup of the protein beta amyloid — which, in both mice and humans, is one of the clearest hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. The study suggests the exposed mice — who are a close if not perfect match for human astonauts — developed Alzheimer's in far greater numbers than would be expected, and much earlier in life as well.

Researcher M. Kerry O'Banion doesn't mince words in saying what this means for future astronauts:

"Galactic cosmic radiation poses a significant threat to future astronauts. The possibility that radiation exposure in space may give rise to health problems such as cancer has long been recognized. However, this study shows for the first time that exposure to radiation levels equivalent to a mission to Mars could produce cognitive problems and speed up changes in the brain that are associated with Alzheimer's disease... These findings clearly suggest that exposure to radiation in space has the potential to accelerate the development of Alzheimer's disease. This is yet another factor that NASA, which is clearly concerned about the health risks to its astronauts, will need to take into account as it plans future missions."

But why wouldn't it be possible to shield astronauts from the harmful radiation? The challenge is that we're dealing with high-mass, high-velocity particles generated in the crucible of supernovas. Unlikely the stray hydrogen protons produced by our Sun's solar flares, these particles are so powerful that they can penetrate any standard shielding. Dr. O'Banion and his team used iron particles, and he provides a sense of just how far we would have to go just to give astronauts a half-decent shot of surviving a deep space mission without long-term cognitive problems:

"Because iron particles pack a bigger wallop it is extremely difficult from an engineering perspective to effectively shield against them. One would have to essentially wrap a spacecraft in a six-foot block of lead or concrete."

Admittedly, in the weightlessness of space, that amount of shielding wouldn't really preclude the effective functioning of a spaceship, but it would almost certainly mean we couldn't launch such a craft from Earth. If these neurological risks really are this severe, we might be committed to assembling such heavily-shielded craft in Earth's orbit — itself a huge engineering task that's probably at least a couple decades away from being doable.

Indeed, it's also possible that our understanding of Alzheimer's disease and various cancers could progress to the point that we would be able to effectively manage or perhaps even cure astronauts' later medical problems. But if these studies suggest anything, it's that our next giant leaps into space — including planned missions to an asteroid in 2021 and Mars in 2035 — will require several orders of magnitude more knowhow than our trips to the Moon, and not just in terms of spaceship-building. Otherwise, astronauts will be forced to face their greatest tests and make their biggest sacrifices long after they return from Mars.

You can check out the entire original paper over at PLoS ONE.

Artist's conception of the first astronauts on Mars via NASA JSC.

If you're quickly trying to define what sets humans apart from other primates, you might first point to our greater intelligence and our capacity for complex language. The next big difference is that we walk on two feet and stay out of the trees... except, as this video explains, it's not quite that simple.

Part of the reason why the 1974 discovery of the remains of the hominid Lucy was such a big deal — beyond the fact that you don't find a 40% complete skeleton of a 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis skeleton just any day — was that it rewrote a key part of our evolutionary story. Before the discovery of Lucy, anthropologists and paleontologists assumed the expansion of brain size was the first key evolutionary leap that moved the evolutionary ancestors of humans away from the other primates. But Lucy was relatively small-brained, and yet she was bipedal, meaning the shift out of the trees predated the growth in intelligence.

Since then, bipedalism has been recognized as one of the most crucial milestones in our evolution, and with it the abandonment of an arboreal life for an existence spent firmly on the ground. But as a team of researchers at the University of Dartmouth argue, the idea that a bipedal existence automatically puts trees out of reach of humans and our ancestors isn't necessarily true. As co-author Nathaniel Dominy explains in the video up top, plenty of humans still spend lots of time in the trees today, even if we're seemingly no longer properly adapted for climbing trees.

Specifically, he and his two co-authors Vivek Venkataraman and Thomas Kraft compared sets of modern hunter-gatherers and farmers both in Uganda and in the Philippines. The Twa of Uganda and the Agta of the Philippines are hunter-gatherers that climb trees regularly to get honey, which forms a key part of their diet, a behavior that sets them apart from their respective agricultural counterparts, the Bakiga and the Manobo.

Dartmouth Now explains just how the Twa and Agta climb trees:

They climb in a fashion that has been described as "walking" up small-diameter trees. The climbers apply the soles of their feet directly to the trunk and "walk" upward, with their arms and legs advancing alternately. Among the climbers, Dominy and his team documented extreme dorsiflexion-bending the foot upward toward the shin to an extraordinary degree- beyond the range of modern "industrialized" humans. Assuming their leg bones and ankle joints were normal, "we hypothesized that a soft-tissue mechanism might enable such extreme dorsiflexion," the authors write.

The researchers subsequently found out that the Twa and Agta had much longer muscle fibers in their calves, revealing how they were able to keep climbing trees so easily even when the rest of their anatomy was no longer well-suited for it. This, according to the researchers, is a good reminder that there are few absolutes in our evolution, and indeed Lucy and her Australopithecus afarensis contemporaries could have possessed similarly expanded calf muscles so that they could keep up some of their species's old arboreal habits even after the shift to bipedalism.

For more, check out the video up top, in which Dominy offers a good overview of the finding. Also, the complete paper is currently available at PNAS.

Photo of Twa man climbing by Nathaniel Dominy.

Pandas aren't exactly renowned for their health and hardiness — if anything, they've earned a reputation as a fragile, sex-averse species that needs constant human conservation just to keep from going extinct. Well, they might be about to repay the favor in a big way, thanks to a powerful antibiotic locked inside their blood.

That's the new research coming out of China's Nanjing Agricultural University, where Dr. Xiuwen Yan and his team have been analyzing the giant panda genome. This analysis of panda DNA revealed a potent antibiotic compound created by the panda's immune cells. They then isolated and synthesized a compound in the panda blood streams. It's called cathelicidin-AM, and the researchers say that it was able to kill dangerous bacteria in less than an hour, compared to an average of over six hours for existing human antibiotics. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Dr. Yan explains the potential importance of this newly discovered compound:

"It showed potential antimicrobial activities against wide spectrum of microorganisms including bacteria and fungi, both standard and drug-resistant strains. Under the pressure of increasing microorganisms with drug resistance against conventional antibiotics, there is urgent need to develop new type of antimicrobial agents.

Gene-encoded antimicrobial peptides play an important role in innate immunity against noxious microorganisms. They cause much less drug resistance of microbes than conventional antibiotics. Antimicrobial peptides are important components in innate immunity – they can provide an effective and fast acting defence against harmful microorganisms. More than 1000 antimicrobial peptides have been found from animals, plants, and microorganisms."

If cathelicidin-AM can work even half as well for humans as it does for pandas, this could be one seriously useful new antibiotic, particularly with the ever-present fear of drug-resistant superbugs. Creating such an antibiotic from the compound is one such goal for Dr. Yan and his team — they also hope to create a new antiseptic from the compound that could be useful in cleaning products, potentially greatly improving general hygiene.

This discovery could also be good news for conservationists. While not everyone is necessarily sympathetic to saving pandas for its own sake, the prospect of still more seemingly miraculous cures and drugs could make people much more inclined to ensure pandas survive. Indeed, this might actually help explain why pandas have continued to survive even when they seem so singularly uninterested in breeding — if nothing else, it would seem it's way harder than we'd imagined to get pandas sick.

Gene via The Daily Telegraph. Image by George Lu on Flickr.

Check out a fascinating rundown of Fringe's final standalone episode. A Lost alum is returning to Storybrooke, under a new name. Michonne actress Danai Gurira previews the rest of The Walking Dead's third season. Tom Hiddleston praises director Alan Taylor's approach to Thor: The Dark World. Plus brand new TV spots for Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and Monsters University!

Nothing but spoilers from here on out!

Top image from Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

Thor: The Dark World

Loki actor Tom Hiddleston discusses his experience filming his next appearance in the Marvel cinematic universe:

"It's fantastic, truly. We are making an amazing film, and we're having a wonderful time. It's so exciting to have established characters and an established setting in the world, and we are working so hard to cook up something new. That is what is exciting me — taking what we know, taking what we love and deepening it and giving it an extra dimension. I think director Alan Taylor is really shaping up the world of Asgard and the world of these characters."

[Yahoo!]

And here's a photo of an extra — possibly now a former extra — in full Asgardian gear for the sequel. [Comic Book Movie]

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Here are the first two TV spots for the long-delayed fantasy action movie starring The Avengers's Jeremy Renner and Quantum of Solace's Gemma Arteron, in which they play badass, witch-hunting grown-up versions of the titular fairy tale characters. [Bloody Disgusting]

Monsters University

Here's the first TV spot for Pixar's Monsters, Inc. prequel, featuring return appearances from John Goodman, Billy Crystal, and Steve Buscemi as college-age versions of Sully, Mike, and Randall, respectively. [Big Screen Animation]

Fringe

Zap2It has an awesome preview for the next episode, "The Boy Must Live", which airs January 11 and is the final episode before the two-part finale that airs January 18. They reveal that the episode features tons of revelations about the recently returned September and the Observers in general, including a glimpse of 2609 as Captain Windmark travels there to find some crucial information — at which point he admits he is obsessed with removing Walter, Peter, and Olivia from the timeline completely. The episode also features a classic Walter moment as he complains about the tightness of his swimming trunks as he clambers into a sensory deprivation tank to retrieve subconscious memories of September, as well as key emotional moment between Walter and Peter that could be a tearjerker for longtime fans. Indeed, the whole episode is meant to be a big nostalgic gift for the hardcore fans, readdressing some key themes and concepts that stretch right back to the first season. Here are a couple more absolutely crucial spoilers, as reported by Zap2It:

A tiny spark of hope As revealed in the above trailer for the episode, September and Walter's plan involves resetting time — which gives Olivia hope that she and Peter may see Etta again. But we've seen in the past that wishful thinking can be a dangerous thing, and Peter is hesitant to be even cautiously optimistic.

One last sacrifice. This season, Etta and Nina both sacrificed their own lives for the greater good, making conscious decisions to die so that Walter, Peter, and Olivia could go on to save the world. In "The Boy Must Live," we learn that one more character we've grown to love will have to sacrifice his or her life in order to complete the plan.

Check out the link for even more, including another look at the trailer for the episode. [Zap2It]

The Walking Dead

Costar Danai Gurira discusses what to expect from her character Michonne in the second half of season three, which kicks off on February 10:

She's kind of going through a becoming. In the first half of the season, she's very powerful but she has people problems. She has trouble relating to them. [By the finale] you start to see that she knows she needs Rick and his group. She knows she needs community, and that sort of propels her into the second half of the season, which is probably closer to what people know from the comic books. She starts to try to take a different track, in terms of investing not only in herself and her own survival but in other people's, too.

If she's becoming more of a people person, does that mean we might actually see her crack a smile?
What are you talking about? She smiled in episode five! [laughs] She smiled in another episode, too, but it was cut out. These things I can't control. But I know she did it! You'll probably see more smiling going forward, but not a ton. A zombie apocalypse isn't the most jovial situation.

She also offers some insight into her take on Michonne when discussing the character's decision to kill the Governor's daughter Penny, who had been turned into a zombie:

Initially, she thinks Penny's alive, and she's actually very gentle with her. But then she finds Penny's a zombie and to Michonne, zombies are dead. She believes it's a very undignified way to function, so killing the little-girl zombie is actually a merciful act. [It's like] put her in a grave and put a cross on it and mourn her properly. But it's also oh, wow, this is what he loves. He took what I loved away [Andrea] and tried to kill me, so this is my perfect act of vengeance.

Finally, she explains what influences her approach to the role:

I watched the first season when I was auditioning, and I definitely looked at how she was depicted in the graphic novels. Just looking at her image, her facial expressions, fed me. I felt like she had a war vet's type of PTSD [in the show], so I used PTSD materials and books. One of my plays [Eclipsed] is about women and war in Liberia, and they weren't soft, gentle or easy to read. They became warriors, so that definitely influenced Michonne as well.

There's still more at the link. [E! Online]

And here's a fairly low-quality promo for the February 10 midseason premiere, "The Suicide King."

Sonequa Martin-Green, who was introduced at the end of the first half of the third season as Tyreese's sister Sasha, might be on her way out of the show in the relatively near future, as she has reportedly been cast in a potential long-term role on another genre series. That said, The Walking Dead finished filming in November, so this might be a rumor more for the start of the fourth season than this season's eight remaining episodes. Anyway, to find out just which genre series, just keep on reading. But yeah, might not be a good idea to get too attached to Sasha. Actually, I guess that's good advice for everyone on this show. [Hypable]

Once Upon a Time

So then, Sonequa Martin-Green, who you might have heard somewhere plays Sasha on The Walking Dead, has reportedly been cast as Tamara. The character will appear in multiple episodes this season, and it's being reported her character could spill over into season three as well. There are no further details on just who Tamara is, but it has been reported that the producers were initially looking to cast an actress with a British accent, and I suppose it's possible that's how Martin-Green will end up playing the role. [TV Line]

Additional reporting by Amanda Yesilbas and Charlie Jane Anders.

Captain America definitely won't be reconnecting with his 1940s love interest in The Winter Soldier. New TV spots reveal the fantasy worlds of Oz the Great and Powerful and Beautiful Creatures. Plus tons of spoilers for all your favorite TV shows!

Spoilers from here on out!

Top image from Oz the Great and Powerful.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

According to a recent profile on Captain America costar Hayley Atwell, the actress has confirmed that she will not be back as Peggy Carter for the sequel. It was already assumed that she wouldn't have a major role in the film, what with the move to the present day setting, but this may mean she won't appear in any World War II flashback sequences either. Even so, I'm guessing a quick cameo may not be totally out of the question, which seems like a very Marvel Studios thing to do. Anyway, plan on distinctly less Peggy Carter this time around. [Timeout]

Guardians of the Galaxy

While Joseph Gordon-Levitt has rightly attracted the most attention as a late entrant into the Star Lord casting derby, another actor with even deeper connections to the world of DC Comics has also read for the role. Michael Rosenbaum, who played Lex Luthor on Smallville and, infinitely more importantly, voiced the Flash on Justice League tweeted that he has read for the role:

Rosenbaum's inclusion in the search is a little surprising, insofar as he doesn't really have the major movie credits or rising star credentials of other rumored candidates like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Joel Edgerton, Jim Sturgess, Eddie Redmayne, Lee Pace, Zachary Levi, and Jack Huston. As such, he's probably a longshot contender for the role... but even so, he's actually a fairly intriguing candidate. [Comic Book Movie]

Star Trek Into Darkness

In case there was any doubt (and I don't really think there was), William Shatner definitely won't be in the sequel, according to the man himself:

"I don't think that J.J. Abrams knows what to do with me. Age and change in body shape."

[Geek Speak]

Oz the Great and Powerful

Here are two TV spots for the upcoming Wizard of Oz prequel from the Spider-Man team of director Sam Raimi and star James Franco, not to mention Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Mila Kunis, The Fountain's Rachel Weisz, and Brokeback Mountain's Michelle Williams as the three witch sisters. [/Film]

Warm Bodies

Fringe

Costar Jasika Nicole says that Astrid has a crucial role to play in the finale, which made up for the fact that her character hasn't been so crucial to the action in season five:

"[She] gets her moment to shine in the last episode. Without her, I can honestly say, everything's going to go downhill! It meant the world to me."

While showrunner Joel Wyman explains his goals with the two-part series finale, which airs January 18:

"By rights we really shouldn't be here, and without that support and respect [of fans and the press] we wouldn't be, so I wanted to be sure I handled that [action element] and the emotional with equal import."

[TV Line]

The Walking Dead

Here's a decently high-quality version of the rather underwhelming (read: crappy) video we posted yesterday. It's a promo for "The Suicide King", which kicks off the rest of season three on February 10. [Shock Till You Drop]

Person of Interest

TV Line has a massive preview for all the new and returning shows of 2013. We're highlighting some of the best stuff for a variety of sci-fi and fantasy shows, but be sure to check out the whole thing to read about everything that's up ahead. Now let's start the rundown with this quote from Person of Interest executive producer Greg Plageman about what to expect next:

"There's an interesting dilemma here for Agent Donnelly and the FBI. All four suspects have been rounded up, and all four of them are men in suits – so there's intrigue to be played with that, and it's not easily resolved. Donnelly is well aware of Carter's history as an interrogator in Iraq, and now that he has Reese in custody, it will be very interesting to see how Carter is enlisted, while playing both sides of the fence."

[TV Line]

Revolution

Executive producer David Rambo discusses how the show wants to handle Miles and Rachel's story going forward, as well as what might be going on in the rest of post-energy America outside the Monroe Republic:

"We're absolutely exploring [Miles and Rachel's story], because we left them with her getting handcuffed after surrendering to him in a flashback. We would like to see more of what happened 10 minutes later between the two of them... We had [exec producer] Jon Favreau with us for a day in the writer's room and he loves these other republics, what they could be. He gave us some fantastic ideas about what these other places in North America might look like 15 years after a blackout."

[TV Line]

Grimm

Co-creator James Pouf discusses what happens next now that Nick knows about Renard and Juliette's apparently budding relationship:

"He's not exactly happy about it. It's something he realizes he kind of has to deal with. The captain is out of the bag, so to speak. There's definitely some action between [Renard and Juliette]. It's all messy. [On whether they have sex] Well, they're going to do something."

Check out the link for some more general tidbits about what's ahead. [TV Line]

Once Upon a Time

Here's a pair of sneak peeks for "The Cricket Game", which kicks off the second half of season two this Sunday, January 6.

Jennifer Morrison discusses Emma's reaction to the arrival of Cora and Hook:

"No one's going to be happy. It's too much of a threat to everything that we care about. [Speaking as Emma] I don't really know that much about all these people from this other land, but I do know that those two are dangerous, so I'm certainly not going to want them anywhere near my kid."

[TV Line]

Showrunners Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis shared some thoughts on the rest of the second season at a recent press event, starting with this quote from Horowitz about the ever evolving character dynamics between Snow White, Prince Charming, and Emma:

"The first part of the season was them kind of coming to terms with [how] the memories are back and all that. Now, going forward, it's ‘what does this mean being a family? What does it mean, being in this world with these memories and with this new, strange familial relationship, and what do we want now?' What does that mean with all of these circumstances that are completely different from anything they ever expected?"

And Kitsis offers this preview all about Emma's possible romantic entanglements:

"Emma is going to find herself with a few choices this season, and I think that, [like] in all life, there are people that are right for you, and there are the people that are wrong for you, and then there are the people that you just choose, and I think Emma's going to face all of those things. The love of Emma's life last year was Henry, and this year, we actually met the one person she's fallen in love with. So, Hook is obviously eye candy. I don't know if she would stare at him and think he would be a good father to Henry, but he might be fun in Vegas. What's interesting about Emma is that now that she's found her family, now that the shock of ‘they're the same age as me' has worn off, they're starting to become a family, and she's starting to settle down, and a lot of the anger and the walls that she's put up throughout her life are going to maybe be able to broken, but not as quickly as you'd like. There's still healing to do, but I think that includes her heart, so it's a matter of who wins it."

Check out the link for more. [KSiteTV]

Arrow

Star Stephen Amell discusses a pair of upcoming villains that will be introduced in the second half of the season, namely Fringe's Seth Gabel as the Count and Alias's David Anders as Cyrus Vanch:

"[The Count's] a departure from any of the villains that we've had so far. I spend a lot of time as Arrow going after him, and it's personal for me for reasons I can't explain. [Cyrus Vanch is] reckless and incredibly confident — and I don't go after him; he comes after me!"

[TV Line]

Beauty and the Beast

Here's a promo photo showing star Jay Ryan's beast Vincent embracing his one-time fiancee Alex, as played by Legend of the Seeker's Bridget Regan. She will make her debut as Alex on January 24 and recur thereafter. Executive producer Sherri Cooper discusses the former, possibly future couple down below. [TV Line]

"They would have gotten married had Vincent not enlisted and gone off to war. And then it was reported he had been killed, so, as far as Alex has known, Vincent died tragically. [Reconnecting] is going to bring up all these old emotions for Vincent, and bring up lots of emotions for Catherine and Vincent. [It'll be] a really cool, explosive love triangle. When you see [Ryan and Regan] on screen, it's amazing. The first time we saw them together in dailies, we were like, 'Oh f–k. Of course he was engaged to her... Oh no, it's a good triangle.' And Kristin [Kreuk]'s very funny. She called us early on and was like, 'I mean, I like her, but I can't help it - I'm jealous!'"

Additional reporting by Amanda Yesilbas and Charlie Jane Anders.

Check out the first clip from the second half of the animated Dark Knight Returns adaptation. Showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Greg Plageman discuss what's ahead on Person of Interest. No, Twin Peaks isn't really coming back. Plus American Horror Story spoilers!

It's nothing but spoilers from here on out!

Top image from Star Trek Into Darkness.

Star Trek Into Darkness

New cast members Benedict Cumberbatch and Alice Eve, who play the villainous John Harrison and potential love interest Carol Marcus respectively, discuss the journey that Chris Pine's Kirk travels in the sequel:

Cumberbatch: Seriously though, Kirk really goes through it by the end of the film... The boy – sorry, the man – was so tired carrying that film, I've got to say. He's brilliant in it, I'm really excited to see his performance.

Eve: A lot of us in the film, especially Spock and Bones, serve as Kirk's alter egos of logic and morality, but I do think in this film, after winning the captaincy in the previous movie, we see him earn it… spiritually, really, and sort of philosophically. Other ways than the practical earning of it.

Cumberbatch: It's like he's the son in the first and the father in the second, almost, don't you think? Not as an actual father, though, that's not a storyline at all, but I mean that he's become a father to his crew.

There's a bunch more at the link on their experiences making the film, which involves plenty of praise for their fellow actors. [Empire Online]

Fringe

Well, here it is — the official description for the series finale, the two-part "Liberty"/"An Enemy of Fate":

THE THRILLING WORLDS OF "FRINGE" COME TO A MIND-BLOWING END ON THE TWO-HOUR SERIES FINALE FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, ON FOX

Series Celebrates 100 Episodes

The acclaimed series that has explored the human condition through the prism of parallel universes, unexplainable phenomena and unimaginable threats, reaches a milestone 100th episode and comes to an epic and climatic conclusion. First, the Fringe team engages a desperate plan as Olivia embarks on a dangerous and otherworldly journey into the unknown. Then, Peter, Olivia, Walter, Astrid and Broyles face off against the Observers in one final and extraordinary battle for the fate of mankind. The five-season saga comes to an epic and emotional end in the special two-hour "Liberty/An Enemy of Fate" series finale episode of FRINGE airing Friday, Jan. 18 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT).

[SpoilerTV]

Twin Peaks

A rumor briefly flared up over the last couple of days that David Lynch was in talks with NBC to revive his seminal slice of weirdness. But while this always seemed little more than idle gossip, Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost has now taken to Twitter to officially debunk the rumors:

The composition being performed in this video is entitled "Nasciturus", and it's one of the many pieces of contemporary classical music created by Iamus — who just so happens to be a computer cluster housed in Spain's University of Málaga.

This piece, along with the other nine compositions that make up the computer's self-titled debut album, was produced with absolutely zero human input beyond the initial programming. "Nasciturus" is an example of what's known as evolutionary music, in which the computer starts with a small initial input and then uses a complex algorithm to "evolve" the piece into a full-fledged composition, adapting and increasing the complexity of the input to best fit the aesthetic criteria provided. It takes less than a second for Iamus to complete this process, though it does drag its heels a bit by taking another eight minutes to translate the music into formats that humans can read and understand.

Pianist and composer Gustavo Diaz-Jerez, who works as a software consultant for Iamus, explains just how the computer creates its remarkable compositions:

"We have taught a computer to write musical scores. Now we can produce modern classical music at the touch of a button. We've just told the computer some very general technical things. We have informed the computer that it is impossible for a pianist to play a 10 note chord with one hand. We only have five fingers on one hand.

"Each composition has a musical core that becomes ever more complex and evolves automatically. It starts with very complex structures inside the computer. It is very different from other computer-generated music. When people hear the phrase they imagine that you can hear the computer playing music. Iamus does something different, it projects the complexity we are growing in the computer into musical structures."

For more on this story, check out the BBC. Also check out Diaz-Jerez's YouTube page for more music from Iamus.