"Mad Max: Fury Road" was one of the best movies of the year.

Set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the film follows a team of underdog-vigilantes on the run from the War Boys, a mutant gang, and their leader Immortan Joe. It grossed $350 million worldwide and conjured a rare 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

So it was no surprise that fans showed their love for the film at San Diego Comic-Con. 

Fans in "Mad Max" cosplay, or role-playing costumes, were everywhere you looked.

We rounded up the best "Mad Max" cast look-a-likes from the Con.

SEE ALSO: This family's elaborate 'Mad Max' cosplay cost $700 to make

Elsa and Anna from “Frozen” dressed for battle on the Fury Road in one of the most creative cosplays we saw at the Con.

Elsa wore black war paint around her eyes and a mechanical hand to match Furiosa.

Olaf rides eternal, shiny, and chrome!

San Diego Comic-Con isn't just for the fans. 

Tens of actors and celebrities head to the annual event every year to greet fans of their favorite movies and TV shows and head to network and studio parties.

That doesn't mean they don't get in on the fun of the Con as well. 

Check out some of the best moments from the weekend.

We've found a new photobomb queen and her name is Jennifer Lawrence.

"Tried to get a pic with my favorite #TheHungerGames #MockingjayPart2 actors, but #JLaw ruined it." -#ConanOBrien #ConanCon #SDCC #TeamCoco

A photo posted by CONAN on TBS (@teamcoco) on Jul 9, 2015 at 6:10pm PDT

Was anyone ever more excited to meet Bill Murray than Jennifer Lawrence?

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Maybe "Game of Thrones" actress Maisie Williams. She was also at a loss for words.

Would you mind if I got a picture with you? Yeah sure, I guess I'll just hold up these Cheetos Sure, I don't mind *silence*

A photo posted by @maisie_williams on Jul 9, 2015 at 1:58pm PDT

If all went according to plan, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made history Tuesday morning after snagging the world's first close-up look at Pluto.

But completing the Solar System's planetary family portrait is just a small part of the spacecraft's journey — it's already explored Jupiter and is now destined to probe a mysterious zone of icy objects called the Kuiper Belt.

In fact, mission leader and planetary scientist Alan Stern says New Horizons may have decades' worth of exploration left in it, thanks to its long-lived nuclear power source.

Pre-Pluto homework

Before its personal rendezvous with Pluto, New Horizons swung by Jupiter for a gravitational speed boost. This shaved almost 4 years off its travel time, to a total of 9 1/2 years.

New Horizons did a little science while it was in the Jovian neighborhood, too. For example, its cameras caught the Tvashtar volcano exploding on Jupiter's third-largest moon, Io. It also made about 700 other observations, giving New Horizons the opportunity to test its suite of seven scientific instruments.

Now, about 8 years later, New Horizons is completing what's arguably the most popular leg of its trip — zooming past Pluto and its moons, of which there are at least five.

A first look at the icy dwarf planet

The busiest part of New Horizon's flyby past Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, began about 12 hours before its closest approach, and is slated to last about 12 hours afterward.

New Horizons passed within7,600 miles of Pluto's surface for about 30 minutes. During that time it took what will be the best-ever pictures of Pluto, which should resolve surface features as small as 80 feet across.

But the flyby wasn't just about taking breathtaking close-ups. Scientific instruments also recorded ultraviolet emissions emanating from Pluto's atmosphere — measurements that will help assemble the best maps of Pluto and Charon we may see in our lifetimes. Other devices on New Horizons studied the composition of the dwarf planet's crust, measured variations in its surface temperatures, sifted for space dust, and snapped images of Pluto's moons.

After the spacecraft passed by, it turned around to examine Pluto and Charon's dark sides. That's the best way to detect atmospheric haze, search for rings of debris, and identify whether their surfaces are smooth or rough.

New Horizons also got a good look at Earth and the Sun as they set and rose through Pluto's atmosphere. While this happened, the spacecraft scanned for radio waves from Earth-based transmitters to profile the composition, structure, and temperature profile of Pluto's atmosphere in incredible detail.

Next stop, the Kuiper Belt...

If all went well with the planned flyby, New Horizons will soon begin the next major leg of its journey: chasing down a Kuiper Belt object (KBO) that measures at least 30 miles in diameter.

New Horizons has at least three KBOs it can reach, given it's current path through space and limited on-board fuel supply. Their names aren't very exciting: PT1, PT2, and PT3 (where PT means "potential target").

Sometime this August, according to SpaceflightNow.com, NASA will pick the KBO it likes the most, then fire New Horizons's thrusters to steer it in that direction. The trip will take at least 2 years.

New Horizons might be able to study more than one KBO. And each time it does, the spacecraft will scrutinize the icy object in the same way it did Pluto and Charon: map the surface, measure temperatures, scout for moons, and search for traces of atmosphere.

...And beyond

After scrutinizing a KBO or two, New Horizons will escape the sun's influence and never again return to our Solar System.

"It could go for another 20 years," Stern said during a NASA press conference on Tuesday. Around that time, the nuclear power source on board New Horizons will become too weak to supply energy for taking measurements and communicating with Earth.

This all assumes, of course, that we don't lose the spacecraft anywhere along the way.

The flyby was the riskiest part of the mission, and its success is still uncertain; right now, there's still a 1-in-10,000 chance debris around Pluto thwarted the mission. We'll have to wait until Tuesday night before NASA can say whether or not the maneuver went off without a hitch.

Yet during Tuesday morning's press briefing, Stern seemed upbeat. He noted that you could fly hundreds of New Horizons and they'd likely all survive.

One way or another, the mission has already made history. Whether in one piece or a shower of spacecraft parts, we've reached the last unexplored world in our Solar System. And that's something not even the International Astronomical Union can take away.

SEE ALSO: We’re so close to seeing Pluto up-close, but a single pebble could make NASA's mission go terribly wrong

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NOW WATCH: Bill Nye and NASA scientists react to seeing a clear picture of Pluto for the first time

The Samsung Galaxy S6 and LG G4 are two of the best phones available today.

They also have two of the best cameras ever put in a smartphone.

Both the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the LG G4 sport 16-megapixel cameras. But they have different camera parts that results in very different photos.

The G4 has a wider f/1.8 aperture while the S6's is f/1.9, meaning the G4 lets a little more light into the sensor, which also happens to be slightly bigger on the G4.

We put both cameras through their paces to see which one is best.

(Note:  All photos were taken with the camera's default settings in the same place at the same time. No flash or editing features were used).

SEE ALSO: How the iPhone 6's camera compares to the Galaxy S6 and HTC One M9

This photo of a mix of shade and direct sunlight was taken with the Galaxy S6. The brightness of the leaves is even and the surrounding area in the sunlight isn't overexposed.

The G4 overexposes the sunlit areas and patches, which strips them of detail. The leaves are darker, too, but the flower colors are more accurate, as the S6 saturates a little. The S6 beats the G4 here.

However, photos taken with the S6 suffer a little when it comes to settings with more sunlight, as sunlit areas are over-exposed and washed out, which robs them of their details and color.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday morning, and even though we've only seen a small trickle of data so far, the findings are already surprising scientists.

A group of New Horizons scientists took to Reddit on July 14 to answer questions about the Pluto flyby, and it quickly became clear that the preliminary data holds some curiosities.

For starters, we didn't know Pluto had craters until today.

"We didn't really start seeing craters until the image released today— the pictures simply weren't sharp enough till now," Curt Niebur, a NASA program scientist, wrote on Reddit. "The images that come down later this week will be better for crater counting, and then we can compare to other planets."

We've also learned more about Pluto's very thin atmosphere — it's even thinner than we thought, about 700 times thinner than Earth's. The New Horizons atmospheric data ruled out some scientists' theories it could be thicker:

"Also, we have gotten great pictures back, and we have also gotten tons of info about the plasma and particle and dust environment around Pluto — AND great info about the atmosphere — already constraining a lot of our theories," Kelsi Singer, a post-doc student on the New Horizons team, wrote.

Scientists are also surprised by what they have not found.

"I think most people thought we would find at least one small moon — so far no new moons...!!" Singer wrote on Reddit.

But the team discovered that a Pluto moon that we already knew about — Charon — has a very dark pole. Amanda Zangari, a post-doc researcher on the New Horizons team, said scientists expected Charon's surface to be pretty uniform and featureless.

And Charon isn't the only moon that's not living up to expectations. Nix and Hydra are much smaller than expected, Pluto geologist John Spencer said during a scientific panel discussing the results that we have so far.

New Horizon's Principle Investigator Alan Stern is famous for not making predictions. But Zangari says he has an envelope from 2006 full of Pluto predictions that he's going to open soon. It'll be exciting to see how well (or not well) those predictions line up with the data.

"We've found that even experts can't predict everything perfectly,"Zangari said.

We're going to be learning more and more about Pluto and its moon as New Horizons continues to send back more data over the next 16 months.

SEE ALSO: We've finally added Pluto to the family portrait of the Solar System

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NOW WATCH: Bill Nye and NASA scientists react to seeing a clear picture of Pluto for the first time

I used to play sports games. Remember this iconic scene from cult classic film "Swingers?"

That was me, but, ya know, not dressed for jazz dancing. And certainly not as pretty as Vince Vaughn. 

I grew up with sports games like "NBA Jam,""NFL Blitz," and "Mutant League Hockey"– sports games that didn't aim to re-create actual sports as much as they took those sports and turned them into interesting video games. They were silly and fast and, often, much more fun than sports game nowadays. Even EA Sports' games were more fun back then, when games weren't capable of near perfectly re-creating real life sports (as evidenced by the clip above).

With a scant few exceptions, sports games like this don't exist anymore. The companies making sports games – more or less only EA Sports and 2K these days – enjoy a much larger profit from annual releases of Madden and FIFA. 

On July 7, the first new sports game in many years not intended to re-create real sports was released on the PlayStation 4 and PC: It's called "Rocket League." And "Rocket League" is one of the best games I've played this year.

What is "Rocket League?" It's soccer with rocket cars, played three vs three or four vs four. Yeah!

You know all of those rules in soccer? None of those apply in "Rocket League." There's no "out of bounds" because you drive on the walls. 

It starts out with a mad dash to the ball from both sides to center field, like a face off in hockey, but with rocket-powered cars instead. Like so:

You could drive at the ball at full speed, or you could use some of your rocket juice, or some combination thereof. The most important thing you do next is make your car jump – yes, jump– and front flip forward. This is the "Rocket League" version of soccer's header combined with standard dribbling, albeit a bit more forceful and unpredictable.

Like everything in "Rocket League," doing front flips with your car is blessedly simple. Press X to jump, press X again in mid-air to flip forward. Push to the left and you'll flip left. Push to the right and...well, you get the idea. This is the basic formula for ball control in "Rocket League," and it's nowhere near as precise as actual soccer.

The next aspect you need to get under control is using your rockets. Every player starts out with a third of a tank of nitro that can be replenished by driving over pickups scattered around the field. Balancing your nitro use with offensive and defensive tactics is the core of "Rocket League," and what makes it such an intense, frenetic competition. 

Will you get to the ball fast enough to beat out the competition, and ultimately get the ball away from your goal and toward theirs? This is the basest level question you seek to answer at any given second in "Rocket League."

This is a madman's vision for future soccer.

That's evident in every aspect of "Rocket League," from the game's ridiculous menu music to its car customization options. Swap out rims, exhaust colors, and even hats! My car has a wizard hat, a tennis ball antenna topper, and it shoots "Tron"-esque streams out the back.

But maybe you prefer something a little less gauche? Thankfully, there are thousands of combinations in "Rocket League" to suit your preferences.

You'll earn more car colors and more hats and more everything else by simply playing the game. There's an offline mode that has you playing against computer-controlled AI teams. I'm sure that's fine, but where "Rocket League" shines is online, against other human beings controlling rocket-powered cars.

That's where the real madness emerges.

Here's one great example of some of that madness:

And of course, scoring goals is incredibly rewarding. Due to the craziness inherent in "Rocket League," goals are often erratic and sudden. But sometimes, every now and again, you get a moment of unadulterated strategy and are able to pull it off:

I can't stop playing "Rocket League." I was up until midnight last night – well past my bedtime – passing a PlayStation 4 gamepad back and forth with my wife, yelling and laughing and experiencing great joy. Even better, the game was free on PlayStation 4 with my PlayStation Plus membership. If you don't pay for the annual subscription service, the game costs $20. And if you'd prefer to play it on PC, that's an option too – you can even play with friends on PlayStation 4 right from your computer. Sadly, there's no version on Xbox One or Wii U.

The way you get it matters not. What matters is that you play "Rocket League," and you play it soon. You won't regret it.

SEE ALSO: Konami appears ready to sever ties with master 'Metal Gear' game director Hideo Kojima

AND: PETA put out a bizarre statement about the unexpected death of Nintendo's president

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NOW WATCH: This gorgeous trailer for Playstation's flagship game shows why millions are in love with the franchise

Amongst all the Marvel movies released thus far, "Ant-Man" may be the first without an obvious fan base. There's no iconic emblem on his chest that we can emblazon onto T-shirts, the cartoons he has appeared in pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe aren't well-known or beloved, and his powers are pretty spectacularly unsexy. Shrinking and talking to ants? C'mon. 

Add to that a very complicated comic book history and some highly-publicized behind-the-scenes creative shuffling, and it's easy to assume that "Ant-Man" is far from a safe bet. 

Summer blockbusters trade in expectation, but it's hard to figure out what to expect from "Ant-Man" other than the prerequisite visual effects and Paul Rudd charm. Its trailers are too busy trying to explain Ant-Man's powers and convince you that they're cool to spend any time selling you on the fun heist story at the movie's center, or the charming comedic ensemble that glues everything together. 

In fact, the movie takes a while before the best things about it come together in any meaningful way. The first half of the film feels strangely off — it starts with a prologue set in the '80s that introduces Michael Douglass as Hank Pym, a scientist with a remarkable formula for shrinking matter who decides to hide it from the government agents that want it as a weapon (there are also quite a few Easter eggs for Marvel fans in those first few minutes).

Then it jumps to the present day and introduces Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), a Robin Hood-esque thief with a code who's just out of lockup and is trying to go clean. 

These are the unlikely pair that "Ant-Man" throws together when Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), the power-hungry young man now in charge of Pym's company, announces he's figured out his former mentor's secret, and plans to sell it to the military. The premise is simple: Pym wants Lang to steal his techology back from Cross. 

It's hard to articulate what it is about the first half of the movie that feels so strange, but much of it comes down to pacing. While "Ant-Man" doesn't take very long getting Paul Rudd in the incredible suit, there's a very real lack of momentum that undermines the talents of the cast and the fun of the central conceit. 

However, midway through, the film just clicks, and it's wonderful. The action is exciting and imaginative, the cast really starts to gel together, and the jokes get really, really funny. 

Marvel films have a reputation for not entirely sticking the landing — they start strong, but generally end with big, dumb fights. Sure, there's a fight at the end of "Ant-Man" as well, but it's genuinely thrilling, the best action sequence in a movie where action sequences get better and better as the film goes on. In this sense, the film suffers from the inverse problem of most Marvel films — its first act is a bit weak, but the back half sings.

There are other problems with "Ant-Man," as well — the villain, Darren Cross, is pretty cartoonishly evil, but actor Corey Stoll totally relishes the role. Evangeline Lilly has a few great moments as Hank Pym's daughter Hope Van Dyne, but she's sidelined for much of the film. While "Ant-Man" goes out of its way to make this an important plot point, it doesn't make up for it with other female characters, because there really aren't any outside of Scott Lang's disapproving wife and adorable daughter. 

What's most refreshing about "Ant-Man," then, is probably its scope. Finally, here is a Marvel movie about something other than the destruction of worlds. Cities don't get leveled in "Ant-Man," just a building does. It's a story almost exclusively about a small, personal thing: Fathers who have looked at their lives and realized they have failed their children. 

Like those fathers, "Ant-Man" is a flawed, yet earnest attempt to win over those who might not believe in it. 

Give it a shot.

"Ant-Man" is in theaters Friday, July 17.

SEE ALSO: Why Ryan Reynold's 'Deadpool' won over Comic-Con

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NOW WATCH: The new 'Star Wars' game is a love letter to 'Star Wars' superfans

Stem cells, the jack-of-all-trades building blocks of human tissues, have yet another application in biology research: scientists have been able to grow them into beating cardiac tissue.

This could help scientists better understand how the heart develops and test if drugs might be affect cardiac development in growing fetuses.

In a fetus, stem cells become heart tissue through a symphony of chemical cues, conducted by DNA. But the laws of physics also play a role — cells in the body get pushed and pulled into different positions, which changes how DNA regulates them.

In the study, published today in Nature Communications, the researchers started out with stem cells derived from skin tissue. In a petri dish, they used the growth medium typically used to coax cells to develop. But they added something new: a chemical layer that had different areas with tiny little etchings made with oxygen plasma. These slight physical and chemical differences in the different areas of the dish caused the stem cells to develop into different types of cardiac tissue cells—just as they do in the human body. By day 20, the cells had formed heart "microchambers" that were actually beating, albeit slowly. This is a time-lapse of the tissues moving over a 24-hour period: 

And here's a 3D reconstruction of the microchamber:  To see if other chemicals could affect these lab-grown tissues, the researchers dosed some of the cells with thalidomide, a drug known to affect heart development in fetuses. Just as the researchers expected, the microchambers didn’t develop properly.

This research could help scientists better understand how the heart develops. Most of their current knowledge and testing is based on mouse heart cells, which aren’t quite the same as in humans. Having beating heart tissue readily available in the lab could also make it easier for researchers to test how drugs can affect fetus hearts, which could lead to new drugs that are safer for pregnant women.

The researchers also note that similar tactics could help grow other kinds of organs in the lab as well.

This article originally appeared on Popular Science. 

This article was written by Alexandra Ossola from Popular Science and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. 

SEE ALSO: The US stem cell industry is in Wild West mode

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NOW WATCH: Researchers tested a rat’s empathy by giving it a choice between chocolate and a drowning friend

Even when pressed for time, Quentin Tarantino can still give a good response to a meaningful question.

Towards the end of the San Diego Comic-Con panel for "The Hateful Eight," which hits theaters on Christmas, Tarantino was asked by one fan what his favorite thing was that he's ever written in a movie.

"That's actually such a good question I don't even know if I have an answer for it, especially with this pressed for time bulls**t." Tarantino told the crowd at Comic-Con.

Tarantino wanted to move on and announce the big news that he would be working with composer Ennio Morricone on "The Hateful Eight."He revealed that his favorite scene from his filmography is the opening of "Inglourious Basterds."

"My favorite thing I think I've ever written is the scene at the French farmhouse at the beginning of 'Inglourious Basterds.'" Tarantino said.

The scene Tarantino refers to is the very first scene of his brutal World War II epic. In the scene, SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) arrives at a remote dairy farm in France that is suspected of hiding Jews. Landa sits down with the farmer (Denis Menochet) and questions him about the whereabouts of the Dreyfus family. 

The scene is a tense and sneaky psychological mind game in which a Nazi plays detective.

The unique part about this entire scene is that it clocks in at around 20 minutes long.

Most scenes in movies are about a third of that length and typically aren't as dialogue heavy. Like most Tarantino scripts, he avoids exposition and instead loves to trail off into incredibly long conversations.

Take this four and a half minute stretch of the opening, where Landa stops interrogating and instead talks about why he enjoys being called The Jew Hunter:

Tarantino wouldn't reveal exactly why this was his favorite scene that he is written, but it seems like almost everything he had written up to this point was building up to this conversational scene. Tarantino loves writing for bad guys, but he has never had to make somebody this evil come as terrifyingly charming.

And Tarantino was working on this script for about ten years. During that time, it changed drastically. Many of the action scenes he had planned would eventually be used in "Kill Bill."

But before he wrote this scene and filmed it, he thought there was another scene from very early in his career that he could never top. 

"Before that it was, in my very first script, 'True Romance,' it was the whole Sicilian speech. That was the one to beat." Tarantino said. "And then when I finally wrote that scene in 'Inglorious Basterds' I was like, 'oh, I think I finally beat that one!'"

He is referring to the profanity-laden and hilarious speech made by Dennis Hopper. In a DVD commentary, Tarantino called this scene one of the "proudest moments of his career."

"True Romance" was released in 1993, one year after Tarantino's directorial debut "Reservoir Dogs" and one year before "Pulp Fiction" would make him the hottest filmmaker in Hollywood.

"True Romance" was actually not directed by Tarantino, but rather by the late Tony Scott. And yet, Tarantino's brilliant writing still made it on the screen completely intact. This was back during a time where he still didn't have the amount of clout that he has today. 

This scene clocks in at ten minutes long. Like the "Basterds" scene, that is much longer than the typical film scene, especially one that doesn't exactly move the plot forward. 

There is a big gap between "True Romance" and "Inglourious Basterds," the latter of which came out in 2009. Between that time, Tarantino won Best Original Screenplay twice for "Pulp Fiction" and "Django Unchained." Now, it's up to "The Hateful Eight" to give him some more amazing dialogue to boast about.

The speech starts at around five minutes into the "True Romance" clip below (Warning: this scene is very NSFW):

SEE ALSO: Nobody ever believed Quentin Tarantino and this legendary composer would work together — now it's happening

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NOW WATCH: Here’s the first trailer for Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks' next movie ‘Bridge of Spies’

The underground drone racing scene is growing in Australia — here's an epic point-of-view perspective of these 90 mph races. 

Produced by Grace Raver. Video Courtesy of Caters TV and Associated Press. 

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If you own an Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 4, and you've never played "Destiny," you owe it to yourself to try.

"Destiny" is made by Bungie, the same studio that created "Halo," arguably one of the best games of all-time. If you never played "Halo," it's highlighted by incredibly rewarding gameplay, tons of guns and vehicles, and a sci-fi story centered on saving the universe from destructive forces.

Though the "Halo" franchise has switched hands — it now belongs to Microsoft-owned 343 Industries, which made "Halo 4" and is prepping the release for "Halo 5" later this year — Bungie has since moved on to a new, ambitious franchise, called "Destiny." 

The initial release of "Destiny" was impressive from a sales perspective, but critics were lukewarm at first. That said, much has changed since the launch of "Destiny" last September; it's a much different game than the one released 10 months ago. So if you're still on the fence, consider these reasons to give "Destiny" a chance.

1. "Destiny" has all the same aspects that made "Halo" great. It's another sci-fi story about saving the universe. It has great gameplay and a large array of weapons, which all feel great to use. If you like those things, you will love "Destiny."

2. The "Destiny" community is incredible. If you want to attempt a "raid," one of the biggest and best activities in "Destiny," you'll need up to six players. Unfortunately, Bungie doesn't have any in-game tools to help you find friends — but that's where the "Destiny" community comes in. On Reddit, for example, you can visit /r/fireteams to find a group to play any activity, like a raid. But if you just want to discuss your latest exploits, ask a question, or contribute to larger discussions, Reddit's /r/DestinyTheGame subreddit is a super friendly, super safe place to find people who want to share their experiences with you, play with you, or help you.

3. There's something new every week. The story missions in "Destiny" might be a bit tedious after the first run-through, but Bungie still tries to keep things fresh with its "weekly reset," which happens each Tuesday. In those weekly resets, Bungie offers a new "Nightfall" strike — a difficult three-player mission that will force you to start over completely if you all die (no checkpoints) — as well as other special three-person missions that each come with their own modifiers: for example, one modifier might make your melee damage super powerful, while another modifier might make you more powerful while airborne. Beating these weekly strikes and missions will earn you sweet gear — namely, weapons, and more.

4. The Trials of Osiris is a high-octane multiplayer experience. While the weekly reset offers plenty of newness for the week starting each Tuesday, the Trials of Osiris, which was introduced in the last major expansion pack "The House of Wolves," is another way Bungie keeps "Destiny" feeling fresh on a regular basis — and it's arguably the best part of the entire game. From every Friday to Monday night, you'll have access to the Trials of Osiris, where you'll need a three-person team to take out another three-person team on a specific multiplayer map; there's a new map chosen each week. "Trials" is an elimination contest: Defeat all three enemies to net your team a point, and win five points to win a match. After each match, you'll have a chance to win some sweet Egyptian-themed gear. But if you win nine matches without a single loss, you'll get some incredible rewards — learn about those rewards here.

5. Exotic weapons and armor will keep you coming back for more. There are tons of guns in the game — auto rifles, scout rifles, hand cannons, sniper rifles, fusion rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, and more — but you'll continue grinding "Destiny" long after the story missions become stale to attain "exotic" weapons, which are extremely rare items that appear in yellow boxes. Exotic items come with perks you won't find anywhere else: for example, an exotic hand cannon called Thorn deals lingering damage after you've shot someone, which renders their screen green and also makes them easy to track for a few seconds. There are only a handful of exotics in the game, but "Destiny" fans keep playing mainly to attain every single one of these rare, powerful, and extremely cool-looking items.

6. All of your rewards are random. There are only a handful of occasions where you can buy a special weapon or piece of armor; for the most part, these desirable items are given to you through "drops," which happen at the end of most story missions, as well as weekly strikes and those six-person raid activities. You'll also occasionally see "engrams" drop in-game, which are small boxes filled with light that you grab and take to a special character in the game to decrypt for you. Unfortunately, the main mechanic in "Destiny" is random number generation, or RNG for short. RNG means some players will get tons of the same rare item, while other players rarely get rare items to drop for them. As frustrating a system as this is, it's the main reason many people keep playing "Destiny": It means you can pour hundreds of hours into the game and still not get that Gjallarhorn you're looking for (I'm talking about myself here). Yes, it's unfair, but so is life. And furthermore, it makes finally attaining that item you're looking for all the sweeter once it finally happens.

7. The six-man raids are the best part of the game. You might be familiar with raids if you've ever played "World of Warcraft," but in "Destiny," a raid is a six-person activity that requires lots of teamwork and problem solving to get through — and at several checkpoints throughout the raid, you'll have a chance to win special gear and weapons, arguably the best in the game. Right now, these are the only activities in "Destiny" where you can get five other friends to play a specific mission with you. And while there are only two raids right now — "The Vault of Glass" and "Crota's End"— both raids feel completely different from one another, and they're a blast to play. Even if you didn't enjoy the story missions in "Destiny," you'll absolutely love the raid activities.

8. "Destiny" is never static; it will keep evolving for the next 10 years. As Bungie has stated several times, there is a 10-year plan for "Destiny." Expect one major game release every two years, with a ton of downloadable content, including expansion packs, released several times throughout each year. Bungie says you will be able to use your original character from the first "Destiny" game in future versions, meaning your legend will only keep growing. You'll never need to start completely from scratch unless you want to.

9. It's a beautiful-looking game. If you're into space and sci-fi, you'll be entranced by the imagery in "Destiny." Take a look at these screens below.

10. Dancing! "Destiny" is mainly about saving the universe, sure, but that doesn't mean you can't express yourself. Check out clips below (the last one is the best one).

In just a few months, Bungie will release the next major chapter for "Destiny"— not an "expansion," but not a full game either — called "The Taken King."It looks awesome. Until then, though, now is the perfect time to give "Destiny" a try. You can buy the original game for just $20 through Amazon, or you can pre-order the Legendary Edition of "The Taken King" for $60, which will include that major expansion plus the original game and all the expansion packs released thus far, which you'll be able to start playing immediately.

SEE ALSO: The next 'Destiny' expansion is coming in September, and it looks pretty terrifying

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NOW WATCH: This gorgeous trailer for Playstation's flagship game shows why millions are in love with the franchise

A Fitbit can tell you if you're getting enough steps during the day. But it can't warn you when the smog outside is so heavy that those steps might do more harm than good.

The Tzoa tracker, a small wearable device that can be attached to clothing and bags, wants to be the personal health you never knew you needed, giving up-to-the-minute data on air quality, light and UV ray exposure, humidity, and atmospheric pressure.

As air pollution in urban areas continues to get worse, especially in developing countries, these kinds of devices will only get more common — and more useful.

Kevin Hart, the co-founder and CEO of Tzoa, first came up with the idea while working at a hazardous waste site. His employer gave him a respirator, but Hart had no idea what he was being exposed to. 

Creating an air quality tracker that can evaluate pollution both indoors and outdoors was his way of tackling the problem and empowering those around him.

Here's how the $100 tracker calculates air quality: the device contains a small fan that brings in air particles, which then pass through a laser beam that measures the number of particles contained within. It can distinguish between PM2.5 particles, which are small and especially harmful to the lungs, and PM10 particles, like mold and pollen, that trigger allergies. 

An accompanying app tells users whether the air around them is dirty or clean, using personal data as well as crowdsourced information from the Tzoa community.

Hundreds of people have bought Tzoa trackers from the company's recent Indiegogo campaign. The device goes on sale to the public in late 2015.

This isn't the only air quality tracker out there, but Hart believes that Tzoa is unique because of the relevant data it provides. "Other indoor air quality devices exist, and they do a good job of taking VOCs, CO2, carbon monoxide, and air quality metrics, but we’re doing a bigger picture," he says. "We're saying, 'Here’s an indoor environmental monitor that has the most important air quality metric: particulate matter.'"

Sometimes, too much information is a bad thing — there's only so much you can do if the air is thick with air pollution and you have to go outside anyway, or if your rented apartment contains dangerous amounts of particles. 

But if you do have the option of taking the subway instead of walking to work, or fixing a nagging mold problem at the house, Tzoa might be worth a look.

SEE ALSO: The pollution outside your office window affects your work in a big way

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NOW WATCH: 6 scientifically proven features men find attractive in women

Images and data have been flowing in since NASA's epic New Horizons Pluto flyby on Tuesday morning, and the latest image released shows an exaggerated color map of Pluto and its moon Charon.

The colors here are not true colors. They're exaggerated to highlight the differences in Pluto's and Charon's surface composition. Also, this is a composite image — Pluto and Charon are much farther apart than they appear in the image.

The psychedelic mix of colors tells scientists that both Pluto and Charon have complex surfaces and its got them excited about the even more-detailed surface data yet to be downloaded from the New Horizons craft.

"These images show that Pluto and Charon are truly complex worlds," Will Grundy, New Horizons co-investigator said in a NASA release. "There's a whole lot going on here."

The image was captured on July 13 using the color filters on New Horizon's Ralph instrument. Color maps like these will help scientists figure out the molecular make up of the ice on Pluto and Charon and how old some of their surface features (like craters) are.

The image reveals that Pluto's "heart" doesn't have a uniform composition. The left lobe is a light peach color, while the right lobe is more bluish. They don't know, for sure, what those colors mean, but additional data will likely shed some light on those mysteries.

Scientists think the deep red color around Charon's north pole could means the surface there is full of hydrocarbons.

We'll know more after New Horizons finally "phones home" to mission control tonight at 8:53 p.m. EDT and finally starts beaming back its flyby data.

You can watch the countdown on NASA TV starting at 8:30 p.m.

SEE ALSO: Humanity has visited Pluto for the 1st time, but we're not out of the woods yet — here's how to watch for final confirmation

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NOW WATCH: Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why they call Pluto a dwarf planet

Preventing disease is a standard goal of medicine.

But a new technology takes it farther than we normally do by preventing a potential person with a genetic disease from being born at all, George Annas, a bioethicist and health lawyer at Boston University and author of "Genomic Messages," tells Business Insider.

"It's an extreme," Annas says.

The technology, called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), can be used in conjunction with in-vitro fertilization to test for genetic disease and genetic predispositions, and can even determine sex— all before a woman is actually pregnant.

How it works

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a procedure in which eggs are taken from a woman's ovaries and fertilized with sperm in a petri dish. Then one or more fertilized embryos are placed in the woman's uterus, where one will hopefully implant and grow into a baby.

During the process of IVF, multiple embryos are created in the lab from a couple's eggs and sperm. Before transferring any embryos to the woman's uterus, doctors can perform PGD by taking one cell from each embryo and analyzing the DNA for disease-causing mutations.

In its practice committee opinion on genetic testing for embryos created through IVF, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine calls PGD "a major scientific advance" for couples whose children risk inheriting a terrible genetic disease. It means people with diseases like Huntington's don't have to worry about passing it on to their children.

That "major scientific advance" is pushing disease prevention farther than we've ever been able to before.

'An extreme' in action

One gene mutation makes the brains of approximately 30,000 Americans begin breaking down in their 30s or 40s, causing problems with movement, thinking, and mood, and initiating a progressive decline that can't be halted with any known treatment.

That's the gene mutation behind Huntington's disease, and parents who have it have a 50% chance of passing it down to each child they have.

Since the disease is caused by a mutation in a single gene, scientists can perform a DNA test to confirm a diagnosis or predict whether someone with a family history of the disease will have it too. But until recently, there's been no way to prevent Huntington's disease.

Some people with Huntington's in their family would roll the dice; many others simply decided not have children at all.

Today, if a couple affected by Huntington's disease doesn't want to risk passing the disease down to a child, they can try to conceive through IVF, using PGD. That special layer of genetic testing, however "extreme" it may seem, changes everything: It can all but ensure they won't have child who suffers from the disease.

SEE ALSO: Designer babies will just be a logical continuation of the way we've long approached parenting

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When director David Ayer took the stage to introduce "Suicide Squad" at San Diego Comic-Con Saturday morning, it was clear from the moment he started speaking this movie was going to be very different from any comic book movie adaptation we've seen before.

"We're making this movie for you, okay?" said Ayer. "This is DC Comics s--- right here. It's all about canon. It's all about being faithful to the source material. You guys know who you are, and you know what you want, and you're gonna freaking get it with this show, okay?" 

The words that should stick out there are "faithful to the source material."

There's nothing fans of a series dislike more than when a comic-book adaptation takes source material and interprets it differently on screen. It's a big risk.

Sometimes it works. You'll even get a new defining character or two. Other times it goes horribly wrong.

Ayer continued, not afraid to take shots at pitting the fans against Marvel.

"And all this 'good vs. evil' is kind of played out right now," said Ayer. "It's time for bad vs. evil right? Time for a movie about bad guys. And who's got the best bad guys out there? DC Comics. Best villains ever."

The director quickly addressed that little dig.

"Now, I'm not trying to start no, you know, east coast/west coast feud with Marvel comics, now. But, hey, someone's gotta say the truth, all right?"

Ayer then revealed some footage for the film, which leaked online afterward, and was subsequently released by Warner Bros. Monday. He then brought out the cast to introduce the film. 

It's a big one.

Here's the quick rundown of the cast from left to right:

Cary Fukuhara —Katana
Adam Beach — Slipknot
Cara Delevingne — Enchantress 
Jay Hernandez — El Diablo 
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje — Killer Croc
Jai Courtney — Captain Boomerang
Joel Kinnaman — Rick Flag
Viola Davis — Amanda Wallace
Margot Robbie — fan favorite Harley Quinn
Will Smith — Deadshot

Ayer previously released a photo of the entire cast. There were a few missing including Jim Parrack and Ike Barinholtz.

Jared Leto, who will play the Joker, was also absent from the Con.

After the crowd took the stage, Smith rallied the crew together for a Suicide Squad rally before saying a few niceties to the crowd, but that was mostly it.

For those who aren't familiar, the "Suicide Squad" is a hand-selected group of villains recruited to work for the government under the direction of Waller (Davis) where they participate in, essentially, suicide missions. If they refuse or try to escape? They get killed.

The series has featured a rotating cast of villains and antihheroes throughout the years.

While no official plot has been released for the film, it's very clear that we'll be seeing much more than a bunch of DC villains gather together to take out potentially larger world threats.

From the footage revealed at Comic-Con, it looks like the film will attempt to humanize many of the Squad members. We may receive the backstories to some of the characters like Smith's Deadshot and Robbie's Harley who was formerly known as psychiatrist Dr. Harleen Quinzel.

That's extermely exciting, and something I've been saying to people for awhile. 

We have so many superhero movies — why hasn't anyone made one that embraces the villains?

Sony was going to try and make that happen with its "Sinister Six" project, a film which would have revolved around Spider-Man villains.

This has become a proven format. No one knows that more than Disney and ABC with their series "Once Upon a Time," which humanizes some of the darkest Disney villains by telling the stories of how they got to become evil.

The Mouse House took that formula and ran with it for its adaptation of "Maleficent" starring Angelina Jolie as the titular "Sleeping Beauty" villainess. It was a hit grossing over $758.4 million worldwide. 

If you could do this with Disney villains, why not apply the same formula with supervillains?

Tell me you wouldn't watch a Loki movie. (Though "Thor 2"very much felt like one.)

Surely, you'd want to see a standalone Joker film.

While "Suicide Squad" isn't exactly your Joker film, it's refreshing to see Warner Bros. is finally taking a stab at a villain/anti-hero film. The "Squad" footage that ignited Hall H looked intriguing and exciting, and I for one am looking forward to more of it.

As for that Joker film? It looks like WB has some big plans for the Clown Prince of Crime down the line.

We're not too worried.

You can watch the "Suicide Squad" Comic-Con panel below:

SEE ALSO: "Suicide Squad" star Margot Robbie is taking over Hollywood

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NOW WATCH: Get ready to root for the bad guys — your first look at 'Suicide Squad' is here

At this very moment, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is more than 3 billion miles from Earth. To put that into perspective, think about how mind-numbingly far the Sun is from Earth. Then multiply by 32.

That's how deep in space New Horizons is right now.

Now imagine sending a deluge of data — high resolution photos, measurements of atmosphere and temperature, ultraviolet images, etc. — from that distance at just 600 to 1,200 bits per second, or about 50 to 100 times slower than the speed of a modern cable modem.

"At the data rate we have ... it takes over 2 hours to downlink a standard picture from your cell phone! That means we will spend the next 16 months transmitting all the data down to Earth," Curt Niebur, a NASA program scientist, wrote during a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" thread.

For this very reason, we're going to have to wait hours, days, even months before we get the best, full-sized, high-resolution images from Pluto.

How the data delay works

New Horizons talks to Earth through a system of four antennas. These allow the spacecraft to transmit raw data, receive commands, send status updates, and deliver tracking information.

But the paltry bandwidth of the antennas means New Horizons has to save data locally until it can beam it to Earth. For that reason, it's equipped with two solid-state recorders.

Each recorder can collect, compress, sort, and store about 8 gigabytes of data, much in the same way digital cameras store photos to a flash memory card. (Except we'll never get them back to plug into a computer on Earth.)

New Horizons was scheduled to record an unprecedented amount of measurements and photos with its suite of seven instruments Tuesday morning.

How long it will take to trickle that data back to Earth seems a little uncertain. Although Niebur said it'll take 16 months, a NASA press kit states it will take about 9 months.

Either way, we should start to see something tantalizing soon.

"Tomorrow [Wednesday] we'll see images that are 10 times higher resolution" than those taken right before the flyby, said Alan Stern, principle investigator of the New Horizons team, during a live webcast on NASA TV.

For most of the mission, New Horizons will use an 83-inch-wide "high-gain" antenna, which sits on its top deck to communicate with NASA. It takes about four hours and 25 minutes for a radio signal from that antenna to reach New Horizons from Earth, and vice versa. The signals can move only as fast as the speed of light, and the spacecraft is far enough away that it takes them that long to travel.

"The one thing I wish we had beefed up on this spacecraft is the antenna to send back the data a little quicker," Fran Bagel, a New Horizons co-investigator, said during an American Museum of Natural History webcast on Tuesday. "But forget it. It's too small an object that's too far away."

The first images of Pluto might start coming in tonight, but not until NASA first receives a signal confirming the flyby was a success. That signal won't arrive until around 9 p.m. ET.

Until then, we have a couple of new images of Pluto— and rampant speculation about them — to pore over.

SEE ALSO: The Pluto flyby is just the start of NASA's epic New Horizons mission

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NOW WATCH: Bill Nye and NASA scientists react to seeing a clear picture of Pluto for the first time

TMZ has reported that Shoshana Roberts, the woman who appeared in the "10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman" video, is suing the director, Rob Bliss, and the anti-harassment group, Hollaback!. Roberts claims that Bliss and Hollaback! used her likeness without her written permission and is suing for at least $500,000.

She is also suing Google, YouTube, and T.G.I. Friday's for its parody of the viral video. 

Video courtesy of Rob Bliss and Hollaback!

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Wouldn’t it be great if scientists could make their minds up? One minute they’re telling us our planet is warming up due to human activity and we run the risk of potentially devastating environmental change. Next, they’re warning that the Earth is heading for a mini ice age in the next 15 years.

The latter headline has its roots in a recent press release from the UK’s National Astronomy Meeting that reported on a study suggesting the sun is heading towards a period of very low output.

Fluctuations in solar activity are not a new discovery. The 11-year variation in the number of dark sunspots on the solar surface was discovered more than 150 years ago. We now understand that these spots are symptoms of increased magnetic activity and occur during periods when explosive outbursts of energy and material such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections are more frequent.

The scientists behind the new research have modelled the rhythmic variations in solar activity over recent decades and predict that a deep low is due between 2030 and 2040. Specifically, the press release suggests that this dip in activity could mark a return to quiet solar conditions not seen for more than 350 years.

How is this astronomy story related to an impending ice age? The period of low solar activity in the 17th century, known as the Maunder minimum, lasted about 70 years and roughly coincided with the “Little Ice Age”, a era characterised by an abnormally high number of harsh winters across the UK and Europe. As almost all newspaper stories have reported, during several particularly cold winters the Thames froze, enabling frost fairs to be held on the ice.

Given the apparently strong link between low solar activity and the Little Ice Age reported in the press, it’s understandable that the prospect of a return to Maunder minimum conditions has stimulated a lot of interest.

Should we be worried?

If this link between variations in solar activity and changes in the Earth’s climate seems obvious, that’s because it is. When the amount of energy emitted by the sun changes, it has an affect on our climate.

But the real issue is just how strong this influence is compared to other factors. The total solar irradiance, a measure of the power produced by the sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation, varies by only about 0.1% over the course of the 11-year solar cycle. Climate scientists have understood this effect for some time and it is already built into the computer models that are used to try and forecast our climate.

But there are still some uncertainties. Changes in the ultraviolet portion of the Sun’s output over a solar cycle can be much greater and can deposit energy in the stratosphere – at altitudes above 10km. How this energy influences our weather and climate in the lower atmosphere is still not clear, but there is growing evidence that during periods of low solar activity, atmospheric “blocking” events are more prevalent.

These blocking episodes comprise extensive and almost stationary anti-cyclones in the eastern Atlantic that can last for several weeks, hindering the flow of the jet stream and leading to colder winters in the UK and Europe.

The good news is that if the sun is heading towards Maunder minimum conditions, the likelihood of which varies greatly in different studies, then a new ice age is not inevitable. During the Little Ice Age, the atmospheric blocking effect probably played a role, but so did increased global volcanic activity that ejected gas and ash in the atmosphere, reflecting solar radiation back into space.

So we have to be careful associating the Maunder minimum with the Little Ice Age. A look at the data shows that the Little Ice Age began a long time (certainly more than a century) before the start of the Maunder minimum – and continued long after it ended. In any case, the Little Ice Age wasn’t really an ice age. Although cold winters in Europe were unusually common, it doesn’t seem to have been a global phenomenon. Research suggests it was a regional phenomenon and that the colder winters in Europe would have been accompanied by warmer ones elsewhere.

So what about global climate change? If solar activity is falling, and that has a cooling influence over the UK and Europe, isn’t that a good thing?

Unfortunately not. The overwhelming consensus among the world’s climate scientists is that the influence of solar variability on the climate is dwarfed by the impact of increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Most calculations suggest that a new “grand solar minimum” in activity would have a cooling effect that would temporarily offset just a few year’s worth of the warming due to the emission of carbon dioxide by humans.

We may well be heading towards a period of low solar activity, but a new mini ice age seems very unlikely at this point.

SEE ALSO: UK Minister: There's a looming threat that should be taken as seriously as nuclear war

SEE ALSO: Animated map of what Earth would look like if all the ice melted

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NOW WATCH: This animated map shows how different our oceans will be by 2050

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' held a panel at this year's San Diego Comic Con, where the film's villains had the opportunity to speak about their characters. 

 Produced by Corey Protin. Video Courtesy of Disney. 

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You might think great cities are great because they're big, both in population and geography. 

You would be wrong.

"The fundamental unit that you count to gauge how good a city is not the number of people," says Michael Stumpf, professor of theoretical systems biology at Imperial College London, "but the number of connections."

Stumpf and several of his colleagues recently published a report that found geography and population are largely irrelevant in determining a city's economic output.

What really matters is whether people can meet face-to-face.

As the world collectively packs up its things and swaps suburban life for city living, the study authors express concern over cities that fail to embrace plans for infrastructure, such as subway systems, bus lines, and paths for walking and biking. 

Without good cause to stick around, the authors argue, many inhabitants simply won't.

"Places that allow people to have a rich and varied experience will become more attractive places," says lead author Aaron Sim. "A city which is successful is one that allows people to interact very efficiently, irrespective of the physical extent of the city."

To validate their model, the researchers collected open-source data on US cities and squared the number of connections between people with output. They then put the model to the test with two forms of infrastructure in their hometown of London, the established High-Speed Rail and the emerging Crossrail, which is expected to cut traveling times from London to Birmingham, the country's second-largest city, by almost half.

"So we asked ourselves the question, 'If we were to put this new rail line in tomorrow, how many new connections will we make?'" Stumpf says.

Other mathematical models have had a hard time quantifying the real benefit of bringing people together. According to the co-authors, the new model doesn't have that problem. "What our model gives," Stumpf says, "is an actual percentage increase" to the city's GDP based on each additional connection.

That increase, though it seems small, is a significant 0.3% jump. The authors offer two reasons for the boost being modest, which they say was to be expected.

"First, the stated investment cost is itself a small fraction of London’s GDP," they write. "Second, the modest boost is simply a reflection of the highly concentrated population density in the central regions and the extensive transport infrastructure already in place."

Stumpf concedes that cities can be improved with more people. If it's connections you're after, increasing the population will inevitably give you that effect.

But that solution isn't ideal because it can lead to overcrowding, which drains resources and diminishes quality of life.

Improvements to infrastructure, on the other hand, can yield massive benefits. Berlin has a thriving creative scene. Copenhagen sets the gold-standard for bike-friendliness. And in severalpedestrian-mindedcities around the world, people can get from one end of the city to another without ever crossing the street.

What these features all have in common is their ability to get people interacting. People might bump into one another on the sidewalk, but isolation gets in the way of progress. For the study authors, that consequence is far more dire.

"Cities are more than just the sum of their inhabitants," Sim says. "It's also what the inhabitants can do together."

SEE ALSO: Google's bike plan aims to turn Silicon Valley into the next Copenhagen

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