50 years of Saturday Night Live. It all started here with this first episode, aired on October 11, 1975. George Carlin hosted the show. Billy Preston and Janis Ian served up the music. Jim Henson staged an elaborate puppet show. And “the Not Ready for Prime Time Players” (Belushi, Aykroyd, Gilda, Jane, Chevy,
As Saturday Night Live celebrates its 50th anniversary, Al Franken takes you inside the making of an SNL episode. He should know a thing or two about the subject. Part of the original SNL writing team, Franken spent 15 years writing and performing for the show. (Anyone remember Stuart Smalley giving a motivational pep
Though he never said so directly, we might expect that Situationist Guy Debord would have included Saturday Night Live in what he called the “Spectacle”—the mass media presentation of a totalizing reality, “the ruling order’s nonstop discourse about itself, its never-ending monologue of self-praise.” The slickness of TV, even live comedy TV, masks
Even if you’ve never read Frank Herbert’s Dune, you may well have encountered its adaptations to a variety of other media: comic books, video games, board games, television series, and of course films, David Lynch’s 1984 version and Denis Villeneuve’s two-parter earlier this decade. But before any of those came Dune, the jazz-funk
By Jack Knudson Learn about a new study that shows jumping exercises are activities that may help astronauts maintain endurance in space. Space missions take a toll on astronauts’ bodies, especially when it comes to bone and joint health, but jumping exercises may mitigate damage and even improve physical conditioning. A recent study showed that
By The Physics arXiv Blog An exotic new approach could shrink kilometer-scale machines into table-top devices. The world’s biggest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), sits in a circular tunnel about one hundred meters beneath the Swiss French border near Geneva. It is huge—some 17 kilometers in circumference—and capable of accelerating sub-atomic particles to
By Monica Cull Learn more about the marine fungi that could be conditioned to help clean up Hawai’i’s beaches. Hawaii is home to some of the world’s most beautiful landscapes. Striking blue waters, lush jungles, and pristine beaches make it a paradise. It’s also home to other unique inhabitants, such as sea turtles, dolphins, and…
By Jack Knudson Learn about the explosions that often occur at the end of a white dwarf star's life, allowing scientists to study the acceleration of the universe. The finale of a star’s life has enthralled scientists for years, yet questions continue to surround the explosions of white dwarf stars — the most common path
By Jenny Lehmann As climate change threatens ecosystems and economies, scientists and fisheries work together to manage imminent changes. Rising water temperatures, acidification, and deoxygenation are disrupting marine ecosystems worldwide. These changes threaten culturally and economically significant species, ultimately endangering the livelihoods that depend on them. To manage marine species struggling with climate change, it
By Paul Smaglik A new theory suggests windows of opportunity, not a series of improbable events may have helped humans gain a foothold in the universe. What are the odds of humanity emerging, well, anywhere? Conventional wisdom says that our emergence, evolution, and development on Earth were extremely improbable. But a new model says that
