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Douglas Rain passed away Sunday morning at the age of 90. The actor, one of the pioneers of the Stratford Festival, is best known for his role in Stanley Kubrick’s iconic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Rain was the voice of the sentient computer HAL.

Fifty years ago next month, invitation-only audiences gathered in specially equipped Cinerama theaters in Washington, New York and Los Angeles to preview a widescreen epic that director Stanley Kubrick had been working on for four years. Conceived in collaboration with the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, “2001: A Space Odyssey” was way over budget, and Hollywood rumor held that MGM had essentially bet the studio on the project. The film’s previews were an unmitigated disaster. Its story line encompassed an exceptional temporal sweep, starting with the initial contact between pre-human ape-men and an omnipotent alien civilization and then vaulting forward...

[If you're into science fiction or into a lot of the new scientific breakthroughs, you'll probably find this interesting!]On Viewing 2001: The First Transhumanist FilmBy Edward Hudgins I recently saw 2001: A Space Odyssey again on the big screen. That's the best way to see this visually stunning cinematic poem, like I saw it during its premiere run in 1968. The film's star, Keir Dullea, attended that recent screening and afterward offered thoughts on director Stanley Kubrick's awe-inspiring opus. He and many others have discussed the visions offered in the film. Some have come to pass: video phone calls and...

Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is just about to enjoy a digitally restored limited U.K. theatrical release. And to celebrate, here's a lovely new trailer.

NASA really wants to go to Europa, and anyone who knows anything about exobiology really wants NASA to go to Europa. Why? Water. On Earth, water is what fuels life. Of course, there are a lot of other things that fuel life on our planet, but water is an integral part of life as we know it. Indeed, so far all of our research has indicated that–where there is water, there is life (Earth isn’t called “the Pale Blue Dot” for nothing). And while it is possible that alien life could exists on other worlds and thrive off of...

Stuart Freeborn, the British make-up artist renowned for his contributions to 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Star Wars films, has died at the age of 98. Largely self-taught, his six-decade career saw him create make-up and prosthetics for such cinematic legends as Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers.

What if 2001 had been released as a modern summer blockbuster?

Okay, so this may not be important breaking news about astronomy, but it may answer a burning question posed by most people who have watched or read "2001: A Space Odyssey": that is, why does the computer HAL-9000 sing the song 'Daisy Bell' as the astronaut Dave Bowman takes him apart? Well, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke made HAL's final act in the world this song as a tribute to HAL's great ancestor, the first IBM computer to ever sing. Click below for more on this geeky topic! In 1962 Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote the novel – and...