In the summer of 1987, movie audiences first met Robocop in the science fiction classic about violence and corrupt corporate power in a future, dystopian Detroit. But the title word is much older than ...

What do you really know about terms like warp drives and transporters? You likely associate them with Star Trek, but what else? You can expand your knowledge of these and other science-fiction words ...

If you're a science fiction fan who enjoys getting lost in internet rabbit holes, may I suggest the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction? The site—newly revamped by Jesse Sheidlower, formerly of ...

One thing nerds like to argue about is what nerds are allowed to argue about. If you agree to stipulate that science fiction is often one of those things—and, hey, we could argue about that—then a ...

Last week, I sat for an exam that induced more perspiration than was necessary. My previous exam had been more than a year ago and although the one last week was more of an informal affair (there were ...

A new Chinese-English Dictionary of Science and Technology is expected to become a "must-have" desktop reference for bilingual users looking for correct language equivalents. Published by the National ...

An Australian physicist has found a basic error in the definition of the word 'siphon', which may have existed in dictionaries and text books around the world for ...

A major dictionary publisher is making its content available free online on a dedicated website for the first time. Visitors to the Collins Dictionary website will be able to check spellings and ...

Astronomers are proposing a new, more quantitative definition of what makes a planet. The new definition looks more directly at the object's mass — but it would still leave Pluto out of the running.