February 6

Fire Dance.

Better Than News

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  The C-Files is an American science fiction drama-sitcom television series set in a bar near FBI headquarters in Washington, where a group of agents meet to drink, relax, and discuss paranormal phenomena.

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  Ex Machina 2: Fifty Shades of Ex is a neo-erotic science noir film about a sentient robot (Alicia Vikander) who begins a sadomasochistic relationship with young business magnate (Jamie Dornan).

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  Calaladan is a 2021 musical romantic comedy science fiction drama film about an aspiring actress (Emma Stone) and a jazz pianist (Ryan Gosling) who befriend a young aristocrat (Paul Atreides).

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  Defenestration of the Realm is 1986 documentary home repair thriller film about a journalist (Gabriel Byrne) who discovers a shocking pattern of people being thrown out windows to their deaths.

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  Soprano Todd: The Barber-Surgeon of Fleet Street is a 2007 American barbershop quartet medical slasher film starring Johnny Depp.

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  Fifty Shades of Maul is a neo-erotic science fiction thriller film about a young Senator who begins a sadomasochistic relationship with a Sith business magnate.

Are You Sure

• ... that chemist, philosopher, educator, and clergyman Joseph Priestley is historically credited with the discovery of oxygen, having isolated it in its gaseous state, but that his determination to defend phlogiston theory and to reject what would become the chemical revolution left him isolated within the scientific community?

• ... that Shakespeare's play The Lord of the Danes is loosely based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy?

• ... that physicist and space activist Gerard K. O'Neill developed a plan to build human settlements in outer space, including a space habitat design known as the O'Neill cylinder; and that he founded the Space Studies Institute, an organization devoted to funding research into space manufacturing and colonization?

• ... that Not Milk? (stylized as not milk?) is an advertising campaign encouraging the non-consumption of milk by Bronze-age warriors?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

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  1582: Mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher Mario Bettinus born. He will write Apiaria Universae Philosophiae Mathematicae, an encyclopedic collection of mathematical curiosities.

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  1804: Chemist, philosopher, educator, and clergyman Joseph Priestley dies. He is historically credited with the discovery of oxygen, having isolated it in its gaseous state, but his determination to defend phlogiston theory and to reject what would become the chemical revolution left him isolated within the scientific community.

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  1916: Mathematician and physicist John Crank born. He will work on the numerical solution of partial differential equations; his work with Phyllis Nicolson on the heat equation will result in the Crank–Nicolson method.

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  1927: Physicist and space activist Gerard K. O'Neill born. O'Neill will invent the particle storage ring for high-energy physics experiment, and the mass driver, a magnetic launcher. In the 1970s, he will develop a plan to build human settlements in outer space.

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  1958: Air Force and Navy personnel begin search for hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb, which was lost in an accident the day before.

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  1980: Premiere of The Shrubbing, an American landscape gardening horror film about a young gardener (Danny Torrance) who discovers that he has supernatural powers over shrubbery.

Topic of the Day

Elton John

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  "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Borg" is a song English singer-songwriter Elton John 1.1.

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  Tiny Antlers is a song by Elton John.

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  "Amanita" is a song by Elton Shaman about the fly agaric mushroom.

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  "Pinball Saved My Life Tonight" is a song by Elton John.

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  "Someone Took My Meds Tonight" is a song by Elton John.