The big day is finally here and the finalists only have 2 minutes to convince judges that they should be one of 20 to receive a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship. As the students take the stage, see who stands out—and who comes up short—in the final lightning pitches.

In X-Men: Days of Future Past, the mutant clan goes head-to-head with the Sentinels—a group of dystopian-era robots. Effects experts MPC created the Sentinels’ special effects using a follicle-like animation, comprised of tiny scales. Mike Seymour explains how they accomplished the technically complicated designs.

With Darth Disney holding the keys to Star Wars, the fate of the expanded universe is at stake. Since the movies are only a fraction of the franchise’s stories, Angry Nerd makes a desperate plea to the only one who can help save the unabridged material: George Lucas.

In this episode, Thiel fellow Rebecca Jolitz takes us on a tour of the NASA Ames Research Center, where she worked while attending UC Berkeley. The entire group also pays a visit to lunar transportation company Moon Express for lessons on space, technology, and how to turn the impossible into a reality.

The upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles remake is completely unnecessary. Instead of fixing flicks that ain't broke, why not reboot the films that can actually be improved upon?

It's time for the bi-annual Under 20 Summit, where past, present, and future Thiel Fellows connect with one another and meet with mentors. In this Season 2 finale, the winners of this year's Thiel Fellowship reflect on their progress thus far, and share their goals for the future.

Catch a first-look at the giant creature in action as the team tests out the mechanics of the frame.

In season four of Game of Thrones a combination of CGI and live character action were used to create impressive fight scenes and stunning visual effects. Mike Seymour breaks down the tech behind the hit HBO show.

It came out in 1989 and was notoriously tough, but can an original Game Boy hold its own against a sledgehammer-wielding body builder?

Mike Seymour breaks down the tech behind the latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles flick, including the facial animation effects. Plus, find out how an improvised, off-camera moment turned into one of the funniest scenes in the movie.

Based on the hit YA novel of the same name, the upcoming flick The Maze Runner takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. To create the vast maze and relentless mechanical creatures called Grievers, FX experts Method Studios used technical and complicated special FX. Mike Seymour breaks down the tech behind the film.

Steve Aoki talks with famed futurist Ray Kurzweil about how technology will shape our future, in terms of creativity, consciousness, and the coming singularity.

It’s the most requested gadget we’ve received by far and we’ve finally put it to the test. See what happens when the Nokia “Brick” phone goes swimming in a vat of liquid nitrogen.

Dinosaur. Treasure Planet. Home on the Range. For years, Disney Animation churned out duds. Then Pixar's masterminds took over and we got blockbusters like Wreck-it-Ralph and Frozen. In the November issue, WIRED senior editor Caitlin Roper talks to Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios' Ed Catmull and John Lasseter about their latest film, Big Hero 6, which proves the magic is here to stay. Also this month: what's inside a flu shot; the NBA's money ball moment; the future of AI.

Stanford researcher Mark Denny used models from the animal world to examine just how much faster we might get in the future. Here, he explains his work.

Natasha Jen at WIRED by Design, 2014. In partnership with Skywalker Sound, Marin County, CA. To learn more visit: live.wired.com

Why turn one book into one movie, when you can turn it into two? Despite “Mockingjay” being the weakest book in “The Hunger Games” series, movie execs have decided to translate it into a two-part film. Angry Nerd explains why the stretch from one to two is a terrible trend that needs to end.

Animated sequels are nothing compared to their spin-offs. Why watch “Madagascar 4” when the new “Penguins of Madagascar” looks infinitely better and it isn’t bound to the original template? Angry Nerd explains why he’ll take animated spin-offs like “Puss in Boots” to another “Shrek” any day.

On ABC’s “Once Upon a Time,” Disney characters like Snow White, the Queen of Hearts, and Peter Pan are set against a modern backdrop. Realistic visual effects bring to life the magic and mystery of Storybrooke—the town they now inhabit. Mike Seymour from fxguide goes behind the stunning FX and animation that are needed to create the fairytale mashup.

It’s that time of the year when networks drop sickly sweet holiday cartoons. When it comes to animated specials Angry Nerd typically loathes them, but will things change when he gets a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Specials Past?

LED screens were once the way of the future, and now OLEDs are ushering in a new wave of television viewing. Featuring organic molecules that illuminate in response to electric currents, OLEDs allow for a thin screen that produces deeper, more detailed images.

Ije Nwokorie at WIRED by Design, 2014. In partnership with Skywalker Sound, Marin County, CA. To learn more visit: live.wired.com

The 1995 sci-fi flick “12 Monkeys” is about to become a TV show. This worries Angry Nerd—movies-turned-TV-shows don’t have the best track record. Sure, “Fargo” turned out fine, but let’s not forget the short-lived tragedy “Ferris Bueller”…

It’s true that the “Jupiter Ascending” trailer makes the otherwise scrumptious Channing Tatum look like the douchiest elf in all of Middle-Earth. But the troubling part of the movie isn’t the prosthetic ears—it’s the insidious idea that only people fated to do great things can become heroes. Angry Nerd has other ideas about saving the world (again).

Using one of Horizon Hobby's filmmaking drones to take an aerial selfie.

WIRED editor Chris Kohler breaks down why Sam & Max Hit the Road is the funniest video game of all time. What’s not to love about a duo of anthropomorphic “freelance police”?

Publicly traded U.S. tech companies have stashed as much as $530 billion in offshore tax havens. How’d they do it? Find out what magic tricks companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft have up their sleeves.

The Next List. You don’t know them, but you know their work. WIRED presents the unsung geniuses who are shaping the future of business. Also this month: What it takes to create the most nonstop-action-packed movie ever, how Apple created a watch to finally free us from our phones, Ross Ulbricht’s journey from libertarian idealist to savage kingpin and more.

Wired Senior Editor Peter Rubin and his wife Kelli love TV, movies, and games but don’t always see eye to eye. They both think Amy Schumer’s feminist comedy is bold and important but Peter wants to see her push the envelope even further.

California is in an unprecedented drought, but you gotta eat, right? Well, some foods use way more water than others. We chewed through a ton of data to make this bite-sized video. For you! -Brent

Photographer Adam Ferguson documents the environmental and human costs of illegal sand mining in India where rapid growth fuels a sometimes violent black market for one of the most basic raw building materials.

This week NASA released a first look of ultra-high definition video shot on and from the International Space Station. Here, 60 seconds of the most breathtaking new footage.

If you hate GoPro's rectangular shape, your prayers have been answered! Sort of. We took the new Hero4 Session into rivers, lakes, and surf, off cliffs and platforms, through trees and go kart courses. Our full review will tell you everything you need to know.

He's back—this time in a time-traveling standoff. See how Arnold Schwarzenegger faced off against a digitized version of his younger self.

Security researchers Runa Sandvik and Michael Auger can hack into TrackingPoint self-aiming rifles and make the famously accurate guns miss the intended target.

Beautiful new images of Ceres, the pock-marked asteroid, are being beamed back from NASA’s Dawn probe.

In the decade since Hurricane Katrina, tools for tracking and modeling powerful storms have grown in sophistication and detail.

Eli Roth’s new horror film The Green Inferno delves into the world of cannibalism as only Roth can. Ahead of the new movie, the director breaks down his rules for engaging in cannibalism and shares the type of person he’d want to eat.

Following Cabin Fever and Hostel, The Green Inferno is the latest film in Eli Roth’s travel trilogy. The director explains what inspired his new cannibalistic horror movie, and how he achieved a realistic look and feel while shooting on set in the Amazon.

Photographer Philip Montgomery narrates a selection of images from "The Longest Night" his project documenting protests in Ferguson, Missouri and the interaction between police and communities of color.

Procedural animation is used to create unique AT-AT takedowns every time you wrap your tow cable around one of the Empire's giant walkers in Disney Infinity.

Watch all 1,329 Lego pieces of a replica Star Wars Millennium Falcon plunge into the desert planet Jakku.

Your new kitchen cabinets might contain a glue in them that was inspired by mussels. Explore the chemistry that mussels use when attaching to boats and find out how that science is being imitated to develop strong adhesives that don’t rely on toxic formaldehyde.

From inside the Oculus Rift headset, players get a 3-D look at the field while headphones provide realistic sound. Teams capture the footage by filming their practices with 360-degree cameras, so the experience inside the VR headset looks and sounds like the real thing rather than a video game.

Andrew Wasserman from Strivr explains how virtual reality helps top athletes get better, and how the technology is getting more and more realistic.

WIRED executive editor Joe Brown checks out a temperature regulating coffee cup, a connected flowerpot, a remote pet food dispenser and a very loud speaker that doubles as a beverage cooler.

Winter Storm Jonas is hitting the East Coast hard. Yeah, you’ve heard this before and been burned, but too many forecasts are aligning for this one to be a fluke.

As Super Bowl 100 played out in all its enormity last night, Super Bowl 50 looked tiny by comparison, the way the Earth now looks to our colonists in space. And yet it’s instructive to look back on that long-ago spectacle in the San Francisco Bay Area to see just how far the game has come, and society with it.

For the first time, scientists have confirmed detection of gravitational waves. The finding not only validates Einstein's theory of relativity but also opens a new window on our knowledge of the universe.

For each of his films, Jeff Nichols gives himself a set of directorial challenges that he wants to master. He's learning the skills that he'll need to someday make a gazillion-dollar blockbuster.