Hi everyone and best wishes for a happy remainder of a con to all those attending PAX South right now. The GIR and I are trying to distract ourselves as we prepare for housing registration for Gen Con 2015. Regardless of what happens today, the Care and Feeding of Nerds will definitely be at Gen Con, as we are an officially accredited media outlet for the convention! Still, it will be a huge load everyone's shoulders once this nervewracking piece of the process is over and done with. In the meantime, you can make your last-minute entries into our XCOM: the Board Game giveaway and get down to This Week in Geekdom!

Comics

For some entirely unfathomable reason, Marvel is taking a page from DC's book and will be rebooting its entire universe this summer during a campaign titled Secret Wars.

Image Credit: Alex Ross, Marvel Entertainment

TV/Movies

It may not have Patrick Stewart or Sir Ian McKellan, but X-Men: Apocalypse will have Sophie Turner (a.k.a. Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones). Storm and Cyclops have also been cast.

It's a rumor that never seems to truly vanish but, rather, makes a fresh appearance every so often. Here's the latest incarnation of the 'we're going to make more X Files' saga. Stop teasing me Fox!

Games

Gog.com has added six new classic Star Wars titles to its library. The site claims that even more such games will be made available on the site in the next few days.

If you are an owner of the Xbox One, you may want to read up on Windows 10, as the latter will become the OS for that console in the coming months.

Poor Nintendo continues its downward slide with this announcement that it will be ending its Club Nintendo rewards system on June 30th.

Beginning June 9th, you'll be able to play Elder Scrolls Online without paying a subscription fee. The change is designed to coincide with the release of Tamriel Unlimited, which will still include microtransactions.

League of Legends debuted a new drafting system, the Nemesis Draft, into their public beta this week. It has not garnered too many fans.

One of the biggest stories in the board gaming world this week was the phenomenally successful Kickstarter campaign for Exploding Kittens, the card game formally known as Bomb Squad facelifted with artwork from the Oatmeal creator Matt Inman. Inman gave this interview about the campaign and his efforts with the game.

If you are one of the pioneering fans of World of Warcraft, then Blizzard may be sending you this commemorative statue to honor your decade of loyalty.

Firaxis announced that its post-Beyond Earth effort is called Starships and will be a turn-based tactical game set in the same universe as BE. Here's hoping we get to see more of this at PAX East.

Science/Technology

Microsoft spent much of this week buffeting us with the details of what its latest OS, Windows 10, will be like. Well, now you can see for yourself with this free preview download.

We've talked more than once about the sometimes outlandish sounding projects that NASA's cooking up and we can now add one more to that astonishing/amusing list: a helicopter for exploring the surface of Mars. (bonus: includes fun concept video)

Antarctica is home to some of the most extreme and inhospitable conditions on Earth but, earlier this week, a team of scientists and ice drillers discovered several species of fish and other marine life that thrive in the total darkness below the colossal ice sheets.

It seems like a straightforward question: Is glass a solid or a liquid? But researchers at the University of Bristol and Kyoto University have found that the response isn't quite so simple.

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

This enterprising eighth grader built a fully functional braille printer using a robotics kit and Legos.

This simple, but fascinating photo essay depicts a set of both simple and very complex objects that have been cut in half.

Wired put together this interesting peek into the sometimes odd and often highly competitive world of science fiction writing.

Crowdfundables for Your Consideration

It's already fully funded, but you have 4 days to get in on the Kickstarter for Deluxe Orleans (a.k.a. the winner of Best of Essen 2014).

Are you one of the Parks & Recreation fanatics that got in on the real-life Cones of Dunshire event at Gen Con 2014? Do you wish you were one of those lucky gamers? Well, Mayfair Games may have a crowdfunding campaign just for you: this Kickstarter to make Cones of Dunshire a real, mass-marketed game. Parks & Rec star Amy Poehler hates the game, but thinks you should back it anyway.

As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!