One day, many, many months ago, I was approached by the producer of the Emmy Award winning TV show Penn & Teller: Bullshit! to make a skeptical appearance for one of their Season 7 episodes. Apparently it was all going to be about doomsday, Mayans, Planet X and all that jazz. As I was halfway through my “No Doomsday in 2012” series over at the Universe Today, I jumped on the chance to be involved with such an awesome production.
This is me, on TV (by @cbrannon)
Until this week I’d forgotten about the filming, but then the episode called “Apocalypse” popped up… could it be?
Unfortunately, I don’t have Showtime, so I’ll have to watch it on the DVD, but an eagle eyed Twitter friend @cbrannon sent me this sighting… they used my stuff! I can’t wait to watch it.
As the new episode aired tonight, you might have missed it, but it looks like it’s going to be repeated for a long while yet, so check out the schedule and tune in!
There he was, happily blogging on his kick-ass World of Weird Things website when *BLAM* something happened. Looking out the window to see if there had been a car crash, Greg saw nothing. But as he sat back down, he realized it wasn’t a noise that he’d heard… it was more of a feeling.
Was this what Creationists would consider to be a “sign”? Was this a ghostly apparition? Could it be that Greg had just witnessed the Second Coming? Oh no, had he slipped down a wormhole, appeared in 2012, and he was experiencing, first hand, how the planet will be blended into a particularly creamy doomsday smoothy? (“Those Mayans! Why did I annoy them so?” he cried.)
But no, this is far worse, he could feel it in his divining rods, there was a force upsetting his chi, an oscillation in his aura, a one-part-per-billion-ths-ish too much salt in his homoeopathic remedy… this was big, and it was coming straight for him… he was about to be assimilated by the Blog Borg (a.k.a. The Blorg)*…
*Thank you to @2012Hoax for that gem of a name… “Blorg” – love it!
There’s going to be no break in service, in fact, knowing Greg, he will attack this new opportunity with his skeptical barrels fully loaded and scientific nunchucks at the ready.
I’ve been following Greg’s writing religiously (or should that be skeptically) ever since he started up less than a year ago, and he’s probably one of the most talented young writers I have ever come across. He approaches every topic (of which none seem to be out of bounds) with a huge amount of understanding, and he has created one of the most active and powerful skepticism blogs out there.
The move to True/Slant means he gets to widen his audience even more and mix with many more talented writers. I for one can’t wait to follow Weird Things when he’s set up and ready to go.
Occasionally, out of the CGI’d dust of orgasmic fight sequences of Transformers 2 and the predicted lack of plot in the forthcoming 2012, the movie industry churns up a gem of a sci-fi flick.
I suspect Moon is one of those rare movies (I am still trying to find time to get my bum down the cinema to watch it) that combines plot, effects and scientific accuracy (just about) to arrive at a genuinely good film.
And then there’s District 9, due for release in August. At first look of the trailer, you’ll see why I’m getting a little excited:
I was expecting the same old aliens invade, world on fire, Will Smith punches alien, USA saves the world storyline at first, but if you read the IMDB plot summary (spoilers!), you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Damn, I have to share the plot… stop reading now if you want to be totally vague about the story of District 9.
That's what those posters are all about! The movie viral campaign from District 9.
[Micro-spoiler below]
Basically, rather than invading Earth, these alien dudes have landed on our planet seeking refuge after their home world died. Their spaceship arrives over South Africa and thirty years later, these once-advanced alien beings have been turned into social outcasts, restricted to an alien slum called District 9. People have lost patience with looking after these creatures, but agencies hold onto these aliens against their will to learn about their technologies. Then, it would appear the aliens start to fight back…
It’s set in a gritty Johannesburg location, the CGI looks subtle, plus Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings director, say no more) is involved, so there’s some hope this might be a unique and thrilling sci-fi. I get the feeling there is a lot of play on alien rights, the welfare of ET integrated in society (or not), with a healthy dose of alien-racism (alienation?) thrown in.
Us humans will be the bad guys! Awesome! Filthy aliens…
We’re currently having loads of fun over at Discovery Space, celebrating mankind’s biggest space achievement: when Apollo 11 landed on the moon 40 years ago. On July 20th 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history while Michael Collins orbited overhead. This was a key moment in space exploration that was followed by another 5 lunar landings until 1972. Unfortunately, that was it and the Apollo Program was gradually wound down…
However, the current plan is to get astronauts back to the moon by 2020, but how are we going to do it? Actually, the answer is far from clear-cut, and although NASA is pushing ahead with the development of Constellation, outspoken space advocates, such as Buzz Aldrin, are presenting some alternatives.
But in an interesting twist, after carrying out a two-week poll on Space Disco, I found that general opinion is stacked firmly in favour of a NASA return mission to the moon…
We did it 40 years ago, what’s the point in retracing our steps when we could just mount a manned mission to Mars? Ian O’Neill discusses the pros and cons about NASA’s future exploration plans. Including results from the Discovery Space reader poll.
NASA has a backup plan to launch crew and cargo to the moon, reduce the gap between shuttle retirement and a replacement ship’s debut, and save taxpayers billions of dollars.
NASA will offer reporters an unprecedented chance to conduct interviews with scientists inside the lab that stores moon rocks Apollo astronauts collected during their six missions on July 2.
Did you know the Apollo 17 astronauts had to fix their lunar buggy with duct tape? Or that the Saturn V carrying Apollo 12 was struck by lightning 37 seconds after lift off? We investigate the little-known facts about the Apollo missions.
It may be our natural satellite, easily observable in the night sky, but the moon still hides many secrets. Explore the lunar surface with us as we investigate some of the moon’s best kept secrets.
We are told that one of the key reasons to set up a lunar base is to mine the moon for its abundance of natural resources, but is this realistic? In some ways yes, but there’s a lot of economics and politics to wade through first.
Many in-space activities could be automated, negating the need for a human presence. However, taking astronauts out of the space exploration loop is as attractive as it is unpalatable. Is the astronaut surplus to requirements?
Fortunately I’ve been hard-wired to Twitter today, so I’ve spotted some awesome links pop up from my ace tweeters. But I wasn’t prepared for the awesomeness that was encapsulated in @jimmynewland tweet titled, “2012: All the Disaster Pr0n you can take!”
To be honest, I was expecting the movie trailer for the John Cussak disaster flick “2012” (coming to a deafening surround sound theatre near you), but no… this is better… far better. Take a look, it gets funnier the more you watch it:
Basically, it looks like Emmerich’s wet dream, probably an opportunity he’s been waiting for all his career. If you thought The Day After Tomorrow was an Earth-crunching death-fest, think again, this movie has rolling buildings, flying Bentleys, flying giraffes, spaceships, exploding cities, exploding fireballs, exploding… rocks… Hell, where’s the nukes! We need nukes! I hope Emmerich remembered the nukes.
Every so often I feel a film is just being marketed poorly. This is often laziness and misdirection on their part. Occasionally it is arrogance when they think there is more to their film than is actually there. So, in my own arrogance, I try to help them along. Last year I felt “Hulk” needed some help. Today my mission is one that blends swimmingly with my own love of Disaster. Please enjoy this special holiday treat that I made just for you.
Dean is referring to 2012, and watching it, I can’t help but be entertained and enthusiastic for the movie. He’s done a great re-edit. It now has the 1970’s classic disaster movie atmosphere of Towering Inferno with the cutting edge Big Flaming Balls Of Fire™ we are now accustomed to in modern Hollywood.
It’s not going to be a good film, films kinda need plots. Perhaps the experienced cast might be able to pull it out of the frenzy of tsunamis, burning cities and crying children, but I’m not going for the plot, I’m going for the CGI… and the science errors, of course.
I’ve always loved these Victoria images; you can easily see layering in the exposed rock and boulders strewn below. In fact, this could be a black and white picture of the Utah desert, or a wide angle view of the Grand Canyon. But no, this is Mars; lifeless Mars.
Or is it?
One version of the Opportunity image can be found on a conspiracy website, where a ‘study’ has been carried out. And guess what they found?
Oh yes, apparently a Martian civilization worshiped the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, carving a statue more commonly associated with pyramids into the crater wall (“Exhibit A” in the image above). Also, there’s a curiously shaped multi-layer disk on the ground — obviously some kind of alien artifact (“Exhibit B”).
Please.
Normally I’d ignore something like this, but I thought I’d have a little fun one evening (because my evenings simply aren’t exciting enough, it seems). Inspired by Phil Plait’s visions of Miss Piggy in a Mars mesa last week, I wanted to test myself and go on a pareidolia hunt of my own, armed with the Victoria crater pic, my imagination and questionable eyesight.
The human brain is a strange old thing at times, creating recognizable features out of random, inanimate objects, and that is exactly what some people use as “proof” of their nutty theory or visions of the second coming. People see Jesus in burnt toast, Michael Jackson in cloud formations and, in this case, ancient Egyptian statues carved into crater rims on Mars.
So have a look at this, I impressed myself (note the outstanding use of Photoshop): Mars faces:
What I discovered in this single NASA Mars image:
A: Exhibit A – the Egyptian statue.
B: Exhibit B – some other artifact.
C: Admiral "It’s a trap!" Ackbar from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
D: Audry II, the blood-drinking plant from Little Shop of Horrors.
E: Jabba the Hutt, or an angry toad.
F: A gorilla’s head (kinda).
G: Can’t remember what I saw in this… but it’s kinda alien looking… right?
H: Insane-looking face. Could be the Mad Hatter?
I: Weird-looking Picasso face.
J: The alien from Predator.
K: Human head.
L: Another Egyptian statue, head part.
M: Humanoid skull!
I’ve even got a full-resolution version in case you can’t see the fruits of my imagination (all 4MB of it). But who cares if you can’t see Jabba, Ackbar, skulls or statues? That’s not the point; most conspiracy sites skew the facts to convince the reader to believe their false claims anyway. Hmmm… I’m quite good at this, perhaps I should start my own ‘Mars Faces’ conspiracy, only including characters from Star Wars… hmmm.
I’m personally most impressed with the “humanoid skull” (M), “Admiral Ackbar” (C) and the “insane face” (H). Obviously the ancient Martian civilization were a part of the Empire (not so far, far away), carried out sacrifices on humanoids (bones now littering the plains), worshipped Egyptian kings and had killer rock sculpting skills. Obviously.
16.5 light years away, a revolution in sci-fi television programming is about to explode to life… Yes, it really is that exciting. Almost like a tsunami approaching a peaceful shore, island inhabitants totally unaware of its impending arrival, the triple star system of 40 Eridani is about to be bathed in a very special terrestrial signal…
So why am I getting so excited for this random star system? Well, 15 years ago, the awesome five-season show Babylon 5 aired in the US and the UK. For me, B5 formed a watershed of my love for sci-fi. In fact, you could say I was a teenage Babylonoholic, I couldn’t get enough of it.
As we transmit electromagnetic signals over the airwaves for our television viewing pleasure, we’ve also been leaking it into space. As the signal travels at the speed of light, the maximum distance our TV signal would have travelled is about 80 light years (we started leaking in the 1930’s). By that reasoning, our TV shows should have reached Aldebaran by now.
Unfortunately, the aliens of Aldebaran have a rather limited choice of TV shows… at the moment they’re probably putting up with Nazi Germany’s propaganda broadcasts (like in Jodie Foster’s Contact). Things are far more exciting in 40 Eridani… they’re about to get flooded by the first season of Babylon 5! Sure, there’s lots of other things to watch in the expanse of 80 light years, but if I had to choose, I’d be prepping my TV aerial and stocking the fridge in time for 5 years of awesome sci-fi on a world orbiting one of the three 40 Eridani stars…
Although there are doubts about Constellation, and NASA recently announced a “plan B” launch option for a return trip to the Moon, Orion development continues as planned. Next up is the development of the Orion shock absorbers, intended to take the sting out of the return capsule’s landing.
Tests are currently being carried out at the Landing and Impact Research Facility in NASA’s Langley Research Center on the seat pallet that will protect the Orion astronauts’ from the shock of touch-down. It is hoped Orion will be a land-anywhere capsule, including land and water. In fact, I am a little bit excited about the planned landing spot in the Pacific Ocean, not far from Catalina Island, off the Los Angeles coastline. That’s just down the road and a small swim from me!
To test the pallet and its “energy-absorbing struts,” the 20,000-pound test article is dropped 18 feet onto a crushable honeycomb material designed to simulate different landing surfaces. —Aviation Week
The seat shock absorbers won’t only be used for landing, it is hoped they will mitigate much of the launch vibration effects caused by the Ares I crew launch vehicle. These tests are a result of studies of how much vibration crew members can take before it becomes difficult to read instrumentation displays and react to situations during launch.
Wow! I thought the single image of the volcanic eruption (plus shock wave) was cool, but after seeing the complete series of images put together in this animation, I’m literally blown away. Thank you Richard Drumm for sharing the video on Twitter — now this is one YouTube video that needs to be shown off.
The 29 photos in this animation were taken by space station astronauts as they passed over Russia’s Sarychev Peak volcano in the Kuril Islands.
Of course, 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, and half-way through this important year, we’ve seen some amazing feats of science. We’ve been fixing telescopes in orbit, assembling space stations, peering deep into the cosmos with a vast suite of telescopes, we’ve acquired new and improved techniques to analyse data and we’re on course for even bigger discoveries in the run-up to 2010.
So this evening, I receive word from science comedian Brian Malow that he hosted a TIME.com video all about Galileo and the history of astronomy.
It’s superb!
If you wanted a one-stop overview of the spirit behind IYA2009, this is it. It’s witty, informative and above all, it’s entertaining — all the things this special year for science should be about.
astroengine.com 
