Here we go:
1. The newest way to get out of a damaged shuttle looks like a lot of fun and it could work.
2. How green was your Precambian? Pretty green.
3. Old Woman River - the Amazon is 11 million years old.
4. Monkeys can recognize bad grammar, but will they correct each other?
5. Urine as a clean power source.
6. Sperm travels faster when chicks are hot - especially when you're a red jungle fowl.
Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon, is incredibly humble and was potentially the best pilot that has ever lived. You'll hear a lot about Neil this month, but this little info-bite from the BBC is possibly the most wonderful:
And then there is Armstrong's apparent eccentricity.
"The music he took on the mission to the Moon was deeply eccentric," says Andrew Smith. "Most astronauts took one classical piece, and one country and western.
"Armstrong took Dvorak's New World Symphony. But the other was theremin music - that eerie, wavy sound associated with sci-fi movies that goes 'woo woo'. On one hand it was the most perfect thing he could take, on the other it is massively eccentric - and that's kind of him."
So, when we do finally go Mars, I think we have the new rover.
Project Nomad by Canadian designer Jason Battersby, is the dream of every 80's kid who wanted a Battlecat.
Picture this mechanized cat jumping, stalking and running down Martian antelope game. Just give me another two ft in height, green skin, a couple tusks and another set of arms and call me Tars Tarkas.
The concept is that the vehicle would eat grass/algae/dung/road kill to power itself. I love it, but to make it through the first few decades of terraforming on Mars, it will probably need to a fuel source, probably bio-waste/algae growth from the founding colonies.
With a partial atmosphere already, maybe the exhaust could be used as part of a terraforming project, like the giant nuclear steam trains of Ian McDonald's 'Desolation Road."
When the first rains fall along the northern Martian plains, and altered gorse and sage grass takes hold, this cyber predator will be carrying the first nomads across a marvelous desolation.
And then they'll go feral.
Found via coroflot
We're just two weeks away from the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and tv, magazines, radio and newspapers are starting to capitalize on it.
Don't get me wrong, July 20 1969 is one of the most profound moments in human history. Not only did we send two men to lunar the lunar surface for the first time, but we did it live on tv with over 600 million people watching.
The promise of the Apollo program inspired a generation of engineers, scientists and explorers to push beyond, to push further. Millions of people looked at the moon and KNEW that the space age was coming.
But after Apollo 11, people got bored, started changing the channel and didn't care anymore because the Russians couldn't match the US trick. And after Apollo 17, with it's moon buggy and three days of scientific discovery on the Moon, the whole program was shut down.
Instead of pushing out for the territories, like uber-engineers Von Braun and Korolev craved, the manned missions stayed in the suburbs of low earth orbit. The Eastern and Western space consortium's abandoned any plans of humans getting back to the moon or going out to Mars.
We now send robots out to the frontier.
Is this wrong? I don't know. Sure, it's astounding that people were on the moon. I get emotional when I watch all of the moon landings, and whenever I tune in to the launch of a Soyuz capsule or a shuttle, I go a little numb. I still have one of the many maps of the moon I drew when I was thirteen, and to this day I recite the lunar oceans to myself when I catch a glimpse of Luna in the early evening skies.
And my only true piece of lunar memorabilia is an autographed picture of Astronaut Jim Irwin, lunar module pilot for Apollo 15. Yes, Jim came back to Earth and became a raving evangelical who tried to find Noah's Ark, but if he hadn't, my preacher grandfather would have never gotten me this picture.
But, manned missions are expensive, and with the last thirty years being dominated by that flying brick of a compromise, the space shuttle, it's easy to see why manned space went away. The best science has been gathered by the science robots - Viking, Voyager, Hubble, Cassini and the hero rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, to name a few. And with every robotic mission, we learn how to build better automated explorers. The future of space is robotic.
Even with the new space ports being developed, Virgin Galactic getting ready to take off, and India, China and Japan stepping up their programs, it will be a long time until people are in space in a big way. NASA is scaling back even further, with Obama looking at a restructuring of the organization. And although Russia is now the premier launcher of people and product into space, Baikonur Cosmodrome is still a rough Cold War settlement in Kazakhstan.
Still, I hope every day that eventually we'll go to space for more than a few days on the lunar surface of a half-year lock-up on the space station. To homestead on a foreign surface or settle down in hard vacuum is still a dream. It could still happen.
Until then I'll hold on to my moon maps and astronaut signatures, and look up at the oceans of the moon.
Check, check. Is this blog still on?
Here's the Six for Science Countdown:
6. Early steps on the road to bringing back the extinct Moa.
5. "Diamond Dust" snow falls nightly on Mars - more new from the Phoenix.
4. Shrinking sheep in Scotland blamed on evolution and climate change.
3. Super-predator salamander hybrids are getting ready to take over California.
2. New pictures from the Moon thanks to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
And number one on the Six for Science Countdown is ROBOTIC HUMMINGBIRDS!
Dinosaurs have always been a big part of my life. From cheap Chinese toys and old books of sluggish semi-aquatic brontosaurs, to ridiculous creationist tracts and the marvel of Dinotopia, to dinosaur mummies and the incredible work of pterodactyl specialist Mark Witton, I can not think of a time that I haven't been crazy about the prehistoric.
I've helped dig up bones, have been up and personal with fossils, and been entranced by mounted specimens.
But to get up and close with a real dinosaur is the true dream.
Well, a few weeks ago I got as close as I ever will without the use of a blue police box, when I went to see "Walking with Dinosaurs." Based on the BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs series, this show has been in development for years. From the first moment I saw the behind the scenes feature, I've longed to see this show.
There were hundreds of kids in the audience, who from the first moment the first dinosaurs came out, were on the edge of their seats, or hiding in fear. The kids loved this show, and were more than willing to see these terrible lizards again.
And all these multi-tonne creatures were being operated by a highly coordinated and skilled team of puppeteers.
I spoke with head puppeteer Raymond Carr during the intermission to find out what it's like to be the brains behind a dinosaur puppet.
That was Raymond Carr talking about dinosaurs.
After the interview, I had a backstage tour.
Standing in front of a herd of giants was like living out a scene from Burroughs or Gurney.
And having a raptors head on my shoulder was pure Jurassic Park.
Iain McCaig is one of the most influential concept designers in the world. Maybe best known for his design of Darth Maul in the new Star Wars I, Iain is always in demand for his work. From the Harry Potter films to work on the new Princess of Mars, to his most recent cinematic offering of Outlander, Iain's work is everywhere.
To me, Iain is comparable to Moebius, Syd Mead, Ralph McQuarrie and James Bama.
And, just my luck, Iain lives only a kilometre away from me.
In a small cramped corner in Legends Comics, Iain and I had this conversation. Iain was signing copies of his book Shadowline.
Iain's energy is infectious. Before you could ask a question of him, he would spend five minutes wanting to know what you were doing. And he'd get you excited about your own projects, especially when you were just making something up to keep up with his barrage of infectious smiling and interested questioning.
If this film thing doesn't pay off, Iain can always become a motivational speaker.
Shadowline is a big, beautiful book that was worth everyone of the eighty dollars I spent on it.
Video from Parka Blog.
When Iain's site finally goes live, check it out.
If you find this post to be fan-boyish, well, it is. I've been a fan of Iain's for years, and with an off hand remark in my local comic shop that Iain lived in Victoria, I started a long process of trying to set up a meeting. The interview you heard was the product of 11 months of trying to match a very busy movie guys schedule to my relaxed Mother Corp time frame. Now, I see him all the time.
T-Minus....
6. For Argentine Ants, when you cease to stink, you cease to live.
5. Infospace has it's own black holes. I wonder how bit-rates change on a computational event horizon?
4. In one week, Hubble get's it's next tune-up.
3. Deep in the bright of our newborn universe there were strange blobs, strange blobs that could be primordial galaxies. But why do they glow? Stay tuned.
2. Igniting a star with lasers.
1. The fastest camera on Earth can take pictures at 6 million frames per second. The reason? When you are looking at ultra-fast movement, like neural activity or shockwaves, blurry images just don't cut it. And to get an idea of how fast six million frames a second is, count to six million. If you count one number per second, it will take you 69 days. Now live those two and a half months in one second.
Poyekhali!
...and the thing so many mech-heads have dreamed of finally comes true.
Here are two, steampunk giants that I would travel around the world to see. Until I can travel guilt free, I'll have to settle for life-sized robotic dinosaurs.
This is a lazy post, on a lazy night, after, let's face it, a lazy year of posting.
But I have to get back on the horse sometime.
found via botjunkie
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