Heat Vision and Jack

Take one super-intelligent astronaut on the run (Jack Black), add one talking motorcycle (Owen Wilson), mix in some Six-Million Dollar Man goofiness via Ben Stiller, and you get 30 minutes of super 70's Sci-Fi Cheese-O-Rama goodness!

Watch the first and only episode:

"The Dawn of Evolution"

Pooch Café

Blogger Rage

Pearls Before Swine

Arctic Scientists Investigate Alien-Like Glacier

Unusual sulfur springs on Ellesmere Island suggests how live may evolve on other planets

A scientific expedition to a remote glacier field in Canada's High Arctic may help researchers unlock the secrets about the beginning of life and provide insights for future exploration of our solar system.

Scientists will study a sulfur-spewing spring on the surface of an ice field not far from the North Pole this summer. The geological oddity is home to a unique form of bacteria that has adapted to thrive in a cold and sulfur-rich environment.

"This is a very unusual feature on the earth's surface and it's an extreme ecosystem that could be a good model for how life first begins in a harsh environment."

The spring has also attracted the attention of the Canadian Space Agency and NASA, which are helping to fund the expedition, because it likely provides the best example on Earth for the conditions believed to exist on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. Ice-covered Europa is considered one of the best candidates for finding evidence of life on other planets within our solar system. Link

Pete Von Sholly's 'Space Thing'

The ‘Space Thing’ figure (above) designed by Pete Von Sholly, is his conception of John W. Campbell’s famous shape-changing alien from the legendary story “Who Goes There?” Pete designed the creature during a fact-finding research junket to Alpha Centauri, and, thanks to his new 4-D camera, was able to incorporate details not found in our solar system. Pete’s talented wife, Andrea, sculpted and painted the model.

The figure is conveniently small (approximately 4 1/2 inches), pre-painted, and easy to pop together with a great-looking, Aurora-inspired display box.

Available now HERE. ISBN: 1-59617-325-4

Ben Franklin Discovers Electricity

On this day in 1752, Ben Franklin's kite-flying experiment proved lightning and electricity were related while flying a kite with a key attached. In Sept. 1752, he equipped his house with a lightning rod, connecting it to bells that ring when rod is electrified. He explained how to perform a kite experiment in the 19 Oct 1752 issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette.

In July 1750 he devised an experiment involving a sentry-box with a pointed rod on its roof, to be erected on hilltop or in church steeple, with rod attached to a Leyden jar which would collect the electrical charge, and thus prove lightning to be a form of electricity. Link

Link

Univac 1 Goes On-Line This Day In 1951

Challengers of the Unknown © DC Comics

In 1951, the Univac1 was unveiled in Washington, DC. and dedicated as the world's first commercial computer. The Univac was manufactured for the U.S. Census Bureau by Remington Rand Corp. The massive computer was 8 feet high, 7-1/2 feet wide and 14-1/2 feet long. It could retain a maximum of 1000 numbers and was able to add, subtract, multiply, divide, sort, collate and take square and cube roots. Its transfer rate to and from magnetic tape was 10,000 characters per second. This was five years after the ENIAC, the first electronic computer in the U.S., was completed. Link

CLICK ALL IMAGES TO ENLARGE & READ

Oops... Looks like 'meeting mankind halfway' means getting a robo-lobotomy and being turned into a toaster!

Tatooed Nation

FISHER

Cyber-Tatoos