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Evolution Wristwatch
This was presented on my[confined]space with no notation as to where it came from, which is a crying shame because I want one. “Look at the time! It’s a tetrapod past a sponge.” “Let’s hurry, the movie starts at prosimian sharp.” I’d have to be physically restrained from telling people the time. (via Pharyngula)
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Happy Birthday Vacuum Tube
On November 16, 1904, British engineer John Ambrose Fleming patented the vacuum tube, ushering in the age of modern electronics. The tube frequently shows up in Golden Age science fiction, but it seems rather charmingly retro instead of jarringly outdated. For a look at how computers might have evolved if the transistor and the integrated…
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Travel Distant Worlds
Dark Roasted Blend has posted a roundup of art depicting science fiction tourism, including a bunch of wonderful art deco-esque travel posters by artist Steven Thomas. I just love these; they’re the sort of thing you’d expect in an alternate universe where steampunk had really gotten off the ground. I’m particularly taken with the Yellow…
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Google to Help Track Spread of Flu
Here’s a rather awesome use of data mining that had never even occurred to me, which is why Page and Brin are gazillionaires and I am not. People who are sick have a tendency to type their symptoms into an internet search engine. Google has been looking at spikes in searches on flu symptoms, and…
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Plausible SF
Newsarama has published a roundup of the most plausible science fiction movies (hint: none of them involve FTL). Gattaca (1997) In the not-too-distant future world of Gattaca, children’s genes are pre-selected by their upper-class parents for the best traits; those babies whose genes are imperfect are treated as second-class citizens. Today DNA analysis is common,…
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Genome Quilts
Quilter Beverly St. Clair attended a lecture on the Human Genome Project and was inspired to translate the DNA base molecules into quilt blocks. (That’s the sequence GATCGCCCTT up above.) She’s created several quilts based on various gene sequences; her interpretation of one of the genes in Hepatitis C is particularly lovely. She’s also done…
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Red Mars Coming to TV
After nailing the early 60s milieu of the outrageously good dramatic series “Mad Men”, AMC is ready to try its hand at a more technically challenging setting. From Locus – November 2008: Kim Stanley Robinson’s RED MARS is being developed as a TV series for AMC with executive producer Jonathon Hensleigh. Ralph Vicinanza, Vince Gerardis,…
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This is Weird on So Many Levels
A few years ago Bruce “Fear My Chin” Campbell made an odd little movie called Bubba Ho-Tep, in which he played an elderly Elvis fighting the mummy that’s been killing people in his old folks’ home.* It’s become something of a cult classic, and writer Don Coscarelli is now considering a sequel. Entitled Bubba Nosferatu.…
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Repo! The Genetic Opera
After an original release date of last April, this rock opera is finally scheduled for limited release (Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, and Las Vegas) on November 7 and will be released on DVD next January. It’s a kind of cyberpunk-gore-goth-drama…thing. The plot involves a not-too-distant dystopian future where massive organ failure is…
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RIP Michael Crichton
The 66-year-old author of Jurassic Park has died suddenly after a private battle with cancer. More at io9.