Are you worried about an asteroid hitting the earth and wiping out mankind? You should be. Astrobiologists at Cardiff University suggest that the way our solar system keeps "bouncing" around, it's only a matter of time before a meteor shower rains on our parade. The good news is, if we do find ourselves under attack, Canada's got our back.

Hollywood's solution to an earthbound asteroid has always been the nuclear option -- blow it up before it hits the earth. Armageddon was directed by Michael Bay, after all. It might be entertaining but Intuitor's Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics gave the film a rating of XP (obviously physics from an unknown universe), and described it as "a feel-good movie with comic book physics that performs a serious public disservice by trivializing one of the worst long-term threats to human existence."

Continue reading "Canada Becomes U.S. Ally in War on Asteroids" »

Tom Cruise had to dodge them in Minority Report. Tom Selleck had to catch them in Runaway. In the scifi future, robot spiders are a part of everyday life and they're a problem. Now, thanks to a military contract, the creatures are going to be a part of our lives; hopefully, they'll lead us down a better path.

Defense giant BAE Systems has signed a $38 million agreement with the U.S. Army to create a series of tiny electronic spiders, insects and snakes that will become the eyes and ears of soldiers on the battlefield. Some will be able to detect the presence of chemical, biological or radioactive weapons.

Continue reading "Robot Spiders Leap off the Big Screen and on to the Battlefield" »

Don't be fooled by the 3D effects, there's nothing real about this summer's Journey to the Center of the Earth. It might be faithful to the novel by Jules Verne, but his 1864 vision of a life below the surface has not panned out. And although scientists still have a lot to learn about the core, it's clear you can't spelunk your way there.

Of those that tried digging their way down, the Soviets were the most successful. Their Kola Superdeep Borehole, which took 24 years to make and stretches over seven miles, is the deepest hole drilled by mankind. It was stopped when they reached temperatures of about 180°C (356°F) -- the maximum heat tolerance for the drill, nevermind human life.

The latest news about the earth's insides comes from University of Houston geologist Jonathan Snow, who found success using a different approach.

Continue reading "Actual Journey to the Center of the Earth Yields Two-Billion-Year-Old Rocks" »

The year is 2022. The world is polluted, dilapidated and over-populated: 40 million people live in New York City alone. Food supplies are nearly decimated, making everyday necessities like fruit, vegetables, and meat an expensive luxury. Instead, the world survives on government-sponsored euthanasia and mysterious green nutritional wafers provided by an enigmatic, omnipotent corporation. This dystopic future is, thankfully, only the backdrop for the 1973 Charlton Heston scifi classic Soylent Green. But how close is it to a reality?

Continue reading "Could Soylent Green Become a Reality?" »

Continue reading "A Get Smart Primer - Author Kristie Macrakis Tells the Truth About Spy-Tech" »

Great news for people that like things fast and futuristic: Speed Racer hits theaters May 9 and the Rocket Racing League announced their first public exhibition race will be this August. The new sports league, which combines racing and rocket engines, could become our version of car racing on Cosmopolis.

Established by X-Prize founder Dr. Peter Diamandis (said to live by the motto, "The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself!") and two-time Indianapolis 500 champion team partner, Granger Whitelaw, the new sport will have racers competing on a whole other level. The cartoonish picture to the right shows the league's concept for a possible venue with some of their X-Racer vehicles. If the exhibition races scheduled this fall go well, it's only a matter of time before we're looking up to see a new kind of NASCAR.

According to their website, racing will involve:

Continue reading "Meet Today's Speed Racers - The Rocket Racing League" »

Aw, The Black Hole. Who doesn't remember blissful Sunday afternoons watching the Disney classic on TV? Yes, the effects are a little dated. But Slim Pickens voiced one of the robots! Completely harmless fun, right? Sure, except that a real black hole could destroy us all. At least that's the claim made by Walter Wagner, a concerned citizen who made headlines recently for filing a lawsuit against scientists working on a giant atom smashing device. According to Wagner, who is not actually a scientist himself, the Large Hadron Collider (or LHC) could create a black hole that may engulf the entire planet. Crazy, right? Tell that to Ernie Borgnine.

Continue reading "The Black Hole Will Trap Ernest Borgnine, Destroy the Universe" »

We get to see sexy closeup shots of spacecraft in movies all the time. In comparison, the little NASA footage we get looks pretty humdrum. At long last, a brilliant series of photographs (at a motorcycle site, weirdly enough) changes all that by taking you behind the veil and showing how Discovery got her groove in the first place.

These images show many of the major steps of shuttle construction in a rapturous detail normally devoted to fictional vessels in film and TV. In 2010 Discovery will be retired to make way for newer vessels; considering the updates in technology since 1984, I can't even imagine what those construction photos will look like!

Military contractors have been working on sci-fi inspired super suits for years and they're finally making some progress. Boy genius Anthony Stark had a head start, but it'll only be a matter of time before we're surrounded by wearable robots... And they'll be invisible.

Australian scientists have joined the race to produce invisibility using metamaterials. (Goodbye Starship Troopers, hello Predator). It's not a new idea but last week it got real: The Herald Sun reported that researchers have created a fabric that, when wrapped around a solid object, makes it appear transparent. Now, "The concept has been proved," says electronics engineer Dr. David Powell. "We're hoping to see a real device within the next decade." Turns out, it has less to do with magic (a la Potter's cloak) and more to do with artificial atoms.

Continue reading "From Iron Man to Iron Men: Will We See Them If They Walk Among Us?" »

This Saturday I went to the New York International Auto Show and boy was I disappointed. I was expecting the stuff from the 1962 World's Fair: Hover-cars, bubble-domed Batmobiles, three-wheel Space Age funny cars and maybe some jet-propelled station wagon that runs on water. Instead it was just a lot of dorky guys photographing themselves with Ferraris. There were bland spokesmodels reading talking points about fuel efficiency. BMW hosted an Owner's Lounge, where if you showed your BMW car key you could relax, enjoy a free bagel and maybe even take a BM. Also, Maury Povich was there was his kid.

When I got home I watched Tex Avery's The Car of Tomorrow. What I was hoping for after the jump.

Continue reading "No Flying Cars at the International Auto Show" »