SCIENCE FICTION: “V” is back, “Battlestar Galactica” is gone

V is now a 2009 TV series: ABC is resurrecting the “one-hour weekly television series that aired in the United States on NBC in 1984-85.” The plot summary from Wikipedia:

The world awakens to find spaceships hovering over all major cities. Though the aliens claim to come in peace, some do not believe them. Homeland Security agent Erica Evans discovers that the aliens have plans to infiltrate our governments and businesses in a plot to take over the planet. Erica joins the resistance movement, which includes Ryan, an alien who wants to save humanity. However, the aliens have recruited earth’s youth, including Erica’s son, to serve unknowingly as spies.

Personally, I want Battlestar Galactica, the 2004 TV series, back (but everything must end). I enjoyed Battlestar Galactica for its underlying message: Although science and technology is supposed to be a tool that promotes, produces, and results in good things (like religion ironically), it can be contaminated and twisted by people (and I don’t hold anti-science, anti-technology, or anti-religion sentiments). As a result, Battlestar Galactica was more “hard social fiction, [or] a realistic look at the future of human culture” than science fiction, and “the show [ended] with a strong suggestion that humans’ devotion to science and technology will only lead to their downfall – again and again and again.”

NUP_111710_1900

Via io9

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RECOMMENDED MAPS: Maps show impact recession is having on the United States by county and how federal stimulus dollars are being spent on transportation projects by county

Click the map below to see how counties are performing in the recession. The interactive map measures the cumulative impact of unemployment, foreclosure, and bankruptcy on counties across the United States.Economic Stress Map

This interactive map illustrates—by county—the federal stimulus dollars that are being applied toward transportation projects (and what type of transportation projects). Click the map to see what kind of transportation projects are being announced in counties across the United States.Economic Stimulus Map

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SCOTUS: Chief Justice John Roberts not so modest

Chief Justice John RobertsChief Justice John Roberts2Jeffrey Toobin on Chief Justice John Roberts:

His jurisprudence as Chief Justice, Roberts said, would be characterized by “modesty and humility.” After four years on the Court, however, Roberts’s record is not that of a humble moderate but, rather, that of a doctrinaire conservative. The kind of humility that Roberts favors reflects a view that the Court should almost always defer to the existing power relationships in society. In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party.


Photo source for attribution here and here. The authors or licensors of these images do not endorse my work or me and their images are protected under an attribution license.

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RECOMMENDED IMAGE(S): Space shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope transiting the sun

Astrophotographer Thierry Legault captured an image showing the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope transiting the sun. Atlantis and Hubble are barely recognizable as mere specks “in the lower left quadrant of our nearest star.” More remarkable astrophotography by Thierry Legault can be found here.

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UPDATE 1 (21 May 10): The NASA space shuttle Atlantis transiting the sun

Via NASA:

In this tightly cropped image, the NASA space shuttle Atlantis is seen in silhouette during solar transit, Tuesday, May 12, 2009, from Florida. This image was made before Atlantis and the crew of STS-125 had grappled the Hubble Space Telescope.

The phtographer made this image using a solar-filtered Takahashi 5-inch refracting telescope and a Canon 5D Mark II digital camera.

Image Credit: NASA/Thierry Legault

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INVASIVE SPECIES: Fly with “bizarre reproductive strategy” released in an attempt to control invasive fire ants

See the process in video:


Fire Ant ParasiteFire Ant Parasite3Scientists are attempting to control fire ant populations with a particular species of phorid fly.

The fly’s utility lies in its method of reproduction: The fly injects its egg into an ant, then the larva migrates to the head where it feeds on “the brain and [turns] the ant into a ‘zombie,’ in some cases compelling the ant to march 55 yards (50 meters) away from its colony to avoid attack by other fire ants.” Finally, the fly hatches out of the ants head after “slurping up the brain.”  Certainly, this brings new meaning to the famous quote from “There Will Be Blood”—“I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!”

More images and information can be found at National Geographic.

Hat tip to Kevin.

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