Author Archives: JD DeLuzio

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Release the Kraken!

After years of various people trying, a Japanese team finally has video of a giant squid in its natural habitat. Discovery Channel will be broadcasting more soon, but a bit can be viewed below the cut.

Does your car have a name, a theme, and an assortment of cool gadgets? And can you engage in witty repartee during hand-to-hand combat?

Real-life superhero Phoenix Jones is hiring. Anyone want to be in Seattle’s oddball version of the Avengers?

Wait, we have to go through more apocalyptic hysteria in sixteen years?

“Doomsday asteroid” Apophis, which will make a very close pass by earth in 2029, turns out to be even larger than we thought.

Ground Control to Colonel Hadfield

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield may be conducting valuable experiments in space, but, in his recent conference, he also discusses composing songs in and about zero gravity.

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Novel Review: VN

Madeline Ashby has been kicking around SF all of her life, and she has published a number of stories. Her first novel, VN, concerns self-replicating androids in a near-future world.

Most SF fans know Asimov’s Laws of Robotics. Ashby wonders if such laws would be properly regarded as a form of slavery. Wait, what’s the origin of the term “robot?”

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Big Bang Bee

A recently-identified species of bee has been named Euglossa bazinga. We imagine this pleases Dr. Sheldon Cooper.

Peacockasaurus Rex?

A researcher from the University of Alberta suggests some dinosaurs may have swaggered with swag, using their tail feathers to attract a mate.

A Curiosity, found on Earth

A unique, ancient Martian meteor which turned up in 2011 reveals substantial amounts of water.

Forget the fiscal cliff! Let’s get warp drive and cool nacelles!

An engineer petitions the White House to fund the building of the Starship Enterprise. Not even the 100 Year Starship proposal is quite this bold.

Aid for AIDS victims?
A disabled version of the HIV virus shows promise as a treatment for HIV.

Criminal Element:
Some people once blamed lead utensils for the Fall of Rome; could lead emissions have contributed to an historic spike in crime?

Below, you’ll find some thought-provoking and amusing videos, and links to a rather disturbing story, wherein a real-life hive of scum and villainy find themselves up against the hive known as Anonymous KnightSec:

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Space.com looks ahead to 2013 Stargazing Highlights.

NASA’s latest space gear looks surprisingly familiar, especially to fans of Toy Story.

Meanwhile, back on earth, Antarctica continues to melt faster than you may have realized.

Been feasting this holiday? Find out what you’re doing to your food clock.

And for those of you who really like to party, here’s a New Year’s Eve noisemaker that only works if the user is impaired.

Below: cosplay, and the latest attempts by studios to turn old cartoons into live-action movies.

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Holiday Review: Carol for Another Christmas (1964)

The End of the World has, once more, come and gone, but the fear that bred the most recent bit of apocalyptic silliness comes from someplace real, even if worrying about old calendars misplaces that fear entirely. Apocalyptic terror informs this weekend’s review which, as in the past few years, examines an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

This most-bizarre twist on the familiar tale plays in 2012 for the first time in more than forty years (on TCM). Rod Serling wrote the script; the Cold War provided the context. Daniel Grudge replaces Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit becomes a servant named Charles, and a maniacal Peter Sellers presides over a Twilight Zonesque future.

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