And maybe they’ll be able to explain the Olympic Opening Ceremony: The Queen’s astronomer, Lord Martin Rees, suggests our scanning of the cosmos may lead to the observation of alien life in the next forty years.

MacGyver lives! The crew of the International Space Station use a toothbrush to make an emergency repair.

Notify the conspiracy theorists: A recent notorious murder case may have an outer space connection.

Recovering past dreams: Brookyn-based Singularity and Company plans to save SF, one obscure classic at a time.

Don’t forget about medical research: Recent experiments suggest a possible treatment for Alzheimer’s.

Below: Political figures encourage space exploration, and images from the 2012 World SF Con in Chicago and DragonCon 2012 in Atlanta!

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Like to track sharks? There’s an app for that!

Looking for life in outer space? Consider the Daily Galaxy’s take on alternate biochemistries.

Thinking of moving off-planet? An entire family slips over to Martian time. Meanwhile, back at the red planet, a Curious arm extends.

Feeling sick? A digital pill has been approved by the FDA.

Playing fetch? A dog digs up a 300 million year old fossil—

–Except in these texts, approved for use in publicly-funded Christian schools, which insist the world is only a few thousand years old, dinosaurs coexisted with humans, the Great Depression is largely a liberal myth, environmentalism is evil, and modern math is ungodly.

Want some views? With the new season of Doctor Who premiering the week of September 8, we’re posting some fan films from awhile back that feature multiple Doctors. We’ve also got some Avengers bloopers and out-takes and more:

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Boldly going to Mars: Curiousity’s Grand Entrance, narrated by William Shatner.

The planet does have a lot of beach property: New evidence for ancient Martian Oceans.

No human explorers for awhile, but China advances their plans for a lunar landing.

But the local gas station felt they were exploiting the free air pump: Space Ground Amalgam, a company making inflatable satellite parts, took the $100,000 Space Business prize.

Maybe we can download a car. It appears you can download a gun.

Hammertime: Thor II will feature former Doctor Who Christopher Eccleston as a villain and Game of Thrones/Mad Men/Sopranos director Alan Taylor at the helm.

Kansas City here we come: Google tests better, stronger faster internet.

Video below: How plausible is Spider-man? And more non-canonical Potter!

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It’s (sort of) alive! It’s (sort of) alive!
Harvard researchers have created an artificial jellyfish— sort of– from silicon and rat parts. Video below.

Keeping abreast of medical news: The winner of this year’s Google Science Fair, 17-year-old Brittany Wegner, has developed a new method of detecting breast cancer.

Close also counts in rings:
Depending on where you are, it’s a good time to view Saturn.

He should probably buy a lottery ticket next:
The general cure isn’t here just yet, but the 19th International AIDS Conference, held this week in Washington, features Timothy Ray Brown, the only person to have been cured of HIV/AIDS– under very unlikely circumstances.

Getting cryptozoologists’ goats:
Utah’s “Goat Man” turns out to be a guy in a goat suit. He should not be confused, of course, with the better-known and still-mysterious Goat Man of Pope Lick, Kentucky (Also known as the “Sheep Man” or just “The Pope Lick Monster”). A video appears below, along with some robots programmed for soccer, and the first official trailer for Man of Steel.

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We have several items today, but I’ll leave out the gag remarks, since several relate to the mass shooting July 19 at the Denver, Colorado premiere of Dark Knight Rises.

Video and other items (including some lighter news) below the cut.

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I know it’s been a short time since our last “Newspace,” but Rush Limbaugh’s hilariously bizarre and temporally-challenged claim that the villain “Bane” in Dark Knight Rises was named for Bain Capital led me to post his rant below, and several other videos. We’ve found lots of Dark Knight-related material, new Comic-Con stuff, and a Zombie-proofed Hyundai.

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Outer space, superheroes, and the Abominable faux-man in this installment:

Both lend themselves nicely to cheap sexual humor: Modern science considers whether it was a Big Bang or Big Bounce?

What do the Queensbury Rules say?: Recently discovered ‘middleweight’ black hole raises some interesting questions.

Still no longer a planet: little Pluto nevertheless has a fifth moon. Very nice, Pluto! We’re putting that one up on the fridge!

Cryptozoological heat-wave relief: The National Geographic recently received this photo of a snow monster from Mount Rainier.

Meanwhile, back on earth, or someone’s version of earth, The Onion weighs in on the most unrealistic aspect of the Man of Steel

ComicCon Vlog below:

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This week’s newspace is all over the place, with something for all interests– assuming Malware hasn’t taken you out Monday morning:

In the name of the moon, I will right wrong and triumph over evil!: The quintessential anime show, Sailor Moon, returns next summer with a brand new series.

Less well known, but fondly recalled: The Canadian 80s show Fraggle Rock receives a new incarnation as well, this one focusing on The Doozers of Fraggle Rock.

Hey, it’s new to the site: Our Crossover Comix page gets an update from 2001, when Superman and Supergirl met Gen 13.

Maybe they’re in the pay of hardline Creationists?: In Alberta, drunken louts may be responsible for the theft and destruction of dinosaur fossils.

Meanwhile, out in space: Is this the Solar Flare of the Year?

And speaking of space: A recent survey inquires as to people’s “belief” in UFOs, but the response at least examines the ambiguity of that question (can you NOT believe people have seen things they personally couldn’t identify?), just as the survey tries to correlate belief in aliens to feelings about Barack Obama and the Incredible Hulk.

And on that superheroic note, we bring you the extended trailer for Dark Knight Rises, the full source of last week’s viral Spider-man/Batman fight video, and…. Uh, some other video that may be of interest:

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Have they found it, by God?: Physicists have fairly good evidence of that particle they prefer to call the the Higgs boson.

Where are the green-skinned astrobabes?: NASA reveals the Orion Space Capsule.

I read this book as a kid: Space-tourist company Excalibur Almaz plans to take tourists to the moon for a mere $150 million.

Not a Microsoft product: Power generating windows may prove an important source of solar power.

Turkeysaurus Rex: We’ve known for awhile some dinosaurs were feathered. It may be that (to some degree) all dinosaurs had plumage.

No word on griffins: The American National Ocean Service has announced that mermaids don’t exist.

Because the sequels were total movie gold: A&E plans a TV-movie that will tell the backstory to Psycho.

Forthcoming on Youtube: Harry Potter and the Ten Years After, a fan film, previewed below–

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Google has released the prototype of their anticipated Internet Glasses.

In Japan (where else?), Suidobashi Heavy Industry will soon have mech-like devices available commercially.

In Serbia, at least five mammoth skeletons have been unearthed.

Bulgaria, meanwhile, is displaying a 700-year-old vampire skeleton (that item is true, from a certain point of view).¹

At least forty new species of ants have been discovered in the Philippines

Italy‘s Prada has introduced a Steampunk line of clothes. Is this success– or the beginning of the end of the aesthetic?

At Pulpfest this year, in the United States, long-time collector Albert Tonik will be auctioning off his prize collection of books, magazines, pulps, dime novels, and fanzines. This sizable collection contains many rare items.

In China and aboard the International Space Station—President Hu Jintao called to congratulate the taikonauts on their successful docking.

This Thursday, astronaut Rex Walheim will be conducting satellite interviews live on NASA television. Emphasis will be on Orion, which may take us far beyond our planet.

Video for some of these stories below the cut, and for the Team Fortress 2 short film, “Meet the Pyro.”

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