This is Science.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
These amazing findings were presented to me by our good Dr. Solong, who does us all great service in his sustained vigilance for the most evocative and rousing eventualities this dimension has to offer. Behold, the splendor that is MUTO, a wall-painted animation by artist Blu, who has combined graffiti with animation giving way to a synergy that surpasses both forms. This, my friends, is nothing if not Science.

Jellyfish Robot Uprising in Mid-Air

I think these robots should be released in cities to float down from the heavens and distribute candy to good citizens, while entangling evildoers in their pliable servo-controlled tentacles. Maybe they can also bring pie. Via The Technium.

World's Tiniest Gamers

I cannot believe how minuscule this couple playing Nintendo is! They probably sleep in a sardine can and think that ants are "the scariest thing ever". But you have to give them credit for overcoming their diminutive stature to play games like the rest of us. I can't imagine how hard they must work to actually load the cartridge into the system.

Splitting Bicycles at the Atomic Level

I was recently spying on CERN's Large Hadron Collider labs using Google Earth, when I spotted the above picture; taken by user golabek on location near CERN's headquarters. The photo is of what appears to be an ordinary bike store. However, upon closer inspection you will notice that there is indeed a bicycle protruding from opposite corners of the structure. Whether this is the result of an experiment gone bad, faulty physics, or the practice of mad science is as of yet unknown. CardiganLabs has begun reverse engineering the conditions of this eventuality in an effort to reproduce these findings. Full reports from the Science Patrol team will be transmitted as they occur.

Google Earth Coordinates:
46° 13'56 N
6° 03'10 E

"Monitoring the event horizon of science fiction"

The classic Russian science fiction novel of 1972 Roadside Picnic depicts the visitation of Earth by aliens who leave behind Artifacts which warp the physical reality surrounding them, causing Zones of disturbed space. This scenario was eerily evoked in 1986 when Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Power Plant exploded, creating massive changes to the surrounding landscape, with the majority of decontaminations occurring inside an area variously referred to as The Chernobyl Zone, The 30 Kilometer Zone, The Zone of Exclusion, The Fourth Zone, or just The Zone. As the entire area was evacuated, the strange few researchers who remained behind referred to themselves as "Stalkers," the novel's term for Artifact hunters. As the fictional reality continued to erupt into our own, it also began to work the other way, and in this way the game known as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl was born, creating new versions of the Zone for Stalkers to play in. The future is a place of many interacting and coexisting futures.

EDIT: Dedicated Stalkers will certainly benefit from a viewing of this custom-built PC casemod which replicates the #4 reactor core (pictured above, the alien monolith from Shadow of Chernobyl; more detailed pics here and all throughout the thread). It's easily the best casemod this researcher has seen, handily beating the Matrix-themed mod I saw last year.

CardiganLabs Presents:Zombie Safety

Recently I was asked to give a speech at Community College of Philadelphia that demonstrated my expertise on the topic of my choosing. For the speech I chose to present the CardiganLabs Approved© Zombie Safety Seminar entitled "Zombies & You:Protecting Your Brain in the Face of Ravenous Hunger". The above video documents said presentation. It should also be noted that the speech was later accepted into the Magner Nichols Annual Public Speaking and Monologue Competition at the college, where it garnered First Prize in the Public Speaking bracket. The event was gracefully hosted by Professor Kirsten Quinn, head of the Communication Arts Department at CCP, this past April 18th. A certificate of recognition will be presented to me by Professor Quinn at the 2008 Graduation Awards Ceremony on Friday, May 2nd at 6pm in the Bonnell Building on campus.
This achievement would not be possible without assistance from Jim Kauterman, Mario Castillo, Mike McCullough, Dr. Solong and the Science Patrol Team, and readers like yourself. Below is a picture of the guy on top of the trophy given at the Magner/Nichols competition. He belongs to You.

Legoverse: We're gonna need a bigger Brick.

Just when you thought it was safe to swim in an ocean made of interlocking bricks; this giant legoshark came along and ruined some poor minifig's refreshing swim.

Created by cbolego,
Linked via Klocki

an abstract concept used to monitor decay

The 48-Hour Film Project is an experiment in timed creativity. Does work produced under a timeline exhibit superior qualities? Your mileage may vary, but in the case of Timecatcher, the Project's 2007 international winner, the answer is certainly "yes."

Chrononauts may also be intrigued by this clock which vividly displays the decay of the hours.

Cute Monkeybot Uprising Imminent

This weekend I volunteered at the New York Comic-Con for some new friends of mine, the May brothers of SUMM Publications. TJ and Jason are a writer/artist duo who burst on the indie comics scene with their 2004 oneshot Ill Conceived, whose blend of macabre characters and cool dialogue reminds me of Clive Barker or Joe Hill's dark tales.

Recently, though, Jason's interests have taken a turn toward our common cybernetic future, creating a variety of robotic characters that have charmed countless pitiful humans into giving them good homes. With lovable visages, they lie in wait for the signal to begin harvesting our biomass, but until that day, we can call them our friends. (I adopted this one.) Be sure to check them out on Jason's Myspace page.

The Killbot Imperative

Flickr user darkpony is a pragmatic individual.

They're Not 'Toys'-Theyre Action Figures

If you are at all like me, then you are a connoisseur and collector of finely crafted and artistically imbued action figures. Mind you, I don't play with them, i just take them out of the box and arrange them in a glass case so i can pretend my office is a museum. See Here.
It is one thing, however, to collect action figures; it is quite another to man up and build your own. You can go on to trump that by creating action figures of your favorite franchises with amazing art inspired concept variants. For the highest achievement in the latter category, look no further than SILLOF's WORKSHOP , where you will find custom figure collections including (among other things) WWII SW, SteamPunk StarWars, Victorian Avengers, McQuarrie SW, and The Venture Bros-just to name a few.
It is imperative that you visit www.sillof.com to browse the full galleries, as what i have posted above is a paltry sample meant to whet your appetite. If you have any interest at all in the future of sculptural craftsmanship; you will heed my advice and pay SILLOF a visit. His website is way better than ours, anyhow.

Domo Arigato, Grandpa Roboto

Salute our robotic forefathers with this sweet shirt from Chopshopstore.

Saturn!

In working my way through the TED seminar archives, I'm going to continue to bring you those talks which exemplify the Code of the Science Patrol.

Carolyn Porco has flown to Saturn. She worked on the Cassini space probe which explored my future home and she was one of the first people to set sights on these amazing vistas of the methane seas of Titan, the mysterious polar plumes of Enceladus, and much more.

Food for Thought

According to this report, in which many interesting facts are laid out, the more than 15,000 networked PS3s at Stanford University represent more power than the largest supercomputer stack.

Pet Uprising Still Imminent

Further evidence uncovered of the eventual takeover of our race by machines that can not only out-think us, but out-frolic as well.

Spotlight: Extraterrestrials Among Us

Above: Senator John McCain, candidate for United States President, and Starnavigator Grig, fellow war hero and sauropod.

Dradis Contact! Set Condition One throughout the fleet.....

Whoever said ignorance is bliss was full of it. It sucks when you aren't in the know. Especially when the fourth and final season of the finest television show in production is about to air and you have no idea what is going on. I speak of Battlestar Galactica, as re-imagined for the SciFi Channel. Though it must suck be ignorant of such a prolific program, there is indeed a cure. Instead of sitting through the previous three seasons to get a handle on BSG you can click the button below and get the 8-minit clif's notes on the show. That way when season 4 airs on Friday night you can have your mind blown straight out the back of your head and onto the living room wall along with everyone else who wont shut up about how frak'n rad Battlestar is. Now you too can have the power to not shut up about the best thing that has happened to T.V. since vacuum tubes. So Say We All!

Re-Appropriation of Amber-Sconced Insects From Movie Sci-Fi

Using a technique called phase contrast micro-tomography, French scientists are uncovering insects trapped inside opaque amber.

A Babel Fish Substitute for Sci-Fi Readers

Do you ever get confused by the flying torrents of jargon in Dune or in the writings of Charles Stross? (His recent novel Accelerando had me befuddled for the first hundred pages until he started to explain his ideas in greater detail.) Some authors seem to make a point of mentioning theoretical technologies unfamiliar to present-day folk unequipped with a Babel Fish. (That's a genericized neologism of "neurolinguistic translator.")

Anyway, for those of us who need to claim authoritative knowledge in the field of fictional science, here are some words sci-fi readers should know, courtesy of the blog Geekend.

With Regards from Dr. Kaku

Last week, Science Patrol's favorite theoretical physicist came to The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia to speak on behalf of his newest book; Physics of the Impossible. I am talking of course about Michio Kaku-
co-founder of the string field theory, face melting author, populizer of science, and futurist. I went personally to listen to his lecture, and to award him with the Medal of INfinite Destiny. He was so nice he even signed my copy of his newest book.



At the lecture Dr. Kaku spoke about the 'impossible' things we've read in science fiction stories and how they are in many cases already possible. Here is a video of the good doctor pitching the novel on MSNBC Tech:

Catch-Playing Robot Uprising Imminent

Easily one of the best examples I have ever seen of the symbiotic relationship between a man and his dog. Did the man help his dog by building a robot, or did the dog help the man by playing with his robot? Either way, it's too cute for words, and it proves again that the best applications of science are those which improve the quality of all life.

Planet X Eludes Capture By Japanese Astronomers

Planet X is the home of Monster Zero. In the legends of our people, this beast is formidable and revered as the King of Monsters. What many monster hunters may not know is different factions have searched for the mysterious Planet X for many, many years. Astrologers of Babylon, mystics, Californians, and other affiliated acid-heads have been constructing giant websites that attempt to probe the dense mysteries of this completely hypothetical mass, also called Nibiru. In these legends, Planet X is a planet whose civilization has influenced ours from the beginning. Some people insist that these aliens are the mythical beings who brought humanity the gifts of fire, language, and civilization. They could be likened to the nephilim, the angels who are described in the Old Testament as taking human wives who bore them superhuman children. This naturally leads into the legends of Atlantis, Lemuria, and Mu, which are mythical continents purported to be based on this mestizo alien-human civilization. Planet X is said to have an extremely long period around our sun, and supposedly causes epochal changes in human history. These websites had proposed that Nibiru would orbit close to our Earth in May 2003 and cause a pole shift that would have disastrous effects. When that didn't happen, these groups lost much of their credibility, but they are still active. Phil Plait has an excellent breakdown of these groups at his site.

Now, to me this is all poorly written, mildly entertaining sci-fi, way below the Godzilla movies in terms of credibility. Japanese scientists, however, have recently joined these apparently disreputable groups, insisting, "That planet's gotta be around here somewhere!" Similar to other groups of scientists, they have posited the existence of Planet X based on discrepancies in the orbits of gas giants. Although these previous groups were unsuccessful in finding the planet, the search continues. Is Planet X real? Here in the laboratory, all that concerns me is this planet's steadfast refusal to remain solely fictional, and the disturbing conflation of the Planet X hypothesis with the Nibiru myth. It is distressing to the fabric of reality when such imaginings enter the real world and commingle with scientific study. As the probability of an emergent paradigm in our D.E. continues to approach zero (i.e., inevitability), I remain watchful. If Planet X does appear on the scene, the Science Patrol will be on the front lines, combating misinformation and New Age scare tactics with the cold, hard facts about the true inhabitants of Planet X: giant three-headed dragon-monsters.

A Gentlemanly Disgust for Chelonoids......

This webcomic is highly reminiscent of a piece Dr. Solong reported on some time ago concerning an incarnation of Pac-man. In the same spirit, i give you The Adventures of Lord Mario, as presented by eegra.com, a blog i highly recommend to any discerning connoisseur of distinguishing taste. Click the image to both enlarge and send precious traffic back to its point of origin. Cheerio, old bean.