Two years ago, NASA’s Kepler space telescope identified the planet designated Kepler 22B — a super-earth orbiting a yellow dwarf similar to our sun. It was recently confirmed that the planet resides within its solar system’s habitable zone, with an estimated surface temperature averaging 22 Celsius, or as its commonly known, room temperature. Nobody knows the exact composition of the planet’s atmosphere, but judging by its size and location in relation to its star, its the best candidate to date to potentially support life. The biggest problem being its distance from Earth itself. The planet is located over 600,000 light years from our solar system, so light speed wouldn’t do the trick, and covering just one with modern propulsion would take roughly 38,000 years, so that’s out of the question. I guess its time to start brushing up on our warp theory.

[via yahoo]

While reading an interesting interview with a medical ethicist and I was suddenly struck by how much this premise reminded me of the 1982 classic film Blade Runner: “Do you think that granting corporations the rights of people in the Citizens United case is disturbing? Then contemplate the fact that corporations have been patenting human genes and tissues at alarming rates — in the last 30 years, more than 40,000 patents have been granted on genes alone.”

Granted that Harriet Washington isn’t predicting that replicants will be running amuck in near future battlefield, but now that we’re only 8 years from the mythic date of November 2019 it’s interesting how quickly genetics is becoming a big business. What’s interesting is that like software the legal world is lagging behind the biotech world which is making rapid advancements everyday. We currently already have invented oil eating bacteria so while we may not see cyborgs roaming the streets by the end of the decade perhaps artificial owls might not be out of the question?

The irony to me as a fanboy is that I’ve watched the world of computers advance at an amazing rate since Blade Runner came out almost thirty years ago — when I look at devices like an iPad they remind me very much of the technology I was seeing in 2001: A Space Odyssey. So it wouldn’t be too much of a far cry to perhaps expect to see a Moore’s law apply to the world of genetic engineering. On the positive side we might start to see a disease like cancer become a treatable condition instead of a potential death sentence — but on the negative side we could see a wide range of unimagined corporate abuse where patents might trump a larger good. Perhaps there’s a strong need for a biotech open source movement? Now’s the time to get started…

You know nothing so far quite beats a good old fashioned Saturn V rocket! Found via dudelol.com and Jet Tan.

The amazing video below (which is from The Sagan Series) uses audio from the Carl Sagan audio book The Pale Blue Dot and is a wonderful argument for a return to the moon:

Found via Tex Mitchell.

Err, you know what I mean. Another science show. It’s totally different than the other one; this one deals with horrific experiments, fringe science, and … okay, okay, I get it. But this one’s about real science! That’s right, Fringe’s John Noble will be hosting a new show on the Science channel called Dark Matters, dealing with the dark side of science using real historical examples. The first six episode descriptions read like Fringe summaries, which is, of course, wildly appropriate. Expect to see body transplants, reanimation, and more, with Noble’s trademark mug to guide you through the creepiness. Who could ask for anything more?

Michael Sacco is a freelance editor and writer, currently working as senior editor at WoW Insider, part of the Joystiq network.

Brooklyn artist Donato Giancola has made his living on illustrating scifi book covers, but the US Postal Service grabbed him for a slightly more grounded task — that is, if you can call what astronauts do “grounded.” He’s the artist for two of the USPS’s new commemorative astronaut stamps, including the one above, featuring Alan Shepard. So what was it like illustrating real space travel, as opposed to works of fiction? It’s all in the details, he says. “When you’re creating art that’s going to be a historical record like these stamps, there’s no room for mistakes.” That kind of work pays off for Giancola, whose work is now in circulation to the tune of millions of stamps nationwide.

Michael Sacco is a freelance editor and writer, currently working as senior editor at WoW Insider.

This video has been making the rounds on twitter for the past few days, and while I don’t exactly find it humorous – especially considering how many people are still suffering overseas — I found it very interesting watch. For those of you who don’t speak Japanese, it’s a government sponsored propaganda cartoon that insists that plutonium is not as harmful as activists may have led you to believe. I’m not sure when this film was drawn, but judging by the fact that it’s completely hand-drawn, I’m sure it’s safe to assume it wasn’t recent. I certainly hope any kid ever exposed to this would know better by now.

Tim is a pro-blogger and freelance writer out of San Diego, California. In addition to Fanboy.com, he contributes to the ModernMethod Network of sites as the Features and Reviews Editor for the Japanese culture and entertainment blog, Japanator. He’s also an Assocaite Editor for their popular gaming blog, Destructoid, and the collectible toy culture blog, Tomopop. For more information, follow him on twitter, or check out TimSheehy.com.

Science has a lot of really cool (and weird) stuff to read about, but sometimes you have to wade through a lot of other words to find it! What a pain, right? Out of Context Science cuts all that out, giving you single sentences of science weirdness without all the work. Where else can you read the sentence ” The aim is for the robot to be able to propel itself in any fluid mucus without having to carry its own reserve of mucus along”? Besides the original paper it was in, anyway. I think this way is a lot better.

Michael Sacco is a freelance writer and editor, currently working as senior editor at WoW Insider.

Japan recently announced that they’re considering sending a talking humanoid robot to the International Space Station in 2013.  In addition to offering companionship, and being generally creepy — it’s suppose to monitor the astronauts while they sleep — it’ll communicate with Earth via twitter, where it’ll tweet images to its followers on the ground. Sadly, I don’t think the robot will posess super-human strength, or any form of self-awareness. After all, I doubt Japan has any cyberneticists capable of crafting the appropriate positronic components.

Of course, we’ve already tried something similar with NASA’s “Robonaut” R-2 program. Unlike Japan’s robot however, ours sounds far more practical. Obviously, the name was a nod to the R2 units from Star Wars, despite having a head and arms like C-3PO and interestingly enough, the R-2 functions like a maintenance droid. This, of course, begs the question — why is it that a protocol droid needs arms and legs, yet R2 units lack opposable thumbs? Something about that just doesn’t sit right with me.

Tim is a pro-blogger and freelance writer out of San Diego, California. In addition to Fanboy.com, he contributes to the ModernMethod Network of sites as the Features and Reviews Editor for the Japanese culture and entertainment blog, Japanator. He’s also an Assocaite Editor for their popular gaming blog, Destructoid, and the collectible toy culture blog, Tomopop. For more information, follow him on twitter, or check out TimSheehy.com.

The video clip below doesn’t show just anybody predicting settlements on Mars, but Pete Worden, Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center. Now I’ll grant you that gives us a good fifty years to get there — but what kills me is that we have the technology today to do this, or to at least get started trying. In fact part of the problem I think is that NASA is just spread too thin; I’d love to see the agency with a single focus on manned space exploration with a realistic budget to match. But alas that could be fifty years off in the current political climate…

One of my favorite things about the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime series was that it really brought to life the idea of L5 space colonies which were envisioned by Gerard K. O’Neill in the 70s. Shown above is a fan made video of what modern Tokyo would look like inside one of these space colonies:

In this wonderful short video clip science writer Bill Bryson talks about how amazing it is that over the course of just a few short billion years we’ve gone from a collection of atoms to living life forms. Bryson also points out that it’s interesting that there is nothing special about the atoms that make up each of us.

These awesome photos from the Moscow Aviation Institute depict the aborted Soviet moon lander project. The US ended up winning the space race in the 60s, just as Kennedy promised, but the Soviets weren’t too far behind, as these devices show. Also in this gallery are photos of the Soyuz landing capsule, the docking station for the Internation Space Station, and more marvels of the Soviet space program. Even amidst the metal plating and plexiglass you can see the fragility of it all, the myriad of things that could go wrong in space. It’s a wonder that we ever got to space at all, much less in machines like this, but we did it.

Michael Sacco is a freelance editor and writer, currently working as senior editor at WoW Insider.

I love NASA, space exploration, and photoshop as much as anyone, but this official — yes, it’s official — poster for one of NASA recent trips to the International Space Station has got to be the most gaudy one I’ve seen since The Expendables. Of course, I’m not going to fault them for wanting to make routine supply and maintenance seem way cooler than it actually was, but I know I’m not the only one who thought it was a bit much. The guys over at titleofmagazine.com even tweeted that they must have ”missed the memo” about Michael Bay running NASA , a jab that I have to give them credit for — after all, it certainly looks that way, doesn’t it?

Look NASA, I know you guys are running on a budget, so instead of employing paid interns to photoshop terrible posters, please spend the money wisely and save the awesome posters for your trip to Mars. As a tax payer, I’d appreciate it.

Tim is a pro-blogger and freelance writer out of San Diego, California. In addition to Fanboy.com, he contributes to the ModernMethod Network of sites as the Features and Reviews Editor for the Japanese culture and entertainment blog, Japanator. He’s also an Assocaite Editor for their popular gaming blog, Destructoid, and the collectible toy culture blog, Tomopop. For more information, follow him on twitter, or check out TimSheehy.com.

No, it’s not yet another Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy– it’s Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency!

…What do you mean you don’t know anything about Dirk Gently? POSER!

In all seriousness: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a sci-fi detective novel that Adams wrote in 1987, ten years after Adams first pitched Hitchhiker’s Guide to BBC Radio 4. Like Hitchhiker, the book supposes a less than elegant creation for humankind: life on Earth began because of a galactic accident, and the planet remains haunted by the ghost of the alien engineer who caused it. The story the follows involves using time machines to impress girls at parties, the possession of 18th-century romantic poets, and the possible demise of humanity.

All in all, a very Adams-like book. (He also wrote a sequel titled The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, and started a third, which later became the final Adams-written Hitchhiker novel, The Salmon of Doubt.)

According to Geekosystem, the BBC plans to make a one-hour special out of the book, and a series if the special performs well enough.

As someone who was very disappointed that they didn’t make more Hitchhiker’s Guide films, particularly with the delicious Zooey Deschanel as Trillian, this warms the cold caverns of my frozen heart.

Gia Manry is a professional writer specializing in geek culture. She currently writes primarily for Anime News Network, but also likes being followed on Twitter. She can be contacted via her website.

I hate to use up the bandwidth on this site but do yourself a favor and look at the photos on this page at full size to really appreciate them: This first photograph of the Earth as seen from the moon was taken on this day in 1966 by the Lunar Orbiter 1 spacecraft. The real purpose of the mission was to scout out he moon for the Apollo program, but what makes this image amazing to me is that it’s the first time in history that the human race is looking back on themselves from another world. In 2008 the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project went back to the data from that voyage and produced this enhanced image which is nothing short of amazing:

What you’re looking at above may be the beginning of the end of a manned space exploration program for the United States — what you see is the last shuttle external tank arriving at Kennedy Space Center. That’s right! There’s only one more shuttle launch left and after that NASA will be out sourcing to Russia until we have a “replacement”. I’ve placed quotes around the word replacement as there is currently no replacement being worked on. And why is this?

The last President who seemed to do anything about the space program was Bush — no not the guy who left office in 2008 but George Bush, Sr. who really made the International Space Station happen. Clinton didn’t harm NASA but he really didn’t help it which pretty much amounts to neglect. Bush Jr. made plans for a shuttle replacement, but that program went way over budget and took too much time. It took so much time that there wasn’t much to show for it when the Obama administration took office in January of 2009.

While many on the right may paint President Obama as a “big government socialist” what he in fact did was to take a page straight out of the Reagan/Thatcher playbook: The administration proposed that the replacement for the shuttle be created by the private sector instead of the design being driven by NASA. The thinking is that this could help give a boost to the nascent manned space industry — and to be fair that how commercial aviation works, and that’s also how the satellite industry works as well.

But there were two tiny catches: First this would cost jobs at NASA, but secondly building a shuttle replacement still requires a serious investment to the tune of $19 billion dollars. So now both the Senate and the House are bickering over the plan. Not only are they trying to prevent the privatization of the shuttle replacement development, but they’re also trying to destroy the budget.

The result of this can be catastrophic: Right now we’re depending upon the Russian space program, but as the war in Georgia showed things can change quickly in international relations. Add to that the fact that the International Space Station is aging poorly — in fact there were malfunctions in the cooling system just yesterday. We could find ourselves in a situation where you find yourself in the perfect storm where something happens to the ISS and we have no way to get there.

So if you call yourself a NASA fanboy (or fangurl) I’d urge you to start following what’s going on and to get involved. It doesn’t take much time to shoot off an email to your Senator or congressional rep and it can make a huge difference.

This nifty gadget is the Thanko USB Microscope Lite which sports a CMOS sensor 1.3 million pixels — which sounds impressive but I’m not quite sure wouldn’t cut it for an actual scientist. The software is Windows only and the manual is in Japanese, although it looks like one might have hours of fun just trying to get started:

It’s been the long time dream of science fiction to produce a ray gun that won’t kill, well it now looks like that’s now reality according to this BBC article:

“A newly-developed heat-ray gun that burns the skin but doesn’t cause permanent injury is now with US troops in Afghanistan. The Active Denial System (ADS) is a non-lethal weapon designed to disperse violent crowds and repel enemies. It uses a focused invisible beam that causes an “intolerable heating sensation”, but only penetrates the skin to the equivalent of three sheets of paper.”

With the current technology the gun which sits on a truck can fire up to 1,640 feet away, but what’s interesting is that they’re working on ways to shrink the system down to the size of a gun. Here’s a graphic that shows the Active Denial System (ADS) in action:

By the way I should point out that the phaser predated Star Trek by quite a few years (and this is a later example from 1961):

Apparently biologists are split as to if humans or climate change killed off prehistoric creatures like like mammoths, giant sloths and saber-toothed cats. These creatures known as megafauna all died out at about the same time early in human history. In this interesting clip professor Elizabeth Hadly gives an overview of the debate which can be seen in full here.

Above: The Giant Sloth looks like a cute creature from Star Wars, no?

In this video clip Adam Savage the co-host of MythBusters tells the tail — err tale of the cannibalistic mice. It seems that they did an episode based upon the myth that bad breakfast cereal has less nutrients than the box. So to test this myth they fed one set of mice super sugary cereal and another set cardboard pellets. The result? The cardboard mice resorted to cannibalism and the making of a MythBusters episode that never aired.

Not too long ago Stephen Hawking caused quite a stir by stating that contacting aliens was a bad idea as they may not be friendly — I guess you can call that the “It’s a Cookbook!” school of thought. However defending the aliens in this clip is Neuroscientist Gary Lynch who feels that a higher level of intelligence would have a more benevolent view of humans (more of a Spielberg approach with Close Encounters of the Third Kind or E.T.).

This highly educational video goes into some very graphic detail on how one does a number one and number two on the space shuttle. The one thing that I learned is that going to the bathroom in outer space is quite a complicated project, so much so in fact that one must be trained to use the facilities:

Because the toilet is so narrow training requires using a camera to train astronauts:

Toilet paper can’t be disposed of in the toilet so it must be collected in special bags:

This unit is used for urination (that’s what the hose is for):

These nozzles connect to you to allow you to use the hose (note: male and female nozzles are different):

In this video planetary scientist Joel Levine states his case why we need to explore Mars. Levine feels that the geography of Mars makes the case for exploration — if we really want to understand our Earth and the idea of extraterrestrial life exploring the red planet is the best place to start. I think that given the state of NASA as geeks we really need to get our voices heard to accelerate this as a priority for our space program.

Astronaut Soichi Noguchi (seen on the left) grew up watching Space Battleship Yamato which is well known to American fans as Star Blazers. And here he is on International Space Station making us Earth bound retro anime fans very proud. Here’s the official caption for the photo from NASA which sadly omits the fanboy reference:

“Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronauts Soichi Noguchi, Expedition 23 flight engineer; and Naoko Yamazaki (right), STS-131 mission specialist; along NASA astronaut Stephanie Wilson, STS-131 mission specialist, pose for a photo in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station while space shuttle Discovery remains docked with the station.”

By the way it should be noted that while this is the first successful anime in outer space that a previous attempt was made by Daisuke Enomoto who was a failed space tourist. Enomoto wanted to wear a Mobile Suit Gundam themed outfit, although sadly was disqualified for the flight due to medical reasons.

Special thanks to Tim Eldred for finding this photo and to Vicente Serrano Lespier for his insights on Daisuke Enomoto.