Warning: This is a long-ish video (20 minutes). But it’s fascinating, once you get into it, for two reasons: Dude wants to “cure” aging and thinks the first human beings to live 1,000 years have already been born. And he LOOKS LIKE FATHER TIME.

A fascinating story, penned by my former boss, about sex with robots, and how the theme evolved into its current form on Battlestar Gallactica:

What may not be so obvious is that “Galactica” is, like “West Side Story,” gently pushing the same message as “Romeo and Juliet.” When the robots and humans are not trying to kill one another, they rather convincingly fall in love. Montague or Capulet, Puerto Rican or Anglo, human or robot — true love transcends all divides, or so the show seems to be saying.

That, presumably, is why an episode shown on May 20 was titled “Guess What’s Coming to Dinner?” Stanley Kramer’s similarly named romantic comedy from 1967, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” is about the engagement of an African-American man and a white woman, which causes consternation for her liberal parents. Interracial marriage was still illegal in 16 states when that movie was made; its tag line was “A love story for today.”

Do the writers of “Battlestar Galactica” think their saga is a love story for tomorrow? If so, they wouldn’t be alone — which perhaps goes to show that our universe is even stranger than that of “Galactica.”

Image via AIDS-3D.

Article and more video (don’t miss! the monkey manipulates the arm so he can lick the fingers):

In a dramatic display of the potential of prosthetic arms, a monkey at the University of Pittsburgh was able to use his brain to directly control a robotic arm and feed himself a marshmallow. The research, published today in the journal Nature, is the first to show that an interface that converts brain signals directly into action is sophisticated enough to perform a practical function: eating. Researchers who led the work have just begun human tests of a related technology.

A story about developing the DNA of an extinct tasmanian tiger into an embryo. The reporter ends by playing it close to the chest, saying “…many people wonder: What’s next?” DUH. JURASSIC PARK IS NEXT. Get in line for your tickets. Opening date: 2060, when you and I are still spry enough to gun it to 88 mph in our flying cars.

Singularities, which are fascinating, have been peered into recently and new discoveries are made into how to retrieve information from black holes.

Through Ray Kurzweil’s website, comes This fascinating article:

Physicists at Penn State have provided a mechanism by which information can be recovered from black holes, those regions of space where gravity is so strong that, according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, not even light can escape. The team’s findings pave the way toward ending a decades-long debate sparked by renowned physicist Steven Hawking.

“Once you consider quantum gravity, then space-time becomes much larger and there is room for information to reappear in the distant future on the other side of what was first thought to be the end of space-time.”

Are you serious? What does that mean? Information is being spit into the future and we have to wait for it? Is this a LOST theory?

Ray Kurzweil’s technological singularity borrows the principle to describe a point in the near future when technology begins to increase along Moore’s Law so rapidly that the outcome is impossible to predict, or something.

Wired has a wiki up about how to live through a nuclear blast. Some representative advice:

The seconds following the initial flash are critical. Luckily, factors like explosive yield, weather, and distance can lessen the effects of the shock wave — but don’t kid yourself, it’s coming. The best method for weathering this stage is finding an ideal barrier between yourself and the combination of extreme pressure, heat, thermal radiation and 500mph winds headed your way. This is where survival gets a little tricky.

Hopefully this one develops nicely. I am become death, destroyer of worlds! Image: Robert Longo, from his stunning series of ginormous charcoal drawings of atom-bomb blasts.

ZOMG. Here’s a self-reassembling robot. Skynet’s supposed to be going live any day now, right?

From the Scotsman:

A LEADING scientist has warned a new species of “humanzee,” created from breeding apes with humans, could become a reality unless the government acts to stop scientists experimenting.

In an interview with The Scotsman, Dr Calum MacKellar, director of research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, warned the controversial draft Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill did not prevent human sperm being inseminated into animals.

He said if a female chimpanzee was inseminated with human sperm the two species would be closely enough related that a hybrid could be born.

He said scientists could possibly try to develop the new species to fill the demand for organ donors.

It’s been zooming around on the interwebs: Pretty new pics from the government of all the garbage that’s floating around in space.

Between the launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957 and 1 January 2008, approximately 4600 launches have placed some 6000 satellites into orbit…Space debris comprise the ever-increasing amount of inactive space hardware in orbit around the Earth as well as fragments of spacecraft that have broken up, exploded or otherwise become abandoned. About 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10).