Weird cool SCIENCE! Stuff : The Return

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

Register Log in
Mendalla said:
Works for me. Arrakis was pretty obviously an inspiration for Tatooine, just as Asimov's Trantor inspired Coruscant in the prequels. Also, I could get behind Denis Villeneuve doing a Star Wars movie.
Click to expand...
I've only seen Blade Runner and Contact, but I can imagine Dune directed by him. Hope it follows the original story enough to be recognizable instead of depending on special effects and set design though. The previews look very cool. I somehow feel that Villeneuve is too independent to tackle the Star Wars franchise, but I could be surprised.
 
ninj said:
Contact
Click to expand...
Arrival was Villeneuve. Contact was the nineties first contact movie based on a novel by Carl Sagan. Jodie Foster starred but I forget who directed.

Apparently they are splitting it into two movies, so at least they are avoiding the problems the Lynch version had due to cramming it all into under three hours.
 
Mendalla said:
Arrival was Villeneuve. Contact was the nineties first contact movie based on a novel by Carl Sagan. Jodie Foster starred but I forget who directed.

Apparently they are splitting it into two movies, so at least they are avoiding the problems the Lynch version had due to cramming it all into under three hours.
Click to expand...
Arrival...duh.
 
Mendalla said:
Arrival was Villeneuve. Contact was the nineties first contact movie based on a novel by Carl Sagan. Jodie Foster starred but I forget who directed.

Apparently they are splitting it into two movies, so at least they are avoiding the problems the Lynch version had due to cramming it all into under three hours.
Click to expand...
Definitely two movies and I'm fine with that. It would better tell the story, I think. I still like the Lynch version, very eighties but too long.
 
ninj said:
Definitely two movies and I'm fine with that. It would better tell the story, I think. I still like the Lynch version, very eighties but too long.
Click to expand...

The Lynch version has its moment but it is, to be honest, my least favorite David Lynch movie. He's much better doing moody noir stuff like Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart than s-f epics.
 
Mendalla said:
The Lynch version has its moment but it is, to be honest, my least favorite David Lynch movie. He's much better doing moody noir stuff like Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart than s-f epics.
Click to expand...
I have a bias because the eighties was my favourite decade and I loved Sting and The Police.
 
ninj said:
I have a bias because the eighties was my favourite decade and I loved Sting and The Police.
Click to expand...
So did I, but Sting was a much better singer and bass player than actor. Though he was pretty good in Brimstone and Treacle.

(I'm thinking we need a movie thread for this, eh)
 
Brimstone and Treacle would be a great Halloween watch. It's edgy...very explicitly and creepily so. I'll give it a pass. Sting was really chilling in his role.
 
Last edited:
"Jemison’s current work shows science-fiction-like breadth and inspiration. The 100 Year Starship project, of which she is principal, seeks to “make the capability of human travel beyond our solar system a reality in the next 100 years,”......

www.smithsonianmag.com

This Groundbreaking Astronaut and Star Trek Fan Is Now Working on Interstellar Travel

Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space, wants us to look beyond Earth
www.smithsonianmag.com www.smithsonianmag.com
 
So apparently 3000 years old, some kind of ball game existed in China. The balls used may even have influenced the Chinese character for "ball". We are, alas, not sure what kind of ball game. The tombs where they were found belonged to horsemen so something like polo, perhaps.

www.scientificamerican.com

3,000-Year-Old Orbs Provide a Glimpse of Ancient Sport

Researchers say three ancient leather balls, dug up from the tombs of horsemen in northwestern China, are the oldest such specimens from Europe or Asia. Christopher Intagliata reports.
www.scientificamerican.com www.scientificamerican.com
 
BetteTheRed said:
Interesting that humans seem eternally needing "entertainment".
Click to expand...
Sports aren't necessarily entertainment, though. As spectator events, yes. But they are also a form of physical training, as the article points out.
 
Did you know that a crab is not necessarily a crab? Apparently the body plan we refer to as a crab is actually a case of convergent evolution (unrelated species developing similar characteristics under similar conditions). So while there is a family of species called crabs, there are also species called crabs, such as king crabs and coconut crabs, that are not actually part of that family but look like they should be. And you have to go a long way back in the history of life to see why different families of crustaceans ended up looking so alike that we have given them the same name.


And I, for one, am not quite as spooked by coconut crabs as he seems to be. They are high on my list of wildlife I would like to see in the wild.
 
For some time now, one of the great mysteries in astronomy has been Fast Radio Bursts, sudden intense bursts of radio waves that vanish as quickly as they appear. Now astronomers have found good evidence for one of the hypothesized sources: magnetars, neutron stars with intense magnetic fields. And the evidence came from an FRB right in our own galaxy.


I think Bob MacDonald is covering this story on Quirks and Quarks today, by the way.
 
ninj said:
Well not so much "Weird" but "Cool Science" and a familiar location @Mendalla
www.smithsonianmag.com

Remnants of Woodland Iroquois Village Discovered in Ontario

Excavations have unearthed 35,000 artifacts, including carbonized corn, ceramics and stone tools
www.smithsonianmag.com www.smithsonianmag.com
Click to expand...
I actually live close to the archaeology museum here in London which is on the site of a 500 year-old village. They even restored couple longhouse. Anyone who thinks history began with Europeans arriving is bloody ignorant.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top