We are unapologetic fanboys for SpaceX. In the tank. Drinking the Kool-Aid. In fact, don’t be surprised if publisher Andrew Mayne gets a tattoo of the SpaceX logo with “RAD” in the middle.

So there is a reason we’ve collectively marked February 7th, 2012 on our calendars. It will represent the first time a private spacecraft will be launched into orbit and dock with the International Space Station.

Here is what’s at stake:

NASA’s plan for the future. NASA has agreed pay SpaceX $1.6 billion for 12 cargo shipments to the ISS, or $133 million per flight. It represents a dramatic increase in value for the program considering each Space Shuttle launch came with a billion dollar tab per pop.

Private, commercial space travel’s plan for the future. Right now, the money needed to get companies like SpaceX off the ground is in government contracts. If this mission proves out, it continues the trend of creating a safe environment for more investment, which drives prices down, which makes it more affordable for other business entities, which means more ships go up creating infinite possiblities.

SpaceX’s plan for the future. It’s no secret that SX mastermind Elon Musk wants to die on Mars in a hot tub whilst high fiving Doctor Manhattan flanked by a half dozen tittering coeds from Mars University. Or something like that. Considering the breakneck pace that his company is on, this is not as insane as one might think PRESUMING massive milestone moments like this goes well. ISS dock begets manned missions begets long range missions begets warm up the tub!

[Fox News]

The person who uploaded this video swears up and down that the noise made when the zebra opens his mouth is that of the animal and not of he or his friend. I believe him. Because, why not.

Simone Allyne is the Weird Things eBook reviewer focusing on readily available, affordable Science Fiction and Fantasy. If you have a book you’d like reviewed, please email WeirdThingsMail@Gmail

I’ve arrived at that time of the year where I am crazy busy, and as much as I want to read books for my own personal pleasure, it’s just not possible.  Instead my nose is burried in text books or I’m covered in thread from a project that is due the next day.  Oh the joys of being in college and taking hands on classes!

But don’t fret I do have a recommendation for you!  If you love short story collections, then the Uncanny Valley by Brian R. Dennis is a wonderful and thought provoking read. His short stories give you plenty to think about during your holiday vacations or breaks! And hopefully during my own break I can come back and give this wonderful book a full review. It’s certainly a must read again for me!

[Amazon]

Follow your nose! To a sexual partner not beset by disease!

A Russian study found that men dealing with gonorrhea has less attractive smelling armpit sweat than those without, therefore deterring potential mates.

In the study, armpit sweat was collected from 34 Russian men, ages 17 to 25. Thirteen of the men had gonorrhea, 16 were healthy, and five had had gonorrhea in the past, but recovered. The men wore T-shirts with cotton pads in the armpits for one hour, then the pads were placed in glass vials…

The women rated the infected men’s sweat as less than half as pleasant as the healthy men’s sweat. And the women said about 50 percent of men who had gonorrhea had sweat that smelled “putrid,” whereas only 32 percent of the healthy men were described as putrid. And while 26 percent of the healthy men smelled “floral,” just 10 percent of those with gonorrhea were described that way.

Researchers suggest that changes in the immune system could cause the alteration in sweat stink. I like to think of it as Mother Nature’s way of telling women, “Get away from him girl, he nasty.”

[Live Science]

After their selection 18 months ago, the names of the crew that will be sent into space by the People’s Republic of China has been kept under wraps. Until someone put their autographs on a commemorative postmarked envelope and accidentally let it get out.

Whoopsie doodle.

Among those names are two women, one of which might become the first Chinese woman in space. They would be part of a manned mission in 2012 which is all building to the launch of a Chinese controlled space station by 2020.

Below you can find a picture of the second crew to launch into space for the PRC in 2005.

[Collect Space via BoingBoing]

A squirrel has been busted for sneakily setting off a fire alarm after footage was reviewed by school officials.  The squirrel had been living in the cafeteria, but after this little stunt it was captured and kicked out.

“The squirrel was eventually trapped and let go.

“It’s really hard to fine a squirrel, so he got a stern lecture and was released outside,” Henson joked.”

[My Fox Tampa Bay]

How difficult is it to clone one of the most iconic extinct beasts in the history of the planet? Not as hard as you think.

Then again, that depends on how hard you think it is. If you think it’s impossible, it’s going to be quicker. If you think it’s like getting ready for a half marathon, you better recalibrate your patience.

If everything went perfectly according to plan, we could be chilling with Mammoth style within 20-50 years says Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. That is if we can get over a few ethical issues. Like, you know, bringing a long dead animal back from the dark expanse of oblivion in a vastly different climate from what it previously lived and died in.

“There is no good scientific reason to bring back an extinct species,” Poinar said. “Why would one bring them back? To put them in a theme park? Doesn’t seem like a good use of taxpayer dollars to me. Simply studying their evolution, which can be done from old fossil bones, seems far more satisfying to me — but that’s just me.”

“Someone is going to do this eventually, ethics or no,” Poinar said. “And it might be expensive to try and clone mammoths, but how many people would visit the zoo to see one?”

Who would go see a Wooly Mammoth?

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME!!!

[Live Science]

New research has shown the there are specific, consistent patterns that create the illusion of 3D images in our brains. It is created by stimulating specific nerve cells. Researchers created a 2D image designed to excite those nerves specifically and found surprising results.

“We created the images by taking random noise and smearing it out across the image in specific patterns. It’s a bit like finger painting, except it’s done by computer”, explains Roland Fleming, Professor of Psychology at the University of Giessen. “The way the texture gets smeared out is not the way texture behaves in the real 3D world. But it allows us to selectively stimulate so-called ‘complex cells’ in visual cortex, which measure the local 2D orientation of patterns in the retinal image”.

The cells in question read boundaries in images.

[Medical Express]

Sure, alien craft. You think you’re slick kicking it outside of Mercury in your cloaked spaceship? Well you certainly didn’t see a solar flare wave washing over your craft and revealing your planet-sized vehicle for all of human kind to see. Did you? Ya busted.

Or maybe it’s not an alien craft, let us know what you think it is in the comments.

Thanks to Nathan Bliss for passing this along.

[Yahoo!]

A new biography about the remarkable life of film star and inventor Hedy Lamarr tells the story behind her idea that revolutionized the way we communicate today.

Lamarr became focused on defense innovation when a German U-Boat sank a ship of German refugees. Married to a munitions supplier to the Nazis before coming to America, she was well aware of the challenges associated with guiding torpedos to hit enemy targets using radio.

And so, the idea for how to create a more accurate signal that could not be interfered with was hatched.

Her insight was that you could protect wireless communication from jamming by varying the frequency at which radio signals were transmitted: if the channel was switched unpredictably, the enemy wouldn’t know which bands to block.

She later went on to develop the technology with fellow amateur inventor George Antheil. Although it was never utilized by the United States military for its intended purpose, the idea itself has become the bedrock for so many of our most cherished devices. Chiefly, Wi-Fi and cellular calling.

Hedy Lamarr = Awesome.

[New Scientist]

SETI is officially back online, listening to the stars for intelligent, presumably chatty, life.

The project ended a seven month dark period caused when former partner the University of California at Berkley pulled out due to budget cuts. Faced with a world where cries from alien civilizations could fall on deaf ears, the institute decided to ask for public donations.

$230,000 later, we have our ears back to the train tracks.

“This morning, at 6:18, we began re-observing the Kepler worlds,” Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute, said Monday during the Kepler Science Conference here at NASA’s Ames Research Center. “We’re just extremely excited to be back on the air today.”

The focus now as it was before the shut down are alien planet candidates observed from the Kepler telescope.

Welcome back SETI!

[SPACE.com]

Are you suffering from male pattern baldness? Would you like to feel younger, more confident and regain your youthful swagger?

Why not take a note from the majestic bear! Yes, instead of turning to stem cell treatments one Dr. Cheng-Ming Chuong, a professor at the University of Southern California suggests we take a page from how our forrest friends regrow their winter coats.

…a treatment could aim at altering the environment around hair follicles, rather than implanting stem cells within them.

These outside signals that are present in animals are missing in people.

“This extra follicle-affecting factor has disappeared during human evolution,” so human hair follicles are activated only by signals internal to the hair follicle, Chuong told MyHealthNewsDaily.

Unconfirmed are reports that such a treatment would involve snagging a fish out of a moving stream with your mouth. But… you know… it couldn’t hurt.

[Live Science]

John Carpenter’s 1988 SciFi action masterpiece They Live needs to be remade every recession. It’s not a request, it’s a demand. And I have a proposal on when exactly to do it.

We can tie the productions to unemployment numbers. Once they hit a certain point, let’s say 7%, the rights holders commission a draft. The original film was released in November of ’88 (5.4%) but the nation had just come out of a crippling recession which topped out at 10.4% in 1982. We were as high as 7% in July of 1986.

In the film, our homeless hero played by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper makes friends with Keith David while taking a day labor gig at a construction site. It’s through this relationship and the introduction of a friendly vagrant commune that the bedrock of the socioeconomic underpinnings of the story are forged.

Put simply: There is no work. Life sucks. Take what you can get and shut up about it.

In today’s era of 8.6% unemployment. It’s a relatable narrative. A Google Image search for “They Live“ reveals inspired illustrations of both recession presidents. And unlike most stories that attempt to gain sympathy based on the economic plight of the underclass, They Live has a very simple solution everyone can get behind.

Aliens are controlling the planet using subliminal mind control. They use this to hide in plain sight. The rich are getting richer because they are in league with the aliens. We need to break their mind control hold on the proletariat so we can ultimately rise up and kill the aliens.

Class warfare as a justification for violence crass, easy and polarizing to say the least. Human survival as a reason for lethal action is primal, awesome and unifying. Throw in some brilliant creature design and no one can feel bad about Hot Rod murdering random strangers at the drop of a hat. Perfect action premise.

Thankfully, there has been talk of a remake. Unfortunately, it’s rumored to be based specifically of the source material for Ray Neely’s short story 8 O’Clock In The Morning. This has caused quite a stir since producer Eric Newman, who remade Carpenter’s The Thing earlier this year, insinuated that it would not include the iconic glasses which allows our hero to see behind the mind control curtain. More troubling for me, the story also lacks the economic subplot that makes They Live so instantly lovable for a theater full of people that know multiple unemployed people or are themselves without a steady paycheck. It’s also not particularly good.

It would be missing the point. Like remaking The Thing and removing the “the alien could be any one of us” device by constantly separating the alien from our survivors. Oh wait.

According to my proposal, we should have been hiring writers in December of 2008 when the unemployment rate hit 7.3%. Let’s not continue to make this mistake.

They Live is currently available on Netflix Instant. Watch it.

A few “unfortunate bounces” sent a cannonball through a local home after the Mythbusters crew misfired the gigantic projectile for an experiment. The ball missed several water barriers intended to slow it down, was sent skyward and shot clean through the homestead leaving entry and exit holes.

Thankfully no one was hurt.

Which reminds me, did you guy ever heard about the urban legend where a TV show shot a cannonball through a house in Northern California? I wonder if it’s true or not.

[MSNBC]

Bill Munns has made a name for himself in the Bigfoot research community as someone who was granted rare access to the original Patterson-Gimlin Film Roll. The former Hollywood make-up effects supervisor has studied the iconic footage more so than any other crypto researcher. Here he explains why he feels the footage indeed shows a bipedal animal and not a costumed prankster. Also, for the first time 202 rarely seen “lost” frames from the original reel are revealed.

[Cryptomundo]

A newly identified comet is coming home for the holidays. And by holidays I mean mid-December and by home I mean the Sun. So really that first sentence doesn’t mean anything. But a comet is going to graze the surface of the Sun, most likely disintegrating it.

The comet is categorized by astronomers as a “sungrazer” and it is destined to do just that; literally graze the surface of the sun (called the photosphere) and pass through the sun’s intensely hot corona, where temperatures have been measured at upwards of 3.6-million degrees Fahrenheit (2-million degrees Celsius).

We should get some pretty wicked images from the daredevil space racer’s death defying stunt. In the slim event that the comet survives, we might even be able to see it in broad daylight.

[Live Science]