In this week’s links, we’ve got some Star Trek, some Ender’s Game, and some chocolate.  Enjoy.

• David Borgenicht: 7 Life Lessons You Can Learn From ‘Star Trek’ from the Huffington Post.
• Hugo Actor Wanted for Ender’s Game from Sci-Fi Movie Hype.
• With Chocolate at Stake, Physicists Bet on Whether the Higgs Boson Will Be Found from the New York Times.

One hundred years from now, robots won’t only work in factories.  They’ll also make art.  Already, artists in France are using flying robots known as quadcopters to construct some kind of modern art sculpture.  As robots develop emotions, and we all know they will, maybe they’ll find ways to express those emotions through art rather than through the destruction of humanity.  I for one am glad the French are thinking ahead.  Click here for more on robot artists.

One hundred years from now, when you go see the latest art exhibit by Art-bot 9000, you’ll probably drive in a futuristic car that’s more like a modern smart phone. It will have touch screen controls, the exterior will change colors or display text, and it’ll have plenty of other apps.  Toyota recently unveiled a new concept design which could be the first in a long line of smart cars.  Click here for more on that.

And when you drive your smart car off the road because you were too busy playing that classic video game Angry Birds, cybernetic insects will be the first responders to the scene.  Special microchips will control the insects’ brains, and the motion of their wings will generate power for tiny cameras and sensors that will determine if you are alive and how much medical attention you need before the smart ambulance shows up.  Click here for more on cyborg insects.

We have a wonderful, strange future to look forward to, and if you don’t think you’ll still be alive one hundred years from now to enjoy it, click here.

Does your seafood seem fishy?  Well, the FDA has approved a new technique to double check that your seafood is what the label says it is.  Restaurants will soon begin using a DNA bar code test to verify the species of any fish on their menus.

Maybe some day we can use a similar technique to verify that our Soylent Green is made of real people, not imitation people.

Click here for more on DNA bar coding for fish.

You may remember a recent experiment where neutrinos appeared to travel faster than light.  Well, they did the experiment again, and the neutrinos did it again.  Whatever is going on, it may be the first hint at a new kind of physics.  Or maybe there’s a sci-fi rift in space and time right in the middle of Europe.

Here are this week’s sciency links.

• Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos: OPERA Confirms and Submits Results, But Unease Remains from Science Insider.
• UFO, Aliens, Alien Abduction Cases, Are They Real from Educating Humanity.
• Tech Beat: Museum looks at future of space exploration from Your News Now.
• International Scientists Race to Create the Heaviest Element in the Universe from Popular Science.
• Mars Rover Finds a Turkey Haven for the Holiday from UniGalactic Space Travel Magazine.
• What’s on Leonardo daVinci’s “To-Do” list? from Boing Boing.

How small can animals get?  Researchers have been studying the fairy wasp, one of the smallest animals on Earth, and found that the wasps have made some sacrifices in order to be so small.  The cells that make up their brains and nervous systems are missing some parts (to be specific, they’re missing nuclei).

So shrinking people, like in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, might not be a good idea.  It’s certainly possible to discard parts of your brain cells and remain alive—the fairy wasp proves that—but would you still be the same person?

Fantastic Voyage by Isaac Asimov solved this problem by explaining that shrunken people are actually made of tiny, shrunken atoms.  Regularly sized atoms are full of empty space, and since they’re government by quantum mechanics they’re prone to weird behavior anyway, so this weird atom shrinking idea makes some sense.

Obviously the wasps are doing fine with their minimalist brain cells, and once again this proves just how flexible life can be.  You can even make wasps smaller than single celled organisms.

Science fiction fans know a lot about Mars.  Fans of H.G. Wells know there is life there, watching us keenly and closely with far greater intelligence than man’s.  Fans of Doctor Who know not to drink Martian water.  Fans of really bad B-movies know the bad guys of Mars are no match for Santa Claus (if you haven’t heard about this movie before, you need to click here).

Source: Hubblesite.org

Scientists are finally catching up.  Mars, they once said, is too harsh an environment for life to exist.  It doesn’t have liquid water. It doesn’t have any protection from cosmic radiation. It doesn’t have the carbon compounds needed for life as we know it.

Now they aren’t so sure.  They’ve found evidence of liquid water, and maybe that excess radiation from space isn’t so bad after all.  It is possible, they say, for microbial life to exist on Mars (which is why you shouldn’t drink the water).  As for those carbon compounds… a new probe is scheduled to launch this weekend to check on that.

The Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity Rover, is the biggest, most sophisticated machine ever sent to Mars.  It’s the size of a car, carries ten different scientific instruments, and NASA says it has enough plutonium fuel to keep it running for at least two years… probably more.  It will land in a place called Gale Crater, where it will examine exposed layers of ancient rock and search for organic compounds in Martian soil.

No doubt Curiosity will find evidence of what we Sci-Fi fans and Santa Claus already know: there is life on Mars… life that apparently doesn’t know the true meaning of Christmas.

Links

• An article about Curiosity from Space.com.
• The 7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars from Space.com.
• A topographical map of Curiosity’s landing site from NASA.

The sad news is that Russia’s mission to Mars is still stuck in Earth orbit.  The good news is that next week, NASA is sending its own rover to Mars.  Hopefully that one will work okay.

Here are this week’s sciency links.

• Angry Bird Rides Soyuz Rocket to the International Space Station from Angry Birds Nest.
• Psychedelic Saturn Storm! from Bad Astronomy Blog.
• Most Popular Skywatching Misconceptions Explained from Space.com.
• Russia Mars Probe Considered Lost: Report from Mars Daily.
• Mars Exploration Program: New NASA Missions to Investigate How Mars Turned Hostile from NASA’s Mars Exploration Program.
• NASA Probe Data Show Liquid Water Evidence on Europa from the International Space Fellowship.
• In NASA’s New Budget: Webb Telescope Stays Alive, But Commercial Spaceflight Takes a Hit from Popular Science.