CNN drops space and science

TV Squad puts a sharp tongue spin on CNN's seemingly lack of interest in the sciences

• Miles O'Brien looking for a job.
• The reason? CNN has decided to get rid of their science/tech/environment/space division, because nothing ever happens in science, technology, the environment, or space. The network says that they're getting rid of the division because the "Planet in Peril" series already covers all of that stuff, and they'll just integrate the rest of the science coverage into their regular news. Translation: more cost-cutting in the news business.
  

I could see the writing on the wall many years ago when the networks stopped airing live coverage of the Apollo missions. And I ask ya, when is the last time you saw a shuttle launch live and for more than 5 minutes? Yeah, thought so

Knight Rider now up on blocks?

Looks like I may have spoken a bit early on Knight Rider. According to SyFy Portal's Michael Hinman:

• NBC released its mid-season schedule, and while there is a place for "Knight Rider," its episode order has been cut to just 17 episodes, and it appears the network is not apt to make many more, according to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello.

I based my comments last week on reports that NBC had given "Knight Rider" a full season order just a month ago and left it in the Wednesday slot while putting Monday night shows on hiatus, replacing them with a reality dancing show. But it would seem now that NBC is far less committed to the remake than previously thought.

One funny turn of events did take place durigh the shake up. Again from SyFy Portal

• NBC tried something different in "Knight Rider's" time-slot last week by airing a variety show by Rosie O'Donnell but the ratings for that outing were even worse than what "Knight Rider" was generating, and that show survived just one episode.

Japanese brewer unveils Space Beer

From JapanToday.com

Japanese brewer Sapporo in association with Okayama University biologists, have invented Space Beer created with barley plants grown inside the International Space Station.

Sapporo Breweries has said that it will hold in January tastings of the world’s first beer made with barley..

The barley used in the new beer is a third-generation offshoot of the original plant stored for five months in a Russian laboratory in the station. The company has made only 100 liters of the new brew, named Sapporo Space Barley, which is not for sale. Sapporo says the beer is safe because it has tested microbes in it and did tests with lab animals and Sapporo employees, too. It also says that the space beer tastes just like regular beer.

Scientist research "body swap" illusion

Have you ever wondered about waking up in someone else's body? If you're like me you have read all kinds of stories on this subject - from brain transplants to robot bodies which most often go awry because the "human" part can not come to terms with not being in their "own" body. Or something weird like Heinlein's I will fear no Evil.

I first started hearing about an odd illusion when Swedish researches found that a subject could be "fooled" into believing that someone elses hand or an artificial hand was their own. This was done by concealing the subject's hand and displaying the false limb. The subjects hand was touched exactly at the same time as the fake hand was. The test subjects report feeling as though the false hand was in fact theirs.

In a more recent study. Cognitive neuroscientists at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have succeeded in making subjects perceive the bodies of mannequins and other people as their own.

In the first experiment, the head of a shop dummy was fitted with two cameras connected to two small screens placed in front of the subjects' eyes, so that they saw what the dummy "saw." When the dummy's camera eyes and a subject's head were directed downwards, the subject saw the dummy's body where he/she would normally have seen his/her own.

The illusion of body-swapping was created when the scientist touched the stomach of both with two sticks. The subject could then see that the mannequin's stomach was being touched while feeling (but not seeing) a similar sensation on his/her own stomach. As a result, the subject developed a powerful sensation that the mannequin's body was his/her own.

In another experiment, the camera was mounted onto another person's head. When this person and the subject turned towards each other to shake hands, the subject perceived the camera-wearer's body as his/her own.

RIP: Author Richard K. Lyon

From SFScope online:

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America report the death of member Dr. Richard K. Lyon, on 21 November 2008. Born 22 December 1933, Lyon held a PhD in physical chemistry from Harvard, and held patents for chemical processes. As a science fiction writer, his first story appeared in Analog in 1973. He went on to write a trilogy with Andrew J. Offutt: Demon in the Mirror (1977), The Eye of Sarsis (1980), and Web of the Spider (1981). In 2007, his collection Tales from the Lyonheart was published by Wild Cat Books.

Lyon is survived by his wife and two sons.