Space Station by Total Ghost

I found this piece of weirdness on Boing Boing. I would have totally spaced it if it were not for the comments that came with the video. Seems this music video had been making the rounds on YouTube for a few months without much fan fare until as the Boing Boing corespondant wrote:

• SpaceX founder Elon Musk shouted it out on Twitter. ...it's the perfect theme song for SpaceX

Lake Vostok's Surface Finally Reached

Long time listener Dan pointed me towards this AP article concerning ground breaking achievement by Russian scientists. Lake Vostok at 160 miles long and 30 miles wide, (similar in size to Lake Ontario) is on of the largest of nearly 400 subglacial lakes in Antarctica. Located about 800 miles east of the South Pole Vostock has been locked under more than two miles of ice for twenty million years. Biologist hope that the lake contains unchanged microbial lifeforms that date back millions of years.

Drilling on the site has been on and off since 1969.

Are There Trillions and Trillians of Comets & Asteroids Around the Milkyway's Giant Black Hole?

Just about every day, the black hole at the center of our Milkyway Galaxy flairs uo with a burst of gamma as well as X-ray radios. This here to fore undiscovered phenomena was discovered by the Cnandra space telescope operated by NASA and documented over several years.

Not all the x-ray radiation need come from material falling  through the black hole's event horizon.  Any object that passes withing 100 million miles of  the super massive singularity would instantly be torn apart.  Then it would be torn apart by the gravitational forces. Then the material would then be vaporized by friction bye  the hot, thin gases that are falling into the black hole giant. 

From the article 
Very long observations ...will be made with Chandra later in 2012 that will give valuable new information about the frequency and brightness of flares and should help to test the model proposed here to explain them.

Ok all you liquid fueled rocket engine nuts out there, here is news on the new engine from SpaceX. Here is the video text:

• SpaceX successfully test fires SuperDraco, a powerful new engine that will play a critical role in efforts to change the future of human spaceflight. These engines will power a revolutionary launch escape system that will make Dragon the safest spacecraft in history and enable it to land propulsively on Earth or another planet with pinpoint accuracy. In a series of tests conducted at SpaceX's Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas, the SuperDraco sustained full duration, full thrust firing as well as a series of deep throttling demonstrations.

Review: I Am Number Four

The movie I am Number four is  based on a novel of the same name by author Pittacus Lore which is the pseudonym of writing team James Frey and Jobie Hughes.  Published by HarperCollins on August 3, 2010, the novel spent 7 weeks at #1on the YA slot of The New York Times Best Seller list.

The move stars

Alex Pettyfer            John Smith  #4
Timothy Olyphant    Henri
Teresa Palmer         Number Six
Dianna Agron           Sarah Hart
Callan McAuliffe       Sam Goode
Kevin Duran             The Mogadorians, Commander
Jake Abel                 Mark James

The Wikipedia article does a good job of fleshing out the movie plot.  My take on the film is that it is a pretty standard Terminator (without the cyborg) with a healthy dose of Escape to Witch Mountain thrown in for good measure.  

Number 4 and his guardian are the last few surviving members of a race, called Loriens, that has been decimated by the militaristic Mogadorians.  

The Mogadorians are relentless and so “John” and his guardian are never able to stay in one spot for long.  But number Four after constant running has decided to make a stand in Paradise Ohio.  In the fight that ensues, the beagle who was once a lizard proves not to be beagle either, John is joined by the mysterious number 6 and general mayhem is the rule.  

The end is not quite the happy ending that the director has been telegraphing  for most of the movie but considering that there seems to be a wide open ended plot-line, the ending makes a great deal of sense.  

Director Caruso overseen by Michael Bay manage to bring what for all intents and purposes was a book for young teens and give it main stream appeal.  

The plot is of course very derivative but the acting is far from campy  - mix in really competent special effects and  seamless green screen and you have yourself a very watchable film.

On the Blu-ray side of things, there ARE some extra content available!  No director comments, but we are treated to deleted scenes and bloopers.  Not great, but not bad either.  

I would give the movie a 7 just for being predictable and the extra content the same 7 for some content but lacking in what many of us have come to view as essential content, overall a 7 for the film.