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In the 1979 film Alien, there are two survivors. The hero Ripley, of course, and her cat Jonesey. Anne Billson knows that Jonesy is much more important to the film than most viewers realize. So she wrote the story of the spaceship Nostromo and its crew from Jonesey’s point of view. Here’s a small excerpt:
Nostromo is making hysterical hooting noises and flashing its lights on and off. This is all rather exciting, but as I’m being ferried through the passages and walkways I feel helpless, and would really rather be free to run around. Also, the can-opener is hurling herself around like nobody’s business, so it’s not a smooth journey, I can tell you. Anyhow we roll to a stop, and I can tell straightaway it’s because we’ve run slap-dab into the hairless kitten again. Only I’m not sure I can call it a kitten any more – it’s really big now. Honestly, it’s like a super-giant cat. But since it’s still only a few hours old and clearly hasn’t been housetrained and hasn’t a clue how to groom itself or behave in can-opener company, I shall continue to call it a kitten. Because, technically, that’s what it is.
Later, Jonesey confronts the alien and tries to share the secrets of charming the “can-openers.” From the delightful blog Cats on Film. Link -via Maximum Verbosity
Space Alien Alarm Clock – $13.95
Are you endlessly searching for a way to defeat oversleeping? You need the Space Alien Alarm Clock from the NeatoShop. This fantastic alarm clock is shaped like the iconic arcade game character. The clock makes arcade game sounds and moves side to side when the alarm goes off. The Space Alien Alarm Clock is sure to inspire you to gain control of your sleeping patterns and score big points for waking up on time.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Clocks & Timers.
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What would you think if you saw this thing walking down the street, eight feet tall and full of sinister snarl? Personally, i’d steer clear unless I had a squad of Spartans by my side, you know, like the ones found in the HALO video game franchise? (Thanks for the nerd edit Bearfoot!)
Hit the link and see the process from mere mortal to becoming this amazing alien creature.
Inflatable Alien – $14.95
Are you lonely? Do you wish you had a intelligent life form to talk to? You need the Inflatable Alien from the NeatoShop. Everyone knows that little green men are excellent at dissecting problems. They also don’t mind probing you to find out what is really wrong. Extraterrestrials, especially the inflatable kind, make an out of this world friend.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Inflatable fun!
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Alien Invasion Glow-In-The-Dark Goo – $3.95
How do you make glow in the dark goo even more fantastic to play with? You package it in a jar shaped like a 55-gallon drum and add a little alien figurine. Get your Alien Invasion Glow-In-The-Dark Goo at the NeatoShop.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more highly entertaining Cubicle Toys.
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If we are ever contacted by an alien civilization, would they bestow great knowledge on us or destroy us? A new report explores several possible outcomes to human contact with an alien civilization. What do you think would happen?
The group’s thinking goes like this: From the rate of change of the chemical composition in our atmosphere, the aliens will deduce our rapid expansion and, because of that, possibly view us as a threat, thinking we’ll soon pursue resources on other worlds.
“If [they] doubt that our course can be changed, then they may seek to preemptively destroy our civilization in order to protect other civilizations from us,” the researchers write.
A new book is contemplating how extraterrestrials may reproduce. It aims to explore how sexuality might have evolved on other planets and does so with some interesting illustrations and video. How do you think alien sexuality might manifest itself?
Strange Attractors is a joint effort between Encyclopedia Destructica and the
federally fundedInstitute of Extraterrestrial Sexuality (which is a thing that exists) that intends to explore the variety of ways in which alien species might reproduce. The project is planned to be a series of short films, images and written descriptions that fall somewhere between speculative science, sexual thought-experiment, mockumentary and plain old weird-looking stuff. Where the idea behind this project originated I cannot claim to know, but the fact that it even exists makes me want to believe in aliens.
Our friends over at Geeks Are Sexy has a neat new T-shirt featuring what signage for an alien restroom may just look like:
After light-years of hyper sleep you may need some immediate relief. Ask your pilot to make a quick stop on planet LV-426, and take a look around for the familiar signage.
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Normally riding a motorcycle makes people look pretty cool. However this hog is tricked out to resemble what appears to be a Predator Alien hybrid (the PredAlien). See link for more photos.
Artist Roongrojna Sangwongprisarn made this incredible Alien motorcycle out of spare parts and scrap in a Bangkok garage. And it actually goes!
Is there any movie creature more cuddly than the Facehugger from Alien? Ha! Still, if you want a plush version of this monster, you can make your own Facehugger Pillow Pet with guidance from Kaisei13 at Instructables. Link -via io9
Using Google Mars a viewer thinks he has uncovered a space station or power plant on the surface of the Red Planet. Watching the video at the link a blurred white object comes into view. What do you think the image is?
American armchair astronaut David Martines posted a clip of his trip to the surface of the planet on YouTube. He used the search giant’s maps of the astral body and his video has already clocked up a staggering 58,000 views. David explains how he found the ‘space station’ or possibly ‘power station’ quite by accident at coordinates 71 49’19.73″N 29 33’06.53″W.
At one point or another we’ve all thought about how exciting or terrifying it might be to actually encounter intelligent alien beings from another world. What would you do if you were the FIRST human to make contact with the aliens? This helpful guide outlines a few simple things to remember when you encounter E.T. (Such as don’t call them E.T.). Link
Poor ET will have to wait a tad bit longer to be found as SETI has shut down its Allen Telescope Array due to lack of funding.
Frank Marchis of Cosmic Diary writes:
The future of the ATA may depend of the US Air Force program. Unfortunately, because of the recent federal finance turmoil, no clear decision has been taken with enough time to keep the observatory running. Since April 15, the observatory is in hibernation.
Link | You can donate to help return the telescopes to operation
Max Eddy of Geekosystem rounded up pictures and information about unusual and macabre chess sets, such as the above set inspired by the Alien movie franchise. Facehuggers make appropriate pawns.
You know what would be good to see? A chess set inspired by the chess episode of Lexx.
Link | Photo: Contaminated
Cthulhu
Wacky Wobbler - $12.95
In his house at R'lyeh, wacky Cthulhu wobbler waits dreaming ... to be given as cool Christmas gift. If you've got a sci-fi lover in your family, look no further than this Gift Guide for Sci-Fi Lovers from the NeatoShop:
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I Heart Sci-Fi
T-Shirt - $11.95 (also available as sweatshirt & hoodie)
Link: Gift Guide for Sci-Fi Lovers
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The late fashion designer Alexander McQueen once designed high heeled shoes modeled after the movie Alien. They were a one-off production so, sadly, you won’t be able to buy a pair and wear them to work.
via Great White Snark | Photo: Wicked Halo
Instructables user alexthemoviegeek made this power loader costume from the movie Aliens with just $225 worth of supplies. It’s mostly made from wood, foam, PVC pipe, and pipe insulation. At the link, you can watch a video of the completed costume in action.
blastr has a roundup of detailed LEGO sculptures inspired by science fiction, including Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, and Firefly. Pictured above is a chestburster from Alien, made by the Avro brothers.
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I Want To Believe, The Alien Version – $14.95
Here’s a new T-shirt design from one of our favorite artists, Mike Jacobsen of See Mike Draw. I think there’s amazing potential for alien-version cartoon and movie of our most cherished pop culture icon. I wonder what the Smoking Man would think of this?
Link | More T-shirts by Mike Jacobsen | More Artist-designed T-Shirts
The disappearance of hydrogen near the surface of Saturn’s moon, Titan, could be evidence of hydrogen breathing lifeforms.
There’s some exciting—and potentially confusing—news coming out of the NASA’s Cassini Saturn orbiter program. Two new papers have come out, both dealing with the possibility that alien life could be theoretically hanging out on Saturn’s moon Titan.
Link via BoingBoing
Turn yourself (or anyone you have a picture of) into a Na’vi character from the movie Avatar with the Avatarize Yourself generator! Disregard the part where it says “only in cinemas”, since the movie is no longer in cinemas, but on home video. Link -via the Presurfer
Tribbles {wiki} appeared in a 1967 episode of Star Trek: TOS and returned in the spin-off series and movies. Romulan Whore posted this diagram of the inside of a tribble, and attributed it to the Star Fleet Reference Manual. Since there are quite a few such manuals, I don’t know who the artist is. Link -via Buzzfeed
Webcomic artist Giant Hamburger illustrated this children’s book mashup of Winnie the Pooh and the Alien movie series. Silliness ensues when Pooh mistakes an alien egg for a honey pot! Link -via Buzzfeed
Robosteel is a Dublin-based art studio that builds frightening-looking sculptures out of scrap metal. Pictured above is one in the image of the alien queen from the movie Alien, made from 1,200 pounds of Yamaha motorcycle parts. The artists assert that their inspiration is a simple Picasso sculpture:
Picasso’s sculpture of the bicycle saddle and a handlebar was the first example of a work made from everyday things, using junk or scrap. Like other of Picasso’s firsts this work opened up new possibilities for artists. In this instance – sculptors, who for centuries had employed traditional materials such as stone or wood now instead, many of them began to incorporate junk materials into their work (known as assemblages) or fashion new objects from them. The works are a great example of the inventive genius of Picasso and the ultimate inspiration for RoboSteel.
The H.R. Giger Cake is a creation of Jet City Cakes. The cake is named for the designer who gave us the Alien from Alien. Perfect for the wedding of two avid sci-fi fans, this confection features two Chestbursters dressed for matrimony on top! Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
Scientists meeting for a SETI conference have been told that recent developments in communications technology are rendering the Earth less detectable to alien civilizations.
In the past, TV and radio programmes were broadcast from huge ground stations that transmitted signals at thousands of watts. These could be picked up relatively easily across the depths of space, astronomers calculated.
Now, most TV and radio programmes are transmitted from satellites that typically use only 75 watts and have aerials pointing toward Earth, rather than into space…
“Very soon we will become undetectable,” he said. In short, in space no one will hear us at all.
People will react in different ways to this news, depending on whether one’s vision of alien life is that of a Reese’s Pieces-munching E.T., an all-knowing elder race, a Grey, a Predator, or any of an endless number of other possibilities.
How clueless are bureaucrats of our nation’s school system? They fired an IT worker for installing the popular freeware SETI@Home on school computers, claiming that it’ll take more than $1 million to uninstall it!
The program, known as SETI @ home, uses Internet-connected computers worldwide to analyze radio telescope data in an experiment to find extraterrestrial intelligence.
But Superintendent Denise Birdwell told the East Valley Tribune that the program also bogged down the district’s system and interfered with technology use in classrooms.
Birdwell said it will take more than $1 million to fix the problem, including removal of the SETI software. She says police are conducting a broader investigation.
Quite possibly the best Halloween prop ever.
via UniqueDaily.
On August 20, 1974, scientists at Cornell University and the National Science Foundation used the radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico to beam a message into space. Encoded within the binary digits of the message was information related to the Solar System, our number system, basic chemistry, and human DNA.
1679 digits were used for the message on the presumption that “any sentient being” would recognize the number as the product of two prime numbers (23 and 73), allowing the digits to be then rearranged from a linear binary stream into a graphic format (depicted at left, enhanced with color for clarity).
The message has been traveling through space for 25 years and is not due to arrive at its destination for another 24,975 years. Curiously, however, a reply was received in 2001, in the form of a crop circle near the Chilbolton radio telescope, in Hampshire, UK. The “return message” inserts the element silicon into the vital chemical elements of life, and incorporates an extra strand in the DNA double helix. The size of the creature depicted in the reply is approximately 3’4″, consistent with earthly reports of extraterrestrial visitations.
Those who need help to work their way through the information in the original message will find guidance at the University of Utah’s Physics and Astronomy Department, or at Wikipedia. More information re the reply and its implications at Crop Circle Research dotcom.
Is life on Earth special? Not according to Carnegie Institution’s astronomer Alan Boss. The author of the new book The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets
[Boss] made the prediction based on the number of "super-Earths" — planets several times the mass of the Earth, but smaller than gas giants like Jupiter — discovered so far circling stars outside the solar system.
Boss said that if any of the billions of Earth-like worlds he believes exist in the Milky Way have liquid water, they are likely to be home to some type of life.
"Now that’s not saying that they’re all going to be crawling with intelligent human beings or even dinosaurs," he said.
"But I would suspect that the great majority of them at least will have some sort of primitive life, like bacteria or some of the multicellular creatures that populated our Earth for the first 3 billion years of its existence."
