It always annoyed me that jumping into lightspeed/hyperspace/warpspeed made some sort of noise. In space, no one can hear you scream.
You’ve probably heard this fact stated before by your high school science teacher or some killjoy walking out of a movie theater: If movies were trying to be scientifically accurate, there would be absolutely no sound out in space. That means no booster rockets rumbling, no laser blasts during an epic space battle; just pure silence. Space, by it’s very definition, is made up of absolutely nothing. Since sound is caused by vibrations through a medium — air, water, etc. — there’s simply no way for sound to transmit over any distance. Of course, watching almost any action scene from Star Wars with the mute button on would be incredibly boring, so filmmakers usually get a pass for this one.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by ari.
I liked the one about wormholes. The author says they wouldn't work like that, and they're only theoretical anyways. Well, if they're only theoretical, couldn't they work whatever way we wanted them to?
There! FTFY
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html
Basically your skin seems to keep your blood and urine from boiling. After about 15 seconds you pass out from lack of oxygen. A couple minutes later, you are most likely dead.
It sounds like the author's point isn't to point out how terrible science fiction is for not portraying everything right, but is trying to just make people aware of certain facts. I do believe that some of these things could be incorporated into movies without making them "boring". Number 3 and number 2 are good exmaples.
my complaints with the list:
#8. nobody knows
#7. nobody knows/advent of technology?
#3. don't spacesuits inhibit some quick motion?
#1. there are lots of planets with similar gravity to earth, for example, mars. the planets humans go to in scfi shows like star trek, probably don't have crushing gravity, because we don't want to go to planets with crushing gravity.
also star trek explains the proliferation of humanoid aliens.