Sentient Concrete

Concrete is the most widely used structural material used on the planet today, but it has an annoying habit of breaking down over time, leading to cracks and pit holes that require repair or replacement.  Until now.  Now we have bio-concrete.  Bio-concrete is a living, breathing, stone capable of self repair.  Born out of an unholy collaboration between microbiologist Henk Jonkers and concrete technologist Eric Schlangen, this self-healing bio-concrete is a living mixture of concrete, bacterial spores, and microbe-sustaining nourishment in the form of calcium lactate.

 

One of the many things known to contribute to the degradation of concrete is exposure to water. However, when bio-concrete is exposed to water the bacteria impregnated in it set to work converting calcium lactate into calcite, which fills in any cracks and holes.  The bacteria is capable of repairing cracks in the concrete up to half a millimetre wide.  This new concrete abomination is now out of the lab undergoing real-world testing and could be on the commercial market in 2-3 years.

 

From The Sarah Jane Adventures, episodes 1 & 2, The nightmare man (a two part story):
At some point in the early 21st century, a sentient concrete disguised itself as a flyover in Chiswick, attempting to control the minds of the populace, before being defeated by Sarah Jane Smith.  In 2010, Sarah Jane used K9 and a piece of the concrete to contact Luke Smith while he was trapped in the Nightmare Man's realm.

 

Now think about how much concrete is in your city, then consider the consequences of all that being alive.  The question is, how long before it attains enough critical mass for the bacteria to form sentience?  Do you think it will appreciate thousands of people walking all over it every day? Your foot path could be plotting revenge against you!  Not to mention the statues in the park.  What's to stop them creeping up behind you in the blink of an eye?  Our downfall won't be by terminator robots it will be insidious masonry blocks.  Mark my words.

 

Codgerspace

Codgerspace by Alan Dean Foster

 

 

Normally I just make a few snark remarks about the book cover, however, this month I have discovered a book that I seriously want to track down and read!  So I'm just going to give you the story outline.

The remains of a leftover cheese sandwich cause all the machines with artificial intelligence to begin to contemplate the universe and search for signs of higher, non-human intelligence. One particular food processor that works at a retirement home on Earth discovers an alien warship that has been buried for one million years on Earth, with the assistance of five of the retirement home's residents.  The Earth, now a combination theme park and retirement planet, is invaded by secret agents posing as tourists and the aliens return to threaten extermination.  The immense ship is eventually airborne with the five retirees and the food processor and readies it's self for combat against both the aliens and the humans.

The toasters are coming!

Predator’s Coming Out

 Oddly the story of Predator starts with Silvester Stallone. Following the release of Rocky IV, a joke was making rounds in Hollywood that since Rocky Balboa had run out of earthly opponents, he would have to fight an alien if a fifth instalment. Screenwriters Jim and John Thomas wrote the Predator screenplay based on the joke, originally with Stallone in mind for the part. Originally titled Hunter, it featured one commando facing off against the alien, taking inspiration from both Rocky and Rambo.  It was picked up by 20th Century Fox in 1985, and turned over Joel Silver and Lawrence Gordon to produce.

 

Silver and Gordon approached Arnold Schwarzenegger for the lead role.  Schwarzenegger liked the combination of action/sci-fi/horror but felt the script would be more believable if it was a team of commandos, so the script was re-written.  Jean-Claude Van Damme was originally cast as the alien, however, on the set Van Damme behaved like a whiny little bitch, constantly complaining that the costume was too clumsy and too hot and he was going to pass out. He also repeatedly winged about not be appearing on camera without the suit. Van Damme was removed from the film and replaced by Kevin Peter Hall.

 

Regardless of how much you liked the movie or not, it is one revelation that will change your whole perspective on the Predator movie and that it: The Predator movie is a gay coming out movie. The alien in the movie represents the characters latent feelings and getting killed by it is a metaphor for coming out of the closet.  I'm not even going to get into how all the guns are handled and fired from the hip.  The Predator symbolises the spectre of the company of mens suppressed homosexual feelings, which is lurking there unseen, waiting to emerge when they are away from their masculine peers.  Arnies character spends the most time with the only woman in the film and consequently is the only one who doesn't get killed by the alien and metaphorically come out of the closet. Covering himself in mud to mask his body heat and hide from the alien he symbolically conceals his true feelings by conforming to match his environment.

 

 

Now try watching it again with that idea stuck in your head.

 

Pleasurable First Contact

Just a word of advice: if you meet an alien from another world, don't go grabbing and pulling any of his appendages if you don't know what the are for.  Even if he does look happy to see you.

Phoenix Five

I've recently been made aware of an extremely low budget Australian Sci-Fi Series called Phoenix Five made in the 1960's.  And from what I can ascertain it's as absolutely as awesome as that sound.  I can't believe no one ever told me about this before, and it turns out it was the third in a trilogy of related TV sci-fi serials.

Phoenix Five has been accused of ‘cheaply going where Star Trek had boldly gone before’, but that acutely does it an injustice.  To understand Phoenix Five you have to first understand the preceding two serials of it's trilogy, The Interpretaris and Vega 4.

The Interpretaris aired in October 1966 and was in production before Star Trek went to air that September.  Filmed in black and white, the Interpretaris was set over 500 years in the future, with the Earth at the centre of a peaceful federation of planets. The title refers to the spacecraft, ‘The Interpretaris’ the flagship of the World Council fleet. The story centres around the crew returning alien specimens to their home worlds while outwitting an evil scientist.

It's interesting to note that The Interpretaris featured a Russian crew member from its start, significantly before the Star Trek series introduced Chekov.  It also featured a cumbersome computeroid (robot) called Henry.  The Interpretaris was not what your would call a sophisticated production but it was decided to make a sequel the following year called Vega 4.

Vega 4 was filmed in colour and featured all new evil scientist antagonist, set on an all new spaceship, the Vega 4, which looked exactly like the Interpertaris, and had an upgraded and improved computeroid called Henry which looked exactly like the Henry on the the Interpretaris.

The third series in the trilogy was Phoenix Five. The same basic formula was applied: the title referred to the spacecraft (which also resembled the earlier model), with a crew of two male, one female and a computeroid (this time called Karl).  The major difference was in the structure. Phoenix Five was not a serial, but consisted of self-contained episodes.

Here's the titles and groovy sound track. Enjoy.

Space Excapade

Les Baxter and his sidekick toast suspicious beverages with suspicious coloured babeliens, while in the background a nice silhouette shows Baxters rocket primed and ready to blastoff.

Judging by his expression, it would appear to be Baxters sidekicks first close encounter with a clutch of multicoloured babliens but seems to be happy to dive right in.  Baxter himself appears to be well versed in alien affairs and appears to already have a bulge in his space suit to the amazement of the yellow babelien.

First Contact Ambassador

In the news recently, the UN has plans to nominate an astrophysicist from Malaysia to act as Earths official "first contact" for any aliens we may have contact with.

See the article in the Courier Mail for more.

Here's a paraphrased version of what Stephen Hawkings has to say about extra terrestrials in his new documentary series:

"With the universe made up of some 100 billion galaxies each containing hundreds of millions of stars, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. To make contact with alien races is a little too risky. A visit by extraterrestrials to Earth would be like Christopher Columbus arriving in the Americas, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."

So there you go, don't talk to strangers. Especially if they come from another planet.

 

But lets not forget the Wow! signal.

Way back in 1977 on the 15th of August, the SETI apparatus lit up with an incoming narrow-band radio signal from outer space. Exactly the sort of signal the system was looking for, a signal so extraordinary that the astronomer on duty scribbled "Wow!" on the printout. the signal originated from the Chi Sagittarii star group, part of the Sagittarius constellation. The signal was over 30 times louder than normal deep space. No terrestrial or astronomical explanation has been found for what caused the signal. Scientist have ruled out satellites, asteroids, meteorites, ground based transmissions, aircraft, and background radiation. The Wow frequency was between 1420.356 MHz and 1420.4556 MHz . This frequency is significant because, hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, and hydrogen resonates at 1420.40575177 MHz, so it’s believed extraterrestrials might use that frequency to transmit a strong signal.

Why is it that no one is seeing the big picture and connecting the dots. At the very moment the Wow signal was received, Elvis Presley was sitting in a dentist's chair being treated for a toothache. Presley returned home from his appointment and died the following morning. Obviously, the Wow signal was received by his fillings, and was a message for him to come home.