Probing the ‘seven biggest problems facing science’
Vox writers Julia Belluz, Brad Plumer, and Brian Resnick compile the results of a survey they sent to scientists around the world, with the single question: ...
Vox writers Julia Belluz, Brad Plumer, and Brian Resnick compile the results of a survey they sent to scientists around the world, with the single question: ...
A new Kickstarter-funded documentary is coming out about Dr. John Brinkley, the Kansas quack best known for his goat gland operations during the Roaring Twen...
British Pathé, the famous newsreel producer, has released its catalog of film content to YouTube. There’s not a rich backlog of film footage pertinent to pal...
Fascinating article in the New York Times about a new film illustrating the concept of science in art and art in science: “Engineering His Own Vermeer”.
On the subject of Homo erectus reconstructions, here’s a famous clip:
The movie Django Unchained includes a scene in which the antagonist (a rich, white, plantation owner) expounds on phrenology as a justification of slavery. J...
In a world, lost before time, lived an ancient race of tiny people… “‘Hobbit’ Lawyers Threaten ‘Age of the Hobbits’ Movie (Exclusive)”.
The headline of this Guardian story really says it all: “Priceless Tibetan Buddha statue looted by Nazis was carved from meteorite”.
David Swindle, writing at PJ Media about George Lucas’ revelation that Han Solo would never have shot first.
I’ve been unusually busy this holiday week, and haven’t had much time to sit down and write. A reader sent me this death notice for the longest-lived chimpan...
The day has come when you can raise money for a movie by subscription, and here’s an interesting article profiling a project that’s trying to put old-style F...
John Scalzi: “Lord of the Tweets”.
One of the people responsible for the Blair Witch Project is now making a movie about Sasquatch:
Some folks have asked me if I would write a review of Werner Herzog’s new Cave of Forgotten Dreams movie. Now that I’m back from Europe I would love to do it...
How very strange. I was doing a routine Google lookup for “Taung” tonight, and I discovered that the top hit has nothing to do with the Taung fossil specimen...
Cracked.com features “8 Famous Fictional Archaeologists Who Suck At Their Job”.
Does this word not sound like the midnight call of the Bird of Death?
The Guardian is running an interview with Pauline Fowler, whose company Animated Extras has been involved in many film and television projects where apes and...
John Wilkins saw the film Creation and enters a review, which I link because it’s thoughtful and balanced:
Ringo Starr turns 70 years old today. Many are reminiscing about some music group he was apparently part of. As for myself, I will forever treasure his geniu...
Night before last I was flipping channels and Quest For Fire was on one of the cable stations. I did not see it when it first came out but vaguely remember ...
Here are some links that have been piling up in my browser tabs this week:
Mark in Spokane opines about Avatar:
Lawn Chair Anthropology: “Halloween special: Heterotopy, pleiotropy, and the origins of vampires”
From a reader, a comparison:
On the topic of web searching, I just thought I’d point out that when you search for “Homo erectus” on Wolfram Alpha, what you get is stats for the stupid Na...
John Scalzi hits on a formula to get wide U.S. distribution for Creation (the producers are complaining that they can’t find a distributor):
Eugenie Scott watched the Creation movie with NCSE, and posted a review.
That quote is Roger Ebert, in the comments of his post, “The longest thread evolves”. Turns out that when Ebert reviewed Ben Stein’s egregious Expelled last ...
Some dialogue from “Too Many Husbands”, as Melvyn Douglas and Fred MacMurray get on each others’ nerves:
John Scalzi snarks out the design flaws of science fiction movies this week. First Star Wars:
Well, I watched the new trailer for the upcoming Darwin movie, Creation. On the one hand, there’s an awful lot of senseless (and anachronistic-sounding) stuf...
I liked the short article by sci-fi author John Scalzi, “Scifi movies made money before Star Wars, too”:
Today’s sketchbook:
I commented on the movie version of the play, “Homo erectus,” when I heard about it a couple of years ago, in a timeless post, titled “[Tom] Arnold will play...
Jonah Lehrer went in to WALL-E (an enormously entertaining movie) and came out thinking of Darwin’s Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals:
Am I the only one who noticed that the pictures of an “uncontacted” tribe in the Amazon were released the same week as the Indiana Jones movie, in which an u...
The movie, 10,000 B.C., blew away the competition last weekend, with an estimated $35.7 million in US box office receipts.
That’s the last line of this news item about the cast of the upcoming movie, “Homo Erectus: A Caveman Comedy”: