This one looks very interesting; from October 10th to the 24th this year the USA Science & Engineering Festival will take place in the Washington, D.C. area. Billing itself as the the country’s first national science festival, it already has over 500 organizations signed up to participate, and will end with a two day Expo in the nation’s capital according to their official blog. This event will give science & engineering groups the opportunity to present themselves to the public with hands-on science activities to inspire the next generation of researchers and developers. The teams involved are wide ranging, and include such diverse outfits and events as the 4H National Youth Science Day, the You Can Do The Cube competition, a presentation from Hollywood Movie Physics, and the Versatile Mr. Freeze from FermiLabs, to name but a few. And yes, you can follow them on a boatload of social media tools, including Twitter.
There are times when the world hands you a new twist on an old favorite. In this instance, it was caused by the mashup between Libraries and the Old Spice adds. One of the variations came into existence because someone read about the Old Spice add campaign response to fans, and created a meme that got retweeted often enough to catch their attention so a response was created. The second instance is even more fun; someone else uses the basic style of the commercial to create a direct appeal for libraries (thanks, Scott). While watching these I kept hearing the chorus to that song; The futures so bright, I gotta wear shades.
One of the more interesting panels at Comic-Con this year was about good and bad science in science fiction TV and Movies. This is the third year I know of this panel has been presented, and they made some great points, as you can see for yourself.
As has happened many times before, and always on a Friday, this Friday is Mars Day at the National Air and Space Museum. Started in 1996 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Viking Landing on Mars on July 20th, 1976, the museum hosts a public gathering of their planetary sciences team. This means you can meet and ask questions of the people who plan the missions to Mars and other planets surrounded by the exhibits, up to and including the director of NASA’s planetary science division, Jim Green. They also have a number of special events, exhibits, and presentations on tap for all age groups, infotainment at its finest.
This isn’t very Sci-Fi or Space Cadet, but it was a wonderful stunt and I just had to include the video; Jewel doing Undercover Karaoke! Thanks to @feliciaday for the heads up on this one!
Yes, tonight begins Season 4 of Eureka, in just a few minutes in fact; if you don’t know what it’s about, check the TechLand Everything You Need To Know About Eureka entry, and be tuned in at the top of the hour!
How could I avoid mentioning it? It is not quite a Sci-Fi con, but some of the same people will be there. SETI Con is a convention centered around the question of where everybody is… everybody that didn’t evolve on this planet, that is. It is coming up August 13th through the 15th in Santa Clara, CA., and will be running four tracks: Main, Science, Education, and Q&A. The panelists and speakers lean heavily to the sciences (with a whole subsection just for the astronauts), but includes Sci-Fi Authors, some of whom are scientists, and Sci-Fi actors, one of whom is also an astronomer. And if it wasn’t already obvious to you, this party is put together by the SETI Institute, and yes, SETI does stand for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Thanks to the bloggers at Discovery for the heads up on this one.