Invasions From Above

Two news items battling for my attention today: the white chill of nature vs. the white heat of technology.

Invasion 1: It's 8am, the snow has finally descended on the South East, is a few inches deep outside, and I can hear ambulances. Surely I needn't point out that I'm in England, not @home in Thailand, where it's 25ºC and sunny and, guess what, where I'd rather be.

Invasion 2: NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, "to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life." (via mckitterick) Gosh, and I haven't even got out of bed yet.

They're Here

"I've not been so excited about a bacteria since my STD tests came back clean." Re. today's NASA announcement: okay, it's not red dwarfs from Mars, it's the discovery of some mad microbe that utilises arsenic instead of phosphorus. Woah. This is actually big news for our understanding of life on Earth. (via purplecthulhu)

EDIT: As imagined by Stanley Weinbaum in 1935. (Thanx ffutures).

Postcard from Mono Lake

'The Diver' by Storm Thorgerson. In case you were wondering where you've seen Mono Lake before.

2000s SF film

Stranded, 2001, Spain   DIRECTED BY MARÍA LIDÓN
Spain isn't exactly known for its science fiction movies so this isn't the kind of film that leapt off the shelves on its DVD release, and I doubt it's widely known amongst English-speaking SF fans. Telling the story of the first Ares mission to Mars that crashes on the surface and leaves the crew fighting for survival and fighting amongst themselves, it's different from a Hollywood 'Mars' film in that it's ponderous and measured with a reasonable content of understated drama, yet it's notable for it's visually arresting and believable landscapes of the surface of Mars – actually Lanzarote and the Canary Islands. The script flouders around and struggles for realism sometimes, and Stranded is far from being scientifically accurate and it does have a rather inconclusive ending. Actress María Lidón also directed, and the other female star, Portuguese actress Maria de Medeiros, is much better known for her role as Bruce Willis's girlfriend in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Don't watch this expecting action or a perfect story, watch it because it's a good effort, and often visually exceptional at the very least.