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It’s Friday again. Already. And because we’re all weary of the week’s *wretch-ed* news we’re going to do something different today. Since I was unable to attend the Second Annual Friends of MOTUS Flyover Fest ™(FFF) in Galveston last month, they sent me a commemorative goodie bag just like the one given to all the lucky attendees. My bag finally arrived (compliments of the US Postal service) so I’m taking the opportunity to catalogue all the swag contained therein.First (and long gone), RobinH made professional, homemade sugar cookies shaped like sandcastles, complete with a flag flying atop! At first I...

nuqneH! (hello) Today is a good day to post! Please forgive the vanity, but I just found this and must report it to my fellow Star Trek fans here. I know this is a complete waste of time, but everything has been so serious lately -- possible World War and all -- I thought we needed a break. qaStaH nuq? (what's happening?), you ask. The Bing Translator at http://www.bing.com/translator can translate English into Klingon! The translator was introduced when the last Star Trek movie was released, in partnership with the Klingon Language Institute. buy' ngop! (that's great news!) Go over...

If you have often imagined yourself piloting your X-Wing fighter on an attack run on the Death Star, you'll be reassured that University of Leicester students have demonstrated that your shields could take whatever the Imperial fleet can throw at you. The only drawback is that you won't be able to see a thing outside of your starfighter. In anticipation of Star Wars Day on 4 May, three fourth-year Physics students at the University have proven that shields, such as those seen protecting spaceships in the Star Wars film series, would not only be scientifically feasible, they have also shown...

As Star Trek: Voyager Captain Kathryn Janeway, Kate Mulgrew knew her way around a solar system or two. So there was a certain irony to the actress’ voiceover work in the upcoming documentary The Principle, which focuses on the notion of geocentrism: the idea that the sun revolves around the Earth. But Mulgrew has dispelled the notion that she buys into the documentary’s central premise, writing in a post on her Facebook page that she is “not a geocentrist, nor am I in any way a proponent of geocentrism.” “I was a voice for hire, and a misinformed one, at...

Many first became acquainted with George Takei as “Sulu” on the original “Star Trek” TV series, but for a number of years the actor has been an outspoken left-wing, and particularly gay-rights, activist. On Friday Takei switched his phasers on stun and penned a pointed “Raising Arizona” letter in reaction to the state legislature’s passage of a bill many view as anti-gay. Calling it the “turn away the gay” bill, Takei promised a ground-shaking degree of trouble, including boycotts, if the measure is signed by Gov. Jan Brewer, The Raw Story noted. “Your taxi drivers can refuse to carry us....

It's too late for Leonard Nimoy, but he wants his fans to know that they should quit smoking now. The 82-year-old actor, who's played the iconic role of Spock in "Star Trek" TV shows and movies since 1966, has revealed that he has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from his days as a smoker. "I quit smoking 30 yrs ago. Not soon enough. I have COPD. Grandpa says, quit now!! LLAP" he wrote on Twitter, referencing the traditional Vulcan salutation, live long and prosper. COPD is a disease that makes it increasingly difficult to breathe, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood...

AMAZING USE OF OUR TECHNOLOGY. STAR TREK MEDICINE IS COMING.

Imagine a world where a handheld gadget scans your body and diagnoses illnesses in seconds - reducing hospital visits and potentially saving your life. It may sound like the work of science fiction but engineers in California have taken their lead from the Star Trek franchise and developed a real-life version of the show’s medical tricorder. The Scanadu Scout can read a person’s temperature, heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and more, simply being held against their forehead. It was developed by Scanadu’s CEO Walter De Brouwer, 56, at Nasa’s Ames Research Centre in California. A prototype of the Scout was...

No joke, he actually said this...How ridiculous is this?This ridiculous...(If you know your Star Trek then you'll know an emotionless android, above, when you see one) 

A man named James Kirk will be the captain of the $4bn USS Zumwalt, the first of America's new stealth destroyers. No, I am not making this up.

The Star Trek episode Mirror Mirror illustrates the problem with cultures that solve their problems with violence... perfectly.

NSA director modeled top secret war room to look like the bridge of Star Trek's Enterprise As head of the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, Keith Alexander gave orders from the odd room designed with tax dollars Alexander now heads the embroiled NSA The director of one of America’s largest spy agencies is catching flack for once working from a war room built with American tax dollars to mimic a fantastical space ship. Keith Alexander heads up the National Security Agency and in addition to a lot on controversial revelations about his organization, a recent profile of the top spy...

It could be the last straw for hardcore fans angry at the long-running sci-fi saga's shift into space opera territory: R2D2, the diminutive robot star of the Star Wars films, has been spotted in a second Star Trek movie. C-3PO's canny little friend was first seen briefly in 2009's Star Trek, which saw director JJ Abrams deliver strong reviews and impressive box office by rebooting the series with an all-action approach plus an entirely new cast as the crew of the USS Enterprise. Now the website io9 has pointed out that the droid can be seen being sucked into space...

Today we celebrate the 47th anniversary of Star Trek, as the series’ first episode, “The Man Trap” aired on September 8, 1966. Gene Roddenberry’s “wagon train to the stars” made virtually unknown actors at the time, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei and Walter Koenig, into household names across the United States and around the world.

State agency's website offers Klingon translation Even bureaucracy can't be satirized these days (MCT) If you wanted to ask an Illinois Department of Employment Security professional how to appeal a denied claim — in Klingon — you would say: vaj tem DoQ, chay' Qu' appeal? That means, if my claim is denied, how do I appeal? You can learn how to ask many questions in Klingon — an unofficial language created for humanoid characters in the "Star Trek" television series and movies — on the IDES website. The site offers translations via Microsoft Translator. The current options are Spanish, Polish,...

He played the great Klingon warrior Kang on three versions of "Star Trek" and a Native American on ABC's "Broken Arrow." Michael Ansara, the rugged character actor who played Klingon commander Kang on three different Star Trek TV series, has died. He was 91 ... Born in a small village in Syria to American parents, Ansara starred as Native Americans on two 1950s primetime series ...

(Phys.org) —When a molten material cools quickly, parts of it may have enough time to grow into orderly crystals. But if the cooling rate is too fast for the entire melt to crystallize, the remaining material ends up in a non-crystalline state known as a glass, with atoms caught in place essentially as a frozen liquid. Recently, a group of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) came across an unexpected reversal of this usual sequence of events. After cooling a molten alloy of aluminum, iron, and silicon, they found that glassy nodules of a non-crystalline solid...

The new Ethan Hawke thriller The Purge was number one at the box office during its opening weekend, but critics are slamming the film for its thinly veiled commentary against the National Rifle Association and Tea Party groups. The plot brings moviegoers to the near future where in 2022 a new regime has come to America. The "New Founders" have taken over the country and practically eliminated unemployment crime, and want. One of the ways this new political movement has brought on such an idyllic society is to allow one night a year when any and all violence, even murder,...

As NSA data collection from Verizon Wireless is defended this morning by no less than the office of the President of the United States, actor Wil Wheaton and top Android hacker/developer Koushik Dutta have announced their departure from the carrier. The order in question was revealed yesterday, having originated from the FBI and passed down to the public media by an anonymous source. The order shows how the National Security Agency uses Verizon specifically to mine records of phone calls, numbers, and everything in-between for data. Data such as “unique identifiers”—unspecified beyond that, call length, number of individuals on each...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top official at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service on Thursday acknowledged that it was "embarrassing" how much the tax agency spent on training videos, including a Star Trek spoof, and other lavish expenses during a 2010 conference in California. Faris Fink, commissioner of the agency's small business and self-employed division, told lawmakers the videos, which cost more than $50,000 to produce, were well-intentioned but in hindsight inappropriate. "It's embarrassing. I apologize," said Fink, who played the character Spock in the Star Trek parody that included a tax-themed skit. "I regret the fact that they were made."...