Settle down and watch this incedible award winning documentary animation about the brief life of the humble water vole as it…does ninja…for love…

A live tour of monsters and music from Dr Who, complete with newly shot footage has made me have to change my trousers. Twice. Tickets go on sale tomorrow, as this countdown widget subtly shows…

Thanks to Nicola for the heads up.

The earth can be a pretty pretty pretty impressive thing sometimes, and I am glad to be considered one of its close and personal friends. Seriously, it like texts me at least 3 times a day. This beautiful time-lapse of the recent Icelandic volcano shows us how lucky we have been for so long. Missing a flight is not so bad. Living next to it might cause problems. Hey, at least it didn’t explode, or worse… at least an army of Mole-Men didn’t jump out and enslave the human race. Yet.

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

Many weeks ago I found myself craving the familiar and upbeat tones of Ray Park Jr’s ‘Ghostbusters’. Nothing unusual there I hear myself say. 4 weeks later, and I have been watching as many versions of the song as I can FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER. It almost broke my intimate and life long relationship with the whole franchise. Especially the irritating vintage console versions of which I’ve heard so very many. I really don’t know why. I think I’ve used the internet to stalk a song.

But don’t fear, dear reader, as I have come through that dark obsessive patch a better person, and offer you some of the better findings that I ever managed to find… including electricity, children, a dead popman and a girl with whom I have fallen in love with and married in my dreams…

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Many of you will have already caught Professor Brian “not just a haircut” Cox (yes, he was the keyboardist in D:Ream don’t you know) on the wonder-full ‘Wonders of the Solar System’ recently on BBC;

OK, so that was a parody, but is does capture the charm (or annoyance if you’re grumpy) of the show; smiley charismatic northern chappy telling us how brilliant everything is in the universe is from lots of glamourous locations- only the real thing has a little more science and less swearing. It seems physics is the new rock and roll- or at least friendly 90s pop music circa ‘Now 26′. Mr Cox’s ‘in person’ appearance at Filmhouse Edinburgh this month already sold out (and I would be surprised if he has some groupies). But seriously, the man is very clever in deed, and importantly has an amazing talent for explaining complicated and scary things like they’re really not that scary or complicated at all. We all want to have a pint with him. Apparently, he’s already working on a new show ‘Universal’. Though you’d think they’d get someone from Blur to present that…

I strongly recommend everyone check out the really amazing flash animation by artiste Fotoshop over on newgrounds in which you can slide a scale and see the size of things from the universe itself down to quantum particles, seeing various objects on the way, from stars to humans to rubicks cubes (both solved and unsolved). Not, however, my wang.

I also strongly recommend that I never post a post that mentions my ’wang’ ever again. Hi mum! (Also people who ‘know’ me know that anything makes my wang look small. Stop writing now? Yes please).  

Plants seem to exist in the moral vacuum of existential necessity. Or whatever. I hate plants. If you have 13 odd minutes care to use your eyeballs at the below animation featuring the voice of Whoopi Goldberg. It’s pretty cool, but sad. Like life… only we’re better than plants because we can enjoy the works of Nicholas Cage. Take that plants!!

Descendants from Goro Fujita on Vimeo.

via Cartoon Brew

That grown man is me. Lots of geeky catches for us Doctor fans to argue over… River Song’s return, the weeping angels vs. the military, Daleks vs. mallets, and the Doctor using a gun… to name but afew…  

I really really liked Juno, but this trailer for Diablo Cody’s follow up new film’ Jennifer’s body’ looks like the antithesis of everything great about Juno/a teenage goth boy’s wet dream/crap.

From what I’ve seen, Ellen Page bright, funny and sparky, just like her character in the aforementioned. By contrast let me summarise this interview with Megan Fox re: Transformers;  pout, rub neck flirtily, I like shoes, I didn’t realise I had a character or would have to do anything in this movie so i didn’t prepare, robots sound British, Michael Bay made me hurt myself when doing stunts (which was great) and then would show me my face and say “come watch what you do with your face cos it actually hurt!”, you get lumped in with other girls doing things that are(n’t?) [can't quite tell]- sideways glance to publicist- shedding positive light on young girls. Maybe I’m being unfair so here’s a direct link to today’s press release where she clearly talks about the character development in the new movie and you can decide for yourself. Unapologetic and inappropriate, yes probably true.

Hopefully I’ll be proved wrong by the films complete subversive undermining of the genre itself, spelling the end for the whole wanky goodlooking vampire thing (although I’m guessing the whole Megan Fox/lesbian kiss/cheerleader outfit thing might override, for most of the audience, any postmodernist critiques). And yes, apparently she’d not really a vampire because she actually eats people, making her more of a goodlooking zombie? Which certainly would subvert the reason for zombie films (and what makes them so great).  I just want to SCREEEEEEAM (and not in a good way).

For those of us looking for some subversive vampirical greatness here’s none-other than Jean Painleve’s ‘wildlife documentary’ Le Vampire, 1945 [stick with it till 2mins 53 when Nosferatu appears]. It’s in french so it must be clever (couldn’t find a subtitled version but doesn’t matter). And it has a great jazz soundtrack (the BFI’s DVD has a soundtrack by Yo La tengo). I feel better already.

OK- it’s 40 years today since Apollo 11 took off for the moon landing. Having ‘on the moon’ in our name, and a musical astronaut as a mascot we might as well milk this baby for all it’s worth. Which potentially means 8 days of moon related lunacy…

The Apollo 10 mission was essentially a sort of trial run which took place in May 1969, orbiting the moon within about 8 miles of its surface. Delightfully, the main command capsule was given the All-American call sign ‘Charlie Brown’ and the lunar module, ‘Snoopy’; the Peanuts characters becoming semi-official mascots to drum up support. Charlie’s namesake now resides at Science Museum, London.

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Ok, so this is gut wrenchingly awful but as we hit the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing it’s good to see the story getting press attention, even if it is just to laugh at the 2nd Man rapping about his ‘rocket experience.’ Not even a song this bad can derail the footage of what we humans managed to do when we utilized the technology of nuclear destruction to do something marvelous…

Oh and be sure to catch the ‘making of’ below - where hip-hop’s elite take this piss out of an old man who you know… actually achieved something remarkable. Mind you, Aldrin hangs himself when he claims “I have only two passions; space exploration … and hip hop!”

As a Trek-geek… lets just say Hawking sent me…

Think beyond your box….

Chemistry is cool.

via presurfer and neatorama

Found this amazing time lapse on neatorama.

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

As you can see when the milky way appears we are at the outer arms of our spiral galaxy and it is known that we actually bob up and down like a cork on the water above and below the galactic plane. At the outer extremities of this bobbing our planet is subject to inter galactic radiation that our galaxy usually protects us from, therefore destroying all life on earth. Dont worry though, although I cant remember the exact amount of time it takes for a cycle I know its a huuuuuuge amount and we are presently safe near the galactic plane.