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Creepy Robot File: It Jumps!

Handle robot

Handle is a research robot that stands 6.5 ft tall, travels at 9 mph and jumps 4​ ​feet vertically. It uses electric power to operate both electric and hydraulic actuators, with a range of about 15 miles on one battery charge. ​​​Handle uses many of the same dynamics, balance and mobile manipulation principles​ found in the quadruped and biped robots we build, but with only about 10 actuated joints, it is significantly less complex. Wheels are efficient on flat surfaces while legs can go almost anywhere: by combining wheels and legs Handle can have the best of both worlds. By … Read more

SPACE: Fly Me to the Moon

Moon - pixabay

Well, here’s a bit of space news we weren’t expecting: Today, future Martian overlord and SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced that in 2018, the company will fly two private citizens around the Moon in its Dragon 2 spacecraft, carried by its extremely powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. While the voyagers’ names have not been disclosed, according to SpaceX, a “significant deposit” has already been made. “This is a really thing that’s happened,” Elon Musk told reporters at a press conference. “We’ve been approached to do a crewed mission beyond the Moon…[and these passengers] are very serious about it. We plan to … Read more

Disney Fantasy Cartoon Includes Gay Kiss

Star vs. The Forces of Evil

Star vs. The Forces of Evil, a Disney Channel cartoon now in its third season, featured a gay kiss without so much as a boycott by Focus on the Family. The main character, Star, is attending a boy band concert with her main love interest and another girl. While the band sings their song “Just Friends,” Star looks at the other happy couples around her starting to kiss. One of those couples is two men, complete with facial hair to make sure they are read as men. The show does not comment on this. It might not seem like much, … Read more

1 In 3 Americans Would Move To An Alien Planet To Escape U.S. Politics

7 Planets

If it meant escaping the current political atmosphere, nearly 1 in 3 Americans say they’d be willing to leave Earth altogether. That’s according to a SurveyMonkey poll conducted Thursday, which found that 29 percent of U.S. adults would consider temporarily moving to one of the newly discovered Earth-like planets to avoid the next four years under President Donald Trump. The journey wouldn’t be easy. Those seven planets are orbiting a dwarf star some 39 light-years — or 230 trillion miles — away. But whatever it takes, right? By Chris D’Angelo – Full Story at The Huffington Post

ClexaCon to Focus on Queer Women in Entertainment

ClexaCon

Conventions are a popular way to bring die-hard, like-minded fans together — from the star-studded Comic Con in San Diego to the D.C. Awesome Con, which has featured cast members from fantasy/sci-fi shows like “Doctor Who” and “The Walking Dead.” ClexaCon, the first con created by queer women for queer women, will unite a more specific part of fandom culture that has been demanding attention for a long time. ClexaCon is a three-day convention for queer women in entertainment from March 3-5 at Bally’s and Paris in Las Vegas. The name “Clexa” comes from the fan favorite couple Clarke and … Read more

Me Me Monday!

Welcome to M3: ME ME MONDAY at our FB discussion group – your chance to pop in and tell us about your latest success. Have a new book or short story coming out? Let us know. Just sell something? Let us know so we can cheer you on. HOW IT WORKS: I’ll pin this topic to the top of our FB discussion page for the day. –Please post your announcement as a separate post so we can comment on yours specifically –Check out the other posts and congratulate and share them too! And congratulations!!!

ENTERTAINMENT – Alien: Covenant to Feature Gay Couple

Alien: Covenant

The next Ridley Scott Alien film, Alien: Covenant, premieres on May 19, and the 20th Century Fox debuted a five-minute prologue to the film last night introducing the crew which includes James Franco, Billy Crudup, and Michael Fassbender. Also on board the Covenant, a colonization ship on its way to a remote planet to form a new human settlement, is the franchise’s first gay couple (played by Nathaniel Dean and Demián Bichir), and they’re shown here playfully arm-wrestling and sharing a quick kiss while cavorting with the crew. By Andy Towle – Full Story at Towleroad

Glee Actor Chris Colfer Shopping Sci Fi Drama

Chris Colfer

Chris Colfer is taking it upon himself to craft his own TV comeback. The out actor and author has teamed with Sonar Entertainment to develop a pilot for the sci-fi drama Indigo that he would write, direct and star in. ‘Very excited for this! Fingers crossed,’ Colfer wrote on Instagram Friday (17 February). Indigo would be a far cry from Colfer’s Emmy-nominated role of gay high school student Kurt Hummel on Glee. Indigo explores the mysterious world of Indigo children — those who are misdiagnosed but wildly believed to possess extraordinary paranormal abilities — and the dark forces working to exploit their … Read more

Science: De-Extincting the Wooly Mammoth

Wooly Mammoth - pixabay

Did we learn nothing from “Jurassic Park?” A Harvard University scientist told The Guardian this week that his team is only two years from resurrecting some traits of the woolly mammoth, which went extinct during the last ice age. The goal is to create an embryo that’s a hybrid of the woolly mammoth and its closest living relative, the Asian elephant. “Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo,” researcher George Church told The Guardian. “Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits.” Church explained to HuffPost last year that the process involves … Read more