Category Evolution

Jul 19 2012

A Hole In Mars

What created this unusual hole in Mars? The hole was discovered by chance on images of the dusty slopes of Mars’ Pavonis Mons volcano taken by the HiRISE instrument aboard the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently circling Mars. The hole appears to be an opening to an underground cavern, partly illuminated on the image right. Analysis of this and follow-up images revealed the opening to be about 35 meters across, while the interior shadow angle indicates that the underlying cavern is roughly 20 meters deep. Why there is a circular crater surrounding this hole remains a topic of speculation, as is the full extent of the underlying cavern. Holes such as this are of particular interest because their interior caves are relatively protected from the harsh surface of Mars, making them relatively good candidates to contain Martian life. These pits are therefore prime targets for possible future spacecraft, robots, and even human interplanetary explorers. –LINK–

Jul 7 2012

10 Strange Futurist Scenarios for Human Evolution

When science fiction writers and futurists imagine humans of the far future, they never think our descendants are going to look exactly the same as we do now. After all, we’ll have access to powerful tools to turn us into cyborgs and hack our DNA, so there’s no limit to how we could reinvent ourselves. But just how weird could our progeny become? Here are 10 of the absolute strangest visions of our post-human future.

Jul 7 2012

Govt Adviser: Aliens Might be JellyFish W/ Orange Butts

Forget little green men. Aliens may look like giant jellyfish with orange bottoms, a leading space scientist has claimed.

Maggie Aderin-Pocock, a satellite expert and government adviser, said it is likely that there is extra-terrestrial life – it is just more alien than you’d imagine.

Rather than being the little green men so beloved of Hollywood directors, they may look like football-field sized jellyfish, complete with onion-shaped appendages and an orange underbelly or bottom.

Generated from silicon, rather than the carbon that is the basis of life as we know it, the creatures are able to live off light absorbed through their ‘skin’ and chemicals sucked in through their giant mouths.

Jul 4 2012

The Flintstones Takes Place in a Post-Apocalyptic Future?

For many of us, The Flintstones were our go-to source of facts and information about the Stone Age. But could it be that this beloved cartoon classic isn’t an accurate depiction of the Stone Age at all? Could it, in fact, be set in a post-apocalyptic future wasteland that’s been “bombed back to the Stone Age” for real? Let’s investigate.

Jul 1 2012

Vintage Circus Sideshow Acts

Freaky but fascinating these vintage photographs reveal circus sideshow acts in all their glory. Photographer Charles Eisenmann followed performers in the mid-1800s in New York City and offered to shoot their portraits so they could tout for business. The freak show was popular with the lower classes, causing ‘dime museums’ to spring up in some of the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods.

As science improved and led to many of the ‘freaks’ physical differences being explained as genetic mutation or disease, the sideshow fell into decline as the individuals were treated with compassion and sympathy instead of fear and disgust. VIA: –THE PRESURFER–