In that spirit, we’re happy to announce DISCOVER’s panel at Comic-Con 2010, in sunny San Diego. If you’re at the convention tomorrow (Thursday) night, come by for a little discussion we’re calling “Abusing the Sci of Sci-Fi.” It will run from 6-7 pm, in room 5AB.

The panel will be moderated by DISCOVER’s Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait, who will talk with five sci-fi movers and shakers about their favorite moments in good and bad sci-fi science. The panelists include two other DISCOVER bloggers: physicist Sean Carroll of Cosmic Variance and NASA scientist and Eureka advisor Kevin Grazier, who blogs here at Science Not Fiction.

These scientists will be joined on stage by three people who actually make the sci-fi happen: Jaime Paglia (producer and writer for Eureka), Zack Stentz (producer for Fringe and writer for the upcoming movie Thor), and Bill Prady (executive producer of The Big Bang Theory).

Related Content:
DISCOVER: The Science and the Fiction, a gallery of sublime and ridiculous science in sci-fi
Discoblog: World Science Festival: The Science of Star Trek
Discoblog: Scientists to Hollywood: Please Break Only 1 Law of Physics Per Movie

Launch Pad 2010 Attendees

Launch Pad is a free, NASA-funded workshop for established writers held in beautiful high-altitude Laramie, Wyoming. Launch Pad aims to provide a “crash course” for the attendees in modern astronomy science through guest lectures, and observation through the University of Wyoming’s professional telescopes.

The workshop’s mission is to:

…teach writers of all types about modern science, primarily astronomy, and in turn reach their audiences. We hope to both educate the public and reach the next generation of scientists.

The person who runs Launch Pad, Mike Brotherton, is a wizard at using sci-fi as a vehicle to teach actual science (or, in his own words, he’s a wizard at funding his own science-fiction habit).  A few years ago he received NSF funding to compile ”Diamonds in the Sky” — an anthology of hard science-fiction stories that also can be used by physics and astronomy teachers as a vehicle to teach real science. Some of the stories are quite good and worth the read. Perhaps we’ll see “Diamonds in the Sky II”  in the not-too-distant future, populated with stories from former Launch Pad attendees!

Launch Pad 2011 and 2012 are funded, and there’s still time to apply for next year!

The con’s website bills it as:

A “con” unlike any you’ve ever attended. Scientists, celebrities and sci-fi writers in a mind-meld of entertainment and scientific exploration. Panels, presentations, and face-time with some of your favorite researchers. If you only attend one ‘con’ this year, SETIcon should be it!

While the guest list includes myself as well as my good buddy and fellow Discover blogger Phil Plait, aka the Bad Astronomer, we are mere bugs in comparison to some of the heavy hitters who will be in attendance–names in the field such as Frank Drake, Seth Shostak, Jill Tarter, and others (including non-planet hunting physicist/Discover blogger Sean Carroll).

SETICon is being held at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara August 13th through the 15th.

If you don’t have  time to watch the video you can read recaps and quotes from the panel here, here, here, here and here.

Big thanks to Jennifer at SEE, to all of our panelists, and to the Bad Astronomer, who found time to moderate our panel while he wasn’t partying with Hollywood starlets (Phil – we kid because we love).

▪ Jeff Smith, whose epic graphic novel Bone is on track to be released as a Warner Brothers movie, spent a year boning up on quantum physics fundamentals for his current comic serial RASL. “I love the new wave of theoretical physics,” he told SciNoFi. “I’m a devotee of Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, and Michio Kaku. It wasn’t a hardship to do the studying.”

The story mixes string theory, M theory and parallel universes with science conspiracy theories. “The glue between them is RASL, an inter-dimensional art thief,” he adds. “You have a guy with thermo-magnetic pads on his shoulders so he can step through parallel dimensions—add a shot of rye whiskey in his gut and he’s ready to go.”

▪ Boom! Studios’ ongoing comic series of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? sold out so fast, it went into a second printing on the same day. It’s not an adaptation—rather, it features the full text of the original story spread across 24 issues. “We wanted to show fans how different the original story was from Blade Runner,” said Boom! CEO Ross Richie. “It delves into topics still relevant today: what does existence mean and if you’re not human, can you be recognized as a person?”

Legendary illustrator Bill Sienkiewicz—a Comic-Con special guest who earned a standing ovation at the end of his solo panel—did cover art for the first four issues. “We’re huge fans of his, so it was an opportunity to work with one of our heroes,” said Richie. Meanwhile, Sienkiewicz was such a hit with the Dick estate, they’re discussing future projects.

▪ Two Radical Publishing projects offer opposing takes on technology dependence. In writer Rick Remender’s and artist Greg Tocchini’s The Last Days of American Crime, the government broadcasts a signal that prevents humans from doing anything unlawful. In writer Steve Niles’ and artist Zid’s City of Dust, police have to adapt to old-school detective work when the technology they’ve come to rely on to solve crimes stops working.

▪ With The Stuff of Life (about DNA); T-Minus (the space race); and Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards (paleontology), Minneapolis artists Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon have forged a cottage industry illustrating comic-style books about science. Their next project is Evolution: The History of Life on Earth (Hill & Wang), written by Jay Hosler, an assistant professor of biology at Juniata College in Huntington, Penn. “All of our books are heavily vetted by real scientists making sure they’re accurate,” says Cannon.

▪ Jimmy Diggs—the “Jackie Robinson of Star Trek writers” who’s written the most freelance Star Trek episodes—just sold his first film, a Gothic horror Western called Sundown. He’s now writing Star Trek: Seven Deadly Sins for Simon & Schuster, slated for publication in March, based on his article in Star Trek: Communicator (the defunct fan-club mag). “It’s the story of seven villains, told from their perspectives, each representing one of the seven deadly sins of man,” he said.  “What intrigues me is how science and technology change the human condition—or how humans make it relevant to their lives.”

—SciNoFi special Comic-Con correspondent Susan Karlin

Is technology a panacea that can deliver man from his own idiocy or a neutral entity used for good or evil and locked the same physical laws as mere mortals? Such are the themes that Snyder tries to mine further in the re-edited version, which hit stores July 21 and includes 25 minutes of additional footage.

“The movie, at its core, is a technological-philosophical exercise,” Snyder tells SciNoFi. “When the graphic novel was originally written, it was influenced by the dropping of the atomic bomb on the Japanese and how it created this modern moral dilemma with the idea that you could kill hundreds of thousands to save millions and whether that was OK or not.

“The specific theme—more in the director’s cut than the theatrical version—is that the technology creates a god-man, and, by proxy, that technology is its own religion,” says Snyder. Yet this god is not above the laws of the universe. “He’s saying free will is an illusion and that he also is a slave to his own way of thinking. ‘Just because I’m a god doesn’t mean I’m not also a slave to the same rules.’” These layered and often contradictory elements of technology—personified by Dr. Manhattan—resonate as much today as when Watchmen was first published two decades ago.

“I was really fascinated with Dr. Manhattan’s revelation that he had lost touch with the humanity of things,” says Snyder. “The idea of technology taking us away from our humanity—we see that every day with the Internet and social networking. You don’t talk to people fact-to-face; the voice at the other end is becoming more and more abstract. Eventually, we may reach a point where they write a program that just responds to questions in such a way that it seems like there’s someone with a heartbeat on the other end. Those are the questions we face as we get more entrenched in technology”

“I think science fiction is the gatekeeper of our dreams of what we can be and where we can go as a people,” he adds. “There is a spirituality in humanity that I hope influences the scientists of tomorrow. You can dig down and take it apart, but don’t forget the ‘why’ of it.”

—Special Comic-Con correspondent Susan Karlin

Gilliam also seemed eager though to move on to a broader discussion of the movie, saying, “The picture is really Parnassus’s picture.”  In the movie, Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is a Methusulan entertainer who has made a deal with the devil (Tom Waits!) that requires him to hand over his daughter on her sixteenth birthday.

It isn’t a stretch to see Parnassus as a stand-in for the director himself, a visionary who has had a famously difficult time working with Hollywood to get his films produced.  Gilliam seemed to encourage that line of thinking.  “[Parnassus] is a man with a traveling show trying to get people to explore their imagination and no one is paying attention.”

Interview audio with Russell T. Davies and Euros Lyn

In the following audio you can listen in on what amounted to a 20-minute chat with David Tennant (The  Doctor, obviously) and Julie Gardner (executive producer and now head of drama for BBC Worldwide)  and five reporters. You’ll here Tennant and Gardner talk about shooting “Planet of the Dead,” the sadness of ending their time working with the Doctor, their futures, and the possibility of Tennant attending the next day’s panel naked. Both are charming, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

(The recording is a little noisy at the start, but on the upside, you’ll get to hear Tennant expressing amazement at all the recorders paced in front of him. Also, you’ll hear a lot of reporters asking questions, but no, none of them are me.)

The Audio Charm of Dr. Who, David Tennant

“I think of Shrapnel as the anti-Star Trek,” says Sagan, who wrote several episodes for the franchise. “Instead of putting aside our differences to boldly go and do great things, I’m not sure that’s the way it’s going to actually happen. Shrapnel is based on the idea that we do colonize the solar system, but it’s not clean and optimistic. The haves are putting the screws to the have-nots. The story is about the last stand of the last free colony in the solar system.”

But moreover it reflects about man’s battle with himself—pitting the thin veneer of civilization against millions of years of evolutionary programming. “Higher levels of technology allow fewer people to do more damage,” says Sagan. “That’s going to be a real challenge for us. There’s a belief that if we branch out into the solar system, if something goes terribly wrong on Earth, we have an escape route. That’s a hopeful idea, but we tend to take our problems with us wherever we go. As a science-fiction writer, I feel my responsibility is to look ahead and see the dangers of what might happen, and try to warn people of the potential pitfalls.

“It’s an understandable criticism that with so much to fix on earth, why are we going off into space? But space exploration brings an appeal to the spirit and sense of wonder, not to mention opportunities to bring enemies together in a joint effort.”

Sagan—actually his voice—is already representing Earth to the universe: His father included his six-year-old voice saying, “Hello from the children of planet Earth,” on a record aboard NASA’s Voyager (aka V’ger).

“Years later high school friends would tell me that because I sent a message to the stars, my family would be spared by invading aliens,” he said. “They asked if I could put them on the list. I’d say, ‘Suuuurre… how much do you have on you?’”

—Guest-blogger Susan Karlin

Surrogates—which opens September 25—features a world where people jack into robotic avatars and send the bots out into the world in their stead (trailer here). Not only was this Venditti’s freshman graphic novel, but it’s publisher Top Shelf’s first credit as a film producer.

“Bruce Willis is one of the few actors who can do the action sequences and personal moments,” Venditti told me during a break signing his novel at Comic-Con. “A big theme in the book is the relationship the main character has with his wife. He’s a police detective who can do his job without worrying about the hazards of his job. He’ll go home to his wife and she’ll only react with him through her surrogate, because she’s uncomfortable with aging. So it’s a strain on their marriage.”

The story (illustrated by Brett Weldele) mines the psychology of wanting to be something than who we are. Venditti got the idea from books on Internet addiction and TV shows like Extreme Makeover and Dr. 90210. But its theme was eerily prophetic.

“What would society be like if there was a technology that enabled us to stay in our homes and send these idealized versions of ourselves to the real world?” said Venditti. “Since I wrote the book in 2002, fans have sent me articles about some of this technology starting to take place,” such as long-distance surgery through robotic arms and electrodes that enable individuals to move items by thought. “Some sociology professors told me the used the book in their classrooms.”

His next project—The Homeland Directive, a political medical thriller out next summer, also from Top Shelf—examines another technology-oriented theme. “Do we live in a time when personal privacy and national security can coexist?” he said. “But that’s as much as I can tell you right now…”

One hopes he’s including a role for Willis—wouldn’t want to freeze out his big Hollywood connection.

—Guest-blogger Susan Karlin

“There was a day and time when authors didn’t worry about making technology work. You just had to have the spaceship work,” said Staffel. “These days, technology is changing at such a rapid rate, that the science-fiction writer has to compete with reality in a way they didn’t before. People also understand technology more so than in the past, so if it isn’t right, the reader will spot it.”

The panelists—Greg Bear (City at the End of Time), David Williams (Burning Skies), Dani and Eytan Kollin (The Unincorporated Man) and Kirsten Imani Kasai (Ice Song)—cited alternative energy sources, environmental decay, eventual development of quantum computing, and man/machine interfaces in military and biotech arenas as technologies with the most impact on society.

“Biotech is transforming everything,” said Bear. “It has resulted in the removal of the middleman between audience and creator. But removing teachers and experts from the throne is not always such a good thing.”

Williams mines the weaponization of outer space and cyberspace, and military application of civilian technology for ideas.

“The only thing that’s cooler than ‘x’ is blowing ‘x’ up,” he laughed. He also noted the acceleration of technology will redefine our lives and ourselves. “In the next few decades, the focus will be less on what kind of energy we have and more on how we use it, what we define as human, and huge segments of the population retreating into religious denial, because technology is coming at them so rapidly.”

In The Unincorporated Man, the Kollins brothers explore the economic implications of technology and true nature of freedom. That story chronicles the last unowned man in a world where humans have become incorporated and no longer own a majority of themselves.

“Economics is the study of how masses of humans behave with a series of rules and using it to predict behavior,” said Eytan. “What happens when you really understand this and can manipulate the human mind?”

“We simultaneously want to be freed by technology, but we are also terrified by it,” added Dani. “And we should be terrified. Technology offers better ways to live and quicker ways to kill. Even if we used technology to create the perfect world, we’d probably screw it up, because that’s the nature of the human condition. It’s in that middle ground that we get to write our stories.”

For research, the novelists relied on science journals, Google searches, and getting the appropriate scientist to vet their writing for accuracy. “A scientist writing science-fiction is still only a specialist in one area,” says Williams.

Even when the science is stretched, it still must adhere to the universe imagined in the story. “Even if it’s excellent research, you only need a nugget of it, because it’s fiction,” says Kasai. “You can create a separate new reality as long as you operate according to the rules of that new reality.”

—Guest-blogger Susan Karlin

Dr. E. Paul Zehr, a professor of neuroscience and kinesiology at the University of Victoria, presented his analysis of the possibility of developing Batman skills at Comic-Con, and he concluded that most of what Batman does can be achieved through long years of training, a fair amount of cash, and the right genetic traits promoting excellent coordination and strength. But getting there will take a long time:

• 3–5 years of physical training (meaning, weight lifting, increasing bone density by punching heavy things, acrobatics)
• 6–12 years of skill training and refining. This is Batman’s wide and deep mastery of numerous martial arts. Zehr showed comic panels depicting batman performing moves from judo, kung fu, and what he called “basic fisticuffs.” He also showed scenes of Batman taking out whole groups of ne’er-do-wells and engaging in long fights with single foes, demonstrating the breadth of his ass-kicking knowledge.
• 6–8 years of poise, experience, seasoning. If you ask me this period could overlap with the start of Batman’s crime-fighting career, but Zehr argues that this still counts as training, and he’s an expert in the field.

So, to sum, that’s a minimum of 15 years, and a maximum of 25 years, before Batman ever hits the street.

And once there, Zehr basically gives him a maximum of a three-year career. Zehr argues that Batman’s life of crime-fighting would just put so much on abuse on his body that he would eventually be unable to defend himself fast enough—too much repetitive stress (like bloggers, but with your whole body instead of a couple fingers), too many concussions, not enough time to heal. Batman goes out most nights, so his body wouldn’t have time to heal. And Batman’s suit wouldn’t be enough to protect him. Even if the suit prevented penetration by knives and bullets, it can’t protect him from the sheer blunt force of the punches he receives and delivers. (“Delivers”? Yes: Zehr had some excellent video showing the stress on the arm and fingers of a punch.)

But what will really limit Batman’s career, Zehr said, is that he can’t lose. A martial artist can lose a bout in the ring and live to fight another day. If Batman loses, he’s dead. Just another reason the citizens of Gotham should be damn glad to have the guy.

The trio paraded out a series of cases: Maximillian “Maxie” Zeus, who thought he was Zeus and above the law; Victor Zsasz, who killed people to spare them from the misery of life; Joker groupie Dr. Harleen Quinzel (aka “Harley Quinn”); and the Joker himself. The charges were your standard supervillain fare: kidnapping, conspiracy, murder, a raft of unpaid parking tickets, etc. The docs broke down the scientific criteria needed to gauge whether each had the competency to stand trial and the nuances between personality disorder and severe mental illness.

Turns out, Gotham and New York forensic psychiatry don’t exactly see eye to eye.

Zeus was deemed delusional because, well, he thought he was Zeus; what’s more, he couldn’t tell right from wrong. Verdict? Insane. Back to Arkham, would-be lord of Olympus.

Zsasz, on the other hand, was deemed delusional but still cognizant of right and wrong. Verdict? Sane. To prison with you, Vic.

(“Did they start them in solitary confinement or therapy sessions?” a man dressed as Nightwing wanted to know.)

Quinzel was trickier. At first, she seemed a clear case for a diagnosis of folie à deux, or “madness shared by two”—when someone hangs with a nutter and becomes one herself. (An animated projection of the curvaceous Quinzel brought whistles from the audience, which prompted a bodacious blonde dressed as Quinzel to stand up and squeal, “Thank you!)

But the expert panel diagnosed Quinzel with dependent personality disorder, not a mental illness. Verdict? Sane; prison.

The big surprise was the Joker. The audience unanimously determined him to be criminally insane—the prototypical Arkham resident—but Kambam asked, “Does the Joker have a legally defined mental illness?”

“He’s got, like, six or seven!” a girl yelled.

Not so fast. Despite the Joker’s extreme antisocial personality disorder, his highly planned scheming and concealed identity to thwart arrest suggested an awareness of right and wrong. “The Joker would not be put in a forensic facility,” Kambam announced, to much surprise.

No, in real life, he’d have gotten his own reality show.

—Guest-blogger Susan Karlin

I took notes along the way, so here are a couple of one-liners and insights to whet your appetite (I was writing fast, so apologies if the video later shows I have the wording slightly off):

 “We’ll have hot robot action.” —Jane Espensen, on Caprica

“We don’t want people saying, ‘Gee, if only we’d tortured him harder.’” —Jane Espensen

“The plant episode. Yeah, that was so bad—and it was so good we didn’t do it.” —Jamie Paglia in response to Kevin Grazier’s idea for a Killer Tomatoes episode of Eureka

“We don’t want to cross over into magic.” —Jaime Paglia, explaining Eureka‘s rule for limiting the technology on the show

“You usually want to start with something very grounded, so that the viewers think they recognize it, and then you want to push past it,” Rob Chiappetta, on the role of science in Fringe

“It’s easier to get creepy and gross with biology then with astronomy.” —Rob Chiappetta

“You’ve never been to any astronomer parties.” —Phil Plait in response

“Kara just lay down in the grass.” —Jane Espensen, on the ending of Battlestar

io9 has more recappage of our panel over here (and their panel was good, too).

Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey is an animated film that makes use of data from NASA’s Cassini mission.  The movie tells the story of Dave, a solar surfing photo who battles his way through the solar system to save the Cassini probe from evil aliens.

Twelve years in the making, Quantum Quest has cycled through at least a couple of voice casts.  At last year’s Comic Con Quantum Quest panel, producer Harry “Doc” Kloor, a scientist and veteran science fiction writer, announced that he had lined up Digimax Inc., a Taiwanese animation studio, as his partner to finish the film.

At this year’s panel, featuring Bob Picardo, Doug Jones andJanina Gavankar, Kloor announced that the movie will see wide release in February 2010 and will include actual Cassini images, including Enceladus and Titan.

This morning, io9 demonstrated that in addition to putting out an awe-inspiring blog every day, they could also put on a mind-expanding Comic Con panel.  With no Hollywood celebrities and just a couple of special guests, our favorite sci-fi bloggers ran through the TV shows, movies, comics and books of the past year that “blew our minds without blowing up any giant robots.”

Here are a few of their recommendations:

Moon -Duncan Jones’s new movie topped the list for both Annalee Newitz and Meredith Woerner.  Like a lot of the works recommended by the panel, Moon explores what it means to be human in a rapidly approaching era where humanity can be technologically upgraded or artificially created (note: this is not a spoiler, the lead character realizes very early in the film that he is a clone).

Julian Comstock – In this novel, Robert Charles Wilson depicts a 22nd century American that has sunk into barbarism and theocracy.  In response, the hero undermines the regime in part through trying to popularize ideas about Darwin in a world that has forgotten about science.

Rest -  What if someone invented a pill that meant no one would ever have to sleep, with no adverse side effects?  Panel guest Bonnie Burton from StarWars.com picked the Devil’s Due comic Rest, which explores this idea and its implications on society, the environment and mental health.

Wonton Soup – James Stokoe’s comic, recommended by Graeme McMillan, investigates what humans would do if they had to be out in space for a really long time.  Apparently the answers are get high and cook alien recipes.

Infoquake – io9 editor Charlie Jane Anders picked a series of novels by David Louis Edelman.   In Edelman’s future, people can hack and upgrade their own bodies and brains, impacting human relations in both the literal and business senses of the phrase.

Jaime Paglia — co-Executive Producer of Eureka
Kevin Grazier — Battlestar Galactica and Vituality science advisor
Jane Espenson — major sci-fi writer/producer: Firefly, Dollhouse, Battlestar, and on and on
Rob Chiappetta and Glenn Whitman — writers for Fringe
Ricardo Gil da Costa — neuroscientist and adviser for Fringe

If you’re convinced, then go to Room 6DE tomorrow (Thursday) July 23rd, 6:00-7:00.

If you’re not yet convinced, consider this: Our panel at last year’s ‘Con was SRO in a 1,000-person room—some folks couldn’t even get in the door—and this year’s panel is studded with even more stars.

For those unfortunate ones who got left behind (like yours truly), don’t mourn too hard: We’ll have the video from the panel posted here soon-ish.

We’ve just heard that we’re going back to Comic Con this summer, with a panel topic and line-up even bigger and better than last year’s event.

We are teaming up with Jennifer Ouellette and the crew at the Science and Entertainment Exchange to produce a panel on “MAD SCIENCE,” i.e. Science as a double-edged sword, ethically and morally neutral in and of itself, but dependent upon who wields it, and how.

Beloved Internet Personality Phil Plait is lined up to moderate (after he gets his tattoo) and we’re expecting guests from Eureka, Battlestar Galactica, Fringe, Stargate: Universe and more.  Watch this space for additional details.

I have been laid low for the last few days by some dreadful lurgy I caught on the plane back from San Diego, but people have been hard at work behind the scenes putting together this edit of the video of our “Science Behind Science Fiction Panel” at this year’s Comic-con. From left to right you have Kevin Grazier (science advisor to Eureka and Battlestar Galactica), Jaime Paglia (co-creater and executive producer of Eureka), Phil Plait (Bad Astronomy blogger) and myself. We talked about how science makes its way into a script, how scientific accuracy is maintained (or not) and the value of retconning. Enjoy!

We also went out for dinner with the Eureka writing crew, including Jaime Paglia and Eric Wallace. For the record, any time you want to go out for a few bottles of Sangiovese and a couple hours of talking about Doctor Who, Torchwood, Veronica Mars, the OC and Friday Night Lights, you can count me in. For the complete inside dope from Eric (including their potentially disastrous Comic Con A/V snafu), go to Eureka Unscripted.

More personal Comic Con highlights after the jump.

Next year’s Quantum Quest movie – the Cassini probe gets deeply weird.

Elsewhere in weird NASA news, an Apollo astronaut claims there has been a massive alien cover-up conspiracy and gets the smackdown from the Bad Astronomer.

Standout t-shirt trend from attractive female Con attendees: “Joss Whedon is my master.”

I may have said this before, but John Barrowman is the proverbial (immortal, polysexual) man. And he also sings.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to have some video from the panel before long: what’s clear is that on Battlestar and Eureka, while making a good show that people will want to watch is obviously their first priority, the producers and writers really do care about getting the science right — which means lots of grist for Science Not Fiction to blog about in the months to come. Yay!

And onto the Torchwood panel:

John Barrowman is totally over the top. If anything, I now see Captain Jack as a toned down version of his actual persona. Sample exchange: “There is a lot of John Barrowman in Captain Jack. And a lot of Captain Jack in John Barrowman… And a lot of Ianto in Captain Jack.”

Another interesting Barrowman quote, “I would love to play Captain America.” Turn loose the rumor mill.

Season 3 of Torchwood is going to be five episodes covering one “very intense” story arc. According to Julie Gardner, “the Torchwood team has never been in this much jeopardy. Bad things happen.”

Filming on Season 3 starts in a few weeks and BBC America inked the deal this morning to carry the episodes.

Batman, being a regular (if insanely fit and wealthy) human, rather than a mutant or an alien, has always had to rely on a collection of gadgets and other machines when battling his foes. In The Dark Knight, Batman relies on a distributed sensor network to track The Joker, an idea which is rapidly becoming science fact. In fact, within just a few hours of watching the movie, I found myself enmeshed in a location tracking network at the HOPE hacker conference hosted by 2600 magazine over the weekend in New York City. (The word “hacker” is sometimes taken to be synonymous with “computer criminal,” but it was hackers who, for example, built large parts of the digital infrastructure of the Internet and the World Wide Web and brought personal computing to the masses.)

The sensor network in The Dark Knight relied making regular cell phones emit and receive precisely timed supersonic signals. This sonar data from each cell phone gets sent to the Batcave, where it is combined to create a detailed, real-time, 3-D picture of the entirety of Gotham City. While the idea that regular cell phones can be hacked to have such capabilities may be pure fantasy, the idea of networking sensors together to create powerful aggregates of data is not, even when those sensors are themselves relatively primitive and distributed haphazardly.

At the HOPE conference, hackers were testing this idea out in practice. Many attendee badges had a low-power radio transmitter circuit built right into the badge. This radio transmitter simply broadcast a serial number over and over. An array of receivers spread out throughout the floors of the Hotel Pennsylvania where the conference was being held picked up the badge’s signal. Each receiver was networked to a central processor. Using data from multiple receivers, the location of the badge could be triangulated. A web site was set up that allowed anyone to see where every badge was at anytime during the conference. Popular talks or vending tables were easily identified as badges clustered around particular locations. New ways to mine the data kept being added on throughout the conference by caffeinated coders, creating rich features from the complex aggregate of simple data.

In the future, even more complex networks may fundamentally change how we interact with the world around us, as the sensor laden terrain becomes “smart.” Some futurists have even predicted that this could be one possible path to the Singularity, a point in time when our technology becomes so advanced that it is impossible for us to even imagine what kind of powers and abilities would be open to us. But here I’m swinging back into the realm of science-fiction–for now.

DISCOVER magazine, the leading general-interest science publication, will host the first ever “Science Behind Science Fiction” panel at Comic Con on July 24, featuring Jaime Paglia (writer and producer of Eureka), Dr. Kevin Grazier (science advisor on Eureka and Battlestar Galactica) and Phil Plait (badastronomy.com).

Since the days of Frankenstein, fiction has looked to science for inspiration, and vice versa from rocket pioneer Wernher Von Braun’s love of Jules Verne to artificial intelligence guru Rodney Brook’s fascination with the HAL computer from “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

But does it work the other way? Does good science lead to good science fiction? With panelists from the scientific and creative realms, DISCOVER investigates how writers, directors, and actors draw inspiration from scientific research, and how they sometimes choose to jettison it in the service of a great story.

The panel will be moderated by Stephen Cass, DISCOVER senior editor and blogger. Stephen’s popular blog, “Science Not Fiction,” follows the latest twists in this wonderfully entertaining, convoluted relationship examining the scientific thinking and creative process behind some of today’s (and yesterday’s) most beloved science fiction shows and movies.

“The Science Behind Science Fiction” panel discussion is at Comic-Con, on Thursday, July 24th, 5.30pm – 6.30pm, Room 6B.

Phil Plait available for media and requests.