Blogs / Science Not Fiction

For those of you who couldn’t make it to San Diego last week, Discovermagazine.com and the National Academy of Sciences’ Science & Entertainment Exchange present our panel discussion on “Mad Science,” featuring Jaime Paglia (co-Executive Producer of Eureka), Kevin Grazier (Battlestar Galactica and Eureka science adviser), Jane Espenson (Dollhouse, Battlestar, Caprica, and lots more), Ricardo Gil da Costa (science adviser for Fringe), and Rob Chiappetta and Glenn Whitman (writers for Fringe).

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).

While you’re waiting for the imminent return of Torchwood, there is an awful lot of John Barrowman on BBC America right now.

Any Dream Will Do is a reality competition for aspiring West End actors/singers trying to land the lead in a new London production of Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  The host is a somewhat subdued (compared to his late night show) Graham Norton.  The judges include Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber himself and your very own Captain Jack Harkness.

Whether or not musical theater reality competitions are your cup of tea, one episode of this show will leave you wondering, “How does the BBC find a dozen talented singers in the UK, while American Idol can only produce one in a much larger country?”

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Tom McCarthy’s novel Remainder has been out in paperback for just over a year now, but it’s one of those books that lodges in your brain permanently after you read it.

Perhaps that’s appropriate. It is, after all, about a man who suffers a traumatic brain injury after being hit on the head by something “from the sky.” He then sets about spending his personal injury settlement on an escalating series of elaborate recreations of very specific memories.

Many reviewers have read the book as an examination of the “pursuit of total control” or of “normalcy.”

Here at SciNoFi, we’re going to argue that it’s a book about neuroscience. After all, it’s brain chemistry, as opposed to conscious thought, that shapes our memories and compels us to return again and again to the activities that provide pleasure.

Or you can just enjoy it as the trippiest beach read of your summer. Either way, it’s well worth your $15 and your time.

Read more about Tom McCarthy here, here and here.