Plants in a Bubble

Hydroponics on the Destiny. Image credit.

In Stargate Universe, there is a hydroponics lab (see right). What is hydroponics? you ask.

Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil. Simply put, the necessary nutrients for growth are put in water, and the roots absorbs them without ever touching soil. The Stargate version has the plants growing towards a centralized light source while spinning slowly and watering the roots at the base (which you can see in the image). The water is of course filled with the necessary nutrients. You can find more information on this system here.

The Boston Fern is
named Franklin.
He's cute.

I have more recently been interested in plants, especially the live kind that grow (as opposed to the dead kind that don't). My new(ish) apartment actually gets light during the day, so I have found warm and wonderful spots for my plants. Here they all are in a row, happily out of the snow (left). 

When I no longer have an apartment and am also not living with relatives or in a van (this assumes that I can afford a house at some point in my future), I would like to build a hydroponic garden. I have to get to it before the hipsters, though. My other option (if the whole house thing falls through) is to build an ecosystem in a bottle. I guess I could do that anyway. Look at this guy. He appears incredibly happy. I imagine I would also be happy if I had an entire ecosystem that I could hug.

David Latimer, hugging an entire ecosystem.
Photo credit.

Now, if I were to grow an entire ecosystem in a bottle, I would include fairies. In fact, maybe that's what genies are - fairies trapped in one ecosystem that is somehow contained inside a magic lamp. That is probably why genies are always grumpy - weeds are constantly taking over everything! If you don't believe me that genies are grumpy, read Arabian Nights.

At any rate, until I can afford a house and power tools, I guess I will have to stave off my impatience by growing real plants and doodling pictures of plants. Maybe some plants hanging off of walls, or plants stuck inside bottles (see image to right) or even plants that can fly! Plants that can live in outer space! Plants that are intelligent life forms!

And then, of course, I will share my plant pictures with you. 

Aliens 101

Recently I have been thinking about aliens, and how we create our aliens to be relatively like us in most regards. Take some of the Star Trek aliens, for example: 

This guy, and that guy.

Very humanoid. Along with those are all of the people from BattleStar Galactica and Firefly, aliens from Star Trek and Star Wars, Doctor Who, etc. We seem to like the idea of humans exploring the universe and finding other humanoids. But those are definitely not the only types of aliens the human mind has invented.

There are much weirder aliens...

 Like this giant lump of meat, which is actually an alien (Torchwood) and it's still alive when they cut it up.

And then you have scary.

This is a Predator, which may not be an alien after all, just a human from the future (Primeval). But alien enough by one dictionary definition (unlike one's own; strange; not belonging to one.)

And there are Daleks - they set the bar for scariness, with their insatiable desire to be the only intelligent life in the entire universe and their tendency to exterminate everyone (Doctor Who).

 The Slitheen, who kill humans and take their skin to wear as suits (Doctor Who)...

 The Silence, who make you forget they ever existed when you can't see them (Doctor Who)...

The blue aliens are scary because they seem to be studying us... and yet we can't understand them (Stargate Universe).

There are of course hilarious aliens...

(Men in Black)

And Superheroes...

(Megamind)

(Superman)

And let's not forget the metal aliens...

This is an attacker drone from Stargate Universe, set on autopilot to find and destroy any and all forms of technology that are at or above its level. They escaped, don't worry.

These two are Cylons from Battlestar Galactica. Everyone in Battlestar is technically an alien, but these are not human aliens. Of course, humans invented them...

And the all-famous Cybermen (Doctor Who), not technically aliens, but creatures invented by humans (and made out of humans) usually brought in from another universe or from the future.

And we wouldn't want to leave out a Transformer.

I'm also going to throw a nice alien in, for good measure:

These aliens can morph into anything you want them to be. They are in Star Trek, Next Generation.

And finally, I'm going to leave you with a taste of one of my favourite aliens - the Clockwork Aliens (Doctor Who).

Now, these are probably better classified as alien robots, as they seem to function under only one directive and have no willpower to do otherwise. In that sense, they are slightly terrifying, because they're taking people's internal organs to make their ship function properly, but they're so beautiful! And imagine they weren't evil killing machines - they would make awesome butlers.

This is far from all of the aliens in the fictional universes of Earth, as it leaves out all books and about a million movies and other TV shows, but it's a start.

31 Days of Planets: The Blue Giant

Day 13

A blue giant is actually a star. And it is gorgeous. Watch Stargate Universe.

Since today is the 13th, I felt it was only natural to take a break from planets and do a star. Of course, this star isn't necessarily real...

It looks like this:

When the Destiny (the space ship) was being attacked by bezerker drones, they needed to recharge by flying through a star. So they used a blue giant planet instead of their typical stars. Desperation calls for desperate measures, I suppose.

In conclusion, watch Stargate Universe.

But really, you can read about real blue giants here.

Pictures from Stargate Wiki.