While the situation is quite weird - few icebergs this large have ever drifted so far from Antarctica - it will not end in an iceberg vs. landmass smackdown. As the huge sheet of ice drifts into warmer waters, it will break up and melt. In fact, scientists studying this phenomenon have seen other enormous icebergs, like the one pictured above, reach as far as New Zealand.

In this satellite photo, you can see where the enormous iceberg originated. According to CNN:

Named B17B, [the iceberg is] about 1,700 km (1,056 miles) off the coast of West Australia, according to the country's Antarctic Division.

"B17B is a very significant one in that it has drifted so far north while still largely intact," said Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young, who spotted the slab using satellite images taken by NASA and the European Space Agency. "It's one of the biggest sighted at those latitudes."

Researchers aren't sure whether this iceberg migration is part of a natural cycle, or has been affected by recent climate change.

All I can say is that it sounds like the great setup for an action movie: Giant Landmass vs. Mega-Iceberg!

Satellite photo via AP/Australian Antarctic Division.

The above image is from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite. In the image, you can see the dust rising and heading east in plumes. The plumes then gather into the giant wall of dust that ravaged the east coast of Australia.

Australian news sources report that the dust reached concentrations of 15,000 micrograms per cubic meter in New South Wales. Normally, the particle concentration averages somewhere between 10 and 20 micrograms per cubic meter. It's not surprising, then, that this huge storm so greatly affected people.

The storm shut down flights, forced people indoors, and generally mucked things up for most of the morning. By mid-day, however, the sky was clear again and the storm was over. The Big Picture has gathered some pretty awesome images of the storm, which make familiar eastern Australian landmarks look like they've been transported to the surface of Mars.

Dust over Eastern Australia [NASA Earth Observatory]
Dust storm in Australia [The Big Picture]

George, a bank manager in Sydney, Australia, told a reporter:

I had the window wide open and was lying in my bed next to it trying to get a cool breeze happening. I was drowsy but definitely not asleep. Then I began floating out my window and over Sydney. I wasn't nervous but felt a bit surprised, like what the hell was happening. It was as if I had been sedated, thinking back. I saw the city pass by under or at least felt as if it was and then thought I might have been going over some bush or mountains.

I was on a platform and then on some kind of operating table in a chamber within a UFO, I think. I noticed odd ‘furniture' in the room: if you could call it that- unusual spheres and pyramids. There were beings over me. They appeared to be wearing white robes or togas of some sort. I could not see their faces or any bodily features. Nothing in this UFO chamber looked human. What looked somewhat like a dental or baking instrument was then inserted into my backside and pulled out and put away.

UFOlogist Michael Cohen says that he is confident that the people making these kinds of reports are telling the truth. He says many of them include similar details in their stories, and few of them have had any interest in UFOs before their abduction experience. They are just "regular people" according to him. It may not be clear what's causing the sudden interest in Australians on the part of aliens, but Cohen does have a few words of advice if you want to avoid having baking instruments put into your backside by aliens in togas. He writes:

I make a point of driving past the homes of abductees that contact me. I have noticed other common factors that in no way can correspond to the psychology of the abductees. Usually abductees will live on wide open, boulevard type streets and the window they floated through will face this street. There are never any bars on their bedroom windows. A large percentage of abductees are single men who won't be missed for a few minutes of absence at 3am.

This tells us a few things. The aliens doing the abducting are advanced: but they can't float people through walls. They like to make things easy for themselves. Many ufologists equate the ability to travel faster than the speed of light with the ability to do anything. This might not be the case.

More than anything else the aliens doing the abducting don't want any corroborative witnesses. They don't mind the abductees knowing what occurred but they want to keep their activities otherwise secret. They go to extra-ordinary lengths to this end.

It appears that cloaking technology is used to disguise any bodies floating through the sky and abductions are done in the dead of the night. it is also believed that the entire abduction process is completed within minutes.
Sydney UFO abduction accounts indicate that if you really don't want to be abducted invest in an air-conditioner or a fan. Avoid sleeping with an open-window if possible or install bars. Most abductions occur during Australia's hot summer.

Okay, Australians and tourists, you heard it here first: if you are in Australia in summer, please run the air conditioning as much as possible. Also, avoid proximity to cloaking technology and try not to be a single male at 3 AM. I think that's just plain good advice.

via All News Web

Unsurprisingly, casting Wolverine in the original X-Men movie wasn't a smooth process; the character's unusual attributes in the comics - short, hairy and not particularly physically attractive, yet charming nonetheless, and capable of stunts and animal temper - aren't exactly the kind of thing that would make most actors want to sign on for the role, after all. That didn't stop X-Men writer Chris Claremont from thinking big, however, as he admitted in a recent interview:

Back in the day when we first started kicking around idea, my choice for Wolverine was Bob Hoskins. That was totally late 20th century, and it's not relevant to today's market.

By the time that Bryan Singer was attached to the project, more "relevant" thinking had prevailed, and taller, more attractive actors were being considered; both Mel Gibson and Russell Crowe were offered the role, but both declined (Crowe was apparently interested, but wanted more money to sign on). Soon afterwards, Singer found his perfect leading man: Mission: Impossible II's Dougray Scott.

Sadly, in what was to become a bit of a running theme in his career, Scott became a footnote as opposed to a star when he had to drop out of the production due to M:I2 going over schedule by two months, meaning that he'd be unavailable for the start of the X-Men shoot (Scott was also rumored to be taking over the role of James Bond, following the departure of Pierce Brosnan. You have to wonder if he dreams of terrible accidents befalling both Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig, sometimes). With filming already having been underway for three weeks, Jackman - then an unknown - was hurredly cast in the role, and the rest was franchise history.

(Wolverine wasn't the only character quickly recast in X-Men; James Marsden only became Cyclops when James Caviezel's shooting schedule for Frequency caused him to back out of the movie. Ugly Betty's Eric Mabius was also in the running.)

Oddly enough, casting an Australian as the Canadian superhero was following a precedent set by Wolverine's first non-comic book appearance, in a 1982 episode of Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends:

His altered citizenship continued through 1989's failed X-Men pilot, "Pryde of the X-Men":

Apparently, American casting directors have no idea where Canada is, much to Hugh Jackman's benefit. But at least you now know why Gibson and Crowe were offered the gig.

Baz, you've done two movies now looking back on the past do you think that we'll ever see a new project from you that is your vision of the future?

That's a great question – I don't know about the future but I certainly would do something that is set in a contemporary environment. I might throw everything away that I've done and I think in your work you have to refresh your life, and I intend to do that once I've sort of collected my own self again. But it's a good question, I mean, future work, its been very de rigueur, a lot of it, right? Actually there are a few future-projects.... I think if you address it you have to address it in a completely fresh way. It's become a bit old fashioned. I mean the future has become old fashioned. Now is so much more consumed with it now than we ever have been before.

What would you do to make a look on the future fresh?

It would be about the task at hand, it's only about telling the story. You don't have to take a book off the shelf so much as what do I have to convey, and then you invent out. So it's a job. It's something I wouldn't just guess, you know.

Are there any epic futuristic movie that you would like to do, or make or be attached to?

I can. I'm not gonna say it becase I'm actually thinking about one. It's a few classics. I don't want to go there.

Q: Just a few hints?

No, it's too easy to guess. I shouldn't 've said it, I really really want to do some music work. Because I love music so much, and I move with everyone you know, I mean, Placido Domingo or David Bowie or Missy Elliot, you know and each one of them it's like, to me the music part of it, collaborating on music, it's the holiday part. That's the party part for me. I think now too there are so many musicals being made, I'd really like to make something that was kind of quick and very contemporary actually, to make my life a little more fun.

Would you make another Sunscreen song for the class of 2010?

I'm glad you find it useful. You know what I actually recorded the run-up to 2009 so I'm fresh out of opening titles, but I like music, I like soundtracks, I did a lot of the work on the music for this film, I had great collaborators, I actually, that gentleman over there helped me write a song with Elton John, a finished film, do some lyrics and that was enjoyable, I loved that.

What can you tell me about the significance of the Wizard of Oz in your new movie Australia?

Actually the film and the shape of it is going down the yellow brick road. It's a journey film, the wizard of oz is a journey film, where someone goes on a journey they meet all sorts of characters and they realize that what they're looking for is really inside. And that's parallel in my film but original something against the wizard of oz, but the aboriginal boy he gets the wizard of oz and his aboriginal religion mixed up. And I think that's a beautiful thing in the world when things get mixed up and make something new and fresh. I used the music to, I can't quite tell you, but it's got quite a special plot significance at the end.

So you heard it hear first — Baz wants to work on a classic futuristic movie, or is toying with the idea at least. I'd love to know what you guys think. My wonderful intern Liz suggested Jules Verne-esque remake that focuses on a side plot (and I think she's spot on). I'm all for a Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Baz musical with opulent lights and lush backgrounds.

Panspermia theories often argue that Martian mircobes hitched a ride on an Earth-bound meteor, then thrived and evolved into the life we see here on Earth. But the new findings from researchers at Imperial College London suggest the building blocks of life rather than life itself arrived from outer space. They figure that since the Murchison meteor fell to Earth bringing the molecules uracial and xanthine — precursors to DNA — there must have been a lot of this stuff pelting the planet billions of years ago.

Early life may have needed the space-born material to get started, or it could've incorporated the meteorite bits because they conferred some kind of evolutionary advantage:

Lead author Dr Zita Martins, of the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, says that the research may provide another piece of evidence explaining the evolution of early life. She says:

“We believe early life may have adopted nucleobases from meteoritic fragments for use in genetic coding which enabled them to pass on their successful features to subsequent generations.”

Between 3.8 to 4.5 billion years ago large numbers of rocks similar to the Murchison meteorite rained down on Earth at the time when primitive life was forming. The heavy bombardment would have dropped large amounts of meteorite material to the surface on planets like Earth and Mars.

Either way, it looks like we're made of space stuff.

Source: Imperial College London

The folks at Andrew Maynard Architects explain their project, with tongues planted mostly in cheek:

The age of the outer-suburb is soon to come to an end. Many analysts believe that Peak-Oil will be reached soon after 2011. When we hit Peak-Oil we will not only have no petrol to run cars, furthermore we will no longer have many of the goods we need and there will be huge food shortages as food production and distribution relies heavily on oil based fertilisers which drastically increase yields.

With no cars people will no longer be able to reach the suburbs and hence metropolitan populations will swell as suburban refugees are forced to wander into the cities . . . The suburbs will decay . . . At Andrew Maynard Architects, we have decided to give mother-nature a hand. We have begun designing the first suburb eating robot and we hope to go into production in early 2019. We have called our robot the CV08. In short, CV08 consumes the abandoned suburbs through its front 2 legs. It processes the materials and fires off compacted recycling missiles to awaiting recycling plants. CV08's middle legs and one rear leg follow the front legs to terra-form the newly revealed earth with native Flora and Fauna. Vast stocks of the Flora and Fauna are stored within CV08 in carbonite sleep until they are required to colonise what was previously suburban wasteland.

Over 50% of Australians are currently over-weight due to complete car dependence, a sedentary lifestyle and over eating. With this in mind the 6th leg has been designed to pick up, and apply liposuction to over-weight Australians that have been to slow and unfit to migrate into the denser areas with the rest of the population. As there is no longer a steady stream of oil, CV08 fuels itself with the vast quantities of excess human fat that it finds on its journey through the suburbs.

Really, I cannot convey to you the full atrocity that is this movie. Allow me simply to say that I had to choose between showing you this scene, and showing you one where Travis conjures up some alien soy milk in a box, along with a spiny fruit. Plus, the scenes of the aliens whipping Travis' gay roommate while drooling milk are priceless. As is pretty much any scene where Travis wears his helmet.

Demons in My Head

First and foremost, it is a water tank that collects and stores rain water. It also cools the air in the living room, holds the roof intact, and is linked to an outside tank that keeps extra water needed for flushing toilets and watering the garden. Structurally, it holds the roof intact and separates the giant space into kitchen, living, eating, and work zones. Images by Peter Bennetts

Paul Morgan Architects via Materialicious

Only Randall Whiteis can answer that question. He's the conceptual designer who sketched them, and posted them on the delectable group blog Gorilla Art Fare. Actually, I made up all that stuff about the nuclear power genterators, though. Still, these cool sketches are further proof that Australia is the world's most apocalyptic land mass due to the awesomeness of kangaroo mutants.

See more of Whiteis's work on his web site. Or check out the artist group blog where he posted these cool cyber-jumpers at Gorilla Art Fare.

Australia could be the last refuge in a world plagued by radiation. On The Beach, about a group of Australians waiting for the fallout cloud from a massive nuclear strike to float across the Pacific to kill them, is the most obvious fictional tale in this vein. Written by Australian Nevil Shute, the book was made into a famous U.S. flick with Gregory Peck in 1959. It was perhaps one of the bleakest nuke nightmares of the 1950s.

Australia is going to be the first country with water riots. Climate change has hit Australia pretty hard, and the country has been suffering one of the most profound droughts in its history. In fact, the rainfall patterns in the country have shifted almost completely since the country was founded and built up: the formerly rainy and more populated southern regions are now bone-dry, while the formerly uninhabited and unpopulated northern climes have become suitable for cities and farms.

Mad Max is Australian. OK, nuff said.

Australia is located next to New Zealand, one of the world's most fertile regions for post-apocalyptic stories. Despite living in beautiful Middle Earth, residents of New Zealand seem to have a gift for the apocalyptic. Not only did NZ's fortunate son Peter Jackson cut his teeth with apocalyptic flicks like Bad Taste (alien invasion) and Dead Alive (zombie infiltration), but one of the most disturbing end-of-the-world movies ever made, Quiet Earth, was made in New Zealand. The coolest post-apocalyptic blog in the universe is named after Quiet Earth.

Kangaroo mutants are cooler than all other mutants. Tank Girl is one of the greatest post-apocalyptic comics ever, and features a cute mutant kangaroo-human, Booga, who is the lover to our eponymous hero. The comic includes some great surreal jokes about colostomy bags and the Australian president, which aren't exactly post-apocalyptic or kangaroo-related, but are post-rational. While most fans of the comic hated the movie version, it's actually a pretty fun flick if you set aside your wish to see the more hardcore aesthetic of the comic brought to life.

Animal invasions are a regular feature of Australian life. As we demonstrated a few weeks ago, wild animals going nuts are a basic part of post-apocalyptic stories. And Australia has always had a problem with masses of crazed animals. Rabbits became so difficult to control at one point that a series of gigantic fences, spanning 3,256 kilometers, were erected on the border of Western Australia to keep the bunnies out of farmlands. Also, the terrifying spread of cane toads across the country has become a major problem too.

Vegemite. Any country that invents a black paste of "concentrated yeast extract" to smear on toast in the morning is already thinking apocalyptically.

BONUS: Y the Last Man even has an Australian subplot. Yorick's girlfriend, whom he's yearning to reunite with, is trapped in Australia. The message here? You just can't end the world without bringing Australia into it somehow.