In 1967, Desmond Morris wrote The Naked Ape, a book that described human beings in terms of their similarities with and differences from other apes. In The Human Animal, Morris travels all over the world to examine human culture and behavior, and look for commonalities, or at least common roots across the species. Part one is below (male and female nudity ahead) and the entire documentary is available on Google Video.

[The Human Animal via Metafilter]

To some, Henstridge will always be the half-alien/half-human/all-hottie Sil, but her debut in Species was 14 years ago. Now 34, she's done a lot since then, much of it in the genre arena.

Like her forthcoming Impact, a four-hour ABC miniseries that debuts June 21. In Impact, a spectacular meteor shower hits the moon and throws it out of orbit; it's up to a team of scientists led by astrophysicist Maddie Rhodes (Henstridge) to save the earth from a lunar collision. (Watch the trailer here.) Henstridge called us this morning from Los Angeles to talk about the project.

What appeals to you about science fiction that keeps you coming back to the genre again and again?

Well, I think the science fiction community just supports me, so why the heck not? No, there is an attraction to some of the stories. In this particular case, I just thought it was a really cool story: interesting, educational — and not even fiction at the end of the day, as I found out. I think that kind of curiosity – there are stories that keep you turning the page, stories that make you think "What if?" And that kind of natural curiosity we all have as humans. Whatever it is — in my case, an alien-human hybrid thing, or many other things that I've done — they're just action-packed, they're exciting, they keep you on the edge of your seat, and they're page-turners. So I always find it interesting to see how they'll turn out. And there are great fanbases as well.

What did you find out was accurate about the science behind Impact?

Up in Canada, I was working at an observatory, and I met an astrophysicist, and we went through the script, just so that I could really sink my teeth in, understand more, and know what the hell I was talking about when I was giving these big speeches. Basically, we're just not quite as protected as we like to think we are, and technology is advanced, but it's not quite as advanced as we think it is. We don't have an eye in the sky everywhere, we don't know what's coming, and things like meteors can be very erratic. So we're not as safe as we think we are, and that was very eye-opening. [Laughs nervously]. And that's what makes this movie even slightly possible.

And how plausible was the solution the scientists reach about how to save the earth?

That might be a little more far-fetched. That one I'm not 100 percent sure on.

Are you trying to extend your range now beyond the sexy roles that have largely defined your career? In Impact, you're a scientist in a heavy sweater.

Most people who work at observatories wear warm clothes because it's very, very cold, so that was just based in reality. But I get what you're saying. I feel very, very fortunate to have been able to step away from the sex symbols, the young it-girl kind of place, and to realize — and for people to realize — that I can do other things. That has been a real gift for me, because you get pigeonholed, and then where do you go when you're not 19 and hot, and you're aging? It's inevitable. So to be able to do other roles that challenge me more – I got to play a lawyer on Eli Stone, which was fantastic, and getting to play an astrophysicist, which I admit is a bit of a stretch. But what an amazing thing to be able to play. To get to play these really smart female characters is fantastic, and I just feel really fortunate. I do, of course, try to stretch, because it would be silly for me to compete with 20-year-olds for roles. It's not going to happen. I'm in a different place in my life. It's just great that the business has supported me enough to be able to do that as well.

Are there any sorts of science fiction stories you'd like to tell?

I wouldn't say so specifically in science fiction, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that [I'm fascinated with] cloning. People always ask me if I'm a science fiction fan, and I'm not a huge science fiction fan, but there is something kind of interesting about cloning and what it will do to society. I've read about it, and whenever there's a film or an article in the paper about the latest thing that's been cloned, it makes me think about God vs. science and all of those kind of questions. It's interesting because the planet gets more and more full, and yet we try to find more and more ways to keep people alive. It's all so fascinating. And yet, if it was my child or my mother, I'd want to do the same thing. So there are all sorts of interesting questions that cloning brings up. Can you imagine, "Oh, I'm going to get myself a new heart from my cloned counterpart"?

Can you think of recent films or books that have handled the subject well?

Not really. I'd like to see some things that are really well done.

What else do you have in the pipeline?

I am doing a really interesting series of really small, five-minute episodes of a Stan Lee cartoon, in which Stan Lee and myself will be voicing the two characters. My character is called Charity Vyle. And it's a super cool character. It's a show called Time Jumper. We're going to do about 10 episodes. I'm not exactly sure of the format; I think it's coming out through the phone. I'm with an absolute legend, and I'm really excited about that. My character is actually brilliant as well, as these cartoon characters – I mean, as these comic book characters often are. She knows how to jump through time, and she does that for some very selfish reasons.

Would you say the message of Impact is that international cooperation is necessary to solve global crises?

I think that is the exact message of the film, all the countries in the world working together for one common goal. That's the political, moral message of the film, and I think that's a really interesting part of the film.

Assassinated in the Act

The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross: Some people have a monkey on their back; Ramona Random has a succubus. If Ramona doesn’t have sex, the demon gnaws at her mind. If she does have sex, it devours her partner. It makes her questionable girlfriend material, but a highly effective assassin.

Goldeneye: Bond henchwomen often use their seductive powers to get what they want, and what Xenia Onatopp wants is a good orgasm. Unfortunately for her partners, she nothing brings Xenia to ecstasy quite like squeezing a man to death between her powerful gams.

Worshipping the Queen of Sheba (American Gods by Neil Gaiman): Bilquis, an incarnation of the Queen of Sheba, doesn’t get loving any more from the worshippers who once prayed to her and held sexy fertility rites in her temples. So she maintains her power the best way she knows how: by posing as a prostitute, having sex with her johns, and promptly devouring them with her vagina. Judging by the screams of ecstasy, it’s not an entirely unpleasant way to go.

Getting it on with Alien-Possessed Women

Torchwood “Day One”: Cardiff is ground zero for alien mischief, so when a beautiful woman leads you into the bathroom for some anonymous love, stay on your toes. She might have a fetish for sexy time in the stalls, but she might also be possessed by an alien gas that wants to suck the sperm – and all the energy – from your body.

The Outer Limits “Caught in the Act”: Chaste Hannah wants to wait until marriage before going all the way with her boyfriend Jay. When an alien lifeform takes control of Hannah’s body, premarital abstinence flies quickly out the window as she starts seducing every man on campus. But this isn’t sexual liberation; it’s a hunger for man-meat that goes way beyond genitalia. When Jay starts tailing his suddenly unfaithful love, he discovers that she’s absorbing men into her body during the act.

Death by Snoo Snoo (Futurama “Amazon Women in the Mood”): After all the men died out on Amazonia, the Amazon women devised a method of punishing male trespassers that fulfills the needs of the hetero sex-starved population: Snoo Snoo. Evidently, dying of a crushed pelvis only sounds like fun.

Alien Sex Vampires

Liquid Sky: The aliens who land on the roof of artist Margaret’s loft find human endorphins especially tasty. Initially, they’re content to nibble on the endorphins released during heroin use, but they quickly learn that the orgasmic variety is far more satisfying. So they start murdering Margaret’s partners at the height of their sexual pleasure, leaving Margaret behind to deliver avant-garde monologues in her neon makeup.

Lifeforce: When a beautiful naked woman found imprisoned in the tale of Hailey’s Comet crawls on top of you and starts kissing you wildly, it’s probably not because she thinks you’re neat. It’s much more likely that she’s searching for a convenient orifice through which to suck out your soul, leaving you a desiccated, undead ghoul.

Angel “Lonely Hearts”: Angel & Co. hunt down a demon that kills its host when close to another naked body. But it’s not looking to snag its host’s energy; it’s just leaping from body to body during sex, looking for the perfect body to inhabit forever.

Having Sex with Your Proxy Self (Kaiba): In a future where memories can be stored, traded, and implanted in someone else, having sex with someone who shares your memories can be a form of near-masturbation. But the experience is so intense that it can make your head (and the rest of your body) explode.

Death by Rapid Pregnancy

Fringe “The Same Old Story”: When you’re a human specially designed for rapid aging, and your sperm is similarly designed, it’s best to use protection when sleeping with a fertile female partner. But even condoms fail from time to time, and those rapidly gestating pregnancies tend to kill the mother.

Species II: The same rules apply to men infected with alien DNA. Female alien hybrids can handle nine months’ worth of pregnancy occurring in the span of a few minutes. Female humans just don’t have the wombs for it.

Magically Boinked to Death

Dresden Files: Storm Front by Jim Butcher: When Harry Dresden is sent to investigate a pair of lovers whose hearts exploded in the act, he comes across a wizard who draws his energy from sex and lust. The wizard sent his target a coital heart attack, and her unfortunate partner got his own dose of cardiac overload.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Where the Wild Things Are”: Buffy and Riley’s repeated and enthusiastic lovemaking literally wakes the dead, freeing a crew of sexually repressed poltergeists. Once freed, the poltergeists try to ensure that they’ll have a steady supply of sexual energy by getting Buffy and Riley to continue their round-the-clock shtupping until they die of exhaustion. Fortunately, the rest of the Scoobies come to the rescue with a spell to pry the lovers apart, at least temporarily.

Kryptonite Condom (Wanted by Mark Millar): Perhaps taking a cue from Mallrats’ speculation on how Clark Kent and Lois Lane might copulate, supervillain Professor Seltzer once devised a kryptonite condom to take down his own Superman-like nemesis. Apparently, the hero’s girlfriend never quite got the radioactive rubber on him, leaving us to wonder whether a kryptonite diaphragm would have been more effective.

The Classic Coital Coronary

Star Trek: New Frontier: Vulcans are known for their remarkable stoicism, which breaks down spectacularly every seven years during an individual’s pon farr, during which a maddened Vulcan must mate or perish. But not every Vulcan has the constitution for the intense consummation. The Vulcan Voltak had a heart attack while between the sheets with his new wife, Enterprise Dr. Selar, leaving Selar widowed and throwing off her pon farr cycle.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine “Let He Who Is Without Sin…”: Curzon was a great diplomat and a notorious womanizer. So it’s apt that he irreparably strained himself with attempting the sexual ritual of jamaharon on the pleasure planet of Risa, although he didn’t give up the ghost (or, in this case, the symbiont) until several days later.

The X-Files “Gender Bender”: The alien Kindred lead a life of quiet isolation in a rural Massachusetts community. But when one of the Kindred ventures into the outside world, their intense alien pheromones both attract a constant stream of willing partners and give them coronaries in the throes of passion.

The Tick “The Funeral”: Many superheroes hope to go out in a blaze of glory, felled by some worthy opponent. Famed superhero the Immortal meets his fate on a mattress in Captain Liberty’s apartment, felled by her vagina. Although judging from the pending paternity suits, he died pretty much how he lived.

Powers “Little Deaths”: Philandering superhero Olympia has a similar exit, albeit accompanied by a literal blaze of glory. His alter ego's wife commits suicide over the ensuing tabloid coverage, but the woman who was on top of him at the time gets half a million dollars for the TV movie rights.

1. Give them makeovers.

As the educational film Earth Girls Are Easy makes clear, the easiest way to get an alien to go on an Earth-bound date is to offer him a makeover first. No alien wants to feel like he doesn't fit in at the disco, so have your cute friend (ideally, as cute as Julie Brown) give them a nice depilation treatment and wardrobe upgrade. Then you're ready for a night on the town. And if the ending of this movie is any indication, you'll have your de-furred, long-tongued alien purring in bed with you before the night is through.

2. Tell your alien a sob story about your last boyfriend.

This is really an advanced technique in alien seduction, but it seemed to work wonders for Karen Allen in the movie Starman. A friendly alien has come to Earth and used genetic material from her dead husband to craft a body for himself (that's why she didn't need to offer him a makeover).

When alien hottie asks her to "define love," Karen gives him the whole "when someone you love dies [sob]" number and it totally works! Later on, she takes a tumble with the alien out in nature — and that was back in the day when Jeff Bridges had a really hot body, so score one for Karen.

3. Have a warm body.

Sometimes you don't need a fancy makeover or tale of woe to get an alien babe's attention. The hot alien in Species just wants a warm body, and all you need to do is stand next to her when she strips off her top and shows off her bra. So if you're looking for a Species-style hookup, always remember to hang out in giant nightclubs that are near highly-classified research facilities. Just remember, if she decides not to have sex with you after assessing your genetic material, don't insist on it.

4. Make your alien feel like she owes you something.

Don't let anyone tell you that guilt isn't a good way to get some hot alien action. Look what happens in videogame Mass Effect when you put the old "you owe me something" attitude on. What I'm saying is that if an alien babe wants to thank you, always ask for more. Don't be satisfied with just a few wise words about your leadership or whatever crap. Keep pushing for the old you-know-what.

5. Join a secret organization whose job is to guard an ambiguous "rift" between Earth and vaguely-defined alien stuff.

This is one of those pickup artist tips that almost goes without saying. Obviously the very first thing you should do if you want to meet hot aliens is join a secret organization like Torchwood, from the eponymous TV series that spun off from Doctor Who. In this clip you can see the kinds of things that aliens do with our intrepid agents. The fact is, most aliens are on Earth looking for orgasmic energy and you just have to be in the right place at the right time to give it to them. But if that's too hard for you, well then obviously you'll want to go back to the makeover and sob story options. Or guilt. Aliens just love guilt.

WARNING: Do not, under any circumstances, expect your alien to act like this or like this.

1. Double mouth, or double-wide mouth. (See: Alien)

As the Alien series taught us, there's nothing scarier than a really long, giant toothy mouth — especially if there's a second long, toothy mouth inside it. But the long, toothy mouth rule shows up in a lot of alien movies. In Slither, for example, a guy is taken over by an alien and one of the first things it does is elongate his mouth so that it practically stretches to his ears on one side. (Lopsided elongated mouths are a bonus — lopsided is always scary.)

Corollary: Drool

A scary alien must drool. Again, we know this from the Alien series where the drool flows like water. But since Ridley Scott first gave us full frontal drool in the first Alien flick, drool has been the sign of scary for all aliens. It says "out of control." Now, of course, we cannot imagine any monster without drool. See, for instance, Beowulf, where the monster's drool is one of the first 3D effects. And there's 3D drool coming up in Journey to the Center of the Earth, too. Dinosaur drool!

2. Collective Consciousness (See: Borg from Star Trek)

One of the scariest and most alien things we can imagine is a species that has collective consciousness, or group think. All their minds are connected together like a bunch of little networked Linux boxes, rapidly churning through all that knowledge to figure out exactly how to kill you. Plus, collectively conscious creatures can more easily coordinate an attack, because they are all in mental communication with each other all the time. And they might absorb you — think how scary it was the first time you saw the Borg chanting: "You will be assimilated."

3. Looks Exactly Like a Human (See: Invasion of the Body Snatchers)

Somehow it's scarier when an alien looks exactly like a human, or is camouflaged as one. Even though Men in Black wasn't exactly scary, there was something uncanny when the alien took off its human skin and revealed its true face. And of course one of the reasons Hollywood has remade Invasion of the Body Snatchers four times in the past 50 years (Invasion was the most recent one) is that it's so freakin creepy that the aliens look perfectly human — except for the fact that they have no emotion. We will not, however, speak of the human-camo farting aliens from Doctor Who.

4. Treats Humans the Way Humans Treat Animals (See: Predator)

The infamous Twilight Zone tale "To Serve Man" packs all its punch into one single idea: the aliens have a cookbook ALL ABOUT EATING HUMANS! They look at us the way we look at chickens! The same idea lurks at the heart of popular franchise Predator, where the whole conceit is that the alien has just come to Earth on a safari to hunt human game. Where's the respect? 5. Polymorphous (See: The Thing)

If there's anything scarier than an alien that looks just like a human, it's an alien that can look like whatever it wants. Although the shiny, pretty aliens in Abyss wind up being our friends, they are super scary at first because they can morph into any shape they want. And of course what makes the thing in John Carpenter's version of The Thing so scary is that it can turn any body part into chunks of alien — human heads sprout legs, blood jumps up and runs around the room, people grow dog heads. Whoa. Same goes for the aliens in my personal favorite alien movie, Society, where a bunch of rich Beverly Hills types turn out to be polymorphous creatures who love to have giant orgies where they merge into a big room full of goo and eat humans.

6. Wants to Mate With Humans to Produce Scary Hybrid Offspring (See: Species)

The fear of an alien being who wants to mate with you probably goes back thousands of years, but in terms of current pop culture we can probably trace it back to H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu stories of the 1920s. Remember, one of the scariest things about Cthulhu's spawn is that they are mating with humans, producing strange, fishy-looking humans who eventually go back to the sea. Combining this rule with rule 3 (looks human) is the Species franchise, where a super-hot alien lady goes around humping unsuspecting men for their seed and then killing them in flagrante delicto.

7. Buglike (See: Independence Day, Starship Troopers)

Buglike aliens are a staple of the genre. Even the aliens of Alien are buglike, with their hard carapaces. Bugs are so scary-looking already, and we suspect they may also participate in rule 2, having collective consciousness. In fact, "buglike" has become shorthand (sometimes lazy shorthand) for "scary alien," which is why you see so many depictions of aliens with feelers or antennae on their heads. Bug aliens show up in some of the most generic scifi flicks like Independence Day and Starship Troopers. But there are buggy aliens in more highbrow places too, like the Ender's Game series, where Earth is battling (and ultimately genociding) a buglike race.

• Barbarella: This movie was all about sex, from the opening credits where Jane Fonda strips down in zero gravity, to her encounter with Dr. Durand Durand's sex organ called "The Excessive Machine." Which is basically a piano that plays with your genitalia. It's supposed to kill her, but of course Barbarella breaks it, oh my. She also has super-sci fi sex in pill form, which manages to curl her hair a bit. There's even a character named Dildano, in case you had any doubts about all the sex.

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• Demolition Man: This movie has a scene where Sylvester Stallone gets it on with Sandra Bullock's character through some high-tech sex helmets. You put them on and "think" about sex, so no bodily fluids are exchanged. That way you can do the nasty and stay "pure." Thankfully, it saves us from seeing them writhing around in bed together. A sad Stallone retires to his apartment to knit (no joke), but he gets a wrong number video phone call, so you can still see some boobies. He probably wrote that scene in himself.

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• Liquid Sky: In this 1982 cult-classic, fashion model Margaret has a troupe of tiny aliens following her around and sucking up the endorphins released by the people she has sex with, because that's where they get their fuel from. Must make finding a service station a bit rough. She has trouble hiding the ever-growing body count until the aliens help her out and start vaporizing them for her. Where else could you get a line like, "I bet you $300 I can fuck Margaret and not die!" spoken by a woman?

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• Battlestar Galactica: There's a lot of sex going on in this show, because apparently Cylons are equipped with a horny circuit that's been switched into overdrive. Except for that short, balding guy. We've never seen him try to do the deed. Plus, Cylon's spines glow red during sex, which you think would make detecting them a bit easier than the iffy blood-test solution that Baltar comes up with. Plus, Starbuck gets strapped down and has an ovary removed in a Cylon reproduction farm, which means they're just having sex for the fun of it.

  
  

• Moonraker: James Bond ventures into outer space, has slow-motion fights with laser beams and while wearing a spacesuit, manages to turn Jaws into a good guy, and also gets down with some zero gravity action with Dr. Holly Goodhead. The film's effects are pretty laughable at this point (the space shuttle has LASER BEAMS, for god's sake), but that sex scene made it all worth it when you were ten years old. Plus Q gets off a good one-liner at the end when the Prime Minister video calls Bond to congratulate him and they sex him and Dr. Goodhead floating naked under some silvery space sheets. M says, "What's he doing?!" And Q, staring at a flight path quips "I think he's attempting re-entry!" Zing.

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• Species: Scientists get a message from the stars in this film, and it sounds suspiciously like spam. "Free unlimited fuel now! Ask me how!" They follow the instructions, which involve splicing human DNA with alien DNA, and it gives birth to... Natasha Henstridge. She escapes into the wild with her supermodel good looks, and the fact that she changed her haircut. What a disguise. Even one of the scientists assigned to track her down doesn't recognize her, and they have sex. She's like Clark Kent with that damn hair. Anyhow, she's hot, struts around naked, and doesn't hesitate to kill people who get in her way.

  
  

• Demon Seed: This 1977 film featured a sentient computer named Proteus that also controlled every aspect of the house that his creator's wife lived in. As he begins to go HAL-style crazy, he tells the good doctor's wife that he just wants to have a child, and she agrees! There's some cyborg/robo sex going on, which has to be seen to be believed, including the robot's line "If you prick me, do I not leak?" If your house starts pleasing you sexually, it's either time to move, or to re-appraise your property.

• Sleeper: In this Woody Allen film, Allen mistakenly gets put into cryogenic freeze and wakes up 200 years in the future, where all men have been rendered impotent, except those of Italian descent. Orgasmatron booths are popular destinations, where instead of making a phone call you get off, and "intoxication orbs" are passed around at parties, which appear to make the holder experience sexual bliss. Sounds like a decent future to me, thank god my great-grandmother was Italian.

  

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