Scientific American Nov 2007

The November issue of Scientific American is out and I have read it. As usual, a lot of great content. I've always been a fan of Scientific American because my university's library stock it, along with Popular Science and Discover, two other great magazines writing on popular science.

You don't really have to be a scientist to enjoy magazines like this, although having an interest will certainly help. This month's issue talks about a range of issues. First they have something on CarbonWrap, a new material that's being used as a bridge repair tool and is likened to Band-Aid for steels.

The cover page story is about the nuclear bomb and how it function in today's modern society, which I don't find terribly exciting but if you are into the whole socio-political impacts of modern nuclear armaments then this issue should interest you. There's also stuff about the universe's inflation, new impacts of vitamin D on cell defence, a possible therapy for those suffering from Lou Gherig's disease (the one that cripped Stephen Hawking). On the high-tech side, they have a story on new displays that can work even under the sun's hot glare.

Even if you don't like much of the main content, the regular columns such as Skeptic, Ask the Experts and Fact or Fiction? are often more than a good read. Check out the November issue in the following link.

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Notable Torrents

I'm a Bit Torrent fanatic, because where else can you expect to have such a huge library of movies and music for your download at any time of the day? Today, I have some nice torrents that I want to share and here they are:

Butterfly on a Wheel / Shattered (US)
I read about this movie from Wikipedia, and it sounds pretty intrigueing. It stars Pierce Brosnan, Maria Gello and Gerald Butler, but the ex-James Bond star attracted me to it. I never did give consideration to who stars in the movie in the past, but now that I have become a movie afficionado, that seems to be a pretty important criteria. I still base my decision to watch a movie based on the premise and the storyline, but if a well-known actor is in it, I might just watch it, for that reason alone.

Anyway, the whole plot revolves around the bad guy (Brosnan) psychologically torturing a couple in a cat-and-mouse game. There's supposed to be a twist in the end, so I'll leave it to you to find out what it is. It did pretty well with an IMDB rating of 7.3/10.

The meaning of the movie's title is actually:

"It can be taken as referring to putting massive effort into achieving something minor or unimportant, and alludes to "breaking on the wheel", a form of torture in
which victims had their long bones broken by an iron bar while tied to a cartwheel."

So, that's quite a relevant title then. But I wonder why they dumbed it down to Shattered for the US audience. Perhaps in the US market, nobody cares about a movie if it has more than three words in the title.


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Eureka: Small town, big secrets.
This is actually a series on the Sci-Fi channel, revolving around a town filled with smart-people, created by the government in order to advance scientific research. It's a pretty quirky show sometimes, with a mix of comedy, action and suspense. A good Sci-Fi series at the very least. Seasons 1 and 2 are already out, and I highly recommend it to everybody.

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The Lost Room
Another Sci-Fi show, this time a three-part miniseries. It has an incredible 8.4/10 over at IMDB, so it's a must watch even if you're not a fan of science fiction themed shows. In short, the plot outline is about a couple of detectives investigating a motel room which turned out to be a portal for an alternate universe. Kinda like John Cusack's 1408 (another nice show). A surreal show, and definately a must-download.

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That's about 8 gigabytes of download already. You can start them now and check back here next week for more 'Must-have' shows. Until then. =)

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