That is rather ODD...

These observations are things I have learned from our Oddities genre of programming:

1. One can identify if a piece of "freak" taxidermy is real by feeling for seam lines
2. It's not surprising for people into taxidermy & articulating to be vegetarians
3. A Taphophile is someone who is passionate about cemeteries (e.g. gravestones)

Do you know what else is odd and very cool? The cast of Oddities and Oddities San Francisco are going to meet in person – true story! Here are some pictures of when the Executive Producer (Josh Berkley) and I went to Obscura and met everyone.

Q&A with the Executive Producer of the Firefly Special Event

Meet Bernadette McDaid -- or simply Bernie, as we call her around the office -- and her very famous friends.

She's not just another executive. She's a real Browncoat -- and the "Browncoats Unite: Firefly 10th Anniversary Special Event" is her baby. She's the mastermind behind reuniting the cast at San Diego and New York ComicCons, filming the reunion, writing the script...EVERYTHING.

Here's your chance to get special behind-the-scenes access to the woman closest to all things Firefly-reunion-related. Bernie has graciously agreed to answer any questions you may have about the upcoming special. So ask away! Leave us a question in the comments and we'll have Bernie answer them.

NOTE: Bernie is also the woman behind the EXCLUSIVE #FireflyNov11 clips that are on their way to being unlocked by fans on Twitter. Bernie has identified these as being juicy bites that just didn't make it in to the 1-hour-long special. So follow @ScienceChannel and keep tweeting #FireflyNov11! Click HERE to participate.

TUNE IN November 11th at 10pm ET/PT for "Browncoats Unite: Firefly 10th Anniversary Special Event" on Science and...HINT HINT...you'll find out how to bid on exclusive Firefly items from the reunion special with all proceeds going to charity...

Get Interactive with "MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition"

Meet the star of the show, Buster, as he rests in his chair after flying over 200 feet, propelled by fireworks in a recent MythBusters episode.

Chances are that at some point while watching Jamie and Adam do crazy experiments on MythBusters, you kind of wished you had their job. Let’s face it, it doesn’t get much better than making a living off playing with explosives, dropping pennies from the Empire State Building and feeding giant octopuses – all in the name of science.

MythBusters VIDEO: Best of Household Myths 

While we can’t all be mad scientists, there’s nothing stopping you from testing out some of MythBuster’s most popular experiments at the “MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition,” now open at The Tech Museum in San Jose, Calif. Unlike other exhibitions, this one encourages visitors to interact with the props that were taken right out of the show and find out for themselves whether something is a myth or a fact.

As the show’s co-host Grant Imahara explained it during the exhibit's opening ceremony, “you’re going to be dodging bullets, hanging by your fingertips [and] driving blind.” But that's only part of it. 

3 MORE CLIPS! YOUR NEXT MISSION: You Give us 5,000 #FireflyNov11 Tweets, We Give You More Firefly

UPDATE: There are now 3 more clips awaiting your "unlock." CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE PAGE. Keep tweeting #FireflyNov11!

__________________________________________

See this screen shot? It's taken from the upcoming Firefly 10th Anniversary: Browncoats Unite documentary, set to air on the Science Channel this November 11, 2012 at 10pm.

Now, what if we told you there are more than 2 hours of UNUSED footage that WILL NEVER AIR because it just didn't fit into a 1-hour-long documentary? And what if we told you some of it was pretty darn funny, poignant, and just all around amusing? You'd want to see it, right?

So here's your chance: We're asking our fans to show us just how much they want to see this extra footage. We need YOU to send us a tweet to @ScienceChannel with the hashtag #FireflyNov11. And then we need 4,999 more.

This is your first challenge: When we hit 5,000 tweets with the hashtag #FireflyNov11, we'll tweet out a link to the first piece of cut footage. (Just to add a little excitement, I'll tell you it's a roundtable discussion of Nathan Fillion's one-and-only naked scene in the Firefly series.) So get those tweets coming in! We announced this endeavor at New York City Comic Con on October 13th -- and we'll keep releasing more and more content for each challenge met. Be sure to tell all of your Browncoat buddies!

Start tweeting NOW! #FireflyNov11

Enter the Master Control Core Where We Can Control All Networks!

 Here we are in my home -- the Master Control Core!  My name is Scotty Ham, and I’m one of the supervisors here at the Discovery Broadcast Center.  And yes, I'm a Brony.

 

So, here’s one of our Supe Stations that I work at daily.  I have the same abilities that each pod has and I can take control of any of our 13 networks in a matter of seconds if needed.  My main function out here is to troubleshoot the issues that operators find and come up with solutions and answers.  If we have content that is in question, whether it is a commercial with an incorrect phone number or a promo that advertises an incorrect time, I’ll pass that on to people like Darren in Encode who will correct it on their end and coordinate with us back here.  We also execute changes out here for content daily -- whether they are commercial or even program changes.  Our operators are the best in the business and make my job look easy.

Follow @ScienceAt San Diego Comic-Con, Win Cool Stuff!

 

 Next week is a big week for us here at Science. We're gearing up for San Diego Comic-Con where we'll have three (A-MAZING!) panels. That's right, we're celebrating 10 Years of Firefly, introducing you to Josh and Chuck of the famous "Stuff You Should Know" podcast AND bringing you Walter Bishop <ahem> we mean John Noble, host of "Dark Matters."

Since there's so much happening, we've created a new Twitter handle for you to follow: @ScienceAt. We'll be live-tweeting EVERY Science panel. We'll be giving away prizes, autographed swag and MORE. Don't worry if you can't be there in-person, we'll make sure you feel like you are!

If you are there in-person, be sure to tweet us and let us know! You never know what you might get for being an avid @ScienceAt follower...

So join us on our Comic-Con adventure. Follow us on @ScienceChannel for daily updates and @ScienceAt for minute-by-minute coverage. You never know <cough> Nathan Fillion? <cough> who we'll run into.

We've even made you this handy-dandy image (above) with all the hashtags you need to know.

Start following us now to see all the cool prep work -- and get InSCIder information as we prepare for one of the COOLEST and BIGGEST events of the year.

 

Dark McNugget with John Noble

If you've seen and heard John Noble on SCIENCE's hit show Dark Matters, or as Walter on Fox's Fringe, you might think that he's as creepy and scary as his voice makes him out to be. On the contrary. Mr. Noble is a soft-spoken Aussie, who's accent accurately pegs him as a country boy from southern Australia. He's a hard working family man, who is professional, a perfectionist, and a pleasure to be around.

Prior to working with Mr. Noble at this year's Ad Sales Upfront last week, I never had the privilege of working with A-list talent. He shattered all of the stereotypes of them being high maintenance and unkind. I got to see the real John Noble, and I now am not only a fan of his work, but a fan of him personally.

Oh, and just for the record, he wasn't eating a chicken mcnugget. It was actually just a granola bar.

Why Yes, That is the Real Science Team in the How It's Made Promo

Several members of the Science posse were willing to play along and are currently appearing in the new promo for How It's Made.

Sharp-eyed inSCIder readers may have already picked out the channel's GM, Debbie Myers, after seeing her answer your questions online a little while back. Well, now she and members of the marketing team, the programming group and even a couple of the network's editors are trying out their acting chops in the promo about the making of the promo for new episodes of the show.

Confused yet? Watch the video below to clear things up (and watch new episodes of How It's Made starting Thursday, April 19th at 9 cough cough). Enjoy. 

From Aliens to the End of the World: Nick Sagan Answers YOUR Facebook Questions!

I really appreciate all the questions and sorry if you asked one I didn't have time to answer. 

--Nick Sagan

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Q: Are we ready to make contact?

A: In “Alien Encounters” one of the many excellent points Neil deGrasse Tyson makes is that we can barely get along with ourselves, so how are we going to get along with aliens?  We’re not ready, he says, and looking at our history to this point, he’s probably right.  That said, one can imagine scenarios where first contact brings out the best in us.  And perhaps we’ll find a civilization that’s faced similar challenges in their own history, a people who know how to conduct themselves in a way that maximizes the chance that the experience will be positive for all involved.

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Q: What do you think an advanced civilization would have to gain by making contact with us?

A: It’s hard to predict extraterrestrial motivations but I would imagine an advanced civilization would gain as much from making contact with us as we might upon discovering an intriguing but primitive new species of life.  We’d be a subject of curiosity, perhaps expanding their understanding of how life develops on worlds other than their own.  On the other hand, we may be so far behind them in our development that we’d be utterly uninteresting to them (which may explain why we’ve yet to hear from anyone.)

A Meeting of the Cosmos

When producing a compelling show you always hope that somehow your editorial mission may have a positive impact on someone's life. In this case that someone is two noteworthy individuals: Frank Drake and his godson, Nick Sagan.

Until we arranged for them to meet during one of our shoots for Alien Encounters, they hadn't seen each other since Nick was a young boy.

It was a historical meeting of two people who years ago were connected by the visionary work of Nick's late father, Carl Sagan, who inspired Drake and others to pursue the search for intelligent life in the universe. As they talked over lunch, Frank kept marveling at the ways in which Nick reminds him of his father. The two couldn't stop grinning.

Check out the video below for a glimpse at these two together.

It really was a rare glimpse at an exceptional moment.

Katie Pyne
Associate Producer
SCIENCE