I thought it was just me on a sci-fi kick at the moment. I've been re-running Primeval and Stargate, and getting back into the Marvel Digital Comics after a short break. Yes, if ever you doubted it, I am a serious geek.
But I feel in good company: the newspapers are full of Star Trek, Wolverine is opening at the cinema tonight, and Heroes continues to pull in the viewers on TV. Sci-Fi is mainstream once again.
So why is it that people - and particularly journalists - remain terrified of science and technology, and the people who use them?
Check out this story from Sweden for example: Robot attacked Swedish factory worker. I worked in PR, so I understand the desire to create a good story from facts that may not totally fit. But this is a little too much creative licence. As the comments under the story point out, it's not so much a robot attacking a worker, more a worker putting his head in a machine.
Then there's this from the US: Boston College Campus Police: "Using Prompt Commands" May Be a Sign of Criminal Activity. Apparently being competent with the command line is now evidence of evil. It's not just science that is scary, it's those who use it.
This is clearly a small amount of anecdotal evidence. Sadly this is a quick blog post while I should be doing other things, not a doctoral thesis (could be a good topic though...)
So to offer a little balance, there are some positive science stories around in the most unlikely places, including the front page of today's Daily Nail 'Em Up. Whoever would have thought it?
(p.s. the image comes from XKCD.com and is available on a T-shirt - I highly recommend the comic to any geeks out there)
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