Brothers Barney and Daniel Jones love Star Wars so much they’ve decided to start a church to spread the word of the Force.
They say their services will include sermons on “the Force,” lightsaber training, and meditation techniques. Hairdresser Barney became interested in the Jedi faith after 390,000 other Star Wars fans across England and Wales declared it as their religion on the 2001 census.
Read more here:
Force strong for new Jedi church (BBC News)
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If you frequent our blog, you’re probably aware that we’re big fans of steampunk, especially when it’s got a Star Wars twist. As reported here a couple weeks ago, there’s a LEGO Star Wars steampunk contest afoot, and boingboing.net just posted a heads-up on one of the cooler entries – the “Royal Naboo Airforce One”, or R.N.A.F.1, created by Mark Stafford. We think it’s rather, well, fetching, actually.
Check boingboing’s original post here, or follow this link to see more angles of this cool entry.
No Comments » | Tags: BoingBoing, LEGO, Steampunk
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Researchers at Stemagen claim that they used male skin cells to create human embryos, even thought they did not delevop past 100 cells.
It is not clear whether the embryos would have been viable if implanted into a womb. Stemagen did not test whether the embryos had the correct number of chromosomes. But Dr. Wood, who also is a fertility doctor, said, “We’ve seen reproductive blastocysts that look like this or worse and they implant.”
Read more articles here:
Cloning Said to Yield Human Embryos (New York Times)
Mature Human Embryos Created From Adult Skin Cells (Washington Post)
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SOURCES:
BoingBoing.net, ClubJade.net
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Though it may seem that the only characters who get frequent costume changes in the Star Wars galaxy have to be royalty, that doesn’t mean the Imperial troopers don’t get to mix it up.
The hardcore fans over at IGN.com decided to give some props to the Imperial army with a rundown of the many looks of Clone troopers, stormtroopers, BARC troopers, Galactic Marines, pilots, sandtroopers, Imperial Navy troopers, Imperial gunners, TIE fighter pilots, AT-AT drivers, scout troopers and more.
Read all about it here:
The Many Looks of the Imperial Stormtrooper
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While watching the cool environmental vlog ZapRoot, we couldn’t help but notice the snarky host Jess giving props to the R2-D2 Obi Shawn car that many Star Wars fans see pop up at various conventions like Comic-Con and Celebration.
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It’s the Photoshop well that just keeps giving. The folks at Worth 1000 put the call out for sprinking sci-fi into non-sci fi movies, and Star Wars is definitely well represented, nosing its way into Alexander, Easy Rider, Wallace and Grommit and, as you can see below, The Godfather.
For more of the hijinks, check out Worth 1000. (Via Clubjade).
3 Comments » | Tags: Humor
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BoingBoing TV vlogger/journalist Xeni Jardin continues her lightsaber training while visiting LA Jedi Bootcamp, and droid maker I-Wei shows off his latest steampunk robots!
VIDEO: BBtv: Jedi Xeni/Steam-Powered Robots
And don’t miss our exclusive interview with I-Wei about his steam-powered R2-D2 here:
Creating R2-S2 (Steampunk R2-D2)
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This story made a splash online over our Holiday break. although this dateline places it in October, 2006. Fashion designer Nicolas Ghesquière’s collection looks to science fiction for inspiration, with sources such as Tron, The Matrix and Terminator serving as inspiration. Star Wars fans may have noted these leggings that resemble C-3PO’s gams.
Check out the collection here. This report comes from SuperPunch, who also provides some additional links and video.
While several blogs ran with this story, we gotta say, Huffington Post surprised us with the most geeky commentary:
Ah, Nicolas Ghesquiere’s Balenciaga “C-3P0″ leggings. The perfect example of fashion being WAY too expensive: they sold for around $159,000. We love Star Wars, but not even Luminara Unduli could rock these.
Name-dropping Luminara? HuffPo, we never knew you had it in you.
3 Comments » | Tags: Fashion
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Hardcore Star Wars fans and DIY filmmakers who founded Backyard Productions create their own versions of the saga with budgets that would send serious shivers down most directors’ backs. Using household objects, toys, a computer and a garage as the studio, the team remakes the films for under $6,000.
In an interview with BBC, Backyard Productions co-founder Darren Scales described what they had used to recreate the opening scene of Star Wars.
“We have got bubble wrap on the ceiling, we’ve got bottle tops and yogurt pots on the walls along with tubes from the center of rolls of carpets. The blasters are water pistols, we just stuck a few bits of lids on, add a bit of spray paint and then you have a blaster. You take a hard hat, put an Imperial sticker on it and suddenly its an Imperial work helmet for someone building the Death Star – it’s not rocket science. It’s the same with the lightsabers. Up close they look awful but you put a stick in it, you hold it and on screen you can’t tell the difference.”
Read more about their films here:
Star Wars remade in garage studio
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It’s a standard January 1st news story — report on the first baby born in the New Year — but this story coming out of El Paso caught our eye.
The first daughter of Star Wars fans Susana and Roger Taber, Abigail Leia Taber is expected to join her older brothers Lucas and Anakin at home on Thursday when she and her mom are discharged from Del Sol Medical Center.
Read more here. (Spotted on FARK.)
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