[images & words is the comic book pick-of-the-week at OL. equal parts review and diatribe, the post highlights the most memorable/infuriating/entertaining book released that wednesday]

Floating somewhere past Neptune, I decided to start reading. I had a fresh stack of Picto-Literature, given to me by my lover the day before departure. She knew that I had a soft spot for the paneled page, tales of hyperbole accompanied by a glut of exposition. Such insights into my interests were why I had accepted her as my lover in the first place.

I joke. The fact that such a babe would receive a Thought-Scientist, especially one as scrappy as myself, is a damn miracle. And these days, I’m no longer a disbeliever of miracles.

Rummaging through the cartoon-books, I was impressed by the titles at hand. My lover had collected some of the most critically acclaimed titles, the classics I grew up reading as a young lad. Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin. iZombie by Roberson and Allred. A rerelease of Casanova, the groundbreaking title by Fraction/Ba/Moon. Ah, such wondrous creations were crafted before the Collapse!

Staring out the bay window, I knew that I should feel some sort of immense gratitude. For the splendor of the universe. And the opportunity to explore it. But with a handful of pulp – yellowed, slightly battered paper narratives — I couldn’t maintain the gaze.

What’s more impressive — the constantly unfurling, eternal and infinite nature or the ability of small, squishy flesh creatures to represent it?

Sifting through the works, I found the first issue of Scarlet! What a gem! Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev, the writer-artist duo known for reinvigorating Marvel’s Matthew Murdock (known at the time as Daredevil) had come together for this creator-owned property. Truthfully, I had never read it before. Hell, this made the fact that I was shipping out to a six-month work assignment a bit more bearable.

Before reading, I flipped through the pages to admire the artwork. I know, I know, according to the comix guides of the Aughts, this is a big no-no. But I like to give myself a sneak preview, titillating myself in the same way as experienced through a movie trailer. But this time I found myself slowing down, breathing in as much of every page as possible, words aside.

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Some fucking phenomenal shit right here. Welcome to outer-space, the greatest example of staggering relativity:

via new scientist:

A relatively small black hole has been spotted blowing bubbles with diameters of more than 300-1500 light years.

Robert Soria of the University College London and colleagues pored over images and data from the European Southern Observatory and Chandra X-ray Observatory, zeroing in on an unusually large remnant from a supernova explosion. Its host galaxy appears in the Sculptor constellation of Earth’s southern sky, around 12.7 million light years away.

They discovered three hot spots in the x-ray emissions, all in a row, and identified the central one as the core of a black hole a few times larger than the sun. The two spots flanking the core are produced by jets colliding with interstellar gas.

A nearby star feeds the black hole, giving it energy to shoot a flood of particles out each side at near the speed of light. These jets are much more powerful than expected for a black hole of this size, blowing bubbles that expand faster than the speed of sound. The finding suggests that more of the energy spent by a black hole goes into accelerating matter – rather than emitting x-rays – than previously supposed.

DIAMETERS OF 300-1500 LIGHT YEARS.

WHAT THE FUCK.

The universe is great.

It’s Memorial Day weekend. Please don’t forget that even veterans of fictional, intergalactic wars need our support.

Perhaps more than ever.

For your enjoyment — Devin Townsend Project performing By Your Command

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of seeing Devin Townsend in concert. To put it mildly, it was one of the most inspiring performances I’ve seen in a long time. Thanks to YouTube user superskum, you can sample the wonder that is the Great Canadian Metal/Nerd Hero.

While most of HevyDevy’s catalogue is worthwhile, Ziltoid the Omniscient is one of my all-time favorite records. At times, I think it may have been written just to suit my tastes –  a concept album about alien invasions, black coffee, metaphysics and puppets? What’s not to love?

Even without the skullet, Devin Townsend is a goddamn hero.

Oh shit, comic book and outer space nerds, get ready to jack off! Apparently the multiverse exists! Watch out for Earth 2^4’s Superman, he farts fire and ejaculates shotgun bullets. No, not really. And this probably isn’t hard science, or anything more than a theory, but kiss my ass, it’s fun to think about.

Via New Scientist:

The dark flow appears to have been caused shortly after the big bang by something no longer in the observable universe. It has no effect today because reaching across this horizon would involve travelling faster than light.One explanation for the flow would be the gravity of a huge concentration of matter, but this is very unlikely. Within the standard big bang picture, massive cosmic structures were “seeded” by random quantum fluctuations, so overall, matter should be spread evenly.There could be an exotic explanation. Laura Mersini-Houghton of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, thinks the flow is a sign of a neighbouring universe. If the tiny patch of vacuum that inflated to become our universe was quantum entangled with other pieces of vacuum – other universes – they could have exerted a force from beyond the present-day visible horizon (see “Nosey neighbours”).

It would be pretty great if this was true, it would make existence just a bit more intriguing. But it probably doesn’t. Who knows. Scientists, always throwing rocks at one another! Just pretend with me its true, and try to imagine an alternate version of yourself, in some Sliders type shit, where you secretly pine for your Mom, or you can fly because all humans have wings, or something equally gay.

This is truly rad:

Via New Scientist

On 2 September, MIT students Oliver Yeh, Justin Lee, and Eric Newton launched a 350-gram (0.8-pound), helium-filled weather balloon from a field in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. The balloon carried a used 7.1-megapixel camera — purchased on Amazon.com — that was programmed to take pictures every 5 seconds.

…

After four hours, the balloon reached its peak altitude, an estimated 28,350 metres above the Earth’s surface. At this height, the curvature of the Earth was just visible.

Earlier in 2009, a team of Spanish students launched a €1000 balloon-borne probe that made it to 30,480 metres using a bigger balloon. Larger balloons have more room to expand before breaking as the pressure of the atmosphere decreases with altitude.

[check out the entire gallery @ new scientist]