Yesterday, I went on Facebook. Not an unusual activity for someone my age. Or for someone my parents’ age, which I still haven’t gotten used to. But that’s not the point of this.

Several of my “friends” had statuses mentioning "Ophiuchus", whatever that is. One girl’s panicked reaction to this unpronounceable phenomenon had received enough attention to elicit ten of my peers to "comment" on it.

So, I did what any self-respecting person would do. I decided if nineteen-year-old girls were fascinated by it, it was probably just as important as Justin Beiber and Twilight.

The innovative new opera by Tod Machover, Death and the Powers, opens this Friday for its world premiere in Monte Carlo at Opéra Garnier de Monte-Carlo. Machover gave Festival-goers a sneak peak of this hugely ambitious work earlier this summer at the 2010 World Science Festival, which included a thought-provoking conversation with AI legend Marvin Minsky.

The opera—a brainchild of Machover's Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab in co-production with American Repertory Theatre—explores transhumanist and existential territory, such as mortality and theory of mind, as well as confronting the most fundamental question of legacy: what of ourselves do we leave behind when we die?

Plus, it's going to be really, really cool. The opera incorporates a new technology developed by MIT called "disembodied performance": an elaborate system of multidimensional sensors that allows the actors to give life-like, rich performances via inanimate components from off-stage (hello, Avatar LIVE!). Oh, and did I mention that it involves a massive animatronic chandelier and a chorus of robots?

Death and the Powers comes to the US in March. More information and tickets here.

Update: The broadcast went really well. Thanks to everyone for participating. You can check out the replay and transcript with Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak here → Stay tuned for more interactive broadcasts to come. We've got some dingers lined up...

Join us tomorrow for a special interactive broadcast of The Search for Life in the Universe, originally taped during the 2010 World Science Festival. Accompanying the broadcast, we're very excited to have live commentary and a Q/A session with the SETI Institute's Jill Tarter and Seth Shostak.

The above video montage was kindly produced by multimedia artist and musician Claire L. Evans (of Universe) to open the WSF 2010 panel "The Search for Life in the Universe," which featured the likes of Jill Tarter, David Charbonneau, and Steven Squyres. Unfortunately, due to a production clusterWTF, it didn't end up running. Which is a shame, because I really like its somewhat chilling but still hopeful subtleties. Claire breaks down her motivations for putting together the piece:

Numbers don't lie, but they tell a lot of half-truths. We have been raised to think that numbers represent absolute fact, that in a math class there is one and only one correct answer. But less emphasis is put on the fact that in the real world numbers don't convey any information without units, or some other frame of reference. The blurring of the line between the number and the quantity has left us vulnerable to the ways in which statistics can deceive us. By poorly defining or incorrectly defining numbers, contemporary audiences can be manipulated into thinking opinions are fact.

Hey gang! Remember when we set up a model of the new James Webb Space Telescope in Battery Park? If you don't, the people at Behind the James Webb Space Telescope have produced the cool little video above about the telescope's visit to NYC and the World Science Festival.

I got into this stuff because of science fiction. I was a huge nerd in high school. I remember there was a time that between UPN, TNN, and The SciFi Channel you could watch six straight hours of Star Trek on a Friday night. None of those networks exist anymore. I built a Stargate in my parents’ basement freshman year (see above)--though I never got it to send me anywhere. When my Junior English teacher told me to write a paper on John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, or another famous American author, I wrote it on Phillip K. Dick.

In the run-up to this year's Faith and Science panel at the 2010 World Science Festival, there was some concern expressed (here and here) about our sponsors' influence on programming. In light of such criticism, we thought it would be a good time to reiterate the Festival's absolute editorial independence, as addressed last year by World Science Festival co-founders, Brian Greene and Tracy Day, in response to similar concerns:

The full replay of Hidden Dimensions: Exploring Hyperspace, featuring Brian Greene, Lawrence Krauss, Shamit Kachru, and Linda Dalrymple Henderson, is now available for streaming for a limited time. If you haven't had your mind blown yet this morning, I recommend you head over to our livestream replay pages pronto, grab a tall cup of coffee, and prepare for perspective-scrambling kernels from some of the greatest living physicists.

Watch now >>

The fine folks at NPR's RadioLab have produced a new episode based on Strangers in the Mirror, which features Oliver Sacks and Chuck Close (and was moderated by RadioLab's own Robert Krulwich).

Have a listen over at their site. Or add to your cue wherever podcasts are sold for free (ie, iTunes). And check out their amazing back catalogue of archived shows while you're there.

Maybe it was something you learned? (Like, for instance, if the Earth were to be a black hole it would have to collapse to the size of a grain of sand.) Perhaps it was a serendipitous chat you had when bumping into your favorite scientist, artist, or author over the weekend's festivities? (I had a charming chat with Dr. John Mather and his wife about the crude pocket telescopes he used as a child that ultimately inspired him to take a closer look at the cosmos.) Or maybe it was a conversation you had with friends inspired by one of the programs? (Like a heated debate with a friend on whether the empirical study of consciousness is even a meaningful endeavor. Ahem, still looking at you, Chris.)

Whatever it was, if you have a story or an observation to share, email them to wsfstories@worldsciencefest.org for a chance to win a World Science Festival prize pack. Whether you were here in person or tuned in to one of our webcasts, we'd love to hear from you.

Well, another World Science Festival is in the books. And what a trip it’s been. One attendee at this year’s festival suggested that, as if conjuring the gravity of a supermassive black hole, we must have slowed down the passing of time in order “to do so much in 5 days.”

Accusations of timespace manipulation aside, there were plenty of magic moments during the 40+ events throughout the run of the Festival. From Professor Stephen Hawking’s poignant speech in front of a packed house at Lincoln Center during the Opening Night Gala to the all-day celebration of science in the heart of New York City that is the Street Fair, several of the experiences we shared made this year special. Here are a handful of them:

Kick-off is at 3pm today. ScienceBlogs Editor Evan Lerner will be calling the game with me in the L'Blog booth, playing Jerry the King to my JR.

Watch live and join the conversation (and/or correct our typos) in the Cover It Live forum.

Or follow us on the Twitt: @WorldSciFest @GregBoustead @evan_lerner

From the WSF Blog...

One of today's panelists, Vanessa Woods: "Your Inner Bonobo"

Carl Zimmer on Animals Like Us

Who is the smartest of them all?

You have to admit, as a species, we're pretty spectacular. Our phones can navigate our cars through unknown cities and tell us what to eat when we get there. We can travel to space, trawl the deep ocean, and now computers can design genetic code that can be 'downloaded' into living cells.