Electric race decided by gentleman's agreement

Zero Race
Zero hour: Start delayed due to forgotten Euro plug adaptor

The Zero Race is about as far removed from traditional car racing as it's possible to get. Kicking off outside the United Nations HQ in Geneva this week, the Zero Race is only for electric cars - so is likely to be rather slower than the petrol-driven wars of every other Sunday.

And it's happening on proper roads, so there will be traffic and ice cream van hazards to contend with. Also, victory will not be determined by who crosses the finishing line first. Winners will be picked from the entire field, by committee, after spectators and a panel of judges decide which car scores best for reliability, practicality and efficiency.

Then everyone has a big, environmentally-friendly cuddle and a cup of green tea.

Also a bit different is the number of laps - one. Although the track is pretty big, seeing as Zero Race challenges the electric cars to drive all the way around the world, albeit with a couple of rather large pauses while the cars are shipped across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The event is scheduled to take 80 days, rather fortunately for reporters and headline writers.

Uhura vs Leia Cage Submission Match

Lego Star Wars has been hacked. Not the videogame, but the actual Lego pieces themselves. Jon Ippolito, who is a life-long fan of rival long-running sci-fi saga Star Trek, has dedicated a large amount of his spare time to recreating Star Trek ships and famous wobbly planet-side sets out of Star Wars pieces.

Star trek

BATTLE-SCARRED KIRK FIGURINE: A pulled-off Chewbacca head makes a nice Tribble

According to Wired, Jon has set up a blog about it, illustrating a few homemade Trek scenes - and the Star Wars originals used to build them. We can't help but worry if George Lucas is planning to sue.

Be the Man

Electronic Arts has been listening to user feedback. This is always a bad idea, as it results in features like "Be a Goalkeeper" that people on internet forums think sound like a funny idea being incorporated into today's big-budget videogames.

Goalkeeper

FIFA 12: Be The Linesman?

If you fancy the idea of standing around in goal for 90 minutes - even throughout the game's 15-year career mode - you can in this year's FIFA 11 franchise update. And you can "be" the goalkeeper online as well, if you want to accurately simulate the pain of making everyone hate you over one minor error.

ET tweet home

If you don't die of neglect or self-abuse-based dehydration within the next 25 years, you could be in with a chance of seeing extra terrestrial life confirmed by the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence sky scanning project.

According to leading SETI astronomer Seth Shostak, there's a "really good chance" concrete evidence of the existence of people/things other than us in the universe will be found within the next quarter of a century. His theory is based on the Drake Equation, which calculates the minimum possible number of aliens with the ability to send us messages.

SETI

SPACED OUT: Church attendance figures will be hit hard. [Image credit: Daily Galaxy]

In 25 years time, SETI ought to have passed the percentage-scanned threshold at which detecting at least one alien world is expected.