So, waddaya think... Is Anybody Out There?

BRENDA SUDERMAN - CHILD'S PLAY

WHEN my younger son was five years old, he looked at me at breakfast one day and asked me a question I struggled to answer.

"Does infinity ever stop?" he wondered, eating his Cheerios while I scrambled for a response he could comprehend.

Anyone who has contemplated infinity probably also wonders about life on other planets, which is the reason for the new Planetarium show at the Manitoba Museum, Is Anybody Out There?

"Every planetarium does surveys and the number one topic (people ask about) is aliens," Planetarium manager Scott Young says of this Canadian co-production which opens in Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, and Montreal today. "Everyone can describe what aliens look like and everyone can describe what it's like to be abducted by an alien."

Or can they? There may be someone out there, but this 36-minute show produced co-operatively by four planetariums presents evidence that it's definitely not little green men. Instead, the $96,000 production narrated by Dave Kelly of Calgary's Breakfast TV blows open the definition of life on other planets.

Employing the perspectives of more than a dozen scientists from universities across the country, government organizations like the National Research Council and the Canadian Space Agency, and the California-based SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), the show concludes that something, but maybe not someone, may be out there after all. That something would be small life forms like microbes, which can survive in harsh conditions like the High Arctic. The show also takes viewers underwater to explain the connection between volcanic thermal vents underwater with the possibility of life in another galaxy.

Those scientific opinions are underlaid with popular music by Pink Floyd, Our Lady Peace, David Bowie and others who ask those existential questions about life beyond the planet.

Suitable for ages 10 and up, this show weaves together scientific facts, current research and popular culture, and presents just enough alien mythology to suck in anyone who really wants to know if other beings are really out there.

"It might be there are intelligent aliens out there, but they're probably spread out fairly thinly," says Young. Despite all our high-tech communication equipment, it's also fairly unlikely we're going to be talking to them anytime soon.

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In 12 months, 300 square feet of the museum's Science Gallery will be filled with a $75,000 new exhibit on math. Thanks to a donation from Investors Group, the multi-station exhibit entitled The Numbers Game will open next spring. Plans are to include puzzles and games about basic mathematics, a graphic demonstration of compound interest, and counting objects like an abacus, slide rules and computers, and computer stations that will use numbers to create art and music.

"It's going to add a terrific new concept to our Science Gallery," says executive director Claudette Leclerc.

Recently, the Science Gallery added several other new exhibits, all of which are portable enough to move into a new facility, which is a top priority for the museum. A decision to refurbish the existing space or construct a science centre will be made once a master plan for the entire museum complex is complete in a year or so.

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The world will be able to experience Oak Hammock Marsh Interpretive Centre without stepping onto those wetlands north of Winnipeg via the new TryScience kiosk to be unveiled next Wednesday. The kiosk hooks into the same network of games and activities as the one installed in the Manitoba Museum last December. Two webcams -- one inside the interpretive centre, another on the roof -- will allow visitors online at a kiosk in another city or on the website to zoom in on exhibits, nesting birds and other wildlife.

"We want people to experience a wetland. If they can't visit us, this is giving them a taste of the wetlands by the Internet or by the live cam," says Michele Kading, head of interpretation at the centre.

Developed by IBM in conjunction with the New York Hall of Science and the Association of Science-Technology Centre, the material on TryScience is available in eight languages including Mandarin, Italian and German, with a limited version of the activities online at www.tryscience.org.

brenda@suderman.com