On July 19, Russia’s Institute of Medico-Biological Problems launched the Foton-M4, a research satellite that contained geckos, fruit flies, mushrooms, and bacteria. They wanted to see what the effects of microgravity would have on these species, particularly on their sexual behavior. No one really knows how reproduction works—or if it works—in space, so before we send people up there, it makes sense for other animals to give it a whirl first. Five days later, the Foton-M4 stopped responding to commands, prompting concern for the geckos, whose equipment was working in automatic mode.

The craft never reached its intended orbit. Communication was reestablished roughly a week later, and program officials were confident that the geckos would be okay. Unfortunately, that appears not to be the case. The satellitereentered Earth’s atmosphere this weekend—a few weeks ahead of the planned return—and when scientists opened the gecko capsule, they were all dead. And what’s even sadder, they never even got to have sex in space.

The only thing I know about insect sex is that the praying mantis female often eats the male after they mate, sometimes even during the act. However, the male has a brain at the tail end of his body that allows him to finish undeterred. Good times. The praying mantis is far from the only insect with rather unorthodox mating rituals. Recently, scientists discovered that Neotrogla, a lice-like insect that lives in the caves of southeast Brazil, has an interesting arrangement of sexual organs, namely, the female insect is the one with the penis.

Roger Ferreira, a Brazilian biologist published his findings in Current Biology, spent a good amount of time peeping on these insects as they mated. That would be one of the weirder aspects of the job, wouldn’t it? “What did you do today, honey?” “Oh, you know, I watched a bunch of insects do it. And I took photos.” But hey, how else would we know about this bizarre stuff? Ferreira snapped pictures but didn’t video record the insects—he didn’t want to disturb them. How considerate. He and his team kept their observations to 30-minute sessions, which turned out to be plenty of time.

Just to be clear right away, since archaeologists still haven’t discovered any old VHS tapes of dinosaurs getting it on — under the guise of having “something wrong with the refrigerator” no doubt — dinosaur sex is still something of a mystery. And not exactly a mystery that one needs a magnifying glass for, since dinosaur dongs were probably gigantic.

And we all know what dinosaur sex leads to.

I can’t remember if I just posted this story a while ago or not. Just in case I didn’t, let me reiterate. One of the reasons why some people love the Internet, technology, being indoors, and even breathing, is pornography. And then there are those that consider it the scourge of the Earth, dragging all souls across the craggy floors of Hell with each sweaty, poorly acted scenario. And then there are those who love it. (I promise to leave that joke gimmick alone now.) There’s a solid chance porn, and sexual arousal in general, fucks with your memory. That’s the non-glamorous point to all this.

Then again, it may be your brain trying to block out the memory of Ron Jeremy.

The images you’ll see after the jump all come from The Tron-A-Sutra a series of graphic, sex instructional videos in which sex position are illustrated Tron-style. That’s right, Tron-style. Why Tron-style? I have no idea. Why not? The images all lead to tons of actual videos in which you can see the Tron-like characters actually re-enacting the positions while a computerized voice explains them using such terms as “USB port”.

I’m not sure I’d ever want to meet the guy who came up with this, spent the time and money to hire actors for it, make it, create the effects for it, and actually publish it on the internet. I mean, what kind of person actually has a burning need to publish an hour or so of sex footage using mostly sexless Tron characters? But, you’re unlikely to see anything else like it anywhere else on the internet this week.

Technically I suppose all of this is Not Safe For Work, but since the Tron-characters contain no actual sex organs and all they’re really talking about USB ports, I’m labeling this mostly harmless and generally weird. Click the images after the jump to see each correspondingly creepy, Tron-A-Sutra video.

I’m excited by the idea of remaking Barbarella. Sex and sci-fi have been apart for too long. Look at classic sci-fi paperbacks from the 60s and 70s and the covers ooze boobs and skin. Heck, read some of the earlier work of sci-fi writers like Robert A. Heinlein and Edgar Rice Burrhouhs and they’re soaked in frequently naked, three-boobed women. Or take the original Star Trek with its scantily clad babe of the week. What happened to all of that?

Modern sci-fi is now bent on depicting a future which is polished, pure, and squeaky clean. Everyone dresses in boring coveralls and sex happens off camera. It’s not half as much fun. Maybe a T&A filled remake of Barbarella can change that.

Entertainment Weekly says the remake, once the first priority of Robert Rodriguez, is back on. Rodriguez dropped the project and most assumed it was dead, but now it looks like Dino De Laurentiis has brought in director Robert Luketic to take over the project.

Luketic is best known for his chick-friend rom-coms like Monster In-Law (which starred Jane Fonda!) and Legally Blonde, so he seems like a strange choice for something which, if they do it right, should be just a notch above softcore sci-fi porn. Rodriguez we could trust to turn in a gritty, tits and ass sci-fi flick. Hopefully the hiring of Luketic doesn’t mean they’re going to water it down.