If you watched the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, you might have noticed that one of the engineers in the JPL’s mission control center started celebrating before the formal announcement that the safe landing had been confirmed. Here’s … Continue reading
If you regularly check NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day you probably already saw this yesterday, but if not it’s definitely worth a couple of minutes of your time. It’s a series of night-time time-lapse images of the moving night … Continue reading
From today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, NASA and JPL go dramatic, presenting a description of the Curiosity rover’s landing process as something like the trailer for a suspense film. Not bad, actually: The Curiosity rover, about the size of … Continue reading
This is a nifty short video on population growth that’s fast-moving and interesting and blessedly doesn’t stray into politics or alarmism, though it does make some points that ought to provoke some sober thought. Some might find it a little … Continue reading
According to an article in The Herald Scotland, some students in U.S. religious schools are being taught that the Loch Ness monster is real and is a dinosaur. The textbook Biology 1099, part of the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) program … Continue reading
I supposed by now everybody has heard about CERN’s announced likely discovery of the Higgs particle. Well, OK, “everybody” is probably an exaggeration. In a very recent Pew survey, only 55% of those asked knew that the Supreme Court had … Continue reading
A bill [PDF] approved yesterday by the North Carolina Senate’s Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee would force the use an approach dictated by politicians rather than the best available science to forecast sea level rise for regulatory purposes. This … Continue reading
Here’s a quick set of accelerated time-lapse videos of Venus’s transit across the face of the Sun, as shot by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), using a wavelength of light that emphasizes solar prominences and results in a spectacular picture: … Continue reading
According to a news item published yesterday on the website of the journal Nature, evidence from tree rings suggests that a mysterious massive burst of radiation probably struck the Earth about the year 774 or 775, just over 1200 years … Continue reading
This is a book full of surprisingly interesting water trivia but with a serious purpose, describing how in many places ready access to fresh water is becoming increasingly difficult. Of course, you’d expect someone named Fishman to know something about … Continue reading