Category: Science

43 Years Since Moon Landing…

It’s been 43 years since the first human beings landed on the moon… And we’ve not been back since December 1972. It’s utterly baffling to me — this is the year 2012, and by now we should have flourishing lunar colonies, L5 space stations, and human explorers walking on the...

Higgs Boson Discovered

The great thing about science is that it makes predictions that can be tested, the results of which either disprove or leading credence to, various theories and models that describe how the universe works. One of these was the prediction that a particle known as the Higgs Boson “gives mass”...

Yes, Falling into a Volcano Burns

On the heels of Phil Plait’s post on how much getting blasted out an airlock sucks, Discovery News has just chimed in to say that falling into a volcano is awfully fatal too. In case you didn’t know. Check out this video of a 30 kg (65 lbs) bag of...

Yes, Explosive Decompression Sucks

Famed astronomy blogger Phil Plait has a few sagely words to say to all sci-fi writers and movie directors about what happens when you’re suddenly exposed to the perilous vacuum of space. So what does happen? Does your body suddenly explode? Does your blood boil? Do your eyes pop out?...

Neil deGrasse Tyson – We Stopped Dreaming

Neil deGrasse Tyson has some very poignant (and sometimes a bit heated) things to say about how and why America stopped dreaming about space exploration. Check it out! And for a longer version of his, here’s the first part of his “We Stopped Dreaming” mini-documentary. And the second part: In...

TedTalk on Babbage’s Analytical Engine

Here’s a great TedTalk on Babbage’s Analytical Engine. Although the video does not always pan over to the slides, the talk is nevertheless very informative on the general design and operation of the analytical engine. Fascinating stuff!  

Planetary Resources: A New Space Venture

A new private space company, Planetary Resources, has announced its intention to begin a long term venture aimed at prospecting and mining asteroids within the next 10 to 20 years. Ordinarily, such a venture would be scoffed at by most experts, but Planetary Resources has been operating in secret for...

And Now Some Words from Neil deGrasse Tyson

Have you ever wondered  what the most interesting fact in the universe is? Well, here’s how Neil deGrasse Tyson answers that question. And if you have more time on your hands (1 hour and 18  minutes of time), here’s Stephen Colbert’s interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Very funny, and very...

NASA Budge (maybe) Cut Again

For the cost of less than a single day on the War on Terror, we could have a robust and far-reaching program to explore Mars, look for signs of life on another planet, increase our overall science knowledge, and inspire a future generation of kids. …so explains Phil Plait, who...

72 and Sunny on Kepler-22b

It’s 72 and sunny on Kepler-22b! Well, maybe. The Kepler Telescope team has announced confirmation of a terrestrial planet orbiting a G-class star (same type as our star) in the habitable orbit zone. The planet, dubbed Kepler-22b, is a little over twice the size of Earth, and orbits its host...