I have a theory that cinema and other forms of fiction often arise not from pure creativity, but from prescience. It is not the case, when this happens, that “life imitates art” but rather, that art predicts life. It is only a matter of figuring out which so-called ‘creative’ manifestations are predictive of reality in order to understand the deep secrets of nature.After much analysis, the details of which I shall provide later, I have been able to determine that The Force … yes, I’m talking about The Force as in Star Wars, is real, and is the determining element for evolution and for life itself. Details below the fold. Continue reading The Meaning of Life →

This image shows a large outcrop of layered rock in Aureum Chaos, an area that has apparently collapsed, leaving a region of irregular knobs and hills. Unlike many of the knobs, the light outcrop shows distinct, nearly horizontal layers. This may indicate that it was deposited after the collapse of the Chaos.

… this is what my back hard looks like right about now…. Click the photo for more info.

This is kinda like what my front yard looks like right now. Click the picture to see and learn more.

Jennifer Gooch’s mission was to create a simple Web site where people could go to find their lost gloves. Even if no happy reunions ever took place, she was just content to spread a little goodwill.But just a month since http://www.onecoldhand.com went live, the Carnegie Mellon University art student is busier than ever. She’s reunited four gloves with their owners, is working on similar sites for cities around the globe, and is planning a book to showcase her found gloves.

Continue reading Gloves, Mittens, Socks, Quarks and Alternative Universes. It all makes so much sense… →

NASA astronomers were blown away last week by what was far and away the strongest gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever observed. GRB 080319B, shown here in x-ray [left] and optical/ultraviolet [right] views captured by the Swift satellite, burned so brightly that its afterglow was briefly visible to the naked eye from its origin 7.5 billion light-years (or half a universe) away. If placed side-by-side with the brightest supernova ever seen, the burst would still outshine it by a factor of 2.5 million, researchers calculated. GRBs typically occur when the explosion of a dying star gets channeled into twin high-speed jets. Astronomers are mystified why this one shined so intensely. The burst may simply have been extra powerful or its very narrow jets may have pointed directly at Earth.

More photos of this event and other interesting stuff here.

A new NOVA is on the way. “Voyage to the Mystery Moon” is about Titan and the planet it goes around, Saturn.

Chronicling a bold voyage of discovery–the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and its enigmatic moon Titan–“Voyage to the Mystery Moon” delivers striking images of these fascinating planetary bodies nearly a billion miles from Earth. Saturn’s broad rings hold myriad mysteries, and Titan, whose soupy atmosphere is similar to the one that enshrouded our planet billions of years ago, may hold clues to the origins of life. In hopes of answering some long-standing astrophysical questions, teams from NASA and the European Space Agency gamble years of effort to both ease the Cassini spacecraft into a workable orbit around Saturn and land the Huygens probe on Titan’s never-before-seen surface….

More information here.

I believe I knew before PZ Myers did that an Asteroid had been named after him. I heard it on the radio. and much later on he confirmed it on his blog. See this post.[Correction: He knew, he was just being cool. See this.]Curiously, PZ claims that we do not know what the asteroid looks like. He relies on a description provided by his arch rival, Phil Plait. Why would he trust Phil Plait to describe his asteroid?Anyway, I went into the NASA archives (to which I have special access because of my work on the robot problem) and dug out a pretty clear photograph of the asteroid. Here it is: Continue reading PZ Myers Asteroid Confirmed →

… and, gave positive results. I know you have been waiting in anticipation for the results of an experiment in which an astronaut was going to toss a boomerang in space to see if it came back.Well, it worked:

Boomerang works in space: Japanese astronaut from PhysOrg.com
In an unprecedented experiment, a Japanese astronaut has thrown a boomerang in space and confirmed it flies back much like on Earth.[…]

Whew, this one had me really worried…

Governor Spitzer, only recently deposed for committing the crime of being a Democrat on the Republican Hit List, has already launched a new career as a Telescope:

Spitzer Finds Organics and Water Where New Planets May Grow from PhysOrg.com
Researchers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered large amounts of simple organic gases and water vapor in a possible planet-forming region around an infant star, along with evidence that these molecules were created there. They’ve also found water in the same zone around two other young stars.[…]

Vanguard I celebrates 50 years in space from PhysOrg.com
The Vanguard I satellite celebrates its 50th birthday this year. Its launch on March 17, 1958 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, culminated the efforts of America’s first official space satellite program begun in September 1955. The first solar-powered satellite, Vanguard I has the distinction of being the oldest artificial satellite orbiting the earth. Its predecessors, Sputniks I and II and Explorer I, have since fallen out of orbit.[…]

The age of the Universe is 13.73 billion years, plus or minus 120 million years. Some people might say it doesn’t look a day over 6000 years. They’re wrong.

Continue reading Happy Birthday The Universe →

If you thought robotic snakes were creepy, you should check out this (very serious) proposal for how to make a “manned” Mars trip a reality. Continue reading How to get to Mars →

Our colleagues over at scienceblogs.com of Germany have a new cool video. My German is rusty but let me try to translate:If you mix warm and cold (liquid or gas) you get a temperature that is in between. But what if the “warm” is burning thermite (at thousands of degrees C) and the cold is liquid N, at hundreds of degrees below zero?What happens is that the temperature difference is just too high so that one can not be sure what to expect. And then my translation kind of trails off, but if you look at the video, I think what happens is that the liquid nitrogen is transferred into an alternative dimension or possibly a different universe.I might have that wrong, but it is a cool video. Here.

When certain space ships travel by the Earth they seem to demonstrate a shift in velocity that is not predicted. Space ships traveling parallel to the Earth’s Equator do not seem to show this anomaly; It appears to be most readily observed in those that travel in a path unsymmetrical with respect to the equator. Continue reading The Universe Is Slightly Different Than Expected →