Saw this article on Discover.com earlier this month and thought it was really interesting:Â The Solar System’s Lost Planet. Nesvorny, who runs computer simulations to study how the solar system evolved over time, kept encountering the same problem: The four giant gas planets, whose orbits are comfortably far apart from each other today, kept violently jostling… Continue reading Lost planet
Tag: Science
The best chicken article I’ve read in awhile.
Actually this might be the only chicken article I’ve read now that I think about it. It’s long but really good. Did you know the Egyptians “mastered the technique of artificial incubation”? I did not. Oh, and don’t forget, chickens are basically the descendants of dinosaurs which is awesome.
Timeline of the far future
On a similar topic to my previous post about the scale of the universe, I’ve been enjoying Wikipedia’s Timeline of the far future for equal amounts of mind-boggling scale. Really, once you hit 1020 years from now the numbers are pretty much meaningless to realistic human comprehension. But when you start hitting the exponents of… Continue reading Timeline of the far future
The Scale of the Universe
I realized I missed posting in April entirely(!), and I don’t like the look of the gap in the archive calendar, so I’m back-dating this entry. And you need to check this out, a Flash-animated Scale of the Universe that is simply mind-boggling. From the smallest structures known (quantum foam, the Planck length) to the… Continue reading The Scale of the Universe
Yuri’s Night
Tomorrow, April 12th, is a pretty momentous date: it is the 50th anniversary of the first human being to launch into space (which took place on April 12, 1961) by Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Appropriately enough, the 12th is also when Yuri’s Night is celebrated, a sort of unofficial holiday “world space party” that commemorates… Continue reading Yuri’s Night
The truth about vampires
I realize I’m about a week late blogging this item (should have been around Halloween), but I just can’t resist: Count Dracula not in the numbers, physicist says. A scientist is playing Scully to scientifically disprove the existence of monsters—vampires, zombies, ghosts, and so on. Articles like this make me amused and irritated at the… Continue reading The truth about vampires
Compare and contrast
Compare and contrast this: Global warming over the coming century could mean a return of temperatures last seen in the age of the dinosaur and lead to the extinction of up to half of all species, a scientist said on Thursday. With this: The earliest civilizations were not a product of favorable conditions but rather… Continue reading Compare and contrast
Much Ado About Pluto
More geeky space news! This is more mainstream-popular, though, as I’ve seen it popping up everywhere. Pluto is no longer a planet. I’m actually a bit surprised at the uproar this seems to be causing; Slashdot has more on this. Me, I guess I’ve always been suspicious of Pluto; I mean, the thing has this… Continue reading Much Ado About Pluto
They don’t make ’em like that anymore
Okay, I’m a little behind on news, but I thought this story was extremely cool: Voyager 1 passes 100 AU from the sun. I guess this is only of interest to you if you’re a space and astronomy geek. (Some quick Wikipedia references: Voyager 1, AU.) It’s just amazing to me that a spacecraft built… Continue reading They don’t make ’em like that anymore
Killer Kangaroo!
Now, this story is just silly: Fanged killer kangaroo roamed Outback. Forget cute, cuddly marsupials. A team of Australian palaeontologists say they have found the fossilized remains of a fanged killer kangaroo and what they describe as a “demon duck of doom”. … The species found at the dig had “well muscled-in teeth, not for… Continue reading Killer Kangaroo!