Rather than gliding, the first flying bats used their wings to flutter down on their prey
Rather than learning to fly by gliding, a new theory proposes that the first flying bats learned how to fly by fluttering down on their prey.
Year: 2011
Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova – Falling Slowly
An evening pause: The Oscar-winning song from the film Once (2007), performed live.
Iranian officials have been pressuring a jailed pastor to return to Islam as he waits for the nation’s supreme leader to decide whether he should be executed for converting to Christianity
The tolerance of Islam: Iranian officials have been pressuring a jailed pastor to return to Islam rather than be executed for converting to Christianity.
An inside look at NASA bureaucratic madness
An inside look at NASA’s bureaucratic madness.
Much of the time NASA appears to be a loose confederation of 10 quasi independent fiefdoms, each pretty much in charge of their own business. People often ask me what would I do if I were king of NASA for a day. They expect me to say something like: build this rocket, launch that satellite. Rather I think how I would standardize the procurement processes, or the human resources procedures, or the engineering standards used across the agency. But then I always was a dreamer, tilting at impossible windmills. Launching rockets is easy; getting engineers to agree on standards is hard.
And people wonder why I strongly oppose NASA’s heavy-lift rocket (which I think will never get built), or worry that NASA’s interference will choke to death the new independent commercial space companies.
The largest sunspot in years released the largest flare in years on Thursday
The largest sunspot in years released the largest flare in years on Thursday.
Brian Malow – Nobel, Edison & the Speed of Light
An evening pause: “And yes, I did do the math for that joke!”
Occupying vs. Tea Partying
The first in orbit tests of Robonaut halted because the robot did not carry out its commands as expected.
HAL lives! The first in-orbit tests of Robonaut were halted today on ISS because the robot did not carry out its commands as expected.
NASA robot operator Phil Strawser said joint movements in the weightless space environment have proven to be different than those performed in normal gravity on Earth. Consequently, software used to operate the robot needs to be “fine-tuned,” he said.
Russia heads for Mars
Russia heads for Mars: a detailed look at the Phobos/Grunt sample return mission, set to launch on November 8.
I really wish the Russians good luck with this project. Not only would it herald their return to planetary science since the fall of the Soviet Union, success here would break their long string of failures to the red planet. Though their unmanned planetary program had some remarkable achievements during the Soviet era, of the 19 missions they flew to Mars in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, all were failures, producing almost no useful data.
Get ready for another government shutdown battle
Get ready for another government shutdown battle.
The 520-day simulated mission to Mars has been completed
The 520-day simulated mission to Mars has been completed.
Vintage leather football helmets are often as protective as modern hard football helmets
Newer is not always better: A study has found that vintage leather football helmets used in the early 1900s can be as good if not better than modern hard football helmets in protecting the head.
The Mars rover Opportunity has spotted a geological formation not previously seen anywhere on Mars.
The Mars rover Opportunity has spotted a geological formation not previously seen anywhere on Mars.
A NASA senior review of all planetary missions?
Here’s a tidbit I just spotted on the EPOXI (formerly Deep Impact) status website, buried in a November 1, 2011 update::
Meanwhile, NASA has decided that there will be a senior review of all operating planetary exploration missions. That will likely include a review of the status of the Deep Impact Flyby spacecraft to determine whether an additional extended mission should be approved. Decisions will not occur until early 2012.
Though Deep Impact is still a functioning spacecraft in orbit around the sun, up until this notice I had not heard of any plans to use it again after its flyby of Comet Hartley-2 in 2010. However, there is no reason its cameras could not be used for astronomy, though unfortunately its high resolution camera has a focus problem which prevents it from taking the sharpest images.
However, the timing of this review of planetary missions, combined with the story last week that the Obama administration might end all funding for future planetary missions, is intriguing. I wonder if they are tied together in some way. That the notice above says the decision will be made in “early 2012” — the moment when the Obama administration will unveil its 2012 federal budget recommendations — strongly suggests that they are linked.
Could that the administration be thinking it can salvage the bad press it will receive for shutting down all future planetary missions by spending a small amount on extending missions already in space? Or is this planetary review another indication that the rumors are true and the administration plans to end the planetary science program entirely?
Unfortunately, I am speculating here, without any real information. Stay tuned to find out.
Robot obstacle course
An evening pause: The robot obstacle course at the 2006 ROBO-ONE competition in Kawasaki, Japan. Very impressive, for a machine, though this does illustrate how difficult it is to artificially duplicate what life does so naturally.
The largest sunspot in years appears on the sun
The largest sunspot in years has appeared on the sun.
The Obama administration has failed to meet more than half the deadlines in its own healthcare law
Repeal the damn thing! The Obama administration has failed to meet more than half the deadlines in its own healthcare law.
For the first time in a half-century, Cubans will be allowed to buy and sell real estate openly
Communism fails again: For the first time in a half-century, a new law will allow Cubans to buy and sell real estate.
The global output of atmospheric carbon dioxide jumped in 2010 by the biggest amount on record, according to the U.S. Department of Energy
The global output of atmospheric carbon dioxide jumped in 2010 by the biggest amount on record, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
In 2007 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its last large report on global warming, it used different scenarios for carbon dioxide pollution and said the rate of warming would be based on the rate of pollution. Boden said the latest figures put global emissions higher than the worst case projections from the climate panel.
And yet, the global temperatures are not rising, as also predicted by those same IPCC models.
Finding ET by looking for their city lights
Finding ET by looking for their city lights.