Year: 2012
The Muppets – Bohemian Rhapsody
An evening pause: A very talented actor once told me that a great deal of all comedy is based on contrast, on juxtaposing extreme opposites in unexpected ways.
The NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, has balked at the Europe-China negotiations for docking a Chinese manned craft at ISS.
The NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, has balked at the Europe-China negotiations for docking a Chinese manned craft at ISS.
I don’t know what Bolden can do about this, however, as we don’t have the ability to get to our own space station, while Europe and the Chinese do.
The science leaders on the team that announced faster-than-light neutrinos at CERN last year have stepped down.
The science leaders on the team that announced faster-than-light neutrinos at CERN last year have stepped down.
The Black Stallion
An evening pause: The central sequence from the 1979 movie, The Black Stallion, when the shipwrecked boy Alec succeeds in taming the shipwrecked Arabian horse. The combination of Carmine Coppola’s music and Caleb Deschanel’s photography in this sequence is unmatched.
The Buzz Lightyear toy that flew on space shuttle has been donated to the Smithsonian.
The Buzz Lightyear toy that flew on space shuttle has been donated to the Smithsonian.
This news item illustrates the sad state of the American space program, when the arrival at a museum of a foot-high plastic toy that had been in space merits major news coverage. Worse, if we instead wanted to bring this toy back to ISS, we can’t, at least not without begging help from someone else.
The report of an 80-year-old former U.S. Marine has provided the Chinese a clue to the whereabouts of the missing bones of Peking Man.
Life imitates pulp fiction: A report describing the memories of an 80-year-old former U.S. Marine has provided the Chinese a clue to the whereabouts of the missing bones of Peking Man.
More details unveiled describing the charges against the CERN scientist on trial in France.
More details revealed describing the charges against the CERN scientist on trial in France for consorting with al-Qaeda.
Adlene Hicheur is accused of compiling a “hit list” of targets that included French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his former interior minister, Brice Hortefeux. …
Officials said they intercepted e-mails he exchanged with al-Qaeda’s North African branch, in which he plotted to blow up a Total oil refinery and a French military base. In one e-mail to suspected Islamic terror chief Mustapha Debchi, Hicheur said he would “propose possible objectives in Europe and particularly in France”. He wrote in March 2009: “Concerning the matter of objectives, they differ depending on the different results sought after the hits. For example: if it’s about punishing the state because of its military activities in Muslim countries – Afghanistan – then it should be a purely military objective. For example: the airbase at Karan Jefrier near Annecy in France. This base trains troops and sends them to Afghanistan.”
So, if these emails are accurate, this guy did far more than simply correspond with terrorists. He plotted to aid them in terrorists attacks.
Blowing in the wind
Want to see where the wind is blowing? Check out this website, which shows an animated map of the wind patterns blowing across the continental United States, continually updated.
Geologists have uncovered a variable in the amount of uranium in rocks that will as increase the margin of error for dating events hundreds of millions of years ago.
The uncertainty of science: Geologists have uncovered a variable in the amount of uranium in rocks that will increase the margin of error for dating events hundreds of millions of years ago.
Is it snowing microbes on Enceladus?
Is it snowing microbes on Enceladus?
“More than 90 jets of all sizes near Enceladus’s south pole are spraying water vapor, icy particles, and organic compounds all over the place,” says Carolyn Porco, an award-winning planetary scientist and leader of the Imaging Science team for NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. “Cassini has flown several times now through this spray and has tasted it. And we have found that aside from water and organic material, there is salt in the icy particles. The salinity is the same as that of Earth’s oceans.”