A Sad Day for NASA Fanboys
Loren Feldman nails it in this video — we’re watching what’s left of NASA go on display in museums while China is working hard at go back to the moon. Read more…
Time to Invent Warp Drive
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Dec 7, 2011 in Science
Two years ago, NASA’s Kepler space telescope identified the planet designated Kepler 22B — a super-earth orbiting a yellow dwarf similar to our sun. Read more…
More Human Than Human: Is Blade Runner Slowly Becoming Real?
While reading an interesting interview with a medical ethicist and I was suddenly struck by how much this premise reminded me of the 1982 classic film Blade Runner: “Do you think that granting corporations the rights of people in the Citizens United case is disturbing? Then contemplate the fact that corporations have been patenting human genes and tissues at alarming rates — in the last 30 years, more than 40,000 patents have been granted on genes alone.” Read more…
Rockets of the World Drawn to Scale
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 10, 2011 in Science
You know nothing so far quite beats a good old fashioned Saturn V rocket! Found via dudelol.com and Jet Tan.
An Elegant Plea for Space Exploration
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 6, 2011 in Science
The amazing video below (which is from The Sagan Series) uses audio from the Carl Sagan audio book The Pale Blue Dot and is a wonderful argument for a return to the moon:
Walter Bishop Gets His Own Science Show
Posted by Michael Sacco on Aug 12, 2011 in Science, Television
Err, you know what I mean. Another science show. It’s totally different than the other one; this one deals with horrific experiments, fringe science, and … okay, okay, I get it. But this one’s about real science! That’s right, Fringe’s John Noble will be hosting a new show on the Science channel called Dark Matters, dealing with the dark side of science using real historical examples. The first six episode descriptions read like Fringe summaries, which is, of course, wildly appropriate. Expect to see body transplants, reanimation, and more, with Noble’s trademark mug to guide you through the creepiness. Who could ask for anything more? Read more…
Scifi Artist, Real Astronauts
Posted by Michael Sacco on May 6, 2011 in Science
Brooklyn artist Donato Giancola has made his living on illustrating scifi book covers, but the US Postal Service grabbed him for a slightly more grounded task — that is, if you can call what astronauts do “grounded.” He’s the artist for two of the USPS’s new commemorative astronaut stamps, including the one above, featuring Alan Shepard. So what was it like illustrating real space travel, as opposed to works of fiction? It’s all in the details, he says. “When you’re creating art that’s going to be a historical record like these stamps, there’s no room for mistakes.” That kind of work pays off for Giancola, whose work is now in circulation to the tune of millions of stamps nationwide. Read more…
Japanese Plutonium Propaganda
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Mar 30, 2011 in Science
This video has been making the rounds on twitter for the past few days, and while I don’t exactly find it humorous – especially considering how many people are still suffering overseas — I found it very interesting watch. For those of you who don’t speak Japanese, it’s a government sponsored propaganda cartoon that insists that plutonium is not as harmful as activists may have led you to believe. I’m not sure when this film was drawn, but judging by the fact that it’s completely hand-drawn, I’m sure it’s safe to assume it wasn’t recent. I certainly hope any kid ever exposed to this would know better by now.
Enjoy Science Without All That Pesky Context
Posted by Michael Sacco on Mar 18, 2011 in Science
Science has a lot of really cool (and weird) stuff to read about, but sometimes you have to wade through a lot of other words to find it! What a pain, right? Out of Context Science cuts all that out, giving you single sentences of science weirdness without all the work. Where else can you read the sentence ” The aim is for the robot to be able to propel itself in any fluid mucus without having to carry its own reserve of mucus along”? Besides the original paper it was in, anyway. I think this way is a lot better. Read more…
Japan to Build Their Own Mr.Data?
Japan recently announced that they’re considering sending a talking humanoid robot to the International Space Station in 2013. In addition to offering companionship, and being generally creepy — it’s suppose to monitor the astronauts while they sleep — it’ll communicate with Earth via twitter, where it’ll tweet images to its followers on the ground. Sadly, I don’t think the robot will posess super-human strength, or any form of self-awareness. After all, I doubt Japan has any cyberneticists capable of crafting the appropriate positronic components. Read more…