Category: Blog

The recently discovered body known as Xena, which lies even further from the sun than Pluto, is bigger than Pluto–and therefore has as much or more right to be called a planet as Pluto does. Guess I’ll have to tack “Xena” on to my “Mother Very Eagerly Made A Jelly Sandwich Under No Protest” method …

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Harlequin and NASCAR have teamed up for a series of romance novels with stock-car-racing backgrounds. Insert your own jokes about oil changes, lube jobs, dipsticks, rubbing paint, overheating, etc., etc., here.

No, that’s not a mis-remembered lyric from the opening of Laverne and Shirley (those of you of a certain age will understand the reference; those of you too young to get it–well, you’re not missing much). As of yesterday, Hassenpfeffer is part of the SaskBlogs Aggregator, a fine initiative by Lance Levsen of Catprint Computing. …

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…has been developed by scientists at UCLA. It goes by the catchy name of confocal laser scanning microscopy and Raman spectroscopy, and it has implications not only for studying fossils here on Earth, but for searching for fossils inside rocks retrieved from Mars–without destroying the samples in the process.

Everybody likes lists, especially around New Year’s. The magazine Popular Mechanics is no exception: its December issue included the magazine’s choices for the top 50 inventions of the last 50 years, as compiled by 25 experts from 17 museums and universities across the United States. As it happens, when searching for column topics, I also …

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This story about North Dakota planning to test balloons as a method of extending cellphone service caught my eye because of the book I’m working on about Saskatchewan engineering projects of note. In the late 1970s a SaskTel engineer proposed that it should be possible to use a string of hot-air balloons, rather like tethered …

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The Rocket Racing League has just introduced its first team, which not surprisingly features some ex-fighter pilots. The figures quoted for getting going in the leauge sound like a lot of money–but it’s actually cheaper than getting involved in auto racing.

…not for space exploration, but for sequencing the DNA of 100 individuals within a limited time frame. This would represent a medical breakthrough and could lead to an era of medicine based on personal genomics. (Via FuturePundit.)

Video captures the attack by a giant Pacific Octopus on a remote-controlled submarine. Where was Kirk Douglas and his harpoon?

…is here. And well worth a visit, even if it hasn’t been freshened up in a while. It’s not like any of the stuff on the site is going to go (any more) out of date! (Via Medgadget.)

This sounds like good news!

Need a hobby? Download plans for paper models of great science-fictional spacecraft. (Via The Corner.)