Apparently, you can float free–as long as you don’t panic. Or, if you can lift a small car, and your leg is firmly attached, you can just pull yourself out.
Category: Blog
First video and photos of giant squid in action
A couple of years ago I wrote about the collosal squid. Now Japanese researchers have captured a living giant (not collosal, but still amazing) squid on camera. They have video; National Geographic has some still photos.
Taking aim at an asteroid
We’ve all seen it in movies: scientists spot a giant comet/asteroid hurtling toward Earth, and Bruce Willis/Clint Eastwood must fly out to it and blow it up/nudge it aside before it devastates the planet/blows the special effects budget. But in real life, we don’t really know exactly what it would take to deflect an oncoming …
Well, this ought to get the alien conspiracy theorists going
The first pictures from Cassini of Saturn’s moon Tethys reveal a strange spear-shaped figure. Isn’t it obvious? It’s a crashed alien spaceship, which left a long, straight scar in the surface of the moon as it went down. My bet is it’s the same aliens who built the Face on Mars. Or possibly the ones …
But what will People for the Ethical Treatment of Robots think?
Down in Mexico, they’re usingrobot patients to train doctors. (Via MedGadget.)
The end of the jukebox musical?
My wife and I (like millions of other people) really enjoyed the ABBA tribute musical Mamma Mia. But in the wake of high-profile failures of shows based on the music of John Lennon and The Beach Boys (among others) it appears the brief era of the “jukebox musical” may be coming to an end.
This could really suck…
…but in the case of a musical about Anne Rice’s Vampire Lestat, maybe that’s a good thing.
The X Prize: What are the "losers" up to?
Robin Snelson answers a question I’ve had for some time with an article in The Space Review about the “X Prize losers,” the teams that were in the race, at least on paper, but were beat out by the much-better-funded SpaceShip One bunch. Of particular interest: “The da Vinci Project has been keeping a low …
Using viruses to grow a battery
MIT material scientist and engineer Angela Belcher and her team are figuring out how to use viruses to grow rechargeable batteries. They mix bacteriophages (viruses that normally infect bacteria) with various materials. The bacteriophages self-assemble themselves, and the materials, in orderly layers. The same technique may be able to make everything from solar cells to …
No one likes me here, but I’m big in Norway
For some reason, I have (or, rather, this blog has) been getting visitor after visitor in the last week or so from Norway–specifically, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. I have no idea why, unless it’s because of the recent spate of Banff pictures (the posting of photos and the surge of Norwegian …
Termination shock confirmed
Voyager 1, scientists have confirmed, crossed the termination shock (a shock wave in the solar wind that marks its slowing from supersonic to subsonic speed) on December 16 and is now sending back the first information ever of the helisheath, a transition region at the edge of the solar system. Voyager 1 is expected to …
The last photo from Banff…this time
Here (and in the previous few posts) are the final pictures of Banff I’ll be posting this time around. I end with a photo of the Banff Springs Hotel, because this is where my wife and daughter and I will be returning to at the end of October for the International Wine and Food Festival. …
My latest live walk and vlog
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