Here’s a fascinating (and long!) article on the challenges faced and overcomed by mission control and its supporting engineers during the almost-disasterous Apollo 13 mission 35 years ago this month.
Category: Blog
Risk-taking boys do not get the girls
My bookish, non-athletic teenagerhood vindicated by science.
What scientists want you to know about science
The Guardian prints some of the most provocative answers it got to the question it asked 250 scientists: “What is the one thing everyone should learn about science?“
More on Ward Churchill
Having gone to the trouble of transcribing the words of Ward Churchill as played on CBC Saskatchewan a while back, the least I can do is point you to this in-depth article on him from The Weekly Standard: “The Ward Churchill Notoriety Tour.”
A helicopter in every driveway?
Would you spend $50,000 to have your own personal easy-to-fly no-license-required helicopter? Is the fact it has a really cute name (AirScooter)going to change your mind?
Programmed plastics, triggered by light
An MIT engineer and his German colleagues have createdbrainy plastics that can be programmed to change shape when struck by certain wavelengths of light and return to their original shape when exposed to other specified wavelengths. It’s the kind of discovery whose uses will only become clear over time…and then we’ll wonder how we ever …
Popcorn perfection possible?
Scientists have uncovered the scientific key to perfect popcorn popping. It’s research you can sink your teeth into.
A hands-on approach to data manipulation
Don a pair of reflective gloves and this new computer interface lets you manipulate images on the screen just by moving your hands. New Scientist seems to think this idea was original with Minority Report, but I’m pretty sure it’s been widespread in written science fiction for years, if not decades. I used a hand-waving …
"Strange Harvest" on Between the Covers in May
I’ve finally heard when my short story “Strange Harvest” will be on CBC Radio’s Between the Covers. It will be part of “Six Impossible Things,” a special series of short speculative fiction that will air weekdays from May 16 through May 27, hosted and curated by Nalo Hopkinson, who will also have a piece in …
Dinosaur eggs found whole in mother’s belly
How did dinosaurs lay their eggs? We now have a much better idea, thanks to a stunning fossil discovery.
Waking you when you’re ready
Here’s a new alarm clock that wakes you when you’re ready–that is, when you’re in the lightest stage of sleep. You program it with the latest time you want to be wakened, and it wakes you in the last lightest sleep phase before that. (It monitors your brain waves with a special headband.) I think …
"How One City May Put an Alien Species to Good Work"
Alas, the “alien species” in question is an invasive type of water snail, not blue-skinned intelligent slugs from Oom’la’khor IV seeking to help out primitive planets like ours in their development…but I’m still calling it the “Science Fiction Headline of the Day.” You can do that when you’re the sole judge of the contest.
My latest live walk and vlog
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