Category: Blog

Ion-engined spacecraft to orbit Moon Monday

The ion-enginedSMART-1 spacecraft, Europe’s first lunar mission, will go into orbit around the Moon on Monday.

Countdown to solar-sail voyage begins…

…is today’s most science-fictional-sounding headline. Cosmos 1, the world’s first solar-sail spacecraft will launch early next year from a Russian submarine, using a converted ICBM as its launch vehicle…a clear case of beating swords into ploughshares.

Mind over matter

In the spring of 2002, scientists from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, announced that monkeys had successfully played a simple computer gamer. Their point wasn’t that any old monkey can play video games. What was special about their game-playing monkeys was that the on-screen cursor in the game was controlled by signals sent directly …

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Flying taxis

These aren’t exactly the air-cars of science fiction, but they’re the next best thing.

X-prize money handed over

The SpaceShipOne crew have finally gotten their hands on the X-Prize’s $10,000,000.

Hairy legs keep water striders afloat

If this is true, how come I’ve never been able to float?

Drugs to help people stop smoking?

Using genetically modified mice, California researchers are closing in on a better understanding of nicotine addiction. All public places in Saskatchewan will be smoke-free as of January 1. They’d better hurry.

I’m back!

Well, at last! I haven’t been able to post for a few days because of server problems at Blogger. But it looks like everything is sorted out.

Always look on the bright side of life!

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? The question may be more than just the small talk it sounds like. According to a new Dutch study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, optimists may live longer. The researchers, led by Dr. Erik J. Giltay of the Psychiatric Centre GGZ Delfland in Delft, The Neteherlands, …

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More Titan details

More details from Cassini’s flyby of Titan reveal it’s a strange and complex world.

"Hobbits" among us?

Those hobbit-like humanoids recently discovered in Indonesia could still be around somewhere in the deep jungle…

Writing Diary: October 28, 2004

“Hey!” I can hear you say (because I can hear through the Internet–what, can’t you?), “How come no writing diary in a very long time?” Busy, that’s why. Mostly not with writing. The show I’m directing for Regina Lyric Light Opera, We’ll Meet Again (“a humorous and nostalgic revue of the music and comedy of …

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