In honor of the 40th anniversary of Star Trek, Tom Pearcy cut this maze in a cornfield on his farm near York in northern England.

That’s what London scientists are forecasting. Hey, maybe we can get a cat after all!

Breathes there a boy with soul so deadWho never on his blog has said,“You know what I think’s way way way fun?“Blasting aliens with a ray gun!”

…via video footage shot from the external boosters. Look in the video gallery at NASA’s Space Shuttle Multimedia page.

…is the subject of a new opera. Well, why not?

An privately built test module that could point the way toward inflatable orbital structures (such as space hotels for tourists) is now in orbit.

This year’s “winner” of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is Jim Guigli of Carmichael, CA. His winning entry: Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for …

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Great news today: my agent, Ethan Ellenberg, phoned this morning to let me know that DAW Books will be buying a second novel from me. It’s not a sequel to Lost in Translation, which they’re bringing out in mass-market paperback in October (although that remains a possibility for the future) but a brand-new stand-alone science …

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The thermometer and the calendar both agree: it’s summer. And as you lie in your hammock listening to whine of the mosquitoes, certain questions about summer may float to the surface of you otherwise placid mind. For instance: What causes sunburn and tanning? Red skin is inflamed skin, and inflammation is the body’s effort to …

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Check out this fascinating photo of our sun in three wavelengths of ultraviolet light. There’s a lot more going on up there, 93 million miles away, than meets the eye. Not that it should meet the eye, of course, not if you value your eyesight.

…not at 11, but right now, right here. Fascinating and frightening at the same time. (Via New Scientist Short Sharp Science blog.)

Former Indy 500 and Monaco Grand Prix winner Juan Pablo Montoya, who has raced exclusively in Formula One for the past six years, is stepping into a NASCAR ride. What? You’re wondering if you wandered into the wrong blog by mistake? Didn’t I mention at some point that my favorite sport has always been automobile …

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