Blowin’ off some scream | Bad Astronomy
Updated: 2010-10-31 16:38:29
BOO! Happy Halloween from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland!
This is a radar image of the volcano taken by the Icelandic Coastal Patrol back in April 2010 while Eyjafjallajökull was still erupting constantly and making the news. I had forgotten about it, but it was tweeted by my friend Alex Witze and makes a perfect post for [...]
NCBI ROFL: The case of the haunted scrotum. “On CT scanning of the abdomen and pelvis, the right testis was not identified but the left side of the scrotum seemed to be occupied by a screaming ghost-like apparition (Figure 1).”
NCBI ROFL: Does garlic protect against vampires? An experimental study. “Garlic has been regarded as an [...]
Intriguing images of brand new, fresh gullies on Mars has most of us thinking of one thing: water. But at least for one type of Mars gully, carbon dioxide frost is the impetus behind fresh flows showing up on images from orbiting spacecraft. “Gullies that look like this on Earth are caused by flowing water, [...]
Using a giant radio telescope like a cop’s radar gun, astronomers have made some pretty cool images of the nucleus of the comet Hartley 2: Hartley 2 is a comet that is currently very close to the Earth as these things go: last week it passed us at a distance of about 18 million km (11 [...]
[Update (15:00 UT Saturday): launch was delayed again. It is now set for Wednesday, November 3, at 15:52 Eastern time.]
Just a quick update: NASA has delayed the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery by a day due to gas leaks in one of the Orbiter Maneuvering System pods (those are the engines housed under the [...]
With just over two months until The Science of Kissing’s debut (publication date has moved up to Jan 5), my book’s been mentioned in the brand new issue of Scientific American MIND by Ferris Jabr:
No matter how old and experienced we get, sex and romance never fail to surprise and perplex us. Three new [...]
By now you may have heard the report that as many as 1/4 of all the sun-like stars in the Milky Way may have Earth-like worlds. Briefly, astronomers studied 166 stars within 80 light years of Earth, and did a survey of the planets they found orbiting them. What they found is that about 1.5% [...]
We’re beginning to ramp up the Geoffrey Beene Gives Back® Rock Stars of Science™ campaign, as the new launch approaches in the December “Men of the Year” issue of GQ. With the new images still not public, though, it’s first worth going back over last year’s campaign and reminiscing, as well as reminding folks of what came [...]
I’m a fan of the webcomic Big Fat Whale — he nails just the right tone of satire, snark, and intelligence that really resonates with me. Today he has a Halloween list of pretty funny scary movies that need to be made.
Turns out that the artist of BFW, Brian McFadden, reads my blog, too. The [...]
“BACKGROUND: Individuals’ faces communicate a great deal of information about them. Although some of this information tends to be perceptually obvious (such as race and sex), much of it is perceptually ambiguous, without clear or obvious visual cues. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we found that individuals’ political affiliations could be accurately discerned from their faces. In [...]
Not only is the Kepler spacecraft hunting down extrasolar planets, but it also provides the ability to study stars in unprecedented detail. “We knew that if Kepler had the sensitivity of detecting Earth-size planets, that it would have capability to transform our knowledge of stars themselves,” said Natalie Batalha of San Jose State University in [...]
In another case of NASA reusing and recycling spacecraft, two of the five THEMIS spacecraft — which were studying the cause of geomagnetic substorms here on Earth — have a new mission. They made some very unique and complex maneuvers to reach two different LaGrange Points, and will turn their focus on the Moon. Particularly, [...]
The universe abounds with Earth-sized planets. That hopeful notion has been reinforced by individual planets finds like possible Goldilocks planet Gliese 581g, by the hordes of planet candidates discovered by the Kepler mission, and now, by a census of a small space in the sky that tells us one in four sun-like stars should [...]
Quite a few things going on in the human spaceflight world, so will just post a few briefs: Of course top on the agenda is that space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to lift-off on its last flight ever, for the STS-133 mission. Launch is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 1 at 4:40 p.m. EDT from Launch [...]
I had the chance to interview LCROSS principal investigator Anthony Colaprete about the latest findings released from the lunar impact of the spacecraft a year ago, and in addition to the article we posted here on Universe Today, I also did a podcast for the NASA Lunar Science Institute. If you would like to actually [...]
A five-year survey of nearby solar-mass stars has provided astronomers with an estimate of how many stars of this type could have Earth-size planets. Andrew Howard and Geoffrey Marcy from the University of California Berkeley studied 166 G and K stars within 80 light-years of Earth, determining the number, mass and orbital distance of any [...]
: Home Sci-Tech Science and Society Science and Society The Latest Developments in Science and Technology Ned Potter is the science correspondent for ABC's World News with Diane Sawyer . He has reported on such topics as space exploration , the human genome and climate change . Subscribe to this blog's feed RECENT POSTS Close Shave : Asteroid Passes a Tenth of Distance to Moon Red River : Hungary Toxic Spill , Visible from Space Happy Birthday , Sputnik Duck Two Asteroids Pass Closer than Moon Saving Energy in All the Wrong Places The Plight of the Titi Monkeys Climategate' E-mails : Independent Panel Clears Global Warming Researchers BP's Next Problem : Tropical Storm . Alex Shaking All Over : Earthquake in Northeast Gulf Oil Spill : Where the Slick May Go MONTHLY ARCHIVES October 2010