Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, has passed away. He was 82. I am deeply saddened by the passing of this iconic American hero–a hero not only to science and the spirit of exploration, but a hero to all humanity whose one...
GenCon 2012 has come and gone, and I have to say I had a pretty good time! GenCon is best known as a gaming convention, but it also has a large sci-fi and fantasy presence as well. Although I consider myself an on-again-off-again gamer, my wife and I spent most...
This is a fantastic video using JPL animation and actual footage, compiled and set to music, showing the entry, descent, and landing of the Curiosity rover. Check it out!
The Mars Science Laboratory, more generally known as Curiosity, has made a picture perfect touched down on Mars after a harrowing entry and descent. Says NASA Administrator Charles Bolden: “Today, the wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on Mars. Curiosity, the most sophisticated rover...
The new Mars rover, Curiosity (or more technically, the Mars Science Laboratory) will reach the Red Planet around midnight on Sunday, August 5th. As far as landings go, this one will be a doozie. Checkout this NASA video, hosted by Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher of Star Trek fame), explaining the...
This well-executed parody of Gotye’s popular song “Somebody that I used to Know” pretty much sums up my feelings of the Star Wars prequels and the “re-masterings” of the original films. If only Mr. Lucas could find it in his cold, calloused heart to release the original theatrical versions on...
The news today is rife with stories of heartbreaking tragedy and unrelenting terror, gloomy outlooks and pessimistic forecasts. But as Peter Diamandis points out in his recent TEDTalk, the media caters directly to our amygdala, giving us more pessimistic news than optimistic news. The reality is, we live in a world...
It’s been 43 years since the first human beings landed on the moon… And we’ve not been back since December 1972. It’s utterly baffling to me — this is the year 2012, and by now we should have flourishing lunar colonies, L5 space stations, and human explorers walking on the...
The great thing about science is that it makes predictions that can be tested, the results of which either disprove or leading credence to, various theories and models that describe how the universe works. One of these was the prediction that a particle known as the Higgs Boson “gives mass”...
On the heels of Phil Plait’s post on how much getting blasted out an airlock sucks, Discovery News has just chimed in to say that falling into a volcano is awfully fatal too. In case you didn’t know. Check out this video of a 30 kg (65 lbs) bag of...
