Armchair Science

Largest Planetarium In Texas Opens This Weekend

2006-03-03T10:15:00.000-06:00

The largest and newest planetarium in Texas opens this weekend at the University of Texas at Arlington.

[Fort Worth Star-Telegram Article] | [UTA Planetarium page]

Pre-Dawn Comet Visible

2006-03-03T10:06:00.000-06:00

Comet Pojmanski will make it's closest approach (100 million kilometers) to Earth on March 5th. So, get your arse up out of bed and check it out!

[Observing info from Sky and Telescope magazine]

U.S. scientists create self-replicating robot

2005-05-12T08:35:00.000-05:00

From the "I'm-Not-So-Sure-About-This" Department:

"LONDON (Reuters) - Self-replicating robots are no longer the stuff of science fiction.

Scientists at the Cornell University in Ithaca, New York have created small robots that can build copies of themselves..."

Mind-reading machine knows what you see

2005-04-25T13:47:00.000-05:00

"It is possible to read someone’s mind by remotely measuring their brain activity, researchers have shown. The technique can even extract information from subjects that they are not aware of themselves..."

Gotta admit: pretty cool...but spooky!

Bob - "I wasn't looking at porn!"
Boss - "That's not what your brain scan shows, Bob..."

Meteor shower sparks flurry of calls to police

2005-04-25T09:30:00.000-05:00

"BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- A meteor shower Sunday night sparked a flurry of frantic phone calls to police departments across New England from people who saw bright lights moving in the sky, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration said..."

Dang! That must've been pretty...here in Texas, I didn't see jack...

Exploding toads baffle German experts

2005-04-25T09:27:00.000-05:00

"BERLIN (AFP) - Hundreds of toads have met a bizarre and sinister end in Germany in recent days, it was reported: they exploded.

According to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians as many as a thousand of the amphibians have perished after their bodies swelled to bursting point and their entrails were propelled for up to a metre (three feet)..."

Now THERE'S something you don't see every day!

Mice put in 'suspended animation'

2005-04-22T08:54:00.000-05:00

"Mice have been placed in a state of near suspended animation, raising the possibility that hibernation could one day be induced in humans..."

It's no secret that I favor the idea of being frozen one day...one step closer perhaps?

Nokia dumps IE for Firefox: 55,000 times

2005-02-22T09:00:00.000-06:00

"Reports on two Scandinavian web sites said that Nokia is pushing Microsoft Internet Explorer off its desktop PCs in favour of the Firefox browser..."

Go! Go! Firefox!

Astronomers Spy Galaxy's Strongest Explosion Yet

2005-02-22T08:57:00.000-06:00

Scientific American - "Telescopes around the world recorded the brightest explosion ever detected in our galaxy, which sent x-rays and gamma rays careening outward at incredible speeds, astronomers announced on Friday...In just two-tenths of a second, the flare, located 50,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius, shot out as much energy as our sun gives off in 250,000 years..."

Muons may be key to nuclear bomb detection

2005-02-22T08:54:00.000-06:00

"Muons produced by cosmic rays could be the key to catching terrorists trying to smuggle nuclear material into the United States, New Mexico scientists said..."

'Pack ice' suggests frozen sea on Mars

2005-02-21T11:02:00.000-06:00

"A frozen sea, surviving as blocks of pack ice, may lie just beneath the surface of Mars, suggest observations from Europe's Mars Express spacecraft. The sea is just 5° north of the Martian equator and would be the first discovery of a large body of water beyond the planet's polar ice caps..."

Virus hits some US mobile phones

2005-02-21T08:50:00.000-06:00

"A new mobile-phone virus was found in one of the US cellphone stores last week as a warning sign that virus-writers got accustomed to cell phones and will soon be able to destroy programs in mobile phones..."

Appears to affect Bluetooth-enabled Symbian-based phones. More info here.

Large Storms On Earth Are Particle Accelerators

2005-02-21T08:41:00.000-06:00

According to a UC Santa Cruz paper, the atmosphere above Earth's strongest storms becomes a particle accelerator, emitting Terrestrial Gamma Ray bursts...

Date set for shuttle RTS...

2005-02-21T08:37:00.000-06:00

NASA announced Friday that May 15 is the target date for the next shuttle launch!

Toy robots walk more efficiently

2005-02-18T09:01:00.000-06:00

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Simple robots that toddle along like an old-fashioned child's toy offer a more realistic and efficient model of human walking than more sophisticated models, researchers said on Thursday..."

I love my Legos!

New proof that man is causing global warming

2005-02-18T08:53:00.000-06:00

"The strongest evidence yet that global warming has been triggered by human activity has emerged from a major study of rising temperatures in the world’s oceans..."

And you thought it was all bunk.

Stonehenge 2 complete...

2005-02-16T09:04:00.000-06:00

Built in New Zealand for some "back-to-basics" astronomy...

Lobsters apparently don't feel pain...

2005-02-15T08:51:00.000-06:00

"PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - A new study out of Norway concludes it's unlikely lobsters feel pain, stirring up a long-simmering debate over whether Maine's most valuable seafood suffers when it's being cooked..."

But I always heard that they scream when you boil 'em...

Sedna Could Hold Secrets to Earth's Past

2005-02-14T08:43:00.000-06:00

"It is the most distant object in the solar system ever identified -- traveling around the sun every 10,500 years in a highly elliptical orbit that keeps it 7 billion to 93 billion miles from Earth. Nothing else that far out has ever been seen..."

If all goes well NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly past Pluto ten years from now, within the lifetime of those born the year the planet was discovered.

Inventor Kurzweil Aiming to Live Forever

2005-02-14T08:37:00.000-06:00

"The famed inventor and computer scientist is serious about his health because if it fails him he might not live long enough to see humanity achieve immortality, a seismic development he predicts in his new book is no more than 20 years away..."

Can This Black Box See Into the Future?

2005-02-13T09:16:00.000-06:00

"DEEP in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream...according to a growing band of top scientists, this box has quite extraordinary powers. It is, they claim, the 'eye' of a machine that appears capable of peering into the future and predicting major world events..."

Insert spooky theremin sound here...

NASA picks shuttle repair techniques for space tests

2005-02-11T08:48:00.000-06:00

"After weeks of internal debate, testing and analyses, NASA managers today selected four rudimentary tile and wing leading edge repair techniques to demonstrate during the first post-Columbia shuttle mission..."

It's both a dessert topping AND it's a floor wax!

Images of tsunami seabed show huge ruptures

2005-02-10T11:27:00.000-06:00

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) -- "The first images of the seabed battered by the quake that triggered Asia's catastrophic tsunami have revealed huge ruptures spanning several kilometers..."

Hope Diamond cut from French crown jewel

2005-02-10T08:33:00.000-06:00

WASHINGTON (AP) -- "Researchers using computer analysis have traced the origin of the famed Hope Diamond, concluding that it was cut from a larger stone that was once part of the crown jewels of France..."

Dude, It's like you are THERE (almost)!

2005-02-09T08:50:00.000-06:00

Experience the moon just as the astronauts did (almost) with these 360-degree interactive panoramas using actual photos from the Apollo missions.

No spacesuit required! And you don't have to pee in a hose...unless you really want to...

Star seen beating-feet out of the Milky Way...

2005-02-09T08:44:00.000-06:00

Wired news - "A star three times bigger than the sun has been seen fleeing our galaxy at over 1.5 million mph, according to astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The gravitational pull of a black hole thought to exist there is likely responsible for the extreme velocity of the star, swinging it around the center of the Milky Way. A companion star may once have traveled with the speeding star and contributed to its velocity before being trapped by the black hole..."

Mysterious object imaged...

2005-02-08T08:49:00.000-06:00

From APOD - "The Night Sky Live (NSL) project keeps its global array of continuously updating web cameras (CONCAMs) always watching the night sky. On the night of 2004 December 17, the fisheye CONCAM perched on top of an active volcano in Haleakala, Hawaii, saw something moving across the night sky that remains mysterious. The NSL team might have disregarded the above streak as unconfirmed, but the Mauna Kea CONCAM on the next Hawaiian island recorded the same thing..."

Strange Miniature 'Solar Systems' Revealed

2005-02-08T08:41:00.000-06:00

"An object smaller than Pluto has been discovered orbiting a dying star in what astronomers said Monday resembles a pint-sized version of our solar system..."

Closest Flyby of Large Asteroid to be Naked-Eye Visible

2005-02-07T15:08:00.000-06:00

From the Department of Butt-Puckering Events - "Space.com - An asteroid expected to fly past Earth in 2029 will be visible to the naked eye, scientists projected Thursday.

It's a once-in-a-millennium event. And you may want to buy plane tickets now, as the flyby will be visible only from Europe, Africa and western Asia..."

Global Warming - Mars Style...

2005-02-07T08:48:00.000-06:00

"Pumping greenhouse gases into the Martian atmosphere over hundreds or even thousands of years could warm the frozen planet enough to sustain life, according to new research."

A Hubble alternative...

2005-02-06T09:25:00.000-06:00

Astronomy magazine reports - "An international team led by Johns Hopkins University astronomers suggests an alternative: create a new space telescope, called the Hubble Origins Probe (HOP), that would carry instruments built for the canceled servicing mission. 'Though we support any option that will maintain the Hubble mission, the Hubble Origins Probe is the best choice not only for continuing that tradition of discovery, but also for taking it one step further...'"

Sounds like a good, cost-effective alternative...

The business of Nanotech

2005-02-04T11:20:00.000-06:00

"There's still plenty of hype, but nanotechnology is finally moving from the lab to the marketplace. Get ready for cars, chips, and golf balls made with new materials engineered down to the level of individual atoms..."

Light continues to echo three years after stellar outburst

2005-02-04T10:11:00.000-06:00

"The Hubble Space Telescope's latest image of the star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) reveals dramatic changes in the illumination of surrounding dusty cloud structures. The effect, called a light echo, has been unveiling never-before-seen dust patterns ever since the star suddenly brightened for several weeks in early 2002." Pretty!

'Zero intelligence' trading closely mimics stock market

2005-02-04T10:06:00.000-06:00

"A model that assumes stock market traders have zero intelligence has been found to mimic the behaviour of the London Stock Exchange very closely."

You'd think I'd be making more money in the stock market, then...

Scientists locate universe's missing matter

2005-02-03T08:47:00.000-06:00

"Paris - Some of the universe's missing "normal" matter has been found hiding in clouds of hot gas between galaxies, according to research published on Thursday in the British scientific journal Nature."

Solar super-sail could reach Mars in a month

2005-02-01T10:48:00.000-06:00

"A LICK of paint could help a spacecraft powered by a solar sail get from Earth to Mars in just one month, seven times faster than the craft that took the rovers Spirit and Opportunity to the Red Planet."

A Glow In The Martian Night

2005-02-01T10:01:00.000-06:00

"Jean-Loup Bertaux, of the Service d'Aeronomie du CNRS in France, is Principal Investigator for the spectrometer instrument onboard the ESA's Mars Express orbiter. His SPICAM instrument team detected a night glow on Mars, and they have now published their discovery in the January 28th edition of the journal Science."

Tiny medicine

2005-02-01T08:41:00.000-06:00

The Washington Post has an interesting read about the potentials of Nanotechnology+Medicine...

Nanobots, here we come!

Comet Machholz update...

2005-01-31T16:18:00.000-06:00

"With the bright Moon waning, now is a good time to see Comet Machholz again. Step outside after sunset and face north. You'll find the comet near the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia. It looks like a faint fuzzball, barely visible to the unaided eye but an easy target for binoculars or a small telescope."

Visit SpaceWeather.com for sky maps and pictures. Also, check out Sky And Telescope.

Fireball over Madrid, Spain...

2005-01-31T08:50:00.000-06:00

"MADRID (AFP) - Residents of the area near Madrid airport reported seeing a ball of fire explode and disintregrate in skies over the Spanish capital overnight, security services said."

Cambodian meteorite sparks fires...

2005-01-27T08:34:00.000-06:00

A meteorite landed in Cambodia sparking fires and prayers. Some farmers were angry at the rock because it set fire to their rice paddies...

Asteroid named for Douglas Adams

2005-01-26T09:33:00.000-06:00

The "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" mastermind Douglas Adams has been further immortalized with an asteroid bearing a fitting designation - "2001 DA42".

Hubble, we hardly knew ye...

2005-01-25T08:45:00.000-06:00

The debate rages on with what to do with Hubble. Now, it seems, the plan is to dump it in the Pacific with no immediate replacement...

Update: Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has joined the fight with Senator Barbara Mikulski (Also, D-MD) and has released a statement in support of Hubble.

Mars rover finds meteorite

2005-01-20T08:30:00.000-06:00

"LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- NASA's Opportunity rover has determined that a strange bubbly rock on the surface of Mars is actually a meteorite, offering a new clue into how the Martian surface is made and remade."

Ancient Astronomer's Work Found on Roman Statue

2005-01-12T09:09:00.000-06:00

"SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - A Roman statue of Atlas -- the mythical titan who carried the heavens on his shoulders -- holds clues to the long-lost work of the ancient astronomer Hipparchus, an astronomical historian said on Tuesday."

Three largest stars identified

2005-01-12T09:04:00.000-06:00

"Astronomers have identified the three biggest stars known to science. If they were located in the same place as our own Sun - at the centre of the Solar System - the stars would stretch out further than the orbit of Jupiter."

Deep Impact To Liftoff Today

2005-01-12T08:56:00.000-06:00

"A daring scientific mission to smash a washing machine-sized bullet into
the heart of Comet Tempel 1, excavating a stadium-sized crater to reveal
primitive materials left from the solar system's creation for spacecraft
and Earth-based telescopes to observe, is poised for blastoff at 1:47 p.m.
EST (1847 GMT) today aboard a Boeing Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral,
Florida."

Texas Company Putting Biosphere 2 Up For Sale

2005-01-10T09:41:00.000-06:00

"TUCSON, Arizona (AP) -- The company that owns Biosphere 2 Center, 3.1 glass-enclosed acres designed to simulate the Earth's environment, has put the site up for sale."

Don't see a price...wonder if Century 21 is handling it?

Saturn's Moon Iapetus Shows a Bulging Waistline

2005-01-10T08:44:00.000-06:00

"Images returned by NASA's Cassini spacecraft cameras during a New Year's Eve flyby of Saturn's moon Iapetus (eye-APP-eh-tuss) show startling surface features that are fueling heated scientific discussions about their origin."

Look up!

2005-01-09T21:55:00.000-06:00

CNN's guide to a little winter stargazing.

New Shuttle Fuel Tank Should Allow May Launch

2005-01-07T15:41:00.000-06:00

"NASA passed a milestone toward returning the space shuttle to flight Thursday as a new version of the ship's external fuel tank completed its 900-mile trip to Florida."

Keep your fingers crossed...

Bush Plans to Boost Commercial Human Space Flight

2005-01-07T15:31:00.000-06:00

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush plans to give private industry a greater role in space and encourage new commercial markets, including for human space flight."

Cool beans!

The black hole that cannot stop eating!

2005-01-06T21:38:00.000-06:00

"Astronomers have recorded the most powerful eruption of energy yet observed in the universe. It comes from a gigantic black hole, a billion times more massive than our sun, which is swallowing vast amounts of material from its surrounding galaxy."

Sounds like me at the local Chinese buffet...

More info and images over at NASA.

Titan's first visitor nears touchdown

2005-01-06T11:38:00.000-06:00

"(On January 14th) after years of riding piggyback on NASA's Cassini craft, the Huygens probe will become the first craft from Earth to arrive on an alien moon."

Can't wait! Hope it turns out better than Beagle did.

Oops! Almost forgot to put a link to the Cassini-Huygens Mission Home Page.

Pennsylvania School District Defends Evolution Teaching Plan

2005-01-06T11:13:00.000-06:00

"PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania school district on Wednesday rejected charges that plans to include references to an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution in high school biology classes would be illegal."

It's been a while, but I seem to recall Darwin not being a problem back when I was in high school...

Tsunami's and you!

2005-01-05T12:22:00.000-06:00

Yeah, yeah, I know it's probably mostly "scaremongering", but it is kinda interesting how a teeny-tiny island on the other side of the Atlantic could potentially cause to much trouble...

...and over at the OGI School of Science & Engineering they've been working on American west-coast Tsunami models.

The Discovery Channel will be running "The Next Wave: Science of Tsunamis" tonight at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

Comet Machholz in View

2005-01-05T11:18:00.000-06:00

From "Astronomy Picture of The Day":

"Good views of Comet Machholz are in store for northern hemisphere comet watchers in January. Now making its closest approach to planet Earth, the comet will pass near the lovely Pleiades star cluster on January 7th and the double star cluster in Perseus on January 27th as Machholz moves relatively quickly through the evening sky. Currently just visible to the unaided eye from dark locations, the comet should be an easy target in binoculars or a small telescope."