GeekSix

Axis of evil

Joe
Tuesday
10:26 am

As if the news from Chile wasn’t a big enough ..read more

Symphony of Science

Autumn
Wednesday
7:26 pm

Last fall a music video came out called “A Glorious Dawn.”  John Boswell recorded it using an autotune program that allowed him to take footage and audio clips of scientists and tune their words into music.  They make me really happy.  A new one came out today about biology, you can check them out on youtube, buy them on itunes, and go to the Symphony of Science site to contribute if you’ve got ideas.

We Are All ..read more

The dark side of the Moon

Joe
Friday
12:12 pm

Good news and bad news from that NASA LCROSS mission that was designed to find water on the Moon.

Well the good news is that the analysis of that crash cloud has determined there is indeed large quantities of water on the Moon.  Water that could theoretically be used to make future exploration and colonization more efficient.

The BAD news is that the water is very old and hasn’t been affected by the air and bacteria of earth.  Which means that there is a 125% chance that the water contains an evil alien microbe that will turn the first astronaut to explore it into a rampaging monster who at first appears ..read more

The rocket rocked it

Joe
Wednesday
11:57 am

NASA is on a roll.  This (Wednesday) afternoon the first test Ares I-X rocket was launched successfully, a big step toward returning to the Moon and a boost to the controversial Constellation program.  This comes just a few weeks after the water-in-dust crash tests on the Moon itself.  In the face of budget cuts and a lot of “let’s focus on Earth’s problems rather than spaceships” sentiment spawned from the recession, it’s nice to see the program can still deliver the goods.  This is early on in Constellation, but success is success, which will only help get money once the economy wanders back into NotEffedVille.

For those Utah readers, it’s ..read more

Your sea ain’t so tranquil now, Moon!

Joe
Friday
11:41 pm

Well, NASA pulled it off.  The impact wasn’t as readily visible to amateur astronomers as some had hoped, but the science stuff went off without a hitch. I guess that’s what’s important when you are dealing with an $80 million price tag.

Here’s NASA’s LCROSS mission page.  There aren’t a ton of great photos yet, but there is quite a bit of interesting stuff on the mission.

And speaking of that $80 million budget, that’s actually pretty cheap by space project terms.  Hasn’t NASA learned the city utility workers’ trick of just tearing up streets for no reason to justify getting a huge budget?  If the folks down at Canaveral can ..read more

One small poof of dust for man

Joe
Thursday
1:07 pm

Since nobody wants to deal with pandorum, NASA is sticking close to home on their newest mission.  The plan calls for a two-stage bombing of the Moon, where the first capsule crashes into the soil and the second capsule flies through the debris field created by the impact of the first and searches the debris cloud for traces of water.  There is definitely SOME water on our lunar friend, but the OCD eggheads want to figure out exactly how much.

I have two questions after reading that article:

1.  Is this really the easiest way to answer the question of how much water the Moon’s soil contains?  Why not send a ..read more

Newt goes to great pains to kick ass

Joe
Tuesday
3:02 pm

When Truman Burbank’s elementary school teacher discourages his wishes to be an explorer by proclaiming “Everything’s already been discovered,” it is a harsh rebuke, but one that is essentially true, at least on the terrestrial level.  It’s usually the same way with large-level biological discoveries.  Every few years you get one, like the bird with poisonous feathers, but it must have been so much more rewarding to be a scientist back in the day when making the determination that snakes were reptiles was considered a Nobel-worthy development.

Well, here’s a nice new one to get the breakthrough fans cheering.  Austrian scientists have discovered that a species of newt actually pierces ..read more

Laser Labeled Fruit

Christy
Friday
5:28 pm

The FDA is set to approve the use of lasers to label fruits and vegetables.  How cool is that?  No more sticky labels to peel off.  Though I do have to admit it seems kind of creepy futuristic, but I’m all for embracing change if it comes with scifi tendencies.  Laser labels will not affect the taste of food.  The technology was invented by Greg Drouillard, the director of research technology for laser development for Sunkist Growers Inc.  Anything can be “etched” onto the products with the only real restriction being the speed at which the product passes by the laser.  So, does that mean we’re going to start seeing ..read more

Organic robots will kill us all

Josh
Tuesday
5:59 pm

The robots that come to kill us will have a decidedly less menacing appearance.

Instead of the evil grinning metal skulls from Terminator or the gangly death-gait of BigDog, the final form we see will be that of an innocuous little blob.

A team of scientists at the University of West England is getting ready to make “Plasmobot”— an organic automaton made entirely of a goo-like slime mold.

Slime molds are disturbing little collections of cells, ranging in size from a couple of centimeters around to more than 10 miles long. Some people even believe that they can act as human parasites and get under the skin, causing ..read more

NASA picture of the day

Autumn
Monday
11:13 pm

NASA has a twitter, as you may or may not know, and I follow them with great glee.  I love getting up to the minute coverage of who’s getting quarantined for  lift off and what they’re installing on the space station.  My favorite, though, is the picture of the day.  This was a few weeks back when the storm was delaying lift off.  How cool looking is that!?!  Go here for a complete ..read more