Fractal Undies

I know we said not to expect any postings for a while. But then we saw this awesome chest of drawers on boingboing.

What does this piece of furniture have going for it that it's brought us out of our self-imposed sabbatical?

A couple of things. For one, it's based on fractal geometry. Second, it's got the number 23 it it's name, a number we believe to hold great power. If you believe in that sort of numerology nonsense... which we don't.

R.I.P. Arthur C. Clark

Arthur C. Clark, author of the novel 2001, passed away this week.

Here is the last video Clark made before he passed. In it he celebrates circling the sun for 90 orbits.

Arthur Clark is also credited with the idea of geo-stationary satellites! He wrote about the concept in one of his books. How crazy is that!

Uh oh.

We're not a political weblog. But we love science.
The top two Republican Candidates do not accept Evolution to be true.

It gets better. Every hippie's favorite Democratic (Republican?) Candidate has now revealed that he too, does not believe in Evolution. I'd like to call it: "The crumbling of Ron Paul." But we both know that rejecting science is actually a sound political strategy.

(via The Information Paradox)

It is important to note that Evolution is not a theory on the creation of the Universe, as Ron Paul states. It's not even a theory on how life began. Evolution attempts to explain how life has changed, or evolved, through history. To boil this question of Evolution, and it's factuality, down to an argument about Science vs. Religion betrays Ron Paul's politics at work. And it doesn't look very promising.

Good luck America.

Earth Angel

One of our internet friends (and fellow Jonathan Coulton fan) Freecone has posed an interesting question over at Ask.Metafilter.

He asks:
"How would a metal rod with a slightly larger diameter built around the earth react to gravity? Say it's built as to avoid extremes in altitude, mountains and the sort. Would it hover in place, spin at a set point, spin randomly, or buckle? Is there anyway to know the answer other than building one?"

He's even gone so far as to create a sweet infographic to supplement the question.

Check out the ongoing discussion here.

Walking with Darwin

We recently went with some friends to see the live puppet show "Walking with Dinosaurs" at Phillips Arena. When I say puppets... I mean three story tall, life size robot monsters. They were awesome.

The Dinosaurs ranged in size from little newborn dinosaur hand puppets to man sized suits for the Velociraptors (very awesome) even all the way up to a huge motorized Brachiosaurus. The "drivable" dinosaurs had a slim pod under their bellies were a puppeteer would sit to operate the giant puppet. They actually walked freely around the stage, that was the most impressive part.

The two Dinosaurs with the most personality were by far the crowd pleasing mother Tyrannosaurus Rex and it's baby. The offspring was another man sized suit. These were a great touch, their natural fluid movement made the minimal clunkiness of the giant robots a lot more palatable. (Even though we're of the opinion that there's nothing more charming than a clunky old clunker of a robot...) The mother's roar was tied directly into the sound system so it sounded amazing. We even got to see the crew testing out the T-rex robot/puppet after the show. You could see right down into the cockpit.

There was another aspect of this show that I really liked. It wasn't all about giant robots and rubber suits. They talked about Science and Evolution, these subjects were treated as matter of fact and not glossed over in any way. I know it's a show about dinosaurs, so they probably figured anyone who was in attendance was at least interested in the subject enough to be familiar with Evolution. However, we're in the south, and I am constantly amazed by how little respect the subject gets here.

I kept thinking about how many mothers in the audience had to quickly cover their children's ears when the Narrator made a big deal about modern day birds being the direct evolutionary descendants of the Dinosaurs.

Keep it up Darwin.

A poor representation of something greater.

Madeleine L'Engle, author of the classic "A Wrinkle in Time," passed away last thursday at the age of 88.

In that classic book, Madeleine L'Engle makes reference to one our most favorite theoretical mathematical shapes. The Tesseract. Also known as a hypercube, the tesseract is an imaginary projection of an ordinary 3d cube viewed in the 4th dimension. Sound complicated? It is.

In honor of her passing, physicist David Morgan explains the tesseract in this NPR video. (via boingboing)

And of course what would a post about the tesseract be without a little help from Carl Sagan. Actually, what would one of our posts be without mention of our most beloved of science persons. Here he explains the tesseract:

Voyager Turns 30

Yesterday Sept. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wired magazine has an awesome photo essay about Voyager.

Besides being developed by this website's patron saint, Carl Sagan, there are many other interesting things about Voyager 1.

The spacecraft was designed to take advantage of a newly developed technique for space travel called "gravity assist." It seems like common place now, but for it's time this idea was revolutionary. The spacecraft would use gravity wells produced by the planets in our solar system to slingshot itself through space. This method not only reduced the amount of fuel needed to travel the distances intended for Voyager, but would also allow the spacecraft to make the journey in 12 years instead of 30!

The timing of Voyager was critical. A planetary event would occur in the late 70's that would make for a perfect opportunity to use the new gravity assist technique. This event was called The Grand Tour, and it consisted of an unprecedented alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. An alignment this perfect would not recur for another 176 years!

Bolted to the outside of Voyager is the now famous "Golden Record."

The Record was designed by Carl Sagan, with elements drawn by Jon Lomberg, an artist whose work is inspired by astronomy. The record also contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Here is Jimmy Carter's Presidential message to the cosmos:

"We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

The Enemies of Reason

We have a general rule around here about posting on topics of religion and politics. In that, generally, we don't do it. Which is not to say we don't have strong feelings about them both, because we do. It's also not intended to imply that there couldn't be an open-minded and enlightening discussion about them both, because there could be. It's just that the odds are stacked very much against such a conversation.

Even the Free and Accepted Masons outlawed the discussion of both in their Temples.

So it is with trepidation that we present this documentary in two parts. It is titled: The Enemies of Reason, and it was made by one of the world's leading Atheists, Richard Dawkins. It is in the spirit of disclosure, not of persuasion, that we comment on him now. The fact that we have not until now said much about Richard Dawkins in a testament to our general rule. In fact the only regular mention of him we've made is a subtle link to his non-profit organization, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Richard Dawkins, a molecular biologist, made big waves with his first book, The Selfish Gene, a controversial book for it's time. (1976) His newest book, The God Delusion (2007) would prove to be even more controversial.

We are huge fans of his, but the dude is a firecracker. Part of his efforts in raising awareness of Atheism is a systematic disrespecting of religion. It sounds harsh (because it is) but he says that no respect is given to a non-believer, so why in turn, does everyone bend over backwards to respect religion?

Dawkins says:

"Even those with no faith have been brainwashed into respecting the faith of others. When so-called Muslim community leaders go on the radio and advocate the killing of Salman Rushdie, they are clearly committing incitement to murder--a crime for which they would ordinarily be prosecuted and possibly imprisoned. But are they arrested? They are not, because our secular society "respects" their faith, and sympathizes with the deep "hurt" and "insult" to it.

If that hasn't left a bitter taste in your mouth, then I invite you to watch his two part documentary:

The Enemies of Reason.
In this documentary Richard Dawkins takes a break from battling Religion to investigate all forms of superstition and psuedoscience, from homeopathic cures to healing by chokra and investigating water dowsers. *spoiler alert* They're all scams.

Part 1:

Part 2:

R.I.P. Mr. Wizard

Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert died at the age of 89 on Tuesday. The L.A. Times has a nice article on his life and his awesome television show.

Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique

This post represents my application to
The Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique.

The Science Scouts are half joke, half alternative to faith-based groups like The Boyscouts. They all generally agree about "The Truth." They also like badges, some of them are funny, others are just plain awesome, and we actually qualify for quite a few! New badges are being released by The Order all the time. If you'd like to apply, simply submit a page like this detailing your qualifications. Below you'll find the badges we've earned and our reasons for their award.

The "talking science" badge

On a near nightly basis, you can count on my wife sitting through more than a few science based discussions. If you are still not convinced, feel free to track down my few remaining friends for conformation.

The "I blog about science" badge

Are you kidding me? Science posts are the very corner-stone of this weblog. Please refer to my Math & Science as well as my Cosmology posts.

The "arts and crafts" badge

Well... I went to art school, and I make robot puppets out of cardboard. I also like to draw images of space and animate them.

The "destroyer of quackery" badge

We all gave a good cheer when "Dr." Kent Hovind was sent up the river.

The "I'm a freaking rock star who sings about science!" badge

Well... rockstar is a bit misleading. We've made rap songs about science.

The "I can be a prick when it comes to science" badge

Don't talk to me about going to Catholic High School. Also, I'm a jerk.

The "I know what a tadpole is" badge

Well, I do.

The "experienced with electrical shock" badge (LEVEL III)

While extracting human hair from a film projector while working as a projectionist at a crappy movie theatre. Entire left arm went numb. Hair was removed, movie continued.

The "I'm into telescopes astro" badge (LEVEL III)

I feel cheap about claiming this one, but it's true. I have seen the rings of Saturn as viewed through the 30-inch reflecting telescope at the Bradley Observatory on the Agness Scott College campus once. It was small but it was A-MAZING.

Fractal Undies

I know we said not to expect any postings for a while. But then we saw this awesome chest of drawers on boingboing.

What does this piece of furniture have going for it that it's brought us out of our self-imposed sabbatical?

A couple of things. For one, it's based on fractal geometry. Second, it's got the number 23 it it's name, a number we believe to hold great power. If you believe in that sort of numerology nonsense... which we don't.

R.I.P. Arthur C. Clark

Arthur C. Clark, author of the novel 2001, passed away this week.

Here is the last video Clark made before he passed. In it he celebrates circling the sun for 90 orbits.

Arthur Clark is also credited with the idea of geo-stationary satellites! He wrote about the concept in one of his books. How crazy is that!

Uh oh.

We're not a political weblog. But we love science.
The top two Republican Candidates do not accept Evolution to be true.

It gets better. Every hippie's favorite Democratic (Republican?) Candidate has now revealed that he too, does not believe in Evolution. I'd like to call it: "The crumbling of Ron Paul." But we both know that rejecting science is actually a sound political strategy.

(via The Information Paradox)

It is important to note that Evolution is not a theory on the creation of the Universe, as Ron Paul states. It's not even a theory on how life began. Evolution attempts to explain how life has changed, or evolved, through history. To boil this question of Evolution, and it's factuality, down to an argument about Science vs. Religion betrays Ron Paul's politics at work. And it doesn't look very promising.

Good luck America.

Earth Angel

One of our internet friends (and fellow Jonathan Coulton fan) Freecone has posed an interesting question over at Ask.Metafilter.

He asks:
"How would a metal rod with a slightly larger diameter built around the earth react to gravity? Say it's built as to avoid extremes in altitude, mountains and the sort. Would it hover in place, spin at a set point, spin randomly, or buckle? Is there anyway to know the answer other than building one?"

He's even gone so far as to create a sweet infographic to supplement the question.

Check out the ongoing discussion here.

Walking with Darwin

We recently went with some friends to see the live puppet show "Walking with Dinosaurs" at Phillips Arena. When I say puppets... I mean three story tall, life size robot monsters. They were awesome.

The Dinosaurs ranged in size from little newborn dinosaur hand puppets to man sized suits for the Velociraptors (very awesome) even all the way up to a huge motorized Brachiosaurus. The "drivable" dinosaurs had a slim pod under their bellies were a puppeteer would sit to operate the giant puppet. They actually walked freely around the stage, that was the most impressive part.

The two Dinosaurs with the most personality were by far the crowd pleasing mother Tyrannosaurus Rex and it's baby. The offspring was another man sized suit. These were a great touch, their natural fluid movement made the minimal clunkiness of the giant robots a lot more palatable. (Even though we're of the opinion that there's nothing more charming than a clunky old clunker of a robot...) The mother's roar was tied directly into the sound system so it sounded amazing. We even got to see the crew testing out the T-rex robot/puppet after the show. You could see right down into the cockpit.

There was another aspect of this show that I really liked. It wasn't all about giant robots and rubber suits. They talked about Science and Evolution, these subjects were treated as matter of fact and not glossed over in any way. I know it's a show about dinosaurs, so they probably figured anyone who was in attendance was at least interested in the subject enough to be familiar with Evolution. However, we're in the south, and I am constantly amazed by how little respect the subject gets here.

I kept thinking about how many mothers in the audience had to quickly cover their children's ears when the Narrator made a big deal about modern day birds being the direct evolutionary descendants of the Dinosaurs.

Keep it up Darwin.

A poor representation of something greater.

Madeleine L'Engle, author of the classic "A Wrinkle in Time," passed away last thursday at the age of 88.

In that classic book, Madeleine L'Engle makes reference to one our most favorite theoretical mathematical shapes. The Tesseract. Also known as a hypercube, the tesseract is an imaginary projection of an ordinary 3d cube viewed in the 4th dimension. Sound complicated? It is.

In honor of her passing, physicist David Morgan explains the tesseract in this NPR video. (via boingboing)

And of course what would a post about the tesseract be without a little help from Carl Sagan. Actually, what would one of our posts be without mention of our most beloved of science persons. Here he explains the tesseract:

Voyager Turns 30

Yesterday Sept. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wired magazine has an awesome photo essay about Voyager.

Besides being developed by this website's patron saint, Carl Sagan, there are many other interesting things about Voyager 1.

The spacecraft was designed to take advantage of a newly developed technique for space travel called "gravity assist." It seems like common place now, but for it's time this idea was revolutionary. The spacecraft would use gravity wells produced by the planets in our solar system to slingshot itself through space. This method not only reduced the amount of fuel needed to travel the distances intended for Voyager, but would also allow the spacecraft to make the journey in 12 years instead of 30!

The timing of Voyager was critical. A planetary event would occur in the late 70's that would make for a perfect opportunity to use the new gravity assist technique. This event was called The Grand Tour, and it consisted of an unprecedented alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. An alignment this perfect would not recur for another 176 years!

Bolted to the outside of Voyager is the now famous "Golden Record."

The Record was designed by Carl Sagan, with elements drawn by Jon Lomberg, an artist whose work is inspired by astronomy. The record also contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Here is Jimmy Carter's Presidential message to the cosmos:

"We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

The Enemies of Reason

We have a general rule around here about posting on topics of religion and politics. In that, generally, we don't do it. Which is not to say we don't have strong feelings about them both, because we do. It's also not intended to imply that there couldn't be an open-minded and enlightening discussion about them both, because there could be. It's just that the odds are stacked very much against such a conversation.

Even the Free and Accepted Masons outlawed the discussion of both in their Temples.

So it is with trepidation that we present this documentary in two parts. It is titled: The Enemies of Reason, and it was made by one of the world's leading Atheists, Richard Dawkins. It is in the spirit of disclosure, not of persuasion, that we comment on him now. The fact that we have not until now said much about Richard Dawkins in a testament to our general rule. In fact the only regular mention of him we've made is a subtle link to his non-profit organization, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Richard Dawkins, a molecular biologist, made big waves with his first book, The Selfish Gene, a controversial book for it's time. (1976) His newest book, The God Delusion (2007) would prove to be even more controversial.

We are huge fans of his, but the dude is a firecracker. Part of his efforts in raising awareness of Atheism is a systematic disrespecting of religion. It sounds harsh (because it is) but he says that no respect is given to a non-believer, so why in turn, does everyone bend over backwards to respect religion?

Dawkins says:

"Even those with no faith have been brainwashed into respecting the faith of others. When so-called Muslim community leaders go on the radio and advocate the killing of Salman Rushdie, they are clearly committing incitement to murder--a crime for which they would ordinarily be prosecuted and possibly imprisoned. But are they arrested? They are not, because our secular society "respects" their faith, and sympathizes with the deep "hurt" and "insult" to it.

If that hasn't left a bitter taste in your mouth, then I invite you to watch his two part documentary:

The Enemies of Reason.
In this documentary Richard Dawkins takes a break from battling Religion to investigate all forms of superstition and psuedoscience, from homeopathic cures to healing by chokra and investigating water dowsers. *spoiler alert* They're all scams.

Part 1:

Part 2:

R.I.P. Mr. Wizard

Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert died at the age of 89 on Tuesday. The L.A. Times has a nice article on his life and his awesome television show.

Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique

This post represents my application to
The Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique.

The Science Scouts are half joke, half alternative to faith-based groups like The Boyscouts. They all generally agree about "The Truth." They also like badges, some of them are funny, others are just plain awesome, and we actually qualify for quite a few! New badges are being released by The Order all the time. If you'd like to apply, simply submit a page like this detailing your qualifications. Below you'll find the badges we've earned and our reasons for their award.

The "talking science" badge

On a near nightly basis, you can count on my wife sitting through more than a few science based discussions. If you are still not convinced, feel free to track down my few remaining friends for conformation.

The "I blog about science" badge

Are you kidding me? Science posts are the very corner-stone of this weblog. Please refer to my Math & Science as well as my Cosmology posts.

The "arts and crafts" badge

Well... I went to art school, and I make robot puppets out of cardboard. I also like to draw images of space and animate them.

The "destroyer of quackery" badge

We all gave a good cheer when "Dr." Kent Hovind was sent up the river.

The "I'm a freaking rock star who sings about science!" badge

Well... rockstar is a bit misleading. We've made rap songs about science.

The "I can be a prick when it comes to science" badge

Don't talk to me about going to Catholic High School. Also, I'm a jerk.

The "I know what a tadpole is" badge

Well, I do.

The "experienced with electrical shock" badge (LEVEL III)

While extracting human hair from a film projector while working as a projectionist at a crappy movie theatre. Entire left arm went numb. Hair was removed, movie continued.

The "I'm into telescopes astro" badge (LEVEL III)

I feel cheap about claiming this one, but it's true. I have seen the rings of Saturn as viewed through the 30-inch reflecting telescope at the Bradley Observatory on the Agness Scott College campus once. It was small but it was A-MAZING.

Fractal Undies

I know we said not to expect any postings for a while. But then we saw this awesome chest of drawers on boingboing.

What does this piece of furniture have going for it that it's brought us out of our self-imposed sabbatical?

A couple of things. For one, it's based on fractal geometry. Second, it's got the number 23 it it's name, a number we believe to hold great power. If you believe in that sort of numerology nonsense... which we don't.

R.I.P. Arthur C. Clark

Arthur C. Clark, author of the novel 2001, passed away this week.

Here is the last video Clark made before he passed. In it he celebrates circling the sun for 90 orbits.

Arthur Clark is also credited with the idea of geo-stationary satellites! He wrote about the concept in one of his books. How crazy is that!

Uh oh.

We're not a political weblog. But we love science.
The top two Republican Candidates do not accept Evolution to be true.

It gets better. Every hippie's favorite Democratic (Republican?) Candidate has now revealed that he too, does not believe in Evolution. I'd like to call it: "The crumbling of Ron Paul." But we both know that rejecting science is actually a sound political strategy.

(via The Information Paradox)

It is important to note that Evolution is not a theory on the creation of the Universe, as Ron Paul states. It's not even a theory on how life began. Evolution attempts to explain how life has changed, or evolved, through history. To boil this question of Evolution, and it's factuality, down to an argument about Science vs. Religion betrays Ron Paul's politics at work. And it doesn't look very promising.

Good luck America.

Earth Angel

One of our internet friends (and fellow Jonathan Coulton fan) Freecone has posed an interesting question over at Ask.Metafilter.

He asks:
"How would a metal rod with a slightly larger diameter built around the earth react to gravity? Say it's built as to avoid extremes in altitude, mountains and the sort. Would it hover in place, spin at a set point, spin randomly, or buckle? Is there anyway to know the answer other than building one?"

He's even gone so far as to create a sweet infographic to supplement the question.

Check out the ongoing discussion here.

Walking with Darwin

We recently went with some friends to see the live puppet show "Walking with Dinosaurs" at Phillips Arena. When I say puppets... I mean three story tall, life size robot monsters. They were awesome.

The Dinosaurs ranged in size from little newborn dinosaur hand puppets to man sized suits for the Velociraptors (very awesome) even all the way up to a huge motorized Brachiosaurus. The "drivable" dinosaurs had a slim pod under their bellies were a puppeteer would sit to operate the giant puppet. They actually walked freely around the stage, that was the most impressive part.

The two Dinosaurs with the most personality were by far the crowd pleasing mother Tyrannosaurus Rex and it's baby. The offspring was another man sized suit. These were a great touch, their natural fluid movement made the minimal clunkiness of the giant robots a lot more palatable. (Even though we're of the opinion that there's nothing more charming than a clunky old clunker of a robot...) The mother's roar was tied directly into the sound system so it sounded amazing. We even got to see the crew testing out the T-rex robot/puppet after the show. You could see right down into the cockpit.

There was another aspect of this show that I really liked. It wasn't all about giant robots and rubber suits. They talked about Science and Evolution, these subjects were treated as matter of fact and not glossed over in any way. I know it's a show about dinosaurs, so they probably figured anyone who was in attendance was at least interested in the subject enough to be familiar with Evolution. However, we're in the south, and I am constantly amazed by how little respect the subject gets here.

I kept thinking about how many mothers in the audience had to quickly cover their children's ears when the Narrator made a big deal about modern day birds being the direct evolutionary descendants of the Dinosaurs.

Keep it up Darwin.

A poor representation of something greater.

Madeleine L'Engle, author of the classic "A Wrinkle in Time," passed away last thursday at the age of 88.

In that classic book, Madeleine L'Engle makes reference to one our most favorite theoretical mathematical shapes. The Tesseract. Also known as a hypercube, the tesseract is an imaginary projection of an ordinary 3d cube viewed in the 4th dimension. Sound complicated? It is.

In honor of her passing, physicist David Morgan explains the tesseract in this NPR video. (via boingboing)

And of course what would a post about the tesseract be without a little help from Carl Sagan. Actually, what would one of our posts be without mention of our most beloved of science persons. Here he explains the tesseract:

Voyager Turns 30

Yesterday Sept. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wired magazine has an awesome photo essay about Voyager.

Besides being developed by this website's patron saint, Carl Sagan, there are many other interesting things about Voyager 1.

The spacecraft was designed to take advantage of a newly developed technique for space travel called "gravity assist." It seems like common place now, but for it's time this idea was revolutionary. The spacecraft would use gravity wells produced by the planets in our solar system to slingshot itself through space. This method not only reduced the amount of fuel needed to travel the distances intended for Voyager, but would also allow the spacecraft to make the journey in 12 years instead of 30!

The timing of Voyager was critical. A planetary event would occur in the late 70's that would make for a perfect opportunity to use the new gravity assist technique. This event was called The Grand Tour, and it consisted of an unprecedented alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. An alignment this perfect would not recur for another 176 years!

Bolted to the outside of Voyager is the now famous "Golden Record."

The Record was designed by Carl Sagan, with elements drawn by Jon Lomberg, an artist whose work is inspired by astronomy. The record also contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Here is Jimmy Carter's Presidential message to the cosmos:

"We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

The Enemies of Reason

We have a general rule around here about posting on topics of religion and politics. In that, generally, we don't do it. Which is not to say we don't have strong feelings about them both, because we do. It's also not intended to imply that there couldn't be an open-minded and enlightening discussion about them both, because there could be. It's just that the odds are stacked very much against such a conversation.

Even the Free and Accepted Masons outlawed the discussion of both in their Temples.

So it is with trepidation that we present this documentary in two parts. It is titled: The Enemies of Reason, and it was made by one of the world's leading Atheists, Richard Dawkins. It is in the spirit of disclosure, not of persuasion, that we comment on him now. The fact that we have not until now said much about Richard Dawkins in a testament to our general rule. In fact the only regular mention of him we've made is a subtle link to his non-profit organization, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Richard Dawkins, a molecular biologist, made big waves with his first book, The Selfish Gene, a controversial book for it's time. (1976) His newest book, The God Delusion (2007) would prove to be even more controversial.

We are huge fans of his, but the dude is a firecracker. Part of his efforts in raising awareness of Atheism is a systematic disrespecting of religion. It sounds harsh (because it is) but he says that no respect is given to a non-believer, so why in turn, does everyone bend over backwards to respect religion?

Dawkins says:

"Even those with no faith have been brainwashed into respecting the faith of others. When so-called Muslim community leaders go on the radio and advocate the killing of Salman Rushdie, they are clearly committing incitement to murder--a crime for which they would ordinarily be prosecuted and possibly imprisoned. But are they arrested? They are not, because our secular society "respects" their faith, and sympathizes with the deep "hurt" and "insult" to it.

If that hasn't left a bitter taste in your mouth, then I invite you to watch his two part documentary:

The Enemies of Reason.
In this documentary Richard Dawkins takes a break from battling Religion to investigate all forms of superstition and psuedoscience, from homeopathic cures to healing by chokra and investigating water dowsers. *spoiler alert* They're all scams.

Part 1:

Part 2:

R.I.P. Mr. Wizard

Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert died at the age of 89 on Tuesday. The L.A. Times has a nice article on his life and his awesome television show.

Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique

This post represents my application to
The Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique.

The Science Scouts are half joke, half alternative to faith-based groups like The Boyscouts. They all generally agree about "The Truth." They also like badges, some of them are funny, others are just plain awesome, and we actually qualify for quite a few! New badges are being released by The Order all the time. If you'd like to apply, simply submit a page like this detailing your qualifications. Below you'll find the badges we've earned and our reasons for their award.

The "talking science" badge

On a near nightly basis, you can count on my wife sitting through more than a few science based discussions. If you are still not convinced, feel free to track down my few remaining friends for conformation.

The "I blog about science" badge

Are you kidding me? Science posts are the very corner-stone of this weblog. Please refer to my Math & Science as well as my Cosmology posts.

The "arts and crafts" badge

Well... I went to art school, and I make robot puppets out of cardboard. I also like to draw images of space and animate them.

The "destroyer of quackery" badge

We all gave a good cheer when "Dr." Kent Hovind was sent up the river.

The "I'm a freaking rock star who sings about science!" badge

Well... rockstar is a bit misleading. We've made rap songs about science.

The "I can be a prick when it comes to science" badge

Don't talk to me about going to Catholic High School. Also, I'm a jerk.

The "I know what a tadpole is" badge

Well, I do.

The "experienced with electrical shock" badge (LEVEL III)

While extracting human hair from a film projector while working as a projectionist at a crappy movie theatre. Entire left arm went numb. Hair was removed, movie continued.

The "I'm into telescopes astro" badge (LEVEL III)

I feel cheap about claiming this one, but it's true. I have seen the rings of Saturn as viewed through the 30-inch reflecting telescope at the Bradley Observatory on the Agness Scott College campus once. It was small but it was A-MAZING.

Fractal Undies

I know we said not to expect any postings for a while. But then we saw this awesome chest of drawers on boingboing.

What does this piece of furniture have going for it that it's brought us out of our self-imposed sabbatical?

A couple of things. For one, it's based on fractal geometry. Second, it's got the number 23 it it's name, a number we believe to hold great power. If you believe in that sort of numerology nonsense... which we don't.

R.I.P. Arthur C. Clark

Arthur C. Clark, author of the novel 2001, passed away this week.

Here is the last video Clark made before he passed. In it he celebrates circling the sun for 90 orbits.

Arthur Clark is also credited with the idea of geo-stationary satellites! He wrote about the concept in one of his books. How crazy is that!

Uh oh.

We're not a political weblog. But we love science.
The top two Republican Candidates do not accept Evolution to be true.

It gets better. Every hippie's favorite Democratic (Republican?) Candidate has now revealed that he too, does not believe in Evolution. I'd like to call it: "The crumbling of Ron Paul." But we both know that rejecting science is actually a sound political strategy.

(via The Information Paradox)

It is important to note that Evolution is not a theory on the creation of the Universe, as Ron Paul states. It's not even a theory on how life began. Evolution attempts to explain how life has changed, or evolved, through history. To boil this question of Evolution, and it's factuality, down to an argument about Science vs. Religion betrays Ron Paul's politics at work. And it doesn't look very promising.

Good luck America.

Earth Angel

One of our internet friends (and fellow Jonathan Coulton fan) Freecone has posed an interesting question over at Ask.Metafilter.

He asks:
"How would a metal rod with a slightly larger diameter built around the earth react to gravity? Say it's built as to avoid extremes in altitude, mountains and the sort. Would it hover in place, spin at a set point, spin randomly, or buckle? Is there anyway to know the answer other than building one?"

He's even gone so far as to create a sweet infographic to supplement the question.

Check out the ongoing discussion here.

Walking with Darwin

We recently went with some friends to see the live puppet show "Walking with Dinosaurs" at Phillips Arena. When I say puppets... I mean three story tall, life size robot monsters. They were awesome.

The Dinosaurs ranged in size from little newborn dinosaur hand puppets to man sized suits for the Velociraptors (very awesome) even all the way up to a huge motorized Brachiosaurus. The "drivable" dinosaurs had a slim pod under their bellies were a puppeteer would sit to operate the giant puppet. They actually walked freely around the stage, that was the most impressive part.

The two Dinosaurs with the most personality were by far the crowd pleasing mother Tyrannosaurus Rex and it's baby. The offspring was another man sized suit. These were a great touch, their natural fluid movement made the minimal clunkiness of the giant robots a lot more palatable. (Even though we're of the opinion that there's nothing more charming than a clunky old clunker of a robot...) The mother's roar was tied directly into the sound system so it sounded amazing. We even got to see the crew testing out the T-rex robot/puppet after the show. You could see right down into the cockpit.

There was another aspect of this show that I really liked. It wasn't all about giant robots and rubber suits. They talked about Science and Evolution, these subjects were treated as matter of fact and not glossed over in any way. I know it's a show about dinosaurs, so they probably figured anyone who was in attendance was at least interested in the subject enough to be familiar with Evolution. However, we're in the south, and I am constantly amazed by how little respect the subject gets here.

I kept thinking about how many mothers in the audience had to quickly cover their children's ears when the Narrator made a big deal about modern day birds being the direct evolutionary descendants of the Dinosaurs.

Keep it up Darwin.

A poor representation of something greater.

Madeleine L'Engle, author of the classic "A Wrinkle in Time," passed away last thursday at the age of 88.

In that classic book, Madeleine L'Engle makes reference to one our most favorite theoretical mathematical shapes. The Tesseract. Also known as a hypercube, the tesseract is an imaginary projection of an ordinary 3d cube viewed in the 4th dimension. Sound complicated? It is.

In honor of her passing, physicist David Morgan explains the tesseract in this NPR video. (via boingboing)

And of course what would a post about the tesseract be without a little help from Carl Sagan. Actually, what would one of our posts be without mention of our most beloved of science persons. Here he explains the tesseract:

Voyager Turns 30

Yesterday Sept. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wired magazine has an awesome photo essay about Voyager.

Besides being developed by this website's patron saint, Carl Sagan, there are many other interesting things about Voyager 1.

The spacecraft was designed to take advantage of a newly developed technique for space travel called "gravity assist." It seems like common place now, but for it's time this idea was revolutionary. The spacecraft would use gravity wells produced by the planets in our solar system to slingshot itself through space. This method not only reduced the amount of fuel needed to travel the distances intended for Voyager, but would also allow the spacecraft to make the journey in 12 years instead of 30!

The timing of Voyager was critical. A planetary event would occur in the late 70's that would make for a perfect opportunity to use the new gravity assist technique. This event was called The Grand Tour, and it consisted of an unprecedented alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. An alignment this perfect would not recur for another 176 years!

Bolted to the outside of Voyager is the now famous "Golden Record."

The Record was designed by Carl Sagan, with elements drawn by Jon Lomberg, an artist whose work is inspired by astronomy. The record also contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Here is Jimmy Carter's Presidential message to the cosmos:

"We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

The Enemies of Reason

We have a general rule around here about posting on topics of religion and politics. In that, generally, we don't do it. Which is not to say we don't have strong feelings about them both, because we do. It's also not intended to imply that there couldn't be an open-minded and enlightening discussion about them both, because there could be. It's just that the odds are stacked very much against such a conversation.

Even the Free and Accepted Masons outlawed the discussion of both in their Temples.

So it is with trepidation that we present this documentary in two parts. It is titled: The Enemies of Reason, and it was made by one of the world's leading Atheists, Richard Dawkins. It is in the spirit of disclosure, not of persuasion, that we comment on him now. The fact that we have not until now said much about Richard Dawkins in a testament to our general rule. In fact the only regular mention of him we've made is a subtle link to his non-profit organization, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Richard Dawkins, a molecular biologist, made big waves with his first book, The Selfish Gene, a controversial book for it's time. (1976) His newest book, The God Delusion (2007) would prove to be even more controversial.

We are huge fans of his, but the dude is a firecracker. Part of his efforts in raising awareness of Atheism is a systematic disrespecting of religion. It sounds harsh (because it is) but he says that no respect is given to a non-believer, so why in turn, does everyone bend over backwards to respect religion?

Dawkins says:

"Even those with no faith have been brainwashed into respecting the faith of others. When so-called Muslim community leaders go on the radio and advocate the killing of Salman Rushdie, they are clearly committing incitement to murder--a crime for which they would ordinarily be prosecuted and possibly imprisoned. But are they arrested? They are not, because our secular society "respects" their faith, and sympathizes with the deep "hurt" and "insult" to it.

If that hasn't left a bitter taste in your mouth, then I invite you to watch his two part documentary:

The Enemies of Reason.
In this documentary Richard Dawkins takes a break from battling Religion to investigate all forms of superstition and psuedoscience, from homeopathic cures to healing by chokra and investigating water dowsers. *spoiler alert* They're all scams.

Part 1:

Part 2:

R.I.P. Mr. Wizard

Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert died at the age of 89 on Tuesday. The L.A. Times has a nice article on his life and his awesome television show.

Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique

This post represents my application to
The Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique.

The Science Scouts are half joke, half alternative to faith-based groups like The Boyscouts. They all generally agree about "The Truth." They also like badges, some of them are funny, others are just plain awesome, and we actually qualify for quite a few! New badges are being released by The Order all the time. If you'd like to apply, simply submit a page like this detailing your qualifications. Below you'll find the badges we've earned and our reasons for their award.

The "talking science" badge

On a near nightly basis, you can count on my wife sitting through more than a few science based discussions. If you are still not convinced, feel free to track down my few remaining friends for conformation.

The "I blog about science" badge

Are you kidding me? Science posts are the very corner-stone of this weblog. Please refer to my Math & Science as well as my Cosmology posts.

The "arts and crafts" badge

Well... I went to art school, and I make robot puppets out of cardboard. I also like to draw images of space and animate them.

The "destroyer of quackery" badge

We all gave a good cheer when "Dr." Kent Hovind was sent up the river.

The "I'm a freaking rock star who sings about science!" badge

Well... rockstar is a bit misleading. We've made rap songs about science.

The "I can be a prick when it comes to science" badge

Don't talk to me about going to Catholic High School. Also, I'm a jerk.

The "I know what a tadpole is" badge

Well, I do.

The "experienced with electrical shock" badge (LEVEL III)

While extracting human hair from a film projector while working as a projectionist at a crappy movie theatre. Entire left arm went numb. Hair was removed, movie continued.

The "I'm into telescopes astro" badge (LEVEL III)

I feel cheap about claiming this one, but it's true. I have seen the rings of Saturn as viewed through the 30-inch reflecting telescope at the Bradley Observatory on the Agness Scott College campus once. It was small but it was A-MAZING.

Fractal Undies

I know we said not to expect any postings for a while. But then we saw this awesome chest of drawers on boingboing.

What does this piece of furniture have going for it that it's brought us out of our self-imposed sabbatical?

A couple of things. For one, it's based on fractal geometry. Second, it's got the number 23 it it's name, a number we believe to hold great power. If you believe in that sort of numerology nonsense... which we don't.

R.I.P. Arthur C. Clark

Arthur C. Clark, author of the novel 2001, passed away this week.

Here is the last video Clark made before he passed. In it he celebrates circling the sun for 90 orbits.

Arthur Clark is also credited with the idea of geo-stationary satellites! He wrote about the concept in one of his books. How crazy is that!

Uh oh.

We're not a political weblog. But we love science.
The top two Republican Candidates do not accept Evolution to be true.

It gets better. Every hippie's favorite Democratic (Republican?) Candidate has now revealed that he too, does not believe in Evolution. I'd like to call it: "The crumbling of Ron Paul." But we both know that rejecting science is actually a sound political strategy.

(via The Information Paradox)

It is important to note that Evolution is not a theory on the creation of the Universe, as Ron Paul states. It's not even a theory on how life began. Evolution attempts to explain how life has changed, or evolved, through history. To boil this question of Evolution, and it's factuality, down to an argument about Science vs. Religion betrays Ron Paul's politics at work. And it doesn't look very promising.

Good luck America.

Earth Angel

One of our internet friends (and fellow Jonathan Coulton fan) Freecone has posed an interesting question over at Ask.Metafilter.

He asks:
"How would a metal rod with a slightly larger diameter built around the earth react to gravity? Say it's built as to avoid extremes in altitude, mountains and the sort. Would it hover in place, spin at a set point, spin randomly, or buckle? Is there anyway to know the answer other than building one?"

He's even gone so far as to create a sweet infographic to supplement the question.

Check out the ongoing discussion here.

Walking with Darwin

We recently went with some friends to see the live puppet show "Walking with Dinosaurs" at Phillips Arena. When I say puppets... I mean three story tall, life size robot monsters. They were awesome.

The Dinosaurs ranged in size from little newborn dinosaur hand puppets to man sized suits for the Velociraptors (very awesome) even all the way up to a huge motorized Brachiosaurus. The "drivable" dinosaurs had a slim pod under their bellies were a puppeteer would sit to operate the giant puppet. They actually walked freely around the stage, that was the most impressive part.

The two Dinosaurs with the most personality were by far the crowd pleasing mother Tyrannosaurus Rex and it's baby. The offspring was another man sized suit. These were a great touch, their natural fluid movement made the minimal clunkiness of the giant robots a lot more palatable. (Even though we're of the opinion that there's nothing more charming than a clunky old clunker of a robot...) The mother's roar was tied directly into the sound system so it sounded amazing. We even got to see the crew testing out the T-rex robot/puppet after the show. You could see right down into the cockpit.

There was another aspect of this show that I really liked. It wasn't all about giant robots and rubber suits. They talked about Science and Evolution, these subjects were treated as matter of fact and not glossed over in any way. I know it's a show about dinosaurs, so they probably figured anyone who was in attendance was at least interested in the subject enough to be familiar with Evolution. However, we're in the south, and I am constantly amazed by how little respect the subject gets here.

I kept thinking about how many mothers in the audience had to quickly cover their children's ears when the Narrator made a big deal about modern day birds being the direct evolutionary descendants of the Dinosaurs.

Keep it up Darwin.

A poor representation of something greater.

Madeleine L'Engle, author of the classic "A Wrinkle in Time," passed away last thursday at the age of 88.

In that classic book, Madeleine L'Engle makes reference to one our most favorite theoretical mathematical shapes. The Tesseract. Also known as a hypercube, the tesseract is an imaginary projection of an ordinary 3d cube viewed in the 4th dimension. Sound complicated? It is.

In honor of her passing, physicist David Morgan explains the tesseract in this NPR video. (via boingboing)

And of course what would a post about the tesseract be without a little help from Carl Sagan. Actually, what would one of our posts be without mention of our most beloved of science persons. Here he explains the tesseract:

Voyager Turns 30

Yesterday Sept. 5th in 1977 the Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wired magazine has an awesome photo essay about Voyager.

Besides being developed by this website's patron saint, Carl Sagan, there are many other interesting things about Voyager 1.

The spacecraft was designed to take advantage of a newly developed technique for space travel called "gravity assist." It seems like common place now, but for it's time this idea was revolutionary. The spacecraft would use gravity wells produced by the planets in our solar system to slingshot itself through space. This method not only reduced the amount of fuel needed to travel the distances intended for Voyager, but would also allow the spacecraft to make the journey in 12 years instead of 30!

The timing of Voyager was critical. A planetary event would occur in the late 70's that would make for a perfect opportunity to use the new gravity assist technique. This event was called The Grand Tour, and it consisted of an unprecedented alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. An alignment this perfect would not recur for another 176 years!

Bolted to the outside of Voyager is the now famous "Golden Record."

The Record was designed by Carl Sagan, with elements drawn by Jon Lomberg, an artist whose work is inspired by astronomy. The record also contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, and thunder, and animal sounds, including the songs of birds and whales. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earthlings in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Jimmy Carter and U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

Here is Jimmy Carter's Presidential message to the cosmos:

"We cast this message into the cosmos... Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."

The Enemies of Reason

We have a general rule around here about posting on topics of religion and politics. In that, generally, we don't do it. Which is not to say we don't have strong feelings about them both, because we do. It's also not intended to imply that there couldn't be an open-minded and enlightening discussion about them both, because there could be. It's just that the odds are stacked very much against such a conversation.

Even the Free and Accepted Masons outlawed the discussion of both in their Temples.

So it is with trepidation that we present this documentary in two parts. It is titled: The Enemies of Reason, and it was made by one of the world's leading Atheists, Richard Dawkins. It is in the spirit of disclosure, not of persuasion, that we comment on him now. The fact that we have not until now said much about Richard Dawkins in a testament to our general rule. In fact the only regular mention of him we've made is a subtle link to his non-profit organization, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Richard Dawkins, a molecular biologist, made big waves with his first book, The Selfish Gene, a controversial book for it's time. (1976) His newest book, The God Delusion (2007) would prove to be even more controversial.

We are huge fans of his, but the dude is a firecracker. Part of his efforts in raising awareness of Atheism is a systematic disrespecting of religion. It sounds harsh (because it is) but he says that no respect is given to a non-believer, so why in turn, does everyone bend over backwards to respect religion?

Dawkins says:

"Even those with no faith have been brainwashed into respecting the faith of others. When so-called Muslim community leaders go on the radio and advocate the killing of Salman Rushdie, they are clearly committing incitement to murder--a crime for which they would ordinarily be prosecuted and possibly imprisoned. But are they arrested? They are not, because our secular society "respects" their faith, and sympathizes with the deep "hurt" and "insult" to it.

If that hasn't left a bitter taste in your mouth, then I invite you to watch his two part documentary:

The Enemies of Reason.
In this documentary Richard Dawkins takes a break from battling Religion to investigate all forms of superstition and psuedoscience, from homeopathic cures to healing by chokra and investigating water dowsers. *spoiler alert* They're all scams.

Part 1:

Part 2:

R.I.P. Mr. Wizard

Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert died at the age of 89 on Tuesday. The L.A. Times has a nice article on his life and his awesome television show.

Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique

This post represents my application to
The Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique.

The Science Scouts are half joke, half alternative to faith-based groups like The Boyscouts. They all generally agree about "The Truth." They also like badges, some of them are funny, others are just plain awesome, and we actually qualify for quite a few! New badges are being released by The Order all the time. If you'd like to apply, simply submit a page like this detailing your qualifications. Below you'll find the badges we've earned and our reasons for their award.

The "talking science" badge

On a near nightly basis, you can count on my wife sitting through more than a few science based discussions. If you are still not convinced, feel free to track down my few remaining friends for conformation.

The "I blog about science" badge

Are you kidding me? Science posts are the very corner-stone of this weblog. Please refer to my Math & Science as well as my Cosmology posts.

The "arts and crafts" badge

Well... I went to art school, and I make robot puppets out of cardboard. I also like to draw images of space and animate them.

The "destroyer of quackery" badge

We all gave a good cheer when "Dr." Kent Hovind was sent up the river.

The "I'm a freaking rock star who sings about science!" badge

Well... rockstar is a bit misleading. We've made rap songs about science.

The "I can be a prick when it comes to science" badge

Don't talk to me about going to Catholic High School. Also, I'm a jerk.

The "I know what a tadpole is" badge

Well, I do.

The "experienced with electrical shock" badge (LEVEL III)

While extracting human hair from a film projector while working as a projectionist at a crappy movie theatre. Entire left arm went numb. Hair was removed, movie continued.

The "I'm into telescopes astro" badge (LEVEL III)

I feel cheap about claiming this one, but it's true. I have seen the rings of Saturn as viewed through the 30-inch reflecting telescope at the Bradley Observatory on the Agness Scott College campus once. It was small but it was A-MAZING.

Fractal Undies

I know we said not to expect any postings for a while. But then we saw this awesome chest of drawers on boingboing.

What does this piece of furniture have going for it that it's brought us out of our self-imposed sabbatical?

A couple of things. For one, it's based on fractal geometry. Second, it's got the number 23 it it's name, a number we believe to hold great power. If you believe in that sort of numerology nonsense... which we don't.

R.I.P. Arthur C. Clark

Arthur C. Clark, author of the novel 2001, passed away this week.

Here is the last video Clark made before he passed. In it he celebrates circling the sun for 90 orbits.

Arthur Clark is also credited with the idea of geo-stationary satellites! He wrote about the concept in one of his books. How crazy is that!

Uh oh.

We're not a political weblog. But we love science.
The top two Republican Candidates do not accept Evolution to be true.

It gets better. Every hippie's favorite Democratic (Republican?) Candidate has now revealed that he too, does not believe in Evolution. I'd like to call it: "The crumbling of Ron Paul." But we both know that rejecting science is actually a sound political strategy.