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The Benbulben (or Ben Bulben) is an absolute delight on the eye. It was formed during the Ice Age, when Ireland was under glaciers, and originally it was just a ridge; however, the action of the glaciers shaped it into what we see today.   Ben Bulben is composed of limestnes on top of mudstones, [...]

I’m an absolute fan of the Cassini spacecraft – this is hands down my favorite mission. I mean, it’s been providing us incredibly valuable information for years now, in a very interesting area of our solar system, the Jupiter-Saturn area. This mission is one of the main reasons why we now believe places like Europa [...]

Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the United States Apollo program and the third to land on the Moon. Here, we present a stunning photo album with the shuttle, the crew, and the Moon.  

Braving the weather in rough conditions is standard biker procedure, but it’s always more fun when the weather is fine – and with spring on the way, we don’t have too long to wait. But before you renew your motorbike insurance and get back in the saddle, sit your ass back down and check out [...]

Chris Hadfield, quite possibly my favorite current astronaut has snapped a spectacular photo of Italy’s Mount Etna volcano streaming ash toward the sea early this morning. Mount Etna is the tallest active volcano in Europe, and in an almost constant state of activity, regularly spewing gas, ash, and lava from the four craters at its [...]

Just one of the many reasons why I love geology – paleontologists have unearthed extraordinarily preserved fossils of a 520-million-year-old sea creature, one of the oldest animal fossils ever found. The animal in case is an arthropod called a fuxhianhuiid – you may remember him from this post, in which I described a lovely book [...]

“If I could catch a rainbow, I would do it, just for you, And, share with you, its beauty, on the days you’re feeling blue.” The above lines are from a romantic poem by Sandra Lewis Pringle. For thousands of years, rainbows were an enigmatic phenomenon that was out of reach to humans – they disappeared [...]

It’s a good day to be Irish! The Irish government this morning outlined details of a €300-million package of research funding that will establish seven new hubs where industry will collaborate with academic researchers. Areas which will receive the most funding will be data analytics, marine renewable energy, biomaterials, perinatal research, nanotechnology, functional foods, photonics [...]

Jean-Lou Chameau, the president of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena announced that he will be leaving his post at an unspecified time to head the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. I think this is important not because of the move itself, but rather what it symbolizes. [...]

In a promising discovery for students and party aninals all over the world, a team of researchers led by UCLA engineers has identified a method for speeding up the body’s reaction to alcohol consumption – practically elimining the hangover. Researchers take their hangovers really seriously – in a paper published online Feb. 17 in the [...]