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Life on an oil platform is tough; it’s hard living on a piece of metal in the middle of the ocean, but you know that no matter what, safety comes first. So one can only imagine how many safety and probably structural precautions the people at Floatel Jupiter ignore, because that platform sunk like a […]
[Whimsical article ahead, proceed at your own risk] In a surprising turn of events, semen from a species of duck has been found to totally destroy Esterichia Coli, a rather commonly and dangerous bacteria. Male mallard ducks, the… main contributors of the study are famous for their extremely long and spiral shaped genitalia, as well […]
In light of recent catastrophic events that plagued Japan, and the consequent nuclear crisis recently raised to level 7 on par with Chernobyl, the talk of the day in every scientific and political circle seems to be that of nuclear safety. Armenia’s 31-year old only nuclear power plant located in Metsamor is one of the […]
As the year 2012 steadily approaches, conspiracy theories, general panic and distress are growing ever thicker as Mayan calendar superstitions are turning into mainstream concerns. Much like in the cold war when a lot of people, some more intelligent than others, formed various nuclear holocaust survival plans like backyard bunkers, there are a lot of […]
A few weeks ago I told you a bit about “First Orbit”, a marvelous documentary by Christopher Riley which practically visually recreates the same path Yuri Gagarin undertook exactly 50 years ago when he became the first man ever to go into space. Every six weeks, the International Space Station orbit matches the same arc […]
Japan’s nuclear crisis level has been regulated from level 5 to 7 by the International Atomic Energy Agency, at the top of the nuclear hazard scale and right on par with the 1986 Chernobyl incident, according to the level of radiation released in the accident. The new ranking signifies a “major accident” with “wider consequences” […]
I’m still left in awe after stumbling across this marvelous feat of engineering, which perfectly applies nature’s concepts to science and engineering technology. Seeing the SmartBird model in action immediately makes one imagine one of the world’s greatest minds Leonardo da Vinci on Florence’s hilltops studying and sketching the flight of birds for his aeronautical […]
Exactly 30 years ago, the first orbital space shuttle launch took place, marking the start of a slew of successful missions, with 135 successful launches, which provided important insights in space exploration, offered satellite deployment, space lab work and indispensable International Space Station service. The shuttle program however will be permanently retired soon, with only […]
I recently came into the possession of a book called ‘Visions of the Multiverse’, which I had the pleasure of reading, finishing it just a few days ago. This is not a paid post in any way, it reflects my opinions on the book, and anything positive or negative regarding it is just my opinion. […]
I was quite pleasantly surprised by Universe in a Sandbox. It is one of the best pieces of software I’ve come across lately; you get the ultimate power, create and destroy galaxies, run virtually any astronomic simulation you want, but most of all, you get to explore and learn about the very universe you live […]
As Japan struggles to control the situation at the Fukushima power plant, an even more complicated question arises; where will Japan get its energy ? If they completely give up on nuclear power, which is not the most inspired of ideas if you ask me, they will face some very limited options. As it turns […]
Once again NASA‘s amazing “astronomy picture of the day” feature provides us with pure gold. The above captioned stunning photo (click on it and you’ll understand it’s splendor) was shot by astrophotographer Juan Carlos Casado during a clear night sky – the fully 360 across panorama was imaged by superimposing 9 separate photographs. This how […]
As long as space and science is concerned, April is clearly Yuri Gagarin month, the first man in space, celebrating 50 years since his historic orbital flight. Besides having a Soyuz spacecraft named after him, another recent celebration of Yuri Gagarin include the erection of a statue in London in his honor. The zinc-alloy figure […]
According to newly revealed classified MI5 files, in June 1942 a German sabotage mission, code name “Operation Pastorius“, was commenced which intended to wreak havoc and unleash terror across the US. However, the operation failed misserably and turned out to be more of a screwball comedy synopsis than a covert, ruthless nazi mission. The plan […]
The unfortunate floods in Pakistan haven’t affected only humans, they also had a truly fascinating “side effect”: millions and millions of spiders have climbed the trees in a desperate attempt to escape the flooding water. Because of the scale of the event and the fact that the water has taken so long to recede, they […]
I was very surprised to see today’s Google doodle center piece occupied by an animated Bunsen burner experiment, familiar to anyone with a high school diploma (should be, at least), in the memory of Robert Bunsen, its creator, born 200 years ago. What’s very curious, however, is that the burner, named after Bunsen, was not […]
When we think about money today, bills or coins pop up in an average mind, maybe even credit cards; even the concept of some different objects used as currency (not as trade items) seems outrageous. However, this is exactly the case with the Chinese knife money, introduced between 600 to 200 B.C. during the Zhou […]
According to more than half of all Americans, God is in complete control of everything that happens on our planet. Slightly fewer people, 44 percent, believe natural disasters, such as the earthquake and tsunamis in Japan are caused by an omnipotent power; but hey, it gets a little better – only 29 percent of Americans […]
I’m not a big fan of Internet slang myself, though I use it, just like millions and millions of other users. However, OMG, LOL or FYI seem appropriate on a Facebook window, or a beer conversation at most, not in a dictionary. Still, as of March 2011, that’s where they’ll be. Laugh Out Loud, Oh […]
Censorship and filtering has been a long time practice used by Chinese authorities, and it’s a known fact that you have to be careful what to say or more importantly to whom you say it when in China. Like most of you are probably aware there’s a whole wave of protest sweeping through the arab […]
I had some good laughs reading data from a survey published last week that outlined the blurred perspective between science and science fiction for some Britons (one in five believed light sabers were real). Today, I ran into another online survey that posed some laughs conducted by a British online travel agency in which people […]
Even though it will cost a whooping $845.000, I for one welcome the appearance of this kind of Porsche; why ? Because it will definitely change the mind of many who believe that hybrids are all about economy and the environment, and nothing about performance. Because if Porsche can do one thing, they do fast […]
In a time when a thing called the space race was in full swing, technological advance and cocky egos made a lot of people, mostly scientists, get disillusioned with visions of grander for the future. In the 1970’s Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill with the help of NASA’s Ames Research Center and Stanford University showed that we can […]
Tonight, March 19, an true lunar rarity will fill the night sky – the super moon will delight amateur astronomers and romantics alike. For the first time in 18 years, the full moon will be a perigee full moon, which, for tonight, means that the lunar orb will be much closer to the Earth than […]
While a number of today’s science innovations which most of us take for granted, like airplanes, automobiles, computers or space flight, have been outlined by imaginative science fiction writers before they were possible, it seems there’s a concerning blurred line between what has actually been made possible by science and what is of the realm […]
As the nuclear situation at the Fukushima power plant continues to deteriorate, engineers start to ponder drastic options more and more seriously; it seems that the method which seems to have te best chances to work is the same one that was user in Chernobyl in 1986. It is the first time operation leaders are […]
The Andean cat (Leopardus jacobita) is an extraordinary elusive creature, being relatively small, well camuflaged and incredibly hard to find dwelling in a habitat usually at 3,000 meters in altitude. Actually, up to the late 1990s the snow leopard-like cat was known to scientists only through a few pictures sporadically taken by locals when such […]
In an attempt to gain ground against renowned tech centers from around the country like Sillicon Valley, Boston or Texas, the city of New York has reached out to universities all over the world to submit their development plans for an applied science and engineering campus. Higher-Education institutions were first aware of this signal in […]
Evan Michael O’Dorney, only aged 17, a gifted math whiz-kid was awarded by $100,000 from the Intel Foundation for placing 1st at the Intel hosted Science Talent Search, for a project in which he compared two ways to estimate the square root of an integer, discovering which one was the quickest. His research could provide […]
The situation on the Fukushima nuclear plant is far from calming down, even after the government authorized water being dropped from helicopters, an option which was described as unnacceptable. It is even more unclear what the effect of that water will be, as helicopters threw it without hovering, presumably because of the radiation. Also, this […]
In the aftermath of the 9.0 earthquake, Japan has doubled the number of workers trying to overcome a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, but the situation appears to be deteriorating. The 100 workers at the site continue to battle a situation which appears to be more and more serious with each passing hour; authorities […]
It never ceases to amaze me how placebo works when it comes to prices – most people tend to be greatly influenced by the price of an item they buy, when it comes to judging its quality. Believe it or not, it has even become a marketing strategy, to raise your price rather than lowering […]
The situation in Japan is far from calming down; the 9.0 earthquake and the tsunamis it triggered unleashed a chain of events which keep pointing towards a future that can only be dire. In his first official statement since the event, emperor Akihito says events at Fukushima are unpredictable, and he stated that he is […]
The 9.0 (it seems this is the actual magnitude) earthquake that hit Japan on the 11th of March created an absolutely incredible number of aftershocks, some of which were pretty intense on their own. However, a few days before it, as stress built up the subduction area between the Pacific and North American plates, one […]
Pretty much everyone, at least everyone who gives a damn about science, knows about the Large Hadron Collider built in Switzerland; basically, it’s a particle accelerator, a device that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams, according to wikipedia. But not so many people know […]
NASA’s Inspector General’s Office says an investigation is under way after a white powdery substance found at the Kennedy Space Center tested positive for cocaine. I wanted to insert some puns somewhere in this post about astronauts, cocaine, high and outer space, but by the time I finished researching for this post I remembered that […]
The sad loss of over 10.000 people caused by the M8.9 earthquake and the tsunamis it generated is not the only problem Japanese people will have to deal with; this major disaster is also the most costly in world history, a “title” previously held by Katrina in the US, with an estimate of £77 billion […]
A National Geographic documentary is on the lookout for the mysterious lost city of Atlantic.
In its wake, the Japan 8.9 Richter scale devastating earthquake and the huge tsunami that was produced by it left inimaginable damage. Homes simply stripped apart, farm areas swept away by the water, airports raised, nuclear power plants dangerously shaken and a concerning death toll made the world tremble and reinforced the idea that nature […]
As a consequence of last Friday’s devastating earthquake near the coast of Japan, the nation’s most powerful recorded earthquake to date actually since it began archiving results in the late 1800, scientists have assessed that the Earth axis has tilted by a few inches and that the chronological day has been shortened by a millionth […]
This picture, created by a computer model at NOAA displays the expected heights of the tsunamis created by the 8.9 earthquake in Japan (which may be “upgraded” to 9.0 – calculating magnitudes is a pretty delicate issue). Of course the largest wave heights are expected near the epicenter, off the coast of Sendai, Honshu, Japan. […]
If you’re looking for an easy to understand scientific explanation about the formation of the devastating quake and tsunami that devastated Japan this Friday, you’d better read Dr. John Ebel‘s theory from below, Professor of geophysics and director of Weston Observatory of Boston College. “We had an earthquake caused by the Pacific Ocean plate sliding […]
The recent tsunami wave that hit the Japanese coast this Friday simply devastated the countries costal areas. Besides the actual casualties (now reported to around 1,700), there are a few thousand people still isolated (footage of Japanese citizens stranded on rooftops have been circulating everywhere recently) and thousands more left homeless. The Japanese Government and […]
In the wake of Japan’s most devastating recorded earthquake to date, the nation of the rising sun is still left in shock. Hundreds were killed, many more left homeless, countless financial damage and entire cities left with electricity – it might even get a heck of a lot worse. Another big issue is the telecom […]
It’s ignorance like this that never sees to baffle me. Steve Pop is an overnight notorious psychotherapist who, like most of today’s center stage and tomorrow’s props, became famous after stating live on BBC Radio that “spending two hours on a game station is equivalent to taking a line of cocaine in the high it produces […]
Some animals in the wild are so elusive and hard to glimpse that they’re almost impossible to capture with a camera. This is why researchers often use trip cameras with motion sensors that film or photograph whenever an animal is in the vicinity. The Smithsonian today launched a new searchable website, siwild.si.edu, that presents more […]
Tom Hardwidge is an exceptional English artist who loves to sculpture insects, he calls arthrobots, from… ammunition. Don’t be alarmed though, it’s deactivated ammunition. Besides various ammunition of different calibers, he ornaments his steampunk art with old gears and sprockets from broken pocket watches, along with sheet copper, brass and aluminum to make it easier […]
The Dalai Lama announced today that he plans to retire as the political head of the Tibetan exiled movement, and leaving room for a democratically elected leader. “Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power,” the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader said in a statement. “Now, we […]
This is one of the most disgusting things I’ve come across lately, and it shows just how much lack of responsibility and sheer ignorance people can have. A bengal tiger from the Turkish capital of Ankara killed a lion that was in a cage next to him, after finding a gap in the fence separating […]
Besides their evident telecommunications value, satellites also pose enormous benefits when synchronization and navigation are concerned, available and more and more used to the common public through GNSS (global navigation satellite system) or the US based GPS (global positioning system). However, a report published by the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK warns that […]
