RuBisCo Stars, Frank Drake and the "Riddle of Life" December 4, 2009. One of the great advantages of Scientific Blogging is the immediate feedback that is possible, and even a kind of conversation…

Our satellite hits the road-- even before it gets built!  I will be presenting a short talk on "Project Calliope: Science and Social Media" at the winter AAS meeting in Washington DC on January…

The word on the street is that Jesus is pretty t'd off at NASA.1 What mortal sin2 did the space agency allegedly commit? The non-biological reproduction of an RNA component in a laboratory, of course…

While today we're pretty darned certain there is no intelligent life on Mars, in the early 20th century, it was still an open question.  So-- about four decades before the publically known…

1571 was also interesting. Galileo Galilei was then seven years old. Johannes Kepler was born on December 27. There were two solar eclipses, a total on January 25 and an annular on July 21-22. …

An elevator to space? No, this isn't a reprise of Charlie and Chocolate Factory. As I mentioned in a blog back in January, an elevator into space is the end goal - a 100,000 km long tether anchored…

Hello. See the giant structure in 2D and also in 3D. The positions of the galaxies in the newly found structure are shown in red in the second and third images. Other galaxies in "blue…

Scientists used a pair of gravity-measuring satellites, GRACE, to look at Amazon river basin water levels and, hopefully, better predict future water storage and runoff.  The twin GRACE…

Dust samples collected by high-flying aircraft have found relicts from the ancient cosmos, according to scientists from the Carnegie Institution. This stratospheric dust includes minute grains that…

Way back when, there was an excellent film loop called "Powers of 10".  Created by Charles and Ray Eames, it can now be found at the conveniently-named powersof10.com website.  The video is…