In January, the fifth SpaceX cargo mission to the International Space Station brought astronauts an Epic Dragon camera by RED, which is capable of shooting 6K video. In the above video, astronaut Terry Virts uses it to show what happens when you add an effervescent table to water in zero gravity. Here\’s more information on the mission from NASA.
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Panda loves snow
So, it’s snowing today in the nation’s capital, which is friggin’ annoying, but you know who fucking loves it? That’s right, that little bastard Bao Bao, our resident kind-of-a-baby panda at the National Zoo. It’s his first snow, and he friggin’ loves it. Like the bastard he is. Anyways, carry on with your miserable day.
Continue reading...Watch: Earth as seen from the International Space Station
Pretty much what it says on the tin, except holy crap that\’s earth as seen from the space station. Hell of a way to start a weekend.
Continue reading...All hope has been abandoned, like ballots drifting into the ocean
I keep meaning to link to this story, because, holy shit, this is happening right now in Miami: Every year, with the coming of high spring and autumn tides, the sea surges up the Florida coast and hits the west side of Miami Beach, which lies on a long, thin island that runs north and south across the water from the city of Miami. The problem is particularly severe in autumn when winds often reach hurricane levels. Tidal surges are turned into walls of seawater that batter Miami Beach’s west coast and sweep into the resort’s storm...
Continue reading...“Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.”
I’ve been struggling all day to put together thoughts on the Challenger tragedy anniversary and the bigger question of what role the U.S. should maintain in humanity’s exploration of space. Part of it is the very happenstance of the calendar: it’s a thought that only occurred because of the anniversary, as probably any other day that isn’t already taken over by State of the Union madness would be a better day to meditate on the theme. Surely, unlike President John F. Kennedy’s address to Congress on May 25, 1961, or President George W. Bush’s own 2004 State...
Continue reading...Smart Dolphins
Cool interview in NYT the other day with Diana Reiss, psychology professor/dolphin researcher. This anecdote kind of floored me: Let me tell you a story. One of the first dolphins I ever worked with was Circe. I’d bring her a fish when I wanted her to do certain things. If she didn’t do them, I did a “time-out” where I turned my back and walked away. Well, there was a certain type of fish that Circe loathed because it had a spiny tail. So I accommodated her by cutting the spines off of the tail. One day,...
Continue reading...Yes, it's hot outside, but the Potomac River is really not a good place to go swimming
As if we needed another reason to avoid swimming in the Potomac River, now we have to be afraid of…sharks? Willy Dean has an incredible fish tale to tell. On Tuesday, he caught a shark while on the Potomac River in St. Mary’s County, Md. Don’t believe him? He has the pictures to prove it. Dean put out a net Monday at Cornfield Harbor in the Potomac three miles north of Point Lookout with hopes of catching cow-nosed rays for a Solomons Island Marina biologist. When he checked Monday night everything seemed normal. But when he checked again Tuesday...
Continue reading...Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning), or Welcome to the "No-Spin Zone"
Filed under “Science is freaking crazy.” Witold Fraczek from Esri ran some models using ArcGIS on an interesting—but unlikely—question: What would happen if the world actually stopped turning? The answer is actually rather fascinating: If earth ceased rotating about its axis but continued revolving around the sun and its axis of rotation maintained the same inclination, the length of a year would remain the same, but a day would last as long as a year. In this fictitious scenario, the sequential disappearance of centrifugal force would cause a catastrophic change in climate and disastrous geologic adjustments (expressed...
Continue reading...Males' tears make them more attractive to the ladies
Seriously: A guy who can shed a tear really can drive females wild—among mice, at least. According to a new study, male mouse tears contain a sex pheromone called ESP1, which makes female mice more receptive to mounting. … Male mice shed tears to keep their eyes from drying out. As they groom themselves, the tears—and the pheromone—get spread around their bodies and nests. When female mice come in contact with a male or his nest, they pick up the pheromone via a nose organ called the vomeronasal, where the pheromone binds to a specific protein receptor....
Continue reading...Doctor treats pregnant women with experimental drug to prevent lesbians (WHAT)
Dan Savage quoting from a piece by Alice Dreger, Ellen K. Feder, Anne Tamar-Mattis (emphasis his): The majority of researchers and clinicians interested in the use of prenatal “dex” focus on preventing development of ambiguous genitalia in girls with CAH. CAH results in an excess of androgens prenatally, and this can lead to a “masculinizing” of a female fetus’s genitals. One group of researchers, however, seems to be suggesting that prenatal dex also might prevent affected girls from turning out to be homosexual or bisexual. Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida...
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