So, this, yesterday, from Palin:
Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.
Yes, as ( Read more... )

Phil Plait reports on an unconfirmed image from a Hawaiian telescope that appears to show a planet in orbit around a remote yellow star. Whoa.

We've been discovering extrasolar planets for many years now, but unless I'm mistaken, we have yet to actually snap a discrete piccie of one. This would be hella cool.

Edit OK, was msitaken: we've shot a ( Read more... )

My hat is off to the scientists at CERN and all their supporters. I'm looking forward now to some sweet smashings and amazing revelations. (And hopes that the science press won't mangle things too badly as they abstract the findings down to the level I can understand them.)

Congratulations to Phil "Bad Astronomer" Plait for accepting the position of James Randi's intellectual heir, and the presidency of the JREF. This puts him at the head of one of the oldest and most dedicated organizations focused on stemming the tide against the world of pseudoscience, hokum, and self-delusion. They lead the fight in never giving ( Read more... )

Phil Plait on motions within the U.S. Congress towards a space mission that would get the dealie on asteroid Apophis' sinister plans by physically popping a radio beacon onto it, well before its scheduled holy-shit-that-was-closeI really like the idea of this; it's a very satisfying mode of nerdly assertiveness. We are nervous about the big bruiser ( Read more... )

My favorite comment from the Making Light thread on Arthur C. Clarke's passing, by Paul Duncanson:
Tonight, if it's not overcast, go out somewhere you can see the sky clearly. Look up for long enough and you'll be bound to see one or more of the points of light moving. It's full of stars and, my god, we put some of them there ( Read more... )

Ricky: Is [doctor_atomic] still working on precognition?

Me: [affirmation, with correction - she is a cognitive scientist.]

Ricky: Yeah. No "Minority Report", huh?

After I wrote that last subject line I thought I bet that isn't actually true, and lo.

A background process I didn't realize I had going returned a value yesterday and told me the point at which the last Harry Potter novel soured a little on me, preventing it from being really great. It was when ( Crusher said 'Their DNA is devolving into amino acids!' and then Riker turned into a spider or something. )

( Read more... )