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This is pretty cool- click on pic: At the link above you see the actual cockpit of the US Space Shuttle Discovery- note insulation panels installed over windows for re-entry- guess they get a little warm. Last week's final mission -completing 30 years of manned Shuttle flights- was completed by the Atlantis... some facts about the craft: The Space Shuttle was the first orbital spacecraft designed for reuse. It carried different payloads to Low Earth Orbit, provided crew rotation for the International Space Station (ISS), and performed servicing missions- the first one went up in the early days of the Reagan Administration,...

Look Up and See!

Victor Stenger, a retired physics prof from the University of Hawaii, has given us two books that explain both atheism and "multiverses", and behold, they are one. Few other proponents of multiverses are quite as forthcoming with their logic, but clearly something besides data must motivate the science of multiverses, because by definition multiverses are not observable. Stenger makes the connection explicit, whereas Hawking or Susskind is a little more coy with their metaphysics. Multiverse-theory is designed for one purpose, and one purpose only, and that is to defend atheism. It makes no predictions, it gives no insight, it provides...

Professor Raymond Wheeler, from the University of Kansas, at first almost stumbled into the frightening data. The connection was initially discovered by noted Russian scientist Alexander Chizhevsky during 1915: solar storms trigger conflict, wars and death. A vortex of death. Chizhevsky found after intense research that the rise and fall of solar activity—interacting with the earth's magnetic field—causes mass changes in human's perspective's, moods, emotions and behavioral patterns. All are affected by sunspots and solar flares. Building upon the Russian scholar's research, Wheeler applied a numerically weighted ranking system during the 1930s to separate wars and even individual battles assessing...

Take a moment and consider your place in the bigger scheme of things~ And while that's indeed illuminating (sorry)....  it's a  big universe with plenty of other stars out there: Jupiter only one pixel on that scale. But this behemoth Arcturus -25x the Sun's size and 110x as bright-is just 5th largest here...our own sun down to a single pixel: The monster above -Anteres- is the 15th brightest star in the sky, and is over 1000 light-years away. Feeling your place yet? Now try to wrap your mind around this: the photo below was taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, and ultra-deep-field infrared shot of...

Around 10:30 PM tonight my son and I saw a bright green streak that appeared to be heading South to North toward Charlotte, NC. The light appeared to be going very fast, and accelerating on a downward path in the sky. I haven't heard anything on the local news about it.

People love to hype 2012 as the end of the world. It's BS, but hey, when it gets into the public consciousness, things stick. Anywho, a scientist named Brad Carter is predicting that the star Betelgeuse is expected to go super-nova very soon. If this happens, the sky that we look at could have two stars in it, even though Betelgeuse is 1,300 light years away. On the bright side, Carter assures us that we won't all die

Here in New York, anyway. Looks like a hazy sky.

Cool video of the Antikythera Mechanism rebuilt in Lego, and how it works.

Cosmic Impact Site That Created Earth’s Axial Tilt and Fault Lines © Mihai Radu Draghici Abstract: Using Google Earth and browsing the geographic appearance of the Earth’s crust starting from the South Pacific Ocean right above Antarctica and traveling over to Drake’s Passage and into the South Atlantic Ocean there seems to be a visual trace that some sort of cosmic collision occurred in that area. (See Figure 1) The impact of the object surfed across the ocean and collided with the bottom of South America where it once connected to Antarctica creating Drake’s Passage opening. This impact also may...

As of today i've 5,007 opinions that i've posted and i think for the past 2 or so years that's enough outta' Miss Dairy Goodness VT i'll be back sooner than you think just don't give me a hard time w/my new screen name i love you all

"No More Down Low," a new online show launched this week, aims to portray the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community in a more holistic light and dispel myths about gay life. "No More Dow Low" is co-hosted by actress Janora McDuffie and Jonathan Plummer, ex-husband of author Terry McMillan. (Jonathan Plummer, the Jamaican native infamous for giving author Terry McMillan her "groove" back and summarily taking it away again once he came out of the closet, that is.) ... NoMoreDownLow.TV segments are told from an African-American LGBT point of view to demonstrate it is possible to live a successful...

The recent discovery of Gliese 581g, an alien planet in the habitable zone of another star, has been an exciting development for scientists probing the galaxy for signs of extraterrestrial life. At least one claim of a possible signal from the planet has already surfaced – and been met with harsh skepticism among the science community. Following the Sept. 29 announcement of the discovery of Gliese 581g, astronomer Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, claimed to have detected a suspicious pulse of light nearly two years ago, that came from the same area of the galaxy...

If I put my hand in the Large Hadron Collider what would happen ?

This is an image of Mercury's tail obtained from combining a full day of data from a camera aboard the STEREO-A spacecraft. The reflected sunlight off the planet's surface results in a type of over-exposure that causes Mercury to appear much larger than its actual size. The tail-like structure extending anti-sunward from the planet is visible over several days and spans an angular size exceeding that of a full Moon in the night sky.

Seth Shostak, a top astronomer at SETI has recently suggested that instead of trying to listen for standard transmissions from advanced alien biological lifeforms like ourselves, we should probably be listening for AI transmissions. This is based on our own experience, we as humans developed radio transmissions only a short while ago, considering the length of time our civilization has been advancing. And if we're any indication of the general route technologically capable life evolves, the galaxy is probably full of sentient AI collectives, not biological lifeforms. In an interview with the BBC, Dr Shostak said:"If you look at the...

Back on 11 August I wrote about Stephen Hawking’s forthcoming book and how it was going to challenge God as an explanation for the universe. The national secular media have now caught up. On Saturday (2 September 2010), the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph both carried exactly the same headline: ‘Stephen Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe’, and the rest were similar, e.g. ‘Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God’ (the Guardian). The reason for all the publicity? The launch of the physicist’s book was only a week away. In the somewhat ironically titled ‘The...

As Yoda has said repeatedly, the Federation of the Obamocracy is a case of the Dark Side, interfering with the Constitutional Right to Bear Arms on our experimental gun platforms.. And This Interference MUST be met with the full force of patriot ridicule. So be it. May the farce, errr..FORCE be with you patriots and may the DARK SIDE go pizmo on Nov.2nd!

It's really really hot today. I got to hit my pool. It's mandatory. I've got a really neat floaty thing to relax in. (Day off) So my question is...where do I get a good waterproof laptop to relax with. Otherwise I'm stuck in the air conditioned home using too much electricity which probably depletes something in the atmosphere.Not that I'm adverse to depleting anything, especially our current White House resident, but I really could use some advice on water resistance and possible electrocution. (I never trust those batteries).

One sign of a mentally unhinged national leader is his constant misunderstanding of the levers of power. Stalin used census-takers to measure how effectively he had ethnically cleaned parts of the Soviet population . . . and then executed the census workers. When Venezuelan nut-job Hugo Chavez orders his national oil company to provide houses, hospitals and schools it is only an affirmation that nothing in the Venezuelan government works . . . except for Hugo's mouth. Then comes NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. In an interview with anti-American Al Jazeera, Mr. Bolden stated that President Obama had made clear that...