Space News Roundup, or Space Cowboy

Iran launched a satellite into orbit. This got a bunch of people's undies in a twist because it means that they theoretically have the tech necessary to put a missile anywhere in the world. We are thinking this way despite repeated assurances from even neutral observers that Iran is decades away from a nuke, because we are in a society that can't separate space technology from military technology. Which is the answer to the question of why we have better maps of Mars than our own ocean.

Two satellites smacked into each other over Siberia raising global concerns regarding orbital trash and legal concerns regarding the use of space. Who is at fault, the car that is out of control with no driver, or the one that could possibly have driven out of the way?

A backward, green comet, discovered by a Chinese youth, will be visible from earth in the next few days before the Sun flings it out of our solar system forever.

Of Urinals and Broken Zippers

This is a picture of the pull tab from someones fly in the bottom of a uninal at my work. Its been there since before Christmas. Just wanted to share that with you.

The LHC And the United States Committment to Science Education

The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest and most powerful super collider in the world and humanity hopes to discover new fundamental truths about reality through its use. It was built in France and Belgum but there was once the possibility that an even bigger, more powerful collider would have been built in the U.S. except congress lost the nerve to fund the project after already dumping millions into partial construction. This was not just a loss to the local community and the University system of Texas but to U.S. education. Now the best and brightest minds in physics will be compelled to go to France instead of being drawn to America. New discoverys will be made that will lead to marketable technologies that could have been discovered within U.S. jurisdiction. The loss of talent and potential discovery and the immesurable loss to the U.S. economy is particularly irksome in the current economic crisis. This shortsitedness reflects a general U.S. failure to focus on quality of science education in order to maintain our technological and intellictual superiority in the world.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Cybernetic Simian Overlords

In some bizarre attempt at mad science, scientists have created something that has the best chance of destroying civilization since the nuclear bomb, cybernetic monkeys.




We all know that the things most likely to destroy life as we know it are robots that have achieved scientience, hyperevolved monkeys, or zombies. Now mad scientists have combined monkeys and robots as if they are goading God on in an arrogant attempt to provoke the apocylapse. The next time congress tries to ban armor piercing ammunition remember, robot monkeys.

Fantastic!

They can make new hearts out of stem sells!

Also, they no longer have to kill an embryo to get the cells. As a side note, Wisconsin finally gets some fucking respect in the second article.