Category Archives: Science

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.

Ben Wang shoots a space shuttle launch, the Endeavour in November of 2000. This shot is a 5 minute exposure. Five minutes after liftoff the shuttle is about 229 statute miles downrange.
Pretty cool. A larger picture of this can be found here.

You really want to know how big the earth is compared to the other planets and the sun?

Proportions – How Small We Are

This topic was something I looked at in an Astronomy class I took last year.
We also had to discuss creating a scale model of the solar system to help appreciate how big it is. If you would use a typical classroom globe of the earth as scale the sun would be 146 feet in diameter, Earth would be 40 feet away from the sun. Pluto would be 3 inches in diameter and 118 miles away from the sun. Alpha Centauri A our next closest star would be 822,400 miles away. That far away if the earth was the size of a classroom globe. It really helps people appreciate how much space is in space.

YORK, Pa. — A math lesson this morning at York’s Smith Middle School involved sixth-graders and more than 5,000 rulers.

It took students about two hours to line up 5,280 rulers end to end outside the school to demonstrate how many feet are in a mile. It wasn’t the straightest line, but the point was made.

“This is like a once-in-a-lifetime experience doing this ruler stuff. And it’s something that we’re probably not going to forget,” said sixth-grader Jose Vasquez.

“It’s a good way to teach students, and it is a fun way. We always do a lot of fun stuff in class,” said sixth-grader Breyonna Small.

York Mayor John Brenner helped students put down the final ruler.

The students got the rulers from within the York City School Districts. Parents and others also volunteered to donate some.

York, PA right up the road from me.

Not too straight is it?
A good way to teach students what? How not to make a straight line? That each ruler is a foot which is why it took 5,280 rulers.
Two hours, huh.
Did the students learn where the length of a mile came from?
Or how Britain modified it to fit their needs? Or how to convert a mile to metric since pretty much the rest of the world doesn’t use miles?

The new guy at work sends me a link to put up on my site. Who am I to say no?
Off the island of Yonaguni of Japan are massive sunken hewn rock and stone structures.
What makes this interesting is that the structures are really old, maybe 8,000 years old. That’s older than the earliest structures in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China. So this has sparked controversy among historians and archaeologist, some saying these structures occurred naturally.
Looks like steps to me!

http://www.morien-institute.org/uwnewsarchive.html

Found this link which had some better photos.

Academics in the UK claim their research shows that men are more intelligent than women.
A study to be published later this year in the British Journal of Psychology says that men are on average five points ahead on IQ tests. [continue]

Let the hate begin, I think I hear the feminist shouting already.
I personally really do not care, even if the studies results were reversed.
In general, men and women each have abilities that each is better at.
Remember kiddies, different doesn’t not mean bad. And if one sex in general is more intelligent than the other when it comes to specific things, that is not bad, just different.

Researchers have finally found evidence for what good Catholic boys have known all along, erotic images make you go blind. The effect is temporary and lasts just a moment, but the research has added to road-safety campaigners calls to ban sexy billboard-advertising near busy roads, in the hope of preventing accidents. [continue]

This helps explain why Smith is legally blind.