Science Etcetera Venusday, 20080229

February 29th, 2008

Mercury’s Tail
Photo courtesy Boston University

Mercury has a long, glowing tale of sodium atoms.

After the Pentagon assured us there was no debris generated by their recent satellite shoot down, the Atlas V launch is delayed due to space debris. Something’s rotten in the state of ~~Denmark~~ DoD.

Now the Dittoheads are really going down on the political debate over Anthropogenic Global Warming, cause we gots the lawyers on our side now baby!!! (Why do I suddenly feel like I need to take a bath?)

Fred Krupp says we need to put a cap on Carbon Emissions right now to promote Capitalist Solutions to Climate Change. Dittoheads responded with incoherent mumblings about more corporate welfare for Exxon being a better solution.

Microbes may act as catalysts in water, allowing snow to form around them at warmer temperatures.

Japanese researchers are also back to Searching for Planet X, which they believe lies at the edge of our solar system and is also where many of the bad guys from the Godzilla movies come from… that’s something I would have included in the article, had I written it.

Different Japanese researchers have put a camera in a mouse’s brain to observe the process of memories forming, and not to put the mouse in a miniature city to fight miniature Godzilla toys as I would have done.

Danger Will Robinson! Danger! Most important reason yet to get the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine program rolling full speed and make it mandatory, Oral sex-related cancer is at 30-year high!!! That reason, and I’m sure the whole cervical cancer thing is pretty important too.

The DVD of Gravitas, which puts computer simulations of galaxies interacting to music, is now online for free download. These are nice for playing in the background while you do other things.

Become an Intellectual Property Donor and ensure that all your ideas aren’t lost for the next 70 years after your death and forgotten before the government lets them enter the public domain.

An artist has lit up 1,301 Florescent Bulbs with magnetic fields simply by placing them under power lines.

New online toy alert! This application will Turn Pi’s first 10,000 Digits into Music, and you get to choose the notes. (HT inkling)

Today’s Moment of Science is a 1956 Clip from a Walt Disney Space series, where Werner von Braun shows and explains his plans to travel to and around the Moon and back again. Interesting to note that, at this time, he did not think it was possible for a rocket to make the whole trip alone, but needed an intermediary space station: