Category: science holidays
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Evolution Sunday
Today more than 618 Congregations across America and five nations will participate in Evolution Sunday. More than 10,000 ministers have signed the letter supporting the idea that science and religion are not incompatible, and support for Evolution Sunday grew 13 per cent to 530 congregations in 2007. Several years ago, I was married to a…
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Just Science 2008
I just wanted to take a moment to direct readers to Just Science 2008 a collection of bloggers who have all agreed to blog only science this week and post at least once a day. There’s some head-spinning technical stuff up there and some very witty writing as well. I had originally signed up for…
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50th Anniversary of America Entering the Space Race
“At the time, we didn’t know a great deal, but we felt comfortable that we could put something up. And we liked the difference between our satellite and Sputnik. Ours flew science, the Van Allen experiment.” – Carl Raggio, a mechanical engineer on the Explorer team Explorer I Image by NASA 50 years ago, at…
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Happy Kid Inventor Day!
Benjamin Franklin age 12 Courtesy NPS Benjamin Franklin was 15 when he started writing notable letters to the Editor of his local paper. Thomas Edison was 15 when he began printing his own newspaper. Louis Braille was 15 when he invented the raised dots that served as a gateway to the blind reading on their…
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Happy Birthday Isaac Asimov!
Isaac Asimov Author or editor of over 500 books, including the incredible Foundation Series and I, Robot books. I was led to Asimov by my favorite author at the time, Kurt Vonnegut, who lavished much praise on his prolific friend. Asimov and Vonnegut are now equal in my eyes, Vonnegut for his humanity, Asimov for…
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Gee. That’s a Pretty Crappy Dodecahedron Charlie Brown
I had this fantastic idea for a science-themed holiday ornament for the science center, where I would elaborate on the Dixie Cup Spherical Dodecahedron, by putting string lights in the cups and everyone would look on in awe at how awesomely brilliant I am… except I put it together wrong: Holiday Dodecahedron I have vowed…
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Happy Winter Solstice! Yay!!!
Image by The Slumbering Lungfish (flyingsirkus) Happy Winter Solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere) to all my fellow Secular Humanists out there! At 6:08 this morning the Sun reached its greatest distance opposite the Earth’s equatorial plane relative to the Northern polar hemisphere, making it the longest night of the year and our days will only…
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Happy Birthday Sir Arthur C. Clark!
Sir Arthur C. Clarke Photo by Anuradha Ratnaweera The knighted science fiction author turns 90 years old today. His book 2001: A Space Odyssey was made into a very trippy, far-out and visually stunning film, but also one that left out so many of the important plot elements that made Clarke’s novel so great. All…
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Happy Evolution Day!
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) Photo by J. Cameron, 1869 On this day, 148 years ago, Charles Darwin first published The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (wikipedia). Although the book and specifics of Darwin’s orginal theory have been improved upon, as the evolving body of scientific knowledge perpetually works out the myriad details of…
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Happy Birthday Kurt Vonnegut!
Kurt Vonnegut Photo by Ryan Somma He would be 85 today. This great writer survived the firebombing of Dresden, wrote dozens of books and short stories, and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association. Although he objected to the description, Vonnegut wrote many science fiction stories. In his book Cat’s Cradle, he came up…
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Happy Birthday Carl Sagan!
Carl Sagan He would be 73 today. As Sagan was dying, he stressed the fact that his quasi-atheism did not make him fear death at all, but rather he was always overjoyed for having the opportunity to even briefly exist and experience at all. The world is a much happier place for his having existed.…
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50th Anniversary of Kudryavka (Laika)
“Work with animals is a source of suffering to all of us. We treat them like babies who cannot speak. The more time passes, the more I’m sorry about it. We shouldn’t have done it. We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog.” ” – Oleg Gazenko, leading…