John C Woolsey, LEED AP » Science

You Ever Notice…

John — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:08:03 +0000

When people start talking about evolution vs. creation or how genetics and geology fit into them parties on both sides become instant experts in all the relevant sciences? And as a result, wind up calling each other ‘stupid’ or ‘ignorant’ or ‘simple minded’ because the other party believes the opposite. THAT sure makes for an open dialogue about truth, eh?

Yeesh…

[in reference to the comments on the Newsvine Poll currently running: Is Evolution Theory True or False?]

Whoah!

John — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 07:01:59 +0000

The Planetary Society website reported that we had a close call on the 2nd of this month. An object designated 2009 DD45 was first observed only 2 days prior by an observatory in Australia. NASA’s Near Earth Object Project reports that the object passed within 0.0005 AU’s (Astronomical Unit) from the surface of the earth. An AU is the distance between the Sun and the Earth. So, doing the math for you thats about 40,000 miles. Communication sattelites orbit the Earth at only 20,000 miles.

You can read about this HERE.

So, yeah that was a close call. Wonder how many of these nasty little rocks are stalking us out there in the night sky.

Its Science

John — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:44:21 +0000

TURN YOUR SPEAKERS ON AND CLICK HERE

You musicians and physicists out there will like this. I stumbled this article that discusses a phenomena called the Shepard Scale. Its a neat trick and what you don’t realize is that your brain thinks its hearing a constant decreasing scale but its really just hearing the same tone played for an extended period.

This article exlpains it really well.

Look who is on Twitter

John — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:56:36 +0000

Maybe everyone else in the blog world knows this already but I just found out thismorning. The Mars lander Phoenix has a twitter feed! I saw the article on Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories this morning while I was cruising through some of their older stuff. You can see the feed HERE. I thinks its fun, someone in control is feeding stuff out over twitter in the first person as if the lander is doing writing. What a neat blend of real science and exploration with popular consumer technology.

Is This Crazy or Is It Just Me?

John — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:17:18 +0000

I spotted this video on MSN Video this morning. This woman sold her house to get the $100,000+ to clone her old dog Booger. She said that its just like any couple who spends thousands on having a baby. She also hopes that this is going to raise awareness to the benefits of having your pet cloned.

Check out the video:

What do you think about this?

Super Cool

John — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:29:43 +0000

An article at Smithsonian.com reports that scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge have recently attained a record low, 810 trillionths of a degree F above absolute zero! Be warned, science content lies beyond this point. Crazy things happen at this temperature, electrical resistance of materials becomes negligible allowing what is known as super conductivity. Super fluids begin to emerge that are able to pass through containers that would be able to otherwise safely contain fluids at warmer temperatures. You can read all about it in this interesting article about experiments with super cold temperatures.

Energy | Third World Generation Solution?

John — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 06:48:59 +0000

People are always looking for ways to do things like purify water or generate electricity in a smarter, more efficient way. One advantage to this quest is that new technologies can be used in impoverished areas of the world to help raise the standard of living in those places. Well, I Stumbled this little video from Popular Mechanics and was impressed with the ingenuity. I would like to see some more discussion revolving around scalability. That being said this is fun, you could probably build one yourself!

Science | Beaming Energy Down From Orbit

John — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:08:24 +0000

These are the kinds of stories I like: sending up an array of solar panels that will collect pure, unobstructed solar energy and then beam it down to a relay station on the surface of the Earth. It has its technical and political challenges, but its a little bit of outer space fiction coming to life on a drawing board.

The good news? Beaming all the solar energy we could ever need down to Earth from space appears more feasible than ever before. The bad news? It’s going to take a lot of money and political will to get there.

Click here to read about it at Green Options.

Food | The Amazing Twinkie

John — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:01:34 +0000

The Twinkie was invented on April 6, 1930 by bakery manager James Dewar. The way it is been made is a result of years of revisited recipes and growing efficiency in production. Perhaps its not fair to pick on the Twinkie but its a good example of the downfall of the American (and international) diet over the years. This article by Kate Thorp at Divine Caroline (StumbleUpon Find!) takes a quick look at the ingredients in the Twinkie and their origins on an international market. The Twinkie just might embody where the nutrition of our nation has gone. Mine is a generation that is fast racing towards minimizing, localizing, naturalizing and conserving, I wonder if things like this amazingly processed confection will have a place when my kids are old enough to pay attention…I hope not.

Fun | Science Is Cool

John — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 06:49:45 +0000

So, this is the first time I have ever put something like this on a blog, but I think its really fun. I am a science guy, in fact I consider myself a scientist. I think fundamental sciences should be something that everyone has a grasp of. I stumbled across this little test and thought that a lot of my friends might be interested in taking a stab at this test. So, go ahead and take the test and let me know what you get.