With the Shuttle fueled and up and about, NASA have again published an interesting diatribe on why this is important. Well, actually, yes, it is important. We need to know how to cook pasta in space.

Months after getting stuck in the Martian dirt, a NASA rover has stopped communicating with its controllers here on Earth.

The space agency said late yesterday that its Mars Exploration Rover Spirit did not make a communication session that had been scheduled for Tuesday. Scientists expect that the robotic machine has entered into a low-power hibernation mode, where most functions are ended to conserve valuable, and dwindling, energy. MORE

It’s true! NASA’s space shuttle is controlled by a computer running on only one megabyte of RAM. How is this possible? Since the space shuttle and all its hardware is over 30 years old, so is its computer. The current computer is actually an upgraded version of the 500-kilobyte computer that was used until 1991, but still based on the same outdated technology from the 1980s.

From DailyCamera

EVER since Arthur Eddington travelled to the island of Príncipe off Africa to measure starlight bending around the sun during a 1919 eclipse, evidence for Einstein's theory of general relativity has only become stronger. Could it now be that starlight from distant galaxies is illuminating cracks in the theory's foundation? <more>

What if all the Large Hadron Collider's recent woes are more than bad luck and technical problems? Two noted physicists speculate that the future may be pushing back on the LHC to avert the disaster of observing the Higgs boson.

The quest to observe the Higgs boson has certainly been plagued by its share of troubles, from the cancellation of the Superconducting Supercollider in 1993 to the Large Hadron Collider's streak of technical troubles. In fact, the projects have suffered such bad luck that Holger Bech Nielsen of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto wonder if it isn't bad luck at all, but future influences rippling back to sabotage them. In papers like "Test of Effect From Future in Large Hadron Collider: a Proposal" and "Search for Future Influence From LHC," they put forth the notion that observing the Higgs boson would be such an abhorrent event that the future is actually trying to prevent it from happening.

More from this article can be found here. Interesting stuff.

From Boing Boing.

Physics of impact aside for the moment, M.Carron’s bullet capsule would be released from the top of the interior of the Tower, about 1000 feet high, and released to fall into an excavated pool 150’ across and 200’ deep.  The idea was that in addition to the springs inside the capsule, the water would act as a “shock absorber”, and so “the shock felt by the occupants on landing will be in no way unpleasant”. 

Woot!

Something very strange of going on on Saturn. Anby strange I mean stranger than the possibility there's someone there who enjoys Deal or No Deal. Something punched through one of the rings, which Cassini sent back images of. Weird.

from Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (July 28, 2009) — It is widely known that the brain perceives information before it reaches a person’s awareness. But until now, there was little way to determine what specific mental tasks were taking place prior to the point of conscious awareness.

This is an interesting article about developments in understanding about how the brain handles, processes and understands information. Obviously this article applies everywhere but Somerset.

This is an interesting video about how using quantum physics will enable you to actually pretty accurately gues the old number of M & Ms in a jar puzzler. Interesting.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the sharpest visible-light picture yet of atmospheric debris from an object that collided with Jupiter on July 19. NASA scientists decided to interrupt the recently refurbished observatory's checkout and calibration to take the image of a new, expanding spot on the giant planet on July 23.

More here.

Never read this magazine, Popular mechanics, because I have never met a popular mechanic. But there's their report on CSI (TV0 versus CSI (real life)

Fascinating albeit long drawn out article about the magnificence in the Universe.

You got to love cats. They have it sussed. Food, the comfiest chairs. and apparently they exploit owners by purring

The Egyptians had so many methods of sleeping, and when you consider they had temperatures which were incredible. I mean, ...   more »

The Daily Mail. Pompous, two faced and badly written. Although this article obviously fell through their mediocre filter.

Ever had a dream you can't remember? Even though you woke up in a state suitable for the type of ...   more »

This is an interesting idea about how many things science fiction got wrong.

Here's a house I would like to live in.

Of course, this sort of place will attract both environmental attention, because of it's ergonomic and structurally sound qualities, and a large does of sarcasm. Read more.

Weird lights above Manhatten?

This contains sentences like this:

If you don't remember nullity, it was the attempt of one idiot to define division by zero. He claimed to have "solved" the great problem of dividing by zero, and by doing so, to be able to do all manner of amazing things, such as to build better computers that would be less prone to bugs.

If you understood that you may like this. Me? I'm off back to my crayons.

AMD are the main competitors to Intel, since the demise, in my opinion wrongly, of Apples 'G' range. However, in the last day or so, AMD have mentioned they're claims about power usage to the CPU may have been...um...well, optimistic. Or possibly fictional.

With the launch of discovery last night, NASA is holding some press conferences regarding the mission throughout its' duration. Yes, they are very dull and boring, but sometimes you pick up on some interesting science. If you are still awake.

My God...time does NOT fly when you watch these guys.

The New York Times had an interesting article over the weekend about dreams and interpretation.

Or female brain?

Who decides?

es, they have finally done it. When I saw the headline "Zombie wasps controlled by Vampyre earwigs", I have to say I was intrigued and wanted to know where they buy their drugs.

Actually it wasn't written like that at all. I may myself be stoned.

One of the time honored traditions is flirting. Of course, now with sexual harrassment, inappropriate behaviour legislation and lots of other stuff it' probably not wise to do it anymore. In fact, vacuum pack yourself into a bag and make sure you are covered in concrete and you should be okay.

There's a documentary on one of the web tv channels about body farm. A body farm is a natural forensic laboratory, where people leave their bodies to science, science leaves them in various fields and locations and sees who they decompose.

Which is great as long as they actually bother to keep a list of where they leave them.

This is an interesting bijou article about how first impressions are formed in the neural complex of your synapses and the subsequent farting in the lift

This Toilet Is Awesome - Watch more
Ok. Now deal with Vindaloo.

Throughout history there have been ideas. Some of them have worked, some of them have advanced science and human culture, ...   more »

Meditation is something that really makes you connect with the Universe. This is a good little workout which gives you the basics.

The BBC website is one of those monoliths which boasts over two hundred thousand pages, four of them not mentioning Jonathan Ross.

Some of the science pages are great, and this is a cool little mini-web psychology test

Looks a funny critter, don't he?

He's a killer. He's behind you! Mu-hahahahahahahaha

Once again those Japanese are leading the world. This is the finished product of an actual Robot which you can, apparently, buy. How nice. Although I am slightly concerned about the large pertruberance just below the waist.

Good one this.

I've got into Birdwatching, I love it. And this helps me know what the bloody hell I am looking at

Now this IS interesting. Oh yes it is. It's about RNA structures and how they self replicate and therefore possibly count as actual building blocks for...life......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

What is metaphysics? Why is there no metabiology or metachemistry.