Information
- Affiliation:
- Astrophysicist
- Location:
- Portland, OR, 97203
- Phone:
- 503-943-7458
- Birthday:
- August 3, 1978
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- We have moved to Scienceblogs! 5:03am Apr 1
- It Begins… 5:06pm Mar 30
- Weekend Diversion: It’s like going to Mars 5:33pm Mar 29
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Saturday, May 10 at 8:00am
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Starts With A Bang!Created on April 19, 2008 at 6:58pm
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Yesterday
Sometimes I read The Straight Dope, which is usually full of interesting questions and (relatively) well-researched answers. But the message board is another story. Sometimes you get good questions with no good answers, like this one:
How far could Superman hit a baseball?
Let’s assume, for the purposes of answering this question, that Superman basically [...]
December 6
It’s dull, grey, and wintery in Portland right now, and will be for the next few months. It reminds me of a Dennis Leary conversation:
My point of view in that chapter is about raising children a certain way, and this sort of glorification of victimhood. The idea of “I get depressed and like to [...]
December 5
Watch. Seriously, just watch this video first. It’s a video of the surface of Mars, and all the information on why it’s important is below.
Wow. So it looks like sand dunes, or perhaps eroded sedimentary rock. Since we have those on Earth, I can show you what [...]
December 3
The Biggest Star we Know Of! 3:11pm
Everyone knows about our Sun; this large, massive, nuclear furnace that powers everything in our Solar System. It’s a sight to behold; even on a cloudy day like today it still illuminates the entire world. One of the most striking things about the Sun? It’s HUGE!
With a diameter of 1,400,000 km, it’s [...]
December 1
My friend Lucas wrote a story about astronaut pens that I’d like to share with you:
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity.
To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, [...]
November 29
We hosted Thanksgiving this year, and our menu included both alcohol:
Jameson’s Irish Whiskey
Tanqueray Gin
Newcastle Brown Ale
Fat Tire Amber Ale
Sierra Nevada Christmas Ale
PBR
As well as some amazing food:
Mashed sweet potatoes and yams
Cranberry relish with strawberries and pineapple
Green bean casserole
Oven baked dinner rolls
White chocolate chip and craisin cookies
Key lime pie
Carrot Cake from scratch
and the featured item:
THE TURDUCKEN!
But [...]
November 28
Is Ice-Nine Possible? 7:13pm
Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors. He comes up with lots of interesting science-fiction scenarios, like instantaneous travel through space in Sirens of Titan, humans causing their own extinction by making the whole populace sterile in Galapagos, and perhaps most famously, freezing all the water on the planet in Cat’s Cradle.
How did [...]
November 27
When SNL was funny for more than Tina Fey’s cameos in an opening skit:
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I’ll let you know how the turducken comes out…
November 26
And I don’t mean to single NASA out, either. (The National Science Foundation has the same problem.) But there’s something very, very wrong with the way that the business side of these endeavors are run. Let me explain.
As scientists, our job is to learn about the Universe. To understand what the [...]
November 24
Q & A: The Speed of Light 4:25pm
It’s 103 years after Einstein first formulated his Theory of Special Relativity, which explains what happens to objects near the speed of light. But SWAB reader Jacinth wants to do one better, and asks:
What will happen if we can actually travel at the speed of light?
It’s a great question, and provides a lot of [...]
Discussion Board
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Question to challenge Ethan.
2 posts. Updated on April 29, 2008 at 7:41am










