Category Archives: Science/Engineering

Winter solstice

Posted on December 22, 2007 | Comments Off on Winter solstice

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Actually, this is from 2005, but, following the sun from rising to setting on Dec. 22 that year, it’s a good reflection of today’s event as well: the official start of winter here in the northern hemisphere. 

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space

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Shooting stars

Posted on December 20, 2007 | Comments Off on Shooting stars

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A pre-Christmas surprise from Comet 8P Tuttle, on Saturday, the 22nd, could bring us dozens of meteors an hour. Binocular photo of the comet and its attendant meteor dust by Chris Schur of Payson, AZ

"’We could be in for a merry surprise…when Earth passes through a trail of comet dust,’  astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute [tells spaceweather.com.] Previous returns of Comet Tuttle to the inner solar system have been attended by outbursts of meteors, most recently in 1980 and 1994."

The peak will be in the late afternooon, central time over North America, so you won’t see much then. But there should be some as late as 8 p.m. But you’ll need dark skies, as far from city lights as you can get. Look north after sunset.

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The Gault Site

Posted on December 17, 2007 | Comments Off on The Gault Site

When I used to write about archeology, back in the day, Mike Collins was one of my favorite interviews–not because he was easy to talk to (he wasn’t, especially) but because he was on the bleeding edge of the field, out there with the pre-Clovis theorists. So while I’m not entirely surprised that he cashed in his personal savings to buy 33 acres of the Gault Site, one of the best-known pre-Clovis digs in Texas–he does, afterall, live in an 1840s dog-trot cabin, one of the oldest dwellings in Austin–his personal resolve is nevertheless impressive.

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Texana

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Magnetic ropes

Posted on December 12, 2007 | Comments Off on Magnetic ropes

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So the Earth is dependent upon the sun. You knew that. But did you know that the Earth is not just dependent upon the sun, but is actually roped to the sun? Giant magnetic ropes attach the Earth’s upper atmosphere directly to the sun–wherein we get, for instance, these Northern Lights over Alaska last March. 

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The sun’s X-ray

Posted on December 10, 2007 | Comments Off on The sun’s X-ray

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Photographing the sun in the X-ray part of the electromagnetic spectrum reveals new insights about the origins of the solar wind–and makes a pretty picture, too.

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Ain’t science swell?

Posted on December 5, 2007 | Comments Off on Ain’t science swell?

Alternative to exercise: Try this dubious but thoroughly welcome research finding for size. Roberta Vasquez, call your publicist.

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The first practical transistor

Posted on December 4, 2007 | Comments Off on The first practical transistor

"On 16 December 1947, William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain succeeded in building the first practical point-contact transistor at Bell Labs."

That’s from Wikipedia’s entry. The full background story, proceeding from the radar work that helped win World War II, is in Robert Buderi’s 1996 book "The Invention that Changed the World: The Story of Radar from War to Peace." It’s a good, if necessarily a bit technical, read. I recommend it in this month of the sixtieth anniversary of the transistor, the development that, among many other things, allows me to write these postings to be read by folks on the other side of the world.

Via Instapundit 

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Posted in Library, Science/Engineering

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