Curiosity on the Red Horizon
A marvelous, mini-cooper sized mobile laboratory named Curiosity is on its way to our closest neighbor in the solar system! Launched on Friday, November 25, this is the largest rover [...]
“What do you dream of growing up to become?”
Yesterday, the final flight crew of the Space Shuttle program made a visit to two of my favorite places– I guess by way of a “farewell tour.” The first stop [...]
Earth Hour: …and I’m NOT going to TAKE this anymore! — Part 2
In continuing to discuss our responsibilities as educators, scientists, and/or otherwise grownup Americans in guarding the Earth as best we can from man-made calamity, please recall a classic scene from [...]
Earth Hour: You Must Be “Fracking” Kidding Me! — Part 1
Bad news for humans and other Earth-dwelling beings: Al Gore cannot save you. It’s true. The man who won the 2000 popular election and stole all our hearts (and Nobel [...]
The Pursuit of Happiness – Part 2
Like I said in my last post, happiness extends more deeply than a corporate or governmental interest in our lives. The desire to be happy motivates most individuals on a [...]
The Pursuit of Happiness
Professor Jennifer Aaker of the Stanford Graduate School of Business refers to happiness as an emotional landscape ranging anywhere from “contentment to intense joy.” She teaches a course called “Designing [...]
Encryption is Everywhere
The Ides of March are fast approaching, and paranoia is in the air! Keep a weather eye to the horizon for signs! Be careful, the man in the Gabardine suit [...]
Gravity’s Rainbow: Standing on the Launchpads of Giants
For me one of the most exciting headlines of 2010 read: “First successful commercial space shuttle launched into orbit.” As the story went, Elon Musk and his SpaceX corporation was [...]
Cosmic Real Estate
Go, Kepler Space Telescope, Go! With a namesake like Johannes Kepler, who realized that all orbits are elliptical and developed the currently accepted laws of planetary motion, this NASA rig [...]
“Super Friends” of Science
Remember all of the fun times with your Science Olympiad team? Programming a robot, perhaps, or building a potato gun or a Rube Goldberg device, free from the sickly cast [...]






