Science News
Does it REALLY make sense to use food products for alternative fuels?
A year or two ago, everyone where I live was excited about the prospects of a plant opening nearby to produce ethanol fuel from corn. Ethanol, as I’m sure you know, is a type of alcohol created from “biomass” products (currently, most often corn and corn byproducts) then blended with gasoline. The theory is that [...]
Energy policies based primarily on oil are ALL ultimately flawed beyond fixing
There’s no getting around it, America (for that matter the whole world) needs a solution to the “energy crisis” we have become painfully aware of in recent months because of the high price of gasoline and the outrageous (obscene?) amounts of profit raked in by the oil companies.
I won’t get on a rant against Big [...]
World’s nations simply won’t get serious about tackling world climate problems
I remember how amazed I was as a kid to see one of the NASA launches canceled because there were storm clouds within X number of miles of the Florida launch site: If we could send people to the moon, shouldn’t we be able to launch rockets even if there were storms??
Fast forward to my [...]
What was the object the astronauts saw? Do they still take souvenir stuff into space?
Do astronauts still take souvenir or memorabilia stuff into space then bring it back to earth for friends, family, sponsors, etc.? Maybe that would explain the unidentified object about a foot to a foot-and-a-half long the astronauts reported floating away from the shuttle as they did their routine check for landing on Saturday.
Uh, excuse me [...]
‘Mad scientists’ create life — well, sort of, and they aren’t really mad
Funny how you see things according to your predisposition to see them, isn’t it? The title of this story demonstrates that I saw waaaaayyyy to many “mad scientist” movies when I was a kid.
I was looking around the Washington Post website and ran onto this article about scientists in Maryland who created from scratch an [...]
I’ve heard of pet rats — but ‘pet’ rat hearts? Well, not really pets
When I was a kid back in the Dark Ages, “science” meant inventing rocket ships and planning space trips to the moon, maybe someday to Mars. “Life science” or biology usually meant studying and developing new medicine (we were the generation who gave everyone polio vaccine) and other useful stuff like that.
Science fiction/fantasy and “horror” [...]
Speaking of addictions — vaccine could solve cocaine addictions
I see from a recent story, Baylor University is testing a vaccine which may cause people to lose interest in cocaine. Some reports have said it only works well with people who really want to quit, while others who try the vaccine simply try more cocaine to feed their addiction.
The big news is what this [...]
Satellites seem to have discovered the source of the Northern Lights
To those of us who are closet astronomer wannabes, a story I recently read about the Northern Lights was fascinating. (The rest of you — feel free to read on anyway if you like.)
For several years, we lived in southern South Dakota, a bit too far south to see Northern Lights with any intensity or [...]
Good to know: Planets Earth and Venus are practically twins
Okay, I guess I’m not understanding enough about how scientists, particularly astronomers, think — because I just read a couple of stories where they announced that Earth and Venus are so similar that they could sort of be thought of as twins.
That’s really quite a stretch for me to figure out. Even with all the [...]
