Alan Boyle narrated video explains some of the details of Yuri Gagarin's flight. I hadn't realized he ejected from the capsule at 23,000 feet - and parachuted to the ground.

I met Alan last night at Yuri's night. He's the Science Editor for MSNBC.

Quoted: As MSNBC.com's science editor, Alan Boyle runs a virtual curiosity shop of the physical sciences, space exploration, archaeology and other ologies. He administers a daily dose of science via his award-winning Cosmic Log column.

On March 18th, a very large gamma-ray and optical burst occurred. The source is reported as being 7 billion light years - yet it would have been visible to the naked eye for several minutes before dimming again.

Due to automated systems for sky monitoring, coupled with gamma-ray burst alerts coming from satellites, the even was recorded here in the optical spectrum.

NYT article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/science/space/21bangw.html?_r=2&em&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Charles's foundation web site.

Duh! This has been well known for years. The knee-jerk "Greens" just don't pay attention to the science (I did battle with them on the "Ethanol Fuel" Wikipedia article 2 years ago).

The US Government needs to stop it's $1 per gallon ethanol subsidy NOW. It is:

- Wasting our tax dollars
- Increasing greenhouse emissions
- Un-ethically converting a food crop to an energy crop
- Causing huge price increases for all corn and corn-derived food products.
- And, now, causing the clearing of untold pristine acres of land for use in agriculture.

Quoted: Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.

New material has reflective index of only 0.00045.

Thanks, Tosh!

Quoted: U.S. researchers said on Tuesday they have made the darkest material on Earth, a substance so black it absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light.

Great article full of fan mail for MIT physics professor, Walter Lewin.

Quoted: Walter H. G. Lewin, a physics professor at M.I.T., has found devotees across the country with his online lectures.

click to play

Maybe the chimps are practicing with Brain Age.

Quoted: Read more: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12993-chimps-outperfor m-humans-at-memory-task.htmlFor the first time, young chimps have outperformed humans...

Tom Knight at MIT was doing a similar experiment - what is the minimum set of genes needed to an artificial bactieria (or in this case - perhaps virus) to sustain itself.

Quoted: Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation…