Category Archives: science

Spider Disco Ball

Posted on June 14, 2015 by sbrandt

So I’ve known about the trick for finding spiders with a flashlight for a while now. You take a fairly powerful flashlight, hold it close to your eyes, and shine it on the ground. Spider eyes will wink back at … Continue reading →

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One Key to Rule Them All

Posted on June 6, 2015 by sbrandt

I frequently forget to unlock my door on the way out to walk the dog in the morning, and have to ring the doorbell, possibly waking people up, just to get back in. I wish the door would just know … Continue reading →

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.66 < a/m < .87

Posted on March 7, 2014 by sbrandt

The fastest a black hole can spin is a/m = 1 (a/m is a dimensionless spin speed, obtained by setting the gravitational constant G, and the speed of light c, to 1). This may not mean anything to you, but … Continue reading →

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Raising the Dead…

Posted on March 6, 2014 by sbrandt

One day while touring an Egyptology exhibit at a museum, I chanced upon an ancient inscription to raise the dead. I started to read it, and my wife got upset with me. “Haven’t you seen enough movies to know better?” … Continue reading →

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To the Stars!

Posted on March 1, 2014 by sbrandt

0.08% lightspeed is pretty fast. It will get you to the nearest star in 53 years. Of course, I’m not factoring in the time for acceleration and deceleration. The .08 lightspeed drive. Ghost Ship Another Interstellar Drive.

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Supercomputing Headlights

Posted on July 15, 2012 by sbrandt

It’s the unexpected applications of technology that are the most amazing. Who would have thought, for example, that the simple car headlight could make use of a supercomputer? At Carnegie Melon they figured out a way to make a headlight … Continue reading →

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What Adam and Eve Wrote

Posted on February 1, 2012 by sbrandt

I’m not generally in favor or Bible literalism, as frequently (I think) that is not how the text is meant to be read, and especially so in the case of the book of Genesis. People (Isaac Newton among them) have … Continue reading →

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A World Where it Rains Liquid Methane

Posted on January 14, 2012 by sbrandt

Possibly the most exciting space missions ever to have flow was the Huygens probe that landed on Saturn’s moon Titan. On Titan it is so cold that liquid methane takes the place of water, flowing in rivers and raining from … Continue reading →

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Do you believe in Cold Fusion? NASA does.

Posted on January 13, 2012 by sbrandt

Check this out: http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html. LENR stands for “Low Energy Nuclear Reactions.” It is, I believe, the same reaction that Fleishman-Pons called “Cold Fusion.” Has nasa.gov been hacked? Have they gone crazy? Or is it true? I spotted this on http://nextbigfuture.com/.

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What’s Creepier than Bugs?

Posted on January 7, 2012 by sbrandt

How about cyborg bugs? Building a from-scratch robot that can do everything a bug can do is difficult. So instead, scientists are looking at a fuel cell powered by a bug’s own biochemistry. The energy can be used for sensing, … Continue reading →

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