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U=(N/T)M*G

U=(N/T)M*G: Beast

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I think my favorite part of science is finding something expected that isn’t quite what we expected. This particular discovery is no different and I’m giggling over it. Astronomers have found galaxies 11 billion light years from Earth. We knew they were there, we’ve seen a sizable number but were always looking for more. Higher numbers mean more we can pull data from. No surprises. Everything’s normal. We keep looking. A cluster of 39 galaxies come to astronomers’ attention. These old behemoths are tightly pack and massive on a scale unknown for the early Universe until now. It’s hard to … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Ferocity

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Ferocity

There’s some weird opinions floating around the science intelligentsia all the time. It’s common knowledge and it usually comes down to ideas about how the universe works, until that idea is put to rigorous tests. That’s just the proper way to science. Sometimes though, someone gets a really weird opinion on a topic and this particular one honestly made me scratch my head. One geneticist says we should stop human evolution. This scientist states that evolution is a scourge on our species and we have to stop feeding our children to this evil monster of natural force. They go on … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Imminent

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As I read this article, I didn’t realize all the pieces had started coming together. That humanity was really on the brink of finding life outside of our little half-evolved mudball. A dream so many have and labored toward about to come to fruition. The real interesting information, the bit that sucked me down the biological rabbit hole, was the many many ways life might manifest. Yes, science fiction has explored a wide variety of alien lifeforms, but I think, when it’s all said and done, the life we do find won’t be anything like we imagined. As a science … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Zombie

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Know that strange tingle one gets when something bad is about to happen? Well, that happened to me when I was hunting down a nifty bit of science to feed my fellow authors’ Muses. A group of neuroscientists when and revived 32 pig brains 4 hours after death. These brains were harvested from a slaughterhouse, so no pigs were killed for this experiment, and the scientists had termination protocols ready, just in case there was any indication these brains showed awareness. Ethics for the win. But the scrupulous practices of the researchers in this experiment notwithstanding, there is something deeply … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Hexagon

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Floating cities. When I first saw the phrase, I was thinking something more space-like. Great, domed orbital platforms nestled in the yellowish hue of Venus’ atmosphere. Maybe serenely sitting above the great storms of Jupiter or Saturn. A way of living off in the middle distance of the future. These cities are reality on the cusp of fruition, but not in the clouds of our gas giants or even in orbit around our own planet. Think a little closer to the ground. Or water, as it were. A group of innovators have presented the U.N. Habitat Council with a plausible, … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Dust

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Sometimes the most insane acts of destruction render a beautiful rebirth in its place. Not often, but every once in a while. In the great whirling dance of the cosmos, we find that beauty the most. R Aquarii just showed us a magnificent one. This binary system has been documented as far back as 1073 CE by Korean astronomers, when the pair lit up with a massive solar jet arced out into its surrounding hourglass nebula. This duo has an extremely complex relationship, the white dwarf stealing mass from the red giant, a greedy cannibalism accompanied by a spectacular light … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Awesome

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I have a personal opinion about Hell, if Hell exists, and it’s a floor stretching out for eternity. Covered in Lego. Yeah. That’s my definite version of Hell. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Lego. Those little blocks make for hours of a frustrating good time and these days come in some wild builds. The Space Shuttle build is my kidlet’s favorite. And that brings me to the point of this whole little ramble: kidlets and Lego. Every parent’s worst child-related fears come with some version of them swallowing a foreign object. How long until it passes? Will it … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Hoax

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The science side of humanities was rocked this month by the exposure of three hoaxers. I won’t publish their conclusions or anything, because that’s not really the point of this post, but you can find their nonsense here. The whole impetuous for their shenanigans was bullshit, from start to finish, in my opinion. What basically happened was these three found out about a study they didn’t like. In an effort to undermine the field that study came out of, as well as undermine the humanities in general, these hoaxers put out 20 fake papers to academic journals to see if … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Jello

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Jupiter, space, Jello, discoveries, plot bunnies   That title is a little misleading, I know. It’s actually in reference to what my astrophysicist friend told me about the bigger planet in our system. The ridiculously awesome Jupiter. A couple years back, the probe Juno inserted into Jupiter’s orbit with the simple, massive, mission of gathering data. Scientists, and the world, were astounded by the sheer amount of weirdness and awesome we learned. The cyclones at the poles, the wonky electromagnetic field, the sci-fi-esque core. The core and ground are the parts that really stuck with me. Metallic hydrogen. When I … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Dyson

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The Sun lights up the sphere from the outside, and it hangs like a great golden topaz in the Universe, a jewel in the vast blackness. Surrounded by other jewels of sodalite and jasper and pale, pale rubies. The star is visible, a hazy globe of fire, its largest attendant planets vague dots through the translucent wall. That’s the first image which came to mind when I read this newest piece to come out of the science community. New Horizons, the probe we sent out to Pluto back when it was still a planet (Viva la Pluto!), has confirmed there’s … Read more