Science

SpaceX ISS Docking Simulator

Posted on May 21, 2020May 21, 2020 by Sam Kornstein in General, Science, Technology

I’ve been following SpaceX closely for a while now, and continue to be excited about the innovation we’ll see from a growing and competitive private space sector. I still watch nearly all their rocket launches live, and remember getting goosebumps when they landed a first stage for the first time in history on December 21st, 2015. For that one, I was in Thailand with my wife, and she thought I was completely nuts to plan our morning around watching a live rocket launch (it was actually quite convenient with the time difference, at around 9:30am). I’d watched all the previous failures (calibration exercises?), and until they succeeded, many didn’t think it was possible. Next week will hopefully be an exciting

Iranian Spider-Tailed Viper

Posted on February 25, 2020February 26, 2020 by Sam Kornstein in General, Nature, Science

I recently came across this great example of evolutionary mimicry, where this viper has a tail that it can make to look like a walking spider. It moves it back and forth to trick birds into thinking there’s a spider to eat, and then you can imagine what happens next:

Well, this mostly happened yesterday

Posted on February 7, 2018February 7, 2018 by Sam Kornstein in Science

Except for the perfect droneship landing, and the Mars part.

How Did Feathers Evolve (Flying Dinosaurs, This is a Good World)

Posted on December 15, 2013December 15, 2013 by Sam Kornstein in Science

A brief, but nicely done, video on the history of feather from Carl Zimmer on TED: Which reminded me of this cartoon:

Cryogenics

Posted on December 12, 2011December 12, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Cartoons, Current Events, Science

Two Things. The Japanese and Russians plan to clone a Wolly Mammoth Jurassic Park style from DNA found in in a frozen mammoth thigh. It’s about time. And this:

Why Does Evolution Allow Some People to Hear Colors?

Posted on November 26, 2011November 26, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Science

National Geographic has a piece on the evolution of synesthesia, which is broadly defined as “a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.” In the most extreme cases, this means that people can taste words or hear colors. This article caught my eye because I realized a number of years ago that I have a mild case of grapheme color synesthsia. I basically associate a color with every letter and number. The colors don’t change, and there doesn’t seem to be a logical reason as to why each letter or number has its color. For example, 7 is green. M is red. I don’t see colors

Missions to Mars

Posted on November 20, 2011November 20, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Science, Technology

This is just a nice infographic: And this was just a weird movie.

The Sugar Myth

Posted on November 4, 2011November 4, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Science

I was happy to read this via Marginal Revolution: Let’s cut to the chase: sugar doesn’t make kids hyper. There have been at least twelve trials of various diets investigating different levels of sugar in children’s diets. That’s more studies than are often done on drugs. None of them detected any differences in behavior between children who had eaten sugar and those who hadn’t. These studies included sugar from candy, chocolate, and natural sources. Some of them were short-term, and some of them were long term. Some of them focused on children with ADHD. Some of them even included only children who were considered “sensitive” to sugar. In all of them, children did not behave differently after eating something full of sugar or

Building Space Ships

Posted on August 24, 2011August 19, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Current Events, Science, Technology

That was quick. SpaceX, a private space ship company, will begin sending shipments to the international space station this fall: A little less than six months after the final space shuttle launch, a private space company will launch a rocket carrying a cargo capsule bound for the International Space Station. SpaceX said this week that it plans a Nov. 30 launch date for its first rendezvous with the ISS — an encounter that will mark a major milestone in private space exploration. We heard last month that NASA agreed to speed up SpaceX’s flight demo schedule, as SpaceX, eager to start making deliveries under its $1.6 billion NASA contract, asked NASA for permission to combine two planned missions into one. That mission is now

“There are ‘obvious benefits’ of straight-up sex”

Posted on August 21, 2011August 19, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Science

Well that should give my daily traffic a bump. The quote is actually referring to the benefits of “straight-up sex” (as opposed to asexual reproduction) for a type of insect — the cottony cushion scale. Via National Geographic, this is fascinating and weird (as is the picture): Are males necessary? Maybe not for long, at least in an insect species whose females have begun to develop sperm-producing clones of their fathers—inside their bodies. In the cottony cushion scale—a common agricultural pest that grows to about a fifth of an inch (half a centimeter) long—a new phenomenon has arisen: When some females develop in fertilized eggs, excess sperm grows into tissue within the daughters. This parasitic tissue, genetically identical to the female’s