You are browsing the archive for Ryan Anderson.
14 July 2010
Absence of Mind on the Daily Show
I normally like the Daily Show, but I had a problem with the July 8 interview with Marilynne Robinson about her new book, Absence of Mind . I had never heard of this book before, but it appears to be a discussion of the conflict between science and religion, with the message that scientific thinking does not fully take into account the complexities of the human mind. Okay, interesting topic. …
12 July 2010
Microsoft goes to Mars
Today, NASA and Microsoft announced a very cool new addition to Microsoft’s Worldwide Telescope (WWT) program: Mars images! Yep, now you can use WWT to cruise around Mars and to view the planet with a handful of datasets, including 13,000 mind-blowingly high-resolution HiRISE images, and even more almost-as-high-resolution MOC images. There is also the standard MOLA colorized topography and a low-resolution approximately true color map. It’s great to see all …
11 July 2010
Review: On the Beach
Last week I reviewed the post-apocalyptic horror novel I am Legend. As it so happens, I am Legend was a rather short book, and I finished it only partway through a rather long weekend of traveling to and from a wedding in Wyoming. I was already in a post-apocalyptic mood, so I bought a copy of the classic post-apocalypse novel On the Beach by Nevil Shute for my Kindle. On …
Rosetta flies by Lutetia
You do know about ESA’s Rosetta probe don’t you? This european mission to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (say that three times fast!) launched in 2004 and has one of the most convoluted mission timelines I’ve seen. Here’s a graphical version, followed by a list of key events. You can also click the image to read the text better. First Earth flyby (March 4, 2005) Mars flyby (February 25, 2007) Second Earth …
5 July 2010
Review: I am Legend
No, not the Will Smith movie. The classic 1954 post-apocalyptic vampire/zombie novel that inspired the movie. I am Legend, by William Matheson, is a quick read and well worth it. It is intensely atmospheric, conjuring a very dark future in which the world’s population has succumbed to a disease that turns them into vampire-like monsters. The sole survivor is the main character, Robert Neville. Neville spends his days hunting down …
Branching Out
I have a confession to make: sometimes I don’t feel like posting about space. I know, this a shocking admission from a graduate student in Planetary Science. After all, grad students are supposed to live and breathe their topic of interest, right? Well, I still am really interested in space, but I’m also really interested in other stuff. For a long time now, I’ve struggled with the sometimes conflicting goals …
25 June 2010
What is the Best Dinosaur?
This is the funniest, most well-informed rant about dinosaurs I have ever witnessed (warning, NSFW language). I was a dinosaur freak as a kid, and I still remember a ridiculous amount about them. Can I just say how much I loved watching him shoot down people who thought plesiosaurs and pterodactlys were dinosaurs? Everything he says is correct except for one thing: Brontosaurus was (I believe) either a diplodocus head …
22 June 2010
Carnival of Space #159
Hey, check it out! It’s the Carnival of Space over at Next Big Future! This week’s coolest article, which I somehow missed before this: the Kepler science team has found 750 possible exoplanets!
21 June 2010
Hoyt and Ruth
Normally I stick to topics that are at least tangentially related to science on this blog, but I’m making an exception. My grandfather, who is 92 this year, has entered the story of how he met my grandmother into an online writing contest. They were happily married for 68 years, and their story is truly touching. I hope you’ll take a moment to go and read it, and if you …
