February has been another busy one here at Anthonares.net! Early in the month I moved the blog from Blogger over to Wordpress software and haven’t regretted it for a second. Daily readership continues to grow, which I’m glad to see means that more comments are coming in. Nothing sustains a pro-bono blogger better than feedback from readers, even (and especially in my case) if that feedback disagrees civilly with me.
Next month will probably be a bit slower here as my wife and I close on our first home and spend our spring break on home improvements. But, I am going to be introducing a feature to the space blog world that seems to me sorely lacking: The Space Blog Carnival. It will be a bi-weekly feature of the best original thinking that I can find (or others contribute). Look for a formal announcement soon. Also on the horizon you may have noticed that “Space Wiki” link on the sidebar. That’s an early planning design of a more comprehensive site I have planned to interface closely with Wikipedia in an effort to disseminate space knowledge and drive the improvement of Wikipedia’s space-oriented articles. Also don’t forget to check over at DamnIntersting.com where I publish a new article every week or so!
Published Research Synopses
- I reviewed a review paper about the toxic potential of nanomaterials. The writers of the review paper, and I as well, came away from it feeling a bit cautious but in general very optimistic that human health concerns will not be showstoppers for nanotech.
- For a light-hearted weekly synopsis I looked at the science of aromatic chemicals and what they can tell us about wine grape quality.
- Greenland is melting. Faster. In now hosts some of the fastest moving glaciers in the world and looks to perhaps play a larger role in sea level rise than previously thought.
- The paper detailing the discovery of the two new moons of Pluto came out last week, and it presented another fine example of top-quality science. For a poetic prediction, the authors suggest that Pluto may frequently be a temporary host to a ring system such as the one at Jupiter.
Informative Articles
- I wrote about smart self-driving cars set to come out just next year, and speculated on the nature of the automated highways of tomorrow.
- It turns out that some metals are facing near-depletion on the Earth’s surface, including copper. This fact may help boost space resource utilization and asteroid mining.
- I finally managed to publish the entirety of my writings and a good number of my photos from my trip to FMARS in the Canadian Arctic last summer with the Mars Society.
- I realized that the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) missions are far too important to see indefinitely delayed at NASA and suggested that they would be best funded by another government agency or consortium of private concerns.
- I began what looks to be a love-affair with virtual globes like Google Earth and NASA World Wind. I explain the basics here and discuss how they and their more sophisticated cousins the Geographic Information Systems will change education and science.
- I wrote about the 5-year delay of the Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) project and how this delay hits close to my institutional home, Michigan State University.
- I took myself and my readers on a virtual tour through the world’s largest laser at the National Ignition Facility. It also gave me a chance to learn and write about Inertial Confinement Fusion and some really big science.
Opinion
- Like thousands of others, I felt the need to comment on the Mohammed caricatures. Initially I felt that it was just a freedom-of-speech issue, but changed my mind a bit when I looked I noticed some ethnicism and racism in the actions of the European governments.
- I followed the story of the now ex-NASA political appointee George Deutsch carefully, and celebrated a bit when he resigned after it was revealed (by a blogger, no less) that he’d lied on his resume.
- I was horrified to hear that the Bush Administration is considering mandating standardized testing at higher education institutions. After all, the No Child Left Behind policy has worked so well in K-12, right? Right?
- Liftport, a money-making concern aiming to launch a true space elevator in 2018 had some recent successes, and is planning on testing its system at the MDRS in March and early April.
In the News
- I wrote two monday space policy roundups (#2 and #3) on a pair of particularly active news weeks. Look for a few more of these soon as we approach a truly exciting summer for the alt.space community!
- I spent a bit of time thanking the bloggers and podcasters that help to keep me busy by writing some truly fantastic material every day.
- Centauri Dreams tipped me off to what may be a cheaper and more capable successor of the TPF-C mission. The good news, at an estimated $450 million, it can fit within the budget of NASA’s Discovery class of missions and see a launch sometime around 2013.
