Valentine’s Day is Sunday!  Instead of trying to decide what to get your significant other, spouse, or family member, suppress your hunter-gatherer instincts for a moment and think about the love you have for that person.  Thousands of symphonies, ballads, sonnets, plays, films and Jem songs have been written about the strength of a bond between two [...]

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Forgot to post this last week, so in case you missed the headlines a meteorite smashed through the family practice office of Dr. Frank Ciampi’s in Lorton, Virginia.  The palm-sized visitor was taken to the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History (hey, I was just there a few weeks ago!), where Carri Corrigan confirmed that the [...]

Ask an astronomer why he or she has devoted their lives to the study of the cosmos, and you’re likely to hear about a lifelong romance with the sky, a connection with the deep vastness of space, and a drive and a desire to explore what’s out there.  Astronomers are in the discovery business, and [...]

This morning, exactly ten tramillion astronomers streamed from their hotel rooms into the first scientific talk of the day, which was the release of the first results from the Kepler mission.  The 5 plantes that were announced at the talk stimulated not only the scientific curiosity of the delegates, but also created a tremendous hunger [...]

I’m here at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, DC, which is poised to pop open like a scientific pinata starting Monday!  With over 2500 registrants, the AAS has billed this as “the largest meeting in astronomy history.”  The meeting is stuffed chock full of amazing astronomical announcements, many of which you’ll see [...]

Dr. Carolyn Porco, chief image scientist for the Cassini mission at Saturn, twittered this striking image a few weeks back, and I had to share it.  The giant ringed world, slumbering in the darkness a billion miles away, has been hosting our tiny emissary for over five years.  Buzzing around Saturn like a gnat around [...]

If you didn’t catch the release earlier this week, the groovy folks at Symphony of Science have released a new video.  This one features Carl Sagan, Robert Jastrow, Michio Kaku and some Richard Dawkinsy goodness. Now I know you want to get your galactic groove on to the rest of the videos. Man, the song [...]

We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens . . . The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and [...]

While I still have to write more about the details about my summer internship in Tucson, this morning I’ll share a story I heard there about… Pittsburgh. I spent my summer sheltered from the blazing Tucson sun in an air conditioned room filled with big glossy-screened iMacs.  I was using software called SPECTRE and MOOG [...]

Scientists, liberals, libertarians, conservatives, housewives, extraterrestrial migrant workers, Mole People  – just about anyone who has two neurons to rub together should be up in arms over the hyper-ridiculous Creation Museum, located in suburban Cincinnati (cringe).  In case you haven’t heard about this place, it is a $27 million facility headed up by hairy creationist [...]