On a simmering ocean world, under an oversized blue-white star, the tendrils of one Qax reach out to the limb of another in the distance.
With over 700 exo-solar planets and counting, the infant intersection between astronomy and biology grew a new two-tiered rating system intended to identify worlds of interest. The first tier is obvious: earth-like worlds in mass and temperature, where water is a liquid (And pizza is not a vegetable). But the other set is less familiar: [Read more…]
Baron Newt Gingrich of the House Harkonnen on his homeworld Callista Prime the 3rd. Image courtesy DemFromCT
Channeling Baron Harkonnen and Fagin all in one, margin-of-error GOP front-runner and political vibrator Newt Gingrich managed to down class himself this week. [Read more…]
The Super Committee, no doubt meeting furiously in their secret lair which may or may not be affiliated with the Legion of Doom, has reached an impasse.
(ABC News) — The bipartisan 12-member panel is sputtering to a close after two months of talks in which key members and top congressional leaders never got close to bridging a fundamental divide over how much to raise taxes.
A new poll shows Newt Gingrich is now the head GOP clown, for now. The latest data shows the disgraced former speaker at 24%, most of which seemed to have come from Herman Cain’s precipitous drop. How funny is that for the family values crowd? [Read more…]
Social conservatives, the kind of folks who love killing and imprisoning other Americans while saving microscopic blobs of protoplasm in the name of Jesus, don’t have the heft they used to. But there’s enough true-believing fanatics around that the GOP clownshow had to pander to the fascist wing of the god party, sans Mormons and teh Gay of course. [Read more…]
In this image made from video, a police officer uses pepper spray as he walks down a line of Occupy demonstrators sitting on the ground at the University of California, Davis on Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. Photo: Thomas K. Fowler / AP
The image above is one of many showing police officers, once again strapped down like Dawg-the-Bounty Hunter, needlessly macing a handful of peaceful students. Their crime? Protesting income inequality and student debt as part of the Occupy movement by sitting down in an open mall area on campus specifically created for students and faculty to stroll, chat, and sit: [Read more…]
Our FTB Overlords had to do some tweaking on the server over the last few hours, in case you didn’t notice. It will probably be a lightish day. In the meantime, here’s some news tidbits. [Read more…]
Neuroscience is certainly nearing a climax, as this three-d map built using an active MRI of a female brain during orgasm indicates … it’s science I promise!
Approximate natural color (left) and enhanced color (right) view of leading hemisphere taken by NASA/JPL's Galileo in 1997
Europa, second satellite of Jupiter, has intrigued planetary scientists since Galileo first spied it and its three siblings through his telescope in 1610. It was these four satellites that exposed the theology of the Catholic Church for the fairytale it was at the height of the Church’s political power. When two Pioneer and two Voyager spacecraft barreled through the Jovian system in the 1970s, that interest turned into one of the most exciting fields in planetary astronomy. Europa is now perhaps the best bet for ET life, it may be one of the most earth-like worlds in our solar system in some respects, and new research suggests Europa not only has a vast subsurface, salty ocean, but that that ocean “breathes”. [Read more…]
"Oh gosh, who could it be ..... SATAN?!"
The guy who fired at the White House may have held a deep hatred for Obama and reportedly thought the US President was in league with Satan. Gosh, where could he have gotten that idea? I bet it wasn’t the Church Lady: [Read more…]