Strongly Worded Letter

The Future Ain't What It Used To Be

Anyone who knows me even tangentially knew what today's post was going to be about before you clicked on through.

 Yesterday was the long awaited public unveiling of the next generation of jetpacks. Yes, the jetpack, which science fiction comics, TV shows and movies have promised us since at least the 1920s when Buck Rogers flew one.

In the 1960s, James Bond flew one in Thunderball and we were told they were right around the corner in real life.

 In the 1990s, The Rocketeer had one and we were promised they were going to be available any minute.

Heck,  just last month I saw Iron Man fly a jetpack built into his suit and as I drove away from the theater I noticed I was in a car, not a jetpack. Again. And I wept.

All that was supposed to change yesterday when the first long range personal human transporter was unveiled at an air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The Martin Jetpack (details here)  does make several noticeable improvements over anything that's flown before. It runs on regular gasoline, rises to about 8000 feet (although I am not clear why that is the top altitude), and, most importantly, allows one to fly for about 30 minutes.

On the down side, the technology is still nowhere near as compact as the backpack-sized device we've been expecting. Plus it's still about $100,000 - I know! - and  seems like it might still have some stability problems on windy days like yesterday at the exhibition.

See the underwhelming video of that "flight" here but definitely check out MartinJetpack.com for updates periodically because this is a work in progress (and a lifetime labor of love for Mr. Glenn Martin) and they are headed in the right direction with it. Please let me live long enough to fly one one day. Even if it is literally the last thing I do.

Houston Has A New Problem...

Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, says aliens have been visiting the earth for the past sixty years.

A veteran of the Apollo 14 mission, Mitchell also says world governments are aware of the alien visits, but have covered them up.

NASA denies it is involved in an alien conspiracy or cover up.

Here's more of the story in Dr. Mitchell's own words from Reuters News.

Let's set aside for today whether you or I think extraterrestrials have already visited Earth. We won't solve anything with opinion and we are still short of irrefutable proof more than 60 years since the modern flying saucer era began on 24 June, 1947 near Mt. Rainier, Washington, just a few miles south of where I am sitting right now.

Here's the question on my mind today. Why would he lie? What explanation can there be for an American hero, one of only twelve humans to have ever walked on the moon, to make up stories like this? Would he really risk his reputation - his legacy - on a hoax? What do you think?

No Peace For Pluto

Many of the readers of my previous blog might remember that I am a devout Pluto enthusiast. It is my favorite planet by far, and yes, i am including yours - what's it called? - oh, yeah, Earth.

I tried to not overreact when Pluto was demoted from planethood in 2005, partly because I felt then that the subject wasn't closed. Now the backlash over the International  Astronomical Union's decision is growing in science circles.

Alan Boyle writes an MSNBC astronomy column called Cosmic Log and this week he printed the most significant salvo in this war of words I have seen this year. I'll reproduce a few key paragraphs but the entire article is fascinating and worth reading here.

The latest round in the planethood debate may well provoke planetary scientists into a revolt against the international body that usually has the last word on astronomical terminology, according to the top scientist for NASA’s mission to Pluto.

This week's announcement from the International Astronomical Union that Pluto and other dwarf planets on the solar system's edge would be known henceforth as "plutoids" has been seen by some as a sign of respect for what was once considered the smallest of the solar system's nine planets.

That's not how Alan Stern, principal investigator for NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto, sees it. In fact, he wonders whether this will be the last straw for those who think IAU officials badly bungled their definition of a planet almost three years ago.

"They're almost needling the planetary community to go their own way," Stern told me today.

Stern isn't alone - and in fact, there's a wide range of opinions on the planethood question, ranging from outrage to acceptance of the IAU's definition. The main point of contention is the idea that a planet must have "cleared the neighborhood around its orbit" - a definition that Stern maintains could exclude worlds exactly like Earth.

In today's telephone interview, the former NASA associate administrator discussed Pluto, planethood and what planetary scientists might do about those questions. Here's an edited transcript of the Q&A:

Q: It's a case of defining a planet not by the thing itself, but by everything that's around it?

A: Exactly. I would like to see a definition that's really simple. I like to use the "Star Trek" Enterprise test. The Starship Enterprise shows up at a given body, they turn on the cameras on the bridge and they see it. Captain Kirk and Spock could look at it and they could say, "That's a star, that's a planet, that's a comet." They could tell the difference. They don't need a Ph.D.

In the case of the IAU, when Kirk asks, "Is it a planet?" Spock would have to say, "I don't know, Captain. We have to make a complete census of the solar system, feed that into a computer, and do numerical integrations to determine which objects have cleared their zone."

Q: So the issue of the nomenclature, whether it's a dwarf planet, or a plutino or a plutoid - as far as you're concerned, that's not the real point.

A: It's really about us "planetary scientists" having a basic understanding of the object after which our field is named. The reason we're having this discussion is because for a long time, we only knew of a few planets, and life was simple. Then, in the 1990s, there was this explosion in the variety of new kinds of bodies orbiting other stars and out in the solar system, because our technology got more sophisticated. We could suddenly see what we couldn't see before.

It's as if we were biologists trapped on a single desert island, and the only kinds of plants and animals that we knew were on that desert island. And then we were taken on a world tour of the flora and fauna of the earth. It would blow our minds. You would have two choices: You could say, 'Anything I didn't recognize from my own island is not living. I'm not counting that, because there would be too many varieties and I can't keep up with them.' Or you could say, 'I'm a scientist, and I have to adapt to new data. Wow, I really underestimated the situation.'

I think that's what's happened. But the IAU's reaction is, 'No, stop, I won't have any more planets. We have to limit the number because I'm more comfortable with a small number.' So you get this arbitrary algorithm that produces ridiculous results.

Q: Some of the discussion has focused on whether the approach to having an IAU that is the arbiter is not the right way to go nowadays. There's even talk about setting up an alternate organization.

A: That's right. Most things are done these days open-source and by consensus. You don't find little committees of 10 people speaking for 10,000, all without some sort of a sanity check. The fact that the IAU would claim that the world's astronomers have somehow met and decided something when it was a small committee of a dozen ... where were the experts in this field? What kind of process is that?

So people are asking, "What do we need these guys for? We'll set up an alternative." The IAU has no special claim. They have no police force or army. They're not the Supreme Court. If they're doing a bad job ...

The fundamental issue is that not many planetary scientists even belong to the IAU. The vast majority of its members work on galaxies, and stars, and black holes and cosmology. The reason most of the IAU doesn't care is because it's not their issue. The people who actually understand the physics, the chemistry, the work on planets aren't in the IAU. It's kind of like having a bunch of French professors deciding issues regarding the German language.

Q: So you think there eventually will be a consensus, which emerges not by taking a vote but by gathering more evidence?

A: I do. Let me give you an example: I think it's now widely expected among experts that we will find objects substantially larger than Pluto in the deep outer solar system, because now we really understand how easy planet formation was and how many kinds of things were thrown into the outer regions by the giant planets.

So just watch: When a Mars-size body of an Earth-sized body is found, it will be widely accepted that there will be a planet that doesn't fit the IAU's definition. At that point, even the last vestiges of the definition's defenders will say, "Wait a minute, we have to rethink this." ... The whole thing will be shown for the farce that it is.

Me again. Mr. Stern makes a great deal of sense to me and I appreciate that he communicates so well, in terms we lay people can understand.  I am extremely eager to see what happens next on this question.

P.S. There have been hundreds of Pluto related pictures, products and gags flying around the internet in recent years. This one was new to me when blog reader Ryan sent it in recently. Thanks!!

Colder Than Siberia

The front page of the Seattle Times reported on our chilly spring in an interesting way Wednesday. I know we have nothing to really complain about when I see the Iowa floods on my television set but still, with the start of Summer only a few days away, can this really be our Spring?

The best word I heard this week to describe the weather is Junuary!

Seattle weather: Colder than Siberia!

It  doesn't seem fair, but it's the cold, hard truth — accent on cold: While Seattle hasn't seen a 70-degree day in more than two weeks, Fairbanks, Alaska, has had six of them in the past 10 days.

Just about everyone, it seems, is toastier than we are. You've heard of International Falls, Minn., the self-proclaimed "Icebox of the Nation?"? It's had four days this month in the 70s, topped off with a pleasant 75 on Sunday.

Across the Atlantic, the northern destination of Oslo, Norway, has been passing the 70-degree mark nearly every day recently, while even the Siberian city of Tomsk, Russia, hit the 70s last weekend.

Meanwhile, shivering Seattle residents, hearing about snowplows back at work on Snoqualmie Pass this week, probably have only dim memories of the 77-degree high of May 24, the last time the mercury crept into the 70s here.

On Tuesday, state highway workers clearing away the last of 7 inches of snow on Interstate 90 could remember only two other times in the past 30 years that snowplows have been called out this late in the year.

Maybe we shouldn't complain too loudly, though.

The East Coast has been sweating and sweltering in mid- to upper-90-degree heat, setting records in several areas.

In New York City, the temperature was pushing toward the 100-degree mark. Combined with high humidity, the heat had people scurrying for shade or air-conditioned relief.

Weather experts say June made its chilliest debut ever in Seattle last week, but at least a mild respite is on the way. The National Weather Service forecasts highs 68 on Saturday and Sunday, with the promise of a "partly sunny" weekend.

Not a scorcher by any means, but much nicer than we've been getting.

(End of Article)

P.S. Update!!! The weather forecasters were right!!  Yesterday was beautiful, sunny and warm (65 degrees) for most of the day. Here's Tater's view from the front porch, where she sat with me yesterday afternoon and took in the day. 

P.P.S. Happy Father's Day to all the dads today, especially to mine and to Donna's dad,  Howard!! See you both soon.

Monkeys? Check. Robots? Check. This Post Has Everything

From this morning's New York Times, the headline reads Monkeys Control A Robot Arm With Their Thoughts. Uh, hello? Can anyone else see that this is the fast track to defeat in our never-ending battle for supremacy against the apes? And why exactly are we arming the enemy anyway? Here are some highlights from the article including the scientists "cover story"  that some good might come out of this.

"Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday.

The report, released online by the journal Nature, is the most striking demonstration to date of brain-machine interface technology. Scientists expect that technology will eventually allow people with spinal cord injuries and other paralyzing conditions to gain more control over their lives.

The findings suggest that brain-controlled prosthetics, while not practical, are at least technically within reach.

In previous studies, researchers showed that humans who had been paralyzed for years could learn to control a cursor on a computer screen with their brain waves and that nonhuman primates could use their thoughts to move a mechanical arm, a robotic hand or a robot on a treadmill.

The new experiment goes a step further. In it, the monkeys’ brains seem to have adopted the mechanical appendage as their own, refining its movement as it interacted with real objects in real time. The monkeys had their own arms gently restrained while they learned to use the added one.

Experts not involved with the study said the findings were likely to accelerate interest in human testing, especially given the need to treat head and spinal injuries in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan."

Me now: Look, I've seen other stories recently about monkeys designing and building weapons and now this? We are barely containing the eventual ape uprising and now some stupid doctor is giving them robots they can operate with their brains? Why not just wave the white flag and give them the keys to our stuff? Clearly we're not even trying to fight back anymore.

Read the rest of the piece here and see some video of the probably Al Qaeda monkey. Here's another video describing the work too.

Phoenix Rising

Mars, this weekend.

Like millions of other space enthusiasts around the globe, I was holding my breath Sunday in the tense moments between when NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed on the Martian surface and when the data it was transmitting started to arrive back to Earth.

Fewer than half of our missions to Mars have included a successful landing but the Phoenix made the 422 million mile trip (!) and perfectly touched down on the planet's northern polar cap. Once landed, it unfolded its solar arrays, camera, weather station and more for three months of scientific testing. As you can imagine, looking for remnants of water and the possibility of past, present, or future life are the craft's top duties.  

I bring this up to make this observation. You don't have to look to another planet to be impressed with man's ingenuity. Look around you right now and you'll likely see a television, or a skyscraper, or a refrigerator, or any of the millions of other things that make our life more livable. All things that were conceived, designed, and assembled by human beings just like you or me, only smarter.

That I can sit here in my living room on a tiny island in Washington and make words appear on a screen with my fingers blows my mind. That I can hit a button and then you can see it in Indiana, or India for that matter, is more than I can comprehend.

I wonder sometimes if there were a catastrophic disaster that eliminated most of the world's cities and their population, how many people would we need for the manpower and know-how to be able to rebuild many of the things we'd lost? I hope I am never in a situation where I am asked how to make a watch, or a phone, or even a spoon.

This Is Why You Shouldn't Do Drugs

"Albert Hofmann, who died on Tuesday aged 102, synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in 1938 and became the first person in the world to experience a full-blown acid trip." (Telegraph.co.uk)

Okay, I had two thoughts when I heard the news yesterday. First, anyone who had Dr. Hofmann in his celebrity death pool technically lost ground in the game. The way many of these pools work is on a point system. You generally get 100 points, minus the celebrity's age. That way Miley Cyrus, God  forbid, would be worth  85 points but would be a much gutsier pick than, say, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who is on the exact flip side at 15 points. So if you had Hoffman, you owe 2. 

Secondly, he was only 102. Imagine how long he might have lived if he'd stayed clean like his parents probably advised him to. This is why you shouldn't do drugs.

In case the letters LSD mean nothing to you, here is more from the rather interesting Telegraph obituary:

"Hofmann was working as a research chemist in the laboratory of the Sandoz   Company (now Novartis) in Basel, Switzerland, where he was involved in
studying the medicinal properties of plants. This eventually led to the study of the alkaloid compounds of ergot, a fungus which forms on rye.

Hofmann’s studies led to many new discoveries such as Hydergine, a medicament for improvement of circulation and cerebral function and Dihydergot, a circulation and blood pressure stabilizing medicine.

His interest in synthesising LSD was stimulated at first by the hope that it might also be useful as a circulatory and respiratory stimulant.

But when his molecule, known as LSD-25, was tested on animals, no interesting effects were observed, though the research notes recorded that the beasts became “restless” during narcosis. The substance was dismissed as of no interest and dropped from Sandoz’s research programme.

But five years later, acting on some intuition, Hofmann decided to resynthesise LSD. In his autobiography, LSD, My Problem Child (1979), he recalled that in the final stage of the synthesis, he was interrupted by some unusual sensations.

In a note to the laboratory’s director, he reported 'a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination.'

'In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed, I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away.'

Hofmann concluded that he must have accidentally breathed in or ingested some   laboratory material and assumed LSD was the cause. To test the theory he waited until the next working day, Monday April 19 1943, and tried again, swallowing 0.25 of a milligram.

Forty minutes later, his laboratory journal recorded 'dizziness, feeling of anxiety, visual distortions, symptoms of paralysis, desire to laugh.'

Unable to write any more, he asked his assistant to take him home by bicycle. 'On the way home, my condition began to assume threatening forms.'

'Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen in a curved mirror. I also had the sensation of being unable to move from the spot. Nevertheless, my assistant later told me that we had traveled very rapidly.'

Back home, when a friendly neighbour brought round some milk, he perceived her as a 'malevolent, insidious witch wearing a lurid mask.' After six hours of highs and lows, the effects subsided.

Sandoz, keen to make a profit from Hofman’s discovery, gave the new substance the trade name Delysid and began sending samples out to psychiatric researchers.

By 1965 more than 2,000 papers had been published offering hope for a range of conditions from drug and alcohol addiction to mental illnesses of various sorts.

But the fact that it was cheap and easy to make left it open to abuse and from   the late 1950s onwards, promoted by Dr. Timothy Leary and others, LSD became the recreational drug of choice for alienated western youth.

An outbreak of moral panic, combined with a number of accidents involving people jumping to their deaths off high buildings thinking they could fly, led governments around the world to ban LSD.

Research also showed that the drug taken in high doses and in inappropriate settings, often caused panic reactions. For certain individuals, a bad trip seemed to be the trigger for full-blown psychosis.

Hofmann was disappointed when his discovery was removed from commercial distribution. He remained convinced that the drug had the potential to counter the psychological problems induced by 'materialism, alienation from nature through industrialization and increasing urbanization, lack of satisfaction in professional employment in a mechanized, lifeless working world, ennui and purposelessness in wealthy, saturated society, and lack of a religious, nurturing, and meaningful philosophical foundation of life.'

Good times.  

BRRRRRRRRRR...........

Old business first: Yes, as many of you surmised, it was #1. And, no I can't explain the belly button thing either.

New business: I love chicken pot pies. Who doesn't, right? But the weirdest thing happened yesterday. Nea, my friendly FedEx guy showed up at the front door with a big ol' box and inside were two frozen pot pies (yay!) from an outfit in Chicago.  No note or anything so I don't know who to thank but just in case it was you, thanks!

The pot pies were packed in dry ice.  I should have remembered something about that from high school science class, right?  I didn't, so I touched it with my bare hand and froze/burned it in a bad way. Ouch.

What is this mysterious thing called dry ice? Is it from outer space? Here are some fun facts, courtesy of the sometimes reliable Wikipedia.

In 1835 the French chemist Charles Thilorier published the first account of dry ice. Upon opening the lid of a large cylinder containing liquid carbon dioxide he noted much of the carbon dioxide rapidly evaporated leaving solid dry ice in the container.

In medicine it is used to freeze warts to make removal easier .

In the construction industry it is used to loosen floor tiles by shrinking and cracking them, as well as to freeze water in valveless pipes to allow repair.

Dry ice can also be used for making ice cream.

It can be used to carbonate water and other liquids such as beer.

It can be used as bait to trap mosquitoes and other insects

It is also used in cloud seeding: the process of altering cloud precipitation.

One of the largest alternative uses of dry ice is blast cleaning. Dry ice pellets are shot out of a nozzle with compressed air. This can remove residues from industrial equipment, such as ink, glue, oil, paint, mold and rubber. Dry ice blasting can replace sandblasting, steam blasting, water blasting or solvent blasting.

When dry ice is placed in water sublimation is accelerated, and low-sinking dense clouds of fog are created. This is used in fog machines, at theaters, discotheques and nightclubs for dramatic effects, and at Halloween.

Good times!

Whoa!!! Slow Down!!!

Ready for a webcam where nothing happens for years at a time? Nope, not the treadmill in my attic, this is the Guinness Book of World Records' "longest continuously running laboratory experiment."

Highlights from the website of The Pitch Drop Experiment:

"The first Professor of Physics at the University of Queensland, Professor Thomas Parnell, began an experiment in 1927 to illustrate that everyday materials can exhibit quite surprising properties.   The experiment demonstrates the fluidity and high viscosity of pitch, a derivative of tar once used for waterproofing boats. 

At room temperature pitch feels solid - even brittle - and can easily be shattered with a blow from a hammer.  It's quite amazing then, to see that pitch at room temperature is actually fluid!  

In 1927 Professor Parnell heated a sample of pitch and poured it into a glass funnel with a sealed stem.  Three years were allowed for the pitch to settle, and in 1930 the sealed stem was cut.  From that date on the pitch has slowly dripped out of the funnel - so slowly that now, 77 years later, the ninth drop is only just forming.  

The experiment was set up as a demonstration and is not kept under special environmental conditions (it is actually kept in a display cabinet in the foyer of the Department), so the rate of flow of the pitch varies with seasonal changes in temperature.  Nonetheless, it is possible to make an estimate of the viscosity of this sample of pitch. It turns out to be about 100 billion times more viscous than water!   

In the 77 years that the pitch has been dripping no-one has ever seen the drop fall.  If you're interested in trying your luck, or at least just having a look at the experiment, you can view it live."

   

If your eyes glassed over a few paragraphs in, here's the gist: These scientists figured out that tar was not a solid but a liquid. So they are letting it flow but it is so thick that only one drop falls every eight to twelve years. And the pitch sample is large enough that it is expected that the experiment can continue for at least another hundred years!

Thanks to blog reader White Devil for the tip. Let me know if you connect to the video. I was unable to but if the trouble is on my end I don't want to deprive you of the sheer joy of  watching history being made. That pitch could drop any month now! 

Bet You'll Yawn!

Ahead of the comments you'll leave, let me admit that I know you likely yawn at most of the posts you read here at StronglyWorded letter.com. But today I nearly guarantee it.

What is the yawn reflex? Science doesn't know. Lack of oxygen is a popular unsupported theory. And if why we yawn is a mystery, even more of a conundrum is the phenomena that causes us to yawn when we see other people yawning. I am so susceptible to the suggestion that I yawn when I see someone else doing it on TV. I can't stop myself from yawning even when I read the word "yawn." How about you?

There are several theories as to why yawning is contagious.  One is a complicated idea that "mirror neurons" in the brain copy the action when we see it, but I don't hear about people starting to blink or cough because others do.

Another theory is that yawning is part of the evolutionary herd instinct; that the yawn serves to synchronize mood behavior among animals to signify tiredness to the pack and coordinate sleeping.

My whole life I have tried to fight reflex yawns but can't do it. It is a powerful, mysterious impulse.

The other thing that puzzles me is how you are able to tell if someone is staring at you. I don't know if it has ever been proven by scientists, but hasn't everyone reading this had it happen before? Someone out of sight from you is giving you the evil eye and you can almost feel the burn. You look around and there he or she is. For me it is usually a model checking me out but your experience may vary. 

Saturday night Donna and I were enjoying the wonderful 1944 film Gaslight and there it was again. Charles Boyer's character takes his wife, played by Ingrid Bergman, to a music recital. He starts squirming after a few minutes as he almost "feels" the presence of Joseph Cotten's Scotland Yard officer who is seated several rows behind the couple. Sure enough, he turns around and Cotten is more certain than ever that Boyer is up to no good in his attempt to fleece his new bride of her inheritance.   Weird, right?

P.S. Godzilla is home. Update tomorrow and I thank you again for all your well wishes.

 

    

There Are Southern Lights Too!

It is odd that I don't collect stamps seeing as how I love the post office (I go there several times a week) and that I am interested in so many of the subjects of each year's first class stamps.  This month a new stamp came out of particular interest to me: the Polar Lights, also called the Northern Lights, or the Aurora Borealis.



I have never seen them in person but have heard that they are occasionally visible from Seattle, where I live.  My better bet would be Idaho or Montana in the Lower 48 or I could almost guarantee to see them if I spent some time in Alaska.

What are these strange and wonderful things? From the USPS press release:

Oct. 1, 2007, the U.S. Postal Service will issue this pane of 20 41-cent stamps with two designs that feature photographs of the polar lights, often known as auroras.

         

"The polar lights are a luminous glow seen in the night sky at high latitudes surrounding the north and south magnetic poles. These auroras are the result of a magnetic storm — when Earth’ magnetic field is unusually active due to a dynamic interaction with the Sun. During magnetic storms, energetic electrons descend from space and collide with molecules in the upper atmosphere, leading to the emission of green and sometimes red light. Auroras come in different visual forms, including arcs, curtains and rays, and are a relatively common sight in Alaska, Canada and northern Europe. During particularly intense magnetic storms, auroras can occasionally be seen in some of the lower 48 states as well.          

“Aurora” is the Latin name of the ancient Roman goddess of the dawn. The aurora borealis are the northern lights, and the aurora australis are the southern lights. Through history, auroras have inspired a colorful folklore, especially among northern Europeans and the Inuit people of Siberia and North America, where the lights have been attributed to human or animal spirits and have sometimes been thought to foretell ominous news. Today, the aurora is the subject of scientific investigation, with researchers from many countries collaborating during International Polar Year 2007–2008."

Yes, please!! 

 

 

You Are Getting Very Sleepy

Our beloved English bulldog Tater Tot (the best dog in the world ever) had a minor surgical procedure this weekend and though she recovered well it is always worrisome for us when she has to be put under. Driving her home I was trying to imagine what the world was like before anesthesia was invented.

According to Wikipedia, nitrous oxide was used to try to deaden pain during surgery around 1800; carbon dioxide around 1820; chloroform in the 1830s, diethyl ether in 1842, and cocaine (!) in 1859.

I found it interesting that Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. coined the word "anesthesia" in 1846. I wish he has made it easier to spell.

Think of all the surgeries people have fairly regularly and try to picture what they would feel like with no anesthesia: wisdom teeth removal, broken bones being set, heart bypasses, etc. Ouch.

Happy Fiftieth Birthday!

Not many of you were alive 50 years ago today (Sorry, dad) at the very start of the space race. On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union (kids, ask your teachers) launched the world's first artificial satellite.  And it was called Sputnik. And it was good.

Good for them because the sight of a little piece of Russian technology cruising over American skies every 90 minutes for 1440 revolutions was "proof" that their communist way of life was superior to ours.   

And good for us too because the beating America's national pride took that fall was enough to convince educators and politicians alike of the need to make the teaching of math and sciences a matter of national interest and security.

Download sputnik_tones_from_space.mp3

(Thanks to the Toledo Blade)

As much as we got served by the Russians, who followed Sputnik with the the first animal in space and then the first human, we more than caught up by the early 60s and by the end of the decade had landed our first man on the moon.   

This week I saw the outstanding new documentary on the Apollo program that is currently in theaters and can recommend it to you if you have even a passing interest in the space program.

Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin (pictured) are among the Apollo astronauts interviewed for the film and their personal accounts of the trip to and from the moon on Apollo 11 are as fascinating a tale as any human has ever had to tell. Look for In The Shadow Of The Moon in your movie clocks.