Archive for February, 2008
Episode 18 — The Evolution of the Theory of Evolution, Part 1 of 2
Today, the 12th of February, 2008, is the 199th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Since this has been dubbed “Darwin Day,” and all sorts of events are planned for the upcoming year commemorating Darwin’s turning the “big 200″ in 2009, I thought it’d be a good time to discuss how evolutionary theory has changed over the centuries, and what Darwin’s unique contributions really were…
The scientific tourist #7 — the shifting sands of time
This week’s “sciencey” tourist picture comes from the ruins of Ostia Antica, Rome’s ancient harbor town — at one time situated where the Tiber river runs into the Mediterranean…
“Brewster Rockit” on the Van Allen Belts
Given the timeliness of this (in light of the Explorer 1 anniversary last week), and how much I love the comic strip “Brewster Rockit: Space Guy,” I thought (hoped?) you might enjoy this Sunday’s strip…
Whew — that was a close one!
Anybody who spends much time with computers or web sites can attest to the fact that they can be a bit… testy… at times. If you’ve tried to look at the SOS web site over the past few days, you might have an inkling of how this applies to you and me right now…
Casual Friday — make your own vacuum tubes
This week’s video is a surprisingly engrossing 17 minute video of a French amateur radio enthusiast making his own vacuum tubes
Carnivalia
The past week’s science-related blog carnival goodness awaits your reading…
The scientific tourist #6 — nothing but rim!
This week’s “sciencey” tourism picture comes from Nördlingen, Bavaria, Germany…
Happy first birthday — to us!
It’s a bit hard to believe, and I almost missed the date myself, but as of the 5th of February, it’s been exactly one year since I started up this blog…
Episode 17 — A Tale of Two Craters, and a Shoemaker
While sorting through pictures for some “Scientific tourist” blog posts, it occurred to me that two of them together told an interesting tale. Listen in on this episode, and find out how two craters — one in Arizona and one in Bavaria — helped a man named Eugene Shoemaker reshape how geology is conducted, and invent the field of planetary geology as a scientific discipline…
Casual Friday — Werner von Braun designs a rocket
Back in 1955, Disney produced a number of episodes of the “Disneyland” TV show speculating on how humanity would get into space. In this clip (# 6 of 8 on YouTube), Werner von Braun describes the design of a rocket for near-Earth travel…
