Cats like people.
As I noted on Twitter the other day, they seem to view us as large non-hostile cats, who occasionally provide them with sustenance and clean their litter boxes.
Category Archives: Science And Society
The Case For Space
Glenn Reynolds reviews Bob Zubrin’s new book. I haven’t read it yet.
[Afternoon update]
Leonard David has a new space book out, too. I should be getting review copies of both soon.
Solar Activity
Are we heading for a Grand Minimum?
If so, it will put to the test the CO2 climate thesis.
Asteroidal Resources
Just as when you’re pulling nickel out of the ground in Sudbury, when you use ocean water you’re mining asteroids. As I noted in my latest essay, the more we learn about the solar system, the more we discover that, as opposed to being what we long thought was “the water planet,” earth is a comparative desert. The water is mostly extraterrestrial.
To expand on Krafft Ehricke’s famous statement, if God had wanted us to become space faring, he’d have given us a moon. With water on it.
The Space Technology Curve
I don’t usually post from Facebook, but Jeff Greason has an interesting/depressing thought:
In the Star Trek episode “Tomorrow is Yesterday”, Kirk is told “I’m going to lock you up for two hundred years”. He looks at the camera (very nearly breaking the fourth wall), and says “that ought to be just about right” — in other words, telling the viewer that Star Trek is set about 200 years in the future.
That episode was filmed in 1968.
That was 50 years ago.
Somehow, I don’t feel we’ve made 1/4 of the progress from Apollo to Star Trek
As Mike Heney points out over there, we haven’t even made a quarter of the progress from Apollo back to Apollo.
Dementia
A new type has been discovered, which was previously mistaken with Alzheimer’s. Hope this can help lead to a breakthrough.
Microrobots
...the size of the submarine from Fantastic Voyage. Racquel Welch presumably not included.
A Fantasy For The Sexes
Thoughts on ending the matriarchy.
California’s Scientific And Economic Insanity
This just has me shaking my head:
The Don Pedro hydropower project, just west of Yosemite National Park, has been churning out carbon-free electricity for nearly a century. As the Tuolumne River flows from the Sierra Nevada to the Central Valley, it passes through Don Pedro Dam, spinning four turbine generators.
None of the electricity is counted toward California’s push for more renewable energy on its power grid. A new bill advanced by state lawmakers last week would change that — and it’s being opposed by environmental groups, who say it would undermine the state’s landmark clean energy law by limiting the need to build solar farms and wind turbines.
That law itself is nuts.