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Habitable Zone Less Habitable?

The hunt for exoplanets has been heating up for years, aided by new technologies and refined methods for finding smaller and smaller planets that may harbor life.

Integral to this hunt is the concept that the ideal planet’s orbit will be in a habitable zone that is far enough away from its parent star that [...]

iKnowledge

I love learning about new things, or learning even more about things I already know.  Sometimes I wish I could just get away for a week or two to a cabin in the woods and sit by a fireplace in a comfortable chair with a huge library of books and just read and learn 24/7.  There [...]

The Shadow of the Hole

Scientists may soon have a direct image of the black hole in the center of our galaxy.Using a virtual telescope as big as the earth, they may have for the first time apicture of the actual shadow a black hole.

Scientists met recently to discuss this project. It has probably one of the coolestnames for [...]

Failing at Prediction, Succeeding at Bias

In Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, the future can be predicted through a new method known as psychohistory. It’s a concept that turns up quite a lot — not only in science-fiction but from every so-called analyst, expert, advisor, talking head, and pundit across the spectrum of armchair philosophers and industry insiders.

We’re not talking about psychics here, but good [...]

Supernova Silliness

There’s been a lot of crazy predictions about 2012 and all the disasters that are going to befall our poor little planet. There’s one prediction that somehow escaped my notice until recently…that the earth will be destroyed by a supernova!

The people who promulgate this silliness try to make reasonable arguments how this conspiracy could [...]