Mark your calendars! An astronomical phenomenon of great significance will occur this Monday on May 9th. Mercury will cross the sun for the first time since 2006. The transit of Mercury occurs when Mercury passes between the sun and the Earth (inferior conjunction), since of course Mercury is closer to the sun than we are. […]
Read more "Transit of Mercury On May 9th"It is that time of year again where those “once in a lifetime” kind of astronomy hoaxes begin circulating on social media and wow an uninformed crowd. Here’s a hoax which I came across today purporting that Saturn will appear closer to Earth than the moon to offer an spectacular sight. Anyone with a basic understanding […]
Read more "Yet Another Facebook Hoax"“What a delightful irony it will be if the real age of sail has yet to dawn – not only on the oceans of Earth, but also in the far wider seas of space” This is how Arthur C. Clarke envisioned the future of interstellar exploration in the great anthology of essays, poems, and essays […]
Read more "A Sail Through the Cosmos"In the 18th Century, navigating across the seas was fraught with danger and error. With no practical method of determining longitude, sailors had no accurate means of pinpointing their position at sea. Ships had sailed forth only to blunder off course and never return. Sailors had died by the thousands. And, mistakes had jeopardized trade […]
Read more "The Clock That Changed the World"The p-value is very ubiquitous across all levels of scientific and clinical research. It is a statistical measure that determines whether a null hypothesis should be rejected, by testing the significance of a particular result. It is the probability of obtaining a sample outcome, given that the null hypothesis is true. In this case, the […]
Read more "Sir Ronald Fisher and the P-Value"Food supply would certainly be one of the most important things to consider in any sustainable life support system destined for long duration space flights or future space habitation plans. Future life-support technologies for Mars missions and beyond hinge upon the ability to regenerate food products, a major hurdle which has so far not been […]
Read more "Food in Space"The ability to numerically ordinate quantities or perceive number is intuitively thought to be a unique human capacity. Such an ability, however, has been demonstrated in non-human animals all the same, including but not limited to dolphins, birds, chimps, ants, and bees. It is thought that the ability to perceive number is an innate ability […]
Read more "The Numerical Abilities of Non-Human Animals"“In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practice it much. In the everyday affairs of life, it is more useful to reason forwards, and so the other comes to be […]
Read more "On the Ability to Reason Backwards"The Industrial revolution can perhaps be characterized as a transition from humanised handicraft to mechanized manufacture, as actuated by a complex structure of successive and interweaving technological innovations. But, what spurred such technological advancement remains contentious. What is it about the 18th Century that made it distinctively amenable to such technical change? And, importantly, what […]
Read more "Ideas That Propelled the Industrial Revolution"The mere happenstance of a coincidental sequence of events, put together by the blind works of nature, has serendipitously manifested itself in this fascinating complexity around us today, that only appears to bear the illusion of an orderly calibration of deliberate design. This happenstance of undirected natural processes has led to self-directed sentient beings, pondering […]
Read more "The Happenstance of Existence"
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