Science

Tag Archives: Science

Quickies March 8, 2012

Real Men Don’t Wear Pink; They Can’t, Because It Doesn’t Exist!

The color pink, technically called Magenta, is in theory a blend of Red and Violet. That is wonderful for mixing paints … but in terms of the electromagnetic spectrum it makes no sense. Why is that? Because colors are based on a continuum, that means that in order for a color to exist it needs [...]

Wood Boring Worms Look Like Tiny Evil Aliens

Kev was splitting wood today, when he stopped to bring me something he’d found. To back up for a moment, if you have a wood-burning stove then you may have noticed how certain woods — in this case, mesquite — can have these weird “tunnels” bored through them. I had never given what caused them [...]

Meet Winston Kemp, Lightning Strike Survivor and Lichtenberg Figure Owner

“What does your boyfriend do when you go out of town? Well, [mine] gets struck by lightning.” – Daphne Cheek We’ve all heard stories about people getting struck by lightning — usually as some sort of cautionary tale, but how many of us have ever seen the effects of lightning on a human? Winston Kemp, [...]

Astrological Signs Hit Their 5,000 Year Recalculation

I always thought of astrology as a fairly fixed field of “study”. If you were born between certain dates, then you were born under a certain sign. As it turns out, astrology is heavily influenced by astronomy, and therefore as the earth spins the astrological calculations may need adjustments. The upshot: every 5,000 years or [...]

The Wicked Lasers Blu-Ray Sonar Advanced 100mW Violet Laser Review

I am not sure exactly why, but lasers fascinate me. Maybe I’ve watched too many Jedi movies over the years or maybe it’s a by-product of the times in which I grew up, but lasers, and the idea of what some of them are capable of doing, give me a thrill. Wicked Lasers, a company [...]

The Imaging Source Allows Amateur Astronomers to Take Amazing Photos

What an amazing thing! The Imaging Source has introduced a line of low-noise astronomy cameras that provide amateur photographers with the necessary tools to take amazing photographs using their telescopes. Priced from $390 to $640, the monochrome and color camera models are available “with and without an IR cut filter in three resolutions: 640×480, 1024×768 [...]

Review: Techlasers Infiniti II 95mW 532nm Green Laser Pointer

Back in late June Judie reviewed the SKYlasers 125mW green laser pointer, providing a fun look at some of the interesting things you can do with a laser such as that. Soon thereafter, TechLasers provided us with one of their 95mW Infinity II 532nm Green Laser Pointers to evaluate for review. Judie also sent me [...]

Planets Review for iPhone/Touch

Developer Description: Is that dot in the sky a star or a planet? Answer that question with this application. Discover when you can see your favorite planet, and where to look in the sky in relation to the stars. Provides lots of interesting information: location of the sun, moon, and planets in the sky maps [...]

The SKYlasers 125 mW Green Laser Pointer Review

Not long after I received this rather benign looking kit containing a 125mW Green Laser Pointer and a pair of Laser Protective Goggles from SKYlasers, I started really paying attention to all of the reports regarding people with lasers – red and the stronger green, interfering with pilots flying passenger airplanes. In February 2009, there [...]

Star Walk for iPhone / iPod Touch Review

If you ask my wife, the money she spent buying me a telescope a few years ago was wasted. If you ask me or my sons, we’d disagree. It isn’t that we use it all that much, but I chalk that up to living in the Northeast – it is hard to hit that small [...]

The Amazing Hubble Space Telescope in Action

According to astronomer Lyman Spitzer’s 1946 paper “Astronomical advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory”, there were two main advantages that a space-based observatory would have over ground-based telescopes. The first advantage was that “the angular resolution (smallest separation at which objects can be clearly distinguished) would be limited only by diffraction, rather than by the turbulence [...]

VITO Technology Caters to the Omnia

VITO Technology, developers of Windows Mobile software titles such as AstroNavigtor (Universe in your pocket!) and SMS Chat (Enjoy threaded SMS messaging on Windows Mobile!), has just announced that they have updated all of their software titles to support the popular Samsung Omnia. In case you’re wondering why a Windows Mobile software manufacturer would need [...]

Review: Wicked Lasers Executive Series

Sure we’ve all seen laser pointers; they are a favorite for playing tricks on people, playing with your pets at home and even for pointing out details during a presentation. However, not all laser pointers are created as equals, and I am here to say that Wicked Lasers have NO parallel in the laser pointer [...]