Speaking of Mars: A Miracle of Science on 34th Street!  

As a sort of Christmas gift to the astronomy geek community, the British-led European Beagle 2 probe has landed in Isidis Planitia on Mars. Or impacted on Mars and broke into a million pieces. It's not clear at this point.  

More cool science stuff: This list of famous mathematical curves explains how a large number of important curves are created and who researched them.

Well, I thought it was cool.  

It wasn't easy to translate. There doesn't seem to be a Klingon word for "jolly." --Star Trek: TNG

24 December 2003

Cromulac generates random words. Many of them look like they belong in Forthright's Phrontistery.  

It's nearly Christmas, and you know what that means! Lots of shiny science stuff! (Come on, admit it. You like shiny science stuff.)

Among our shiny science stuff is this site full of ancient inventions.  
Jessica Gothie

The jig is up, Mr. Kringle! The Elvish Revolution begins now! --Josh Sortelli

19 December 2003

A six foot wide unpowered human-wearable wing sounds like something out of science fiction. (Specifically, it sounds like something out of "The Menace from Earth.")  

Combining the Buffy musical and Lord of the Rings, we get Once More with Hobbits. It's funny, clever, and displays an understanding of both the music of Buffy and the story of Lord of the Rings.

GIMLI:
Why don't I smash it, just go and smash it
(CLANG)
Which is ridiculous, of course its indestructible, like Gandalf said
'the Cracks of Doom', damn stiff necked elves and I'll be over here.

What you're calling "Jumping to conclusions" appears to be what normal people would call "Taking the laws of physics into consideration."

17 December 2003

On the centennial of the Wright Brothers' flight, it's logical to think about the future of transportation - such as the space elevator, which seems to be coming closer and closer to the realm of the possible with each passing minute.  

None of the pictures I created with the church sign generator can be shared in mixed company, nor can they be stored in any medium which might, one day, be seen by my grandmother.

I'm pretty sure that she wouldn't find flatulence jokes and the Prime Mover to be a good mix.  
Joe Foering

As I post this, at 10 PM on the sixteenth, I'm certain that there will be a lot of hoopla tomorrow about the centennial of the Wright flyer. The thing to remember, amongst the hype, is that it's all true. The airplane truly did change the world.  

By the way, if the monkeys in the zoo build an unstable singularity and level a continent, are they still monkeys?

12 December 2003

What not to do during a showing of The Return of the King.

11. In TTT when the Ents decide to march to war, stand up and shout "RUN FOREST, RUN!"

13. During a wide shot of a battle, inquire, "Where's Waldo?"

18. Imitate what you think a conversation between Gollum, Dobby and Yoda would be like.

21. When Shelob comes on, exclaim, "Man! Charlotte's really let herself go!"

Research on the bombardier beetle might lead to aircraft engines that can be reignited more easily if they flame out at high altitude.  

It involved the words "hell", "fire", and "death". Sounded like fun to us! --Gloria Webber

11 December 2003

A Miracle of Science, new and improved with added David Byrne!  

The strange quackery of radium water and the story of Kodak film speckled by fallout from the Trinity test are both part of the Museum of Health Physics Instrumentation.  
Noel Tominack

Create your own re-envisioning of the stultifying world of art with Mister Picassohead.  
Mark Sachs

As long as the music's loud enough, we won't hear the world falling apart. --Derek Jarman and James Whalley

9 December 2003

Tiny jewels: macrographs of sand from around the world.  
Jessica Gothie

Mars may be coming out of an ice age.

There appears to be too much frozen water at low-latitude regions -- away from the frigid poles -- given the current climate of Mars. The situation is not in equilibrium, said William Feldman of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

"One explanation could be that Mars is just coming out of an ice age," Feldman said. "In some low-latitude areas, the ice has already dissipated. In others, that process is slower and hasn't reached an equilibrium yet. Those areas are like the patches of snow you sometimes see persisting in protected spots long after the last snowfall of the winter."

Frozen water makes up as much as 10 percent of the top 3 feet (1 meter) of surface material in some regions close to the equator. Dust deposits may be covering and insulating the lingering ice, Feldman said.

Can you see or measure an atom? Yet you can explode one! A ray of sunlight is made up of many atoms. --Plan 9 from Outer Space

8 December 2003

A Miracle of Science, now with 73% more pointless SF slang!  

I'm not up on either fan fiction or Harry Potter, but I certainly enjoyed the Hogwarts Mary Sue Armageddon. I also liked The Game of the Gods, whose author has apparently read too much of both fan fiction and Tolkien's Silmarillion.  
Jessica Gothie

Johan Gambolputty (not a psudonym) has collected scripts, songs, and errata from Monty Python in one place for our amusement.  
Mark Sachs

Voted "favorite web comic" by monkeys with robots wired into their brains. --Steve Boyd

5 December 2003

Jessica's family winds up in the papers a lot. I suspect she may secretly be a character in a John Grisham novel. Her cousin runs marathons and defeats cancer. Damn.  
Jessica Gothie

Local bar owner has live music. Live musicians play only their own, original songs. ASCAP sends enforcer around to check for illict music use. Enforcer claims bar's entertainment is playing copyrighted music without paying the piper. Bar owner denies this and has many witnesses to back up his version of events. ASCAP sues bar owner twice within one year. Bar owner halts live music at his establishment. Everyone wins!

This wouldn't be worthy of note, except for the fact that witnesses at the bar say the enforcer (a) is wrong and (b) was drinking.  

"They are all against you, Bart... You must kill them all... They all must die..." "Are you my conscience?" "I... [pause] ... Yes, I am." --The Simpsons

4 December 2003

A Miracle of Science, now with more Martian tubes!  

Forthright's Phrontistery declares itself "a compendium of lost words." It's great. It reads like the glossary for a lost volume of H.P. Lovecraft stories.

chermadic (adj): of a heavy weight used as a projectile
"Wile E. Coyote continues to be crushed by his own chermadic snares.

schismarch (n): founder of a schism
"The schismarch of the People's Front of Judea was hated by his former allies."  

Everyone on the peace-loving planet of Cellelofrates was a writer, an astronaut, vegetarian, asexual, wore Birkenstocks and drank flavored mocha. --David A. Ross

3 December 2003

The police of East Point, Georgia, have a sense of humor.

Read the following statement aloud:
"I am under arrest. I have a right to remain silent. Anything I say can and will be used against me in a court of law. I have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him/her present with me while I question myself. If I cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed to represent me, if I wish one, before I question myself. If I decide to make a statement, I may stop at any time."  

Mark reports that Shaenon Garrity of Narbonic visited A Miracle of Science yesterday. (Ms. Garrity is a dead-tree-published comic author whose webcomic is the one thing I made certain to read every day while I was deep in 20-hour-a-day programming mode.) Cool.  
Mark Sachs

He's so inbred he even thinks with an accent. --Andrija Popovic

2 December 2003

Playland delenda est.  
Fred Coppersmith

Who cares if it was done with an emulator or a Game Shark or black magic? The video of a gamer beating the bejeezus out of Super Mario Brothers 3 is just fun to watch. In the comments on the page, we also find a very apropos 404 error.  
Craig Powell

Secrets of the ancients revealed in these pages of A Miracle of Science! (page one, page two)