Y’know, if you were watching Trek, and Mr. Spock turned to the captain and said, “There’s a ribbon of mysterious energy surrounding the solar system,” you’d just groan and mutter something about the series’ cheezy made-up science. Except it turns out there really is a ribbon of mysterious energy surrounding the solar system. Next, we’ll […]

I revisited my teen years recently by viewing Ken Russell’s Women in Love (1969) and Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970). In my youth I saw both of these movies multiple times, which might just possibly have to do with the fact that both these films have a lot to do with sex. Both these films […]

So here’s the plan. NASA sends an “electron beam freeform fabrication” unit up onto the Space Station. Then, when the aging station needs a part, the fab just . . . prints it.While the EBF3 equipment tested on the ground is fairly large and heavy, a smaller version was created and successfully test flown on […]

It’s probably a little late to chime in on the Nobel Prize thing, but what the hell. I had a busy weekend that kept me from posting, but at least I had time for mature consideration. I’m sure I was as surprised as anyone else. “This is, at best, premature,” I thought. I voted for […]