Category: Hellraisin’
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When the storm surge hits NYC
The Big Apple has had its toes watered by storms surges from passing hurricanes on many an occasion. But how to hold back the waters in future? Alexander “Bonkin” Bolonkin reckons the best way to protect the city is to rap it in a textile storm surge barrier, a kinda giant gag. Sounds good to…
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Why the Phoenix lander could miss life on Mars
What a balls up. When NASA sent Viking to look for life on Mars more than 30 years ago, the one experiment that could identify lil green bugs came up trumps: it produced an overwhelmingly positive result. That’s when the trouble started. Another experiment had found no evidence for organic molecules so, with the eggheads…
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Halting the horrible kilogram shrink
The kilogram is a-shrinkin’ and ain’t nobody sure why. The problem is the way it is defined: the mass of a lump o’ metal stored in a vault in Paris. That’s no good cos a few atoms rub off each time it is picked up and others seem to fall off even when it ain’t…
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Einstein and the greatest scientific fraud of the 20th century
In 1926, when the scientific world was still a-puzzling and a-wondrin over the wave-particle duality of light, Einstein asked a pal, Emil “Hurry” Rupp, to conduct an experiment that would settle the matter. If anyone could do it, thought Einstein, it was Rupp who was considered the latest and greatest experimental physicists of the day.…
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And now the earthquake forecaste…
Ya’ll know there is no way to predict when the Gods plan to set the ground a-tremblin and a-rumblin. But a group of Italian geophysicists are sayin that the conventional thinkin about earthquakes may need a good shakin itself and that earthquake prediction is not as far fetched as ya’ll thought. In fact, rumble merchants…
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Trouble afoot for cosmic inflation
Things ain’t all rosy for the Big Bang; it just don’t explain why the universe looks the way it does and the theoretical fixes proposed by them astrobods are a-crackin and a-crumblin. Here’s one problem with the Big Bang. It involves these giant space thermometers like COBE and WMAP which tell us that wherever we…
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Boron buckyballs
A bit of hellraisin’ on a Friday night don’t do nobody no harm so it’s no surprise to see them chemists going at it hammer ‘n tong. Makes ’em seem almost human. The barney is over the shape of a molecule (might have guessed, right?). Earlier this year, Nevill “Eye Test” Szwacki at Rice University…
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Dim outlook for solar flare forecasting
Yep, looks like sunshine. Them weather boys have spent a lotta time a-countin and a-calculatin to let ya’ll know when to head for the beaches. Let’s give em their due: weather forecastin is better than it was and we got so much data that it’s a full time job a-pumpin it into them weather computers.…
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Quantum dilemmas
Ya wake up in the cells, your head a-boomin and a-thumpin. An officer helps loosen ya tongue, Guantamo style, and before ya even had breakfast, he’s a-shoutin and a-rantin for a confession. There’s even a deal on the table. Rat on ya buddy in the next cell and the judge’ll cutcha some slack. Keep schtum…