Archive for the ‘Science News’ Category
Godspeed, John Glenn: 50 Years of Americans in Orbit
February 20th, 2012
On February 20, 1962, perched atop an Atlas rocket, John Glenn was blasted into space at 17,500 miles per hour. He splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean about five hours later, having orbited the Earth three times, the first American to do so.
Our most recent video for Time.com is a tribute to John Glenn, NASA, and 50 years of Americans in orbit. I wrote it, Tara Fredette was cameraman, and Jim Fields edited.
Godspeed, John Glenn…
Link:
http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,1461672138001_2107230,00.html
My 25 Mundane Neutrino Explanations
September 22nd, 2011
Today I had the most fun I’ve ever had on Twitter, thanks to the OPERA experiment working out of CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider.
The blogosphere is ablaze with news that they seem to have detected neutrinos traveling faster than light. If true, it would be the biggest science news of the century, overturning one of the most fundamental concepts in physics. There is obviously much skepticism amongst scientists. For a typically insightful explanation, check out Bad Astronomer Phil Plait‘s post: Faster-than-light travel discovered? Slow down, folks
The Twitter fun began when a discussion between two physicist/mathematician-types, Blake Stacey (@blakestacey) and S.C. Kavassalis (@sc_k) led Blake to tweet:
@sc_k Maybe we need to counterbalance the HEP blogohedron with a Twitter meme? e.g., #mundaneneutrinoexplanations
Then he spun out a few funny examples of more mundane explanations for the unusual neutrino measurement:
- #CERN physicists did arithmetic on old Pentium computers
- #CERN physicists let undergrads near the experiment
- Calculations done by visiting Americans who still don’t get the metric system.
… all with the #mundaneneutrinoexplanations hashtag appended.
I think I was the first one to follow his lead with:
- Forgot to carry the one
- Confused neutrino with one sent later
- Study published by Wakefield et al
Then @drskyskull and @physicsdavid and others joined in (even astophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Bad Astronomer) and, before you know it, the Twitterverse was alive with funny explanations, some of which may be as likely as superluminal neutrinos. I ended up spitting out about 25 of them, which I present here, as they were tweeted, in reverse chronological order (so start from the bottom). Enjoy!
My Love Affair with Space
July 7th, 2011
On the eve of the final mission of NASA’s – and the nation’s – 30-year-long space shuttle program, I present to you a video love letter – my newest piece for Time Magazine’s website, wherein Tara and I journey to Florida to witness our first launch. STS-133, in February, was the last mission of space shuttle Discovery…
Click for bigger version at Time.com
Link:
My Love Affair with Space on Time.com
Lunar Eclipse Defined by Wikipedia
June 15th, 2011
In celebration of today’s lunar eclipse, Google‘s logo features an animated moon. When you click through, as usual, you get a page of related search results.
A little while ago, one of the top results included a surprising definition of “lunar eclipse” from Wikipedia:
According to Wikipedia:
Lunar eclipse: A lunar eclipse is when the moon turns black and explodes, releasing a poisonous gas, killing all of humanity. Of course this can occur only when the Sun, …
The page had already been corrected by the time I saw it. But the false definition was apparently cached and showing up in Google’s search results, until a little while ago.
I love Wikipedia. But it’s still funny.
Check out the page devoted to Google Doodles.
Space: The Private Frontier
February 2nd, 2010
My new video (produced by David Clair) is up at Time.com. It’s about Elon Musk and SpaceX – and we were almost finished with it when the topic exploded into the news a week or so ago – Obama, the budget, the future of NASA, Ares and contracting out space flights to private companies. We didn’t set out to address all that but we did include it. Check it out…
They Might Be Giants Video for Time
January 19th, 2010
Here Comes Science is supposedly a kids’ album but it’s my favorite They Might Be Giants album. I love it. And I had the opportunity to interview John and John at their Brooklyn rehearsal studio, and attend one of their family shows at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. It’s our newest video for Time Magazine:
Helium – So Long and Thanks for all the Balloons!
January 6th, 2010
Somehow this didn’t make it into the blog earlier – our Time.com video about helium. A flight in a zeppelin, a visit with the Balloon Lady, and the end of an era?…
Related Post:
Science Comedian Riffs on Hydrogen and Helium at Ignite
Videos for Time Magazine
November 20th, 2009
You can easily access all the science videos I’ve made for Time Magazine’s website at this link – the results from a search on my name (Brian Malow) at Time.com.
Free WiFi on Virgin America – Thanks, Google!
November 13th, 2009
For the holiday season, Google is offering free WiFi on all Virgin America flights. So this is my first in-flight post.
I’m flying from Boston to San Francisco, returning from a college gig at SUNY Plattsburgh, which is so far up, up, upstate New York that it’s just a stone’s throw from Montreal (you’d have to have a very good arm and/or be throwing the stone in a weaker gravity field, perhaps that of an asteroid).
I’m 38,078 feet over the Nevada desert, flying 463 mph and it’s -64 degrees F. outside.
And I’m surfing the web. +1 Internets.
Virgin America has the coolest planes – they’re like flying discotheques:
The free in-flight WiFi from Google is only part of the deal. They are also providing free WiFi in a bunch of airports – including Boston Logan where I took a pic of this sign:
