We’re sending you into the weekend with something lighter – and we mean that literally. Earlier this week, NASA released a video compiling three years’ worth of continual observation of the sun in about three minutes. According to the agency, two images per day were used to create the video.…  [more]

One crystal-clear night during a recent family camping trip in the Colorado Rockies, my 4-year-old tilted his head back, gazed up at the sky and did something every kid tries sooner or later. He attempted to count the stars. He made it to nine before he gave up.  It was…  [more]

In a recent piece for NPR, Marcelo Gleiser wonders whether we would be able to “distinguish ultra-advanced aliens from gods,” an interesting question especially in light of the recent science-fiction blockbuster Prometheus. Gleiser points out that past human societies, upon encountering unfamiliar cultures with advanced technologies, have sometimes mistaken humans…  [more]

Often referenced by Alfred Hitchcock when discussing filmmaking technique, a MacGuffin is an object that exists solely to set a movie’s plot in motion. The title statue of The Maltese Falcon is perhaps the most famous example. Prometheus, the new prequel to 1979’s Alien, has a MacGuffin too, and it’s…  [more]

Science caught hold of me early on in life, as is often the case for those who go on to become professional scientists. But, as is also often the case, the science that first captured my childhood mind was markedly more fantastical than the science to which I am now…  [more]