Science update

Recent things of note:

  • We’re going to have to wait until 2016 for our next lot of Space porn starring Jupiter. NASA will be launching the Juno mission in 2011, with the probe skimming above the cloud tops. It’s sure to make for some really pretty storm pictures.
  • Guys at Harvard have found a group of genes which seem to be involved in cellular aging in organisms from yeast to mice. Additionally, genetically engineering more copies, or providing drugs that activated the genes and the mice lives 24-46 percent longer. (Cue Morgan quoting “Of course I plan to live forever, but failing that a few thousand years would be fine…”).

And finally a nice little lamentation piece over at the daily galaxy, entitled “What Color’s Your Spaceship?” The problem with science education, from which I gathered the following very good quote:

For a new generation of graduate students the internet is an invaluable resource, a telephone, newsreel and the biggest reference in the world all in one.  But in many schools, where the internet is acknowledged at all it is painted as an evil source of cheating and laziness.  The problem is that kids are smart: for all its problems the internet is the greatest informational archive ever created, and if you tell a kid that using it is wrong then that kid is going to file you under “lying or stupid” and ignore everything you say.

Takeoff

Charlotte has now started crawling in ernest.

Initially we had to make sure she didn’t overbalance in the process and scone herself on the head. Now we’re having to put the cat’s food bowl out of reach. Next it’ll be putting things up on shelves. Eventually it’ll be finding wall space to hang her medals from the International association of athletics federations meets.

As an aside, because this entry has been a while coming I have had time to contemplate the title, and I felt that some of the other title options were worth sharing with you:

  • Per ardua ad astra (which is the motto of the Australian Air Force, translating as “Through adversity, to the stars).
  • Do the locomotion