Sciences

Legendary Tornado Chaser Tim Samaras's Last Ride

The Energy Industry Gets Needled In Greedy Lying Bastards

Free Will Astrology: December 26, 2012 - January 1, 2013

Here's Some Old-Timey Video of New York's 1938 Hurricane -- Which Was Not Caused By "Global Warming"

The Global Warming crowd is claiming that climate change is part of the reason that a hurricane is about absolutely crush New York City."Substantial evidence indicates that global warming may be responsible for the recent increasing intensity of Atlantic hurricanes, including increasing their size a ... More >>

Scientists Decode the Complete Genome of Extinct Human Race, Bringing Us One Step Closer to Jurassic Park

The Leipzig team of genetic scientists has announced that it was able to completely decode the genome of an extinct species of humans, the Denisova, using DNA extracted from a single 10-milligram bone fragment of a 50,000-year-old skeleton. The skeleton was found in Southern Siberia in 2010, and cam ... More >>

Higgs Boson's Possible Discovery Announced Tuesday: How to Plan for the Paradigm Shift

via WikipediaA theoretical Higgs boson event or Laser Floyd​On Tuesday, scientists at Cern will reveal the latest results of their search for the elusive Higgs boson particle. Some are expecting the researchers, who have been working at the Large Hadron Collider, to announce that they have fou ... More >>

Watch This Morning's Total Lunar Eclipse [VIDEO]

People in the Western part of the country were treated to a total lunar eclipse this morning. Luckily you don't have to be a resident of California or an early riser to see it--someone already videotaped it for you. Check it out above.

Called Anti-Science, Rightbloggers Reply That Science is a Liberal Plot

With the ascension of Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and other GOP candidates who don't cotton to this evolution or climate change stuff, people have begun to ask if Republicans and conservatives are actually becoming hostile to science. It doesn't help that one of those people is Repu ... More >>

Seeing a Supernova With Your Own Eyes: A Guide

via the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory​Starting this weekend, you will be able to see a cosmic phenomenon without the aid of a mountaintop telescope or highly politicized university grant. Researchers at the Palomar Observatory in Southern California found a white dwarf star about 1.4 t ... More >>

Collision of Galaxies Imminent

via NASA's Image of the Day Gallery​The galaxies you see in the image to the right, VV 340 North (top) and VV 340 South (bottom), are careening towards each other and on a cosmic collision course. The Hubble Telescope took the photo and it shows the two galaxies "in the early stages of their i ... More >>

Robert Burnham Jr.'s 1983 Testament: An Astronomer-Recluse Inscribes His Universe (Part II)

Burnham in his Prescott, Arizona home lab, circa 1960.​ Yesterday, we published the first half of a 24,000-word "self-interview" by Lowell Observatory astronomer Robert Burnham, Jr. on what would have been his 80th birthday. Burnham died in 1993 at the age of 61. He was known not only for hi ... More >>

Robert Burnham Jr.'s 1983 Testament: An Astronomer-Recluse Inscribes His Universe (Part I)

Burnham, circa 1960, at the telescope Clyde Tombaugh used to find Pluto 30 years earlier​ Today, June 16, 2011, would have been Robert Burnham Jr.'s 80th birthday. Burnham was an Arizona astronomer who produced one of the most unusual, and most beloved, set of books of science, his Burnham's ... More >>

Grimsvotn Volcano Eruption Forces Barack Obama to Leave Ireland Early

​An Icelandic volcano called Grimsvotn (so much easier to say than that other Icelandic volcano) about 120 miles east of Reykjavik has been erupting since Saturday, with ash now approaching Scotland and Ireland, where Barack Obama and co. are visiting. This means they'll leave Ireland tonight, ... More >>

Robert Burnham Jr.'s Strange, Wonderful Manifesto Coming in One Month

Burnham, circa 1960, at the telescope Clyde Tombaugh used to find Pluto 30 years earlier​ One month from today, the Voice will make public for the first time a 24,000-word autobiographical essay written by a man named Robert Burnham, Jr. Burnham died in 1993 at the age of 61. On June 16, had ... More >>

Genius or Gibberish: Two Columbia Profs Face Off Over String Theory

Life, the universe, and everything

The Sun is 'Waking Up' in a Crappy Mood

Two scoops of pain!​Good news! Our sun is about to enter "solar maximum," the time in its life-cycle when it's at its most active. Wait a second, that's bad news. National Geographic reports that within the next couple of years, massive sun storms will possibly knock out GPS systems, blow up p ... More >>

The Solar System Has a Badass New Planet Named Tyche

This is Jupiter; Tyche is Way Cooler than Jupiter (photo via Joshua Bury)​When the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto from planet to icy space rock, our solar system lost a spunky outsider with a weird orbit; the perennial underdog. The Independent reports that little Pluto may alr ... More >>

NASA Just Discovered 54 New Planets, and Humans Might Be Able to Live on Them

​NASA has discovered 54 new planets that might be habitable to humans, either giving us a planet for vacation homes or an escape plan for the end of the world. The planets are part of a larger discovery by Kepler telescope that includes 1,235 possible planets outside Earth's solar system. Exci ... More >>

10-Year-Old Girl Discovers Supernova Over Christmas Vacation, You Lazy Bastards

via The Star​Yeah, so, what did you do over your holiday break? If you're like us, you survived mainly on videos of kittens and antipathy. But if you're like 10-year-old Canadian Kathryn Aurora Gray, you became the youngest person ever to discover a supernova. (If you're like us, you wouldn't ... More >>

Jack Horkheimer: Star Hustler, and Friend

Hustlin'​Jack Horkheimer died last week. Son of a bitch. I didn't hear right away because I was on my way to a week in Maine. An e-mail got through to me on the road. Well, I thought, I'll just wait for the canned "Star Gazer" obits to appear, and when I get back to town I'll get around to wr ... More >>

The Definitive But Totally Incomprehensible Answer to Why We Exist

This demonstrates matter and antimatter and purple and pink. Purple pretty.​The New York Times reports that physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have discovered a new clue that could help us understand "why the universe is composed of matter and not its evil-twin opposite, a ... More >>

STARRY NIGHT

Passion Pit spin you into the cosmos

Katie Couric's Weather Report: All Wet (When It Comes to Climate Change)

Couric: Partly cloudyOn Monday night, Katie Couric swung from CBS's coverage of the oil spill to the Tennessee floods by saying she was moving "from a man-made disaster to a natural one." That's one big and unproven assumption. How does Couric know that the worst Tennessee flooding in history has no ... More >>

'The Visible Vagina' at Francis M. Naumann and David Nolan; Ryan Wallace's 'Glean'; 'Hotwire Comics #3'

John Mackey and Whole Foods Profiled in The New Yorker

Dan Winters for the New YorkerJohn Mackey eats his vegetables, denies global warming​ You might remember the brouhaha when Whole Foods co-founder and CEO John Mackey came out against government-backed health care reform this summer. You may also recall the incident about two years ago when it ... More >>

McCain weighs in on Sarah Palin's cap

​The ongoing pissing match over Sarah Palin's inked-up gimme cap has a new combatant, now that John McCain has taken a stand. If you managed to miss this earth-shaking controversy, the Senator's former running mate was photographed in Hawaii wearing a McCain campaign sun visor with the logo bl ... More >>

A Columbia Skyscraper Clouds Views for the University's Astronomy Students

Good News For Haddock-Lovers: Some Fisheries Rebounding, Others Floundering

Don't eat him!​ You might remember the interview published here with journalist Charles Clover about his new documentary, End of the Line. Part of that movie reports on a study by a group of scientists led by Boris Worm at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. Using world catch data, they ... More >>

"RNAi Cocktail" Blocks Herpes in Mice

Since last year's Department of Health report found that one-fourth of our sexed-up citizens have herpes, New Yorkers should be exceptionally interested to learn that a Harvard Medical School researcher has found a "topical treatment" that, via RNA interference (RNAi), disables key genes necessary f ... More >>

'Observer' Observations Maybe Don't Include Observing Stars, Galaxies

Columbia Ignores Peril

When Klaus Jacob talks, important people take action. Except the important people paying him.

Mac Wellman Stakes Out His Own Corner of the Galaxy in 1965UU

Space oddity

Krallice Bring a Touch of Evil to Brooklyn

Global Warming May Ruin NY's Super Delicious Tap Water: Report

All Wet

Bloomberg's man Dan Doctoroff has an answer for rising seas: more coastal condos!

Al Gore and the Moral Imperative

Pledge Your Saturday Night to Al Gore

Nearly 100,000 promise to see 'An Inconvenient Truth'

Fahrenheit 2050

The man who would've been president warns of an imminent deep impact

'The Great Warming'

Design for Living

A theoretical physicist weighs in on a hot-button topic

Chances Are

The link between breast cancer and genetics

Storm Front

In global warming's kitchen, hurricanes love the heat

Film

In Praise of the Mad Scientist

No more plans to contact E.T.'s—but here's another remedy for erectile dysfunction!

It's the Stupid Economy

Stirring Up A Storm

Enviros hope 'The Day After Tomorrow' will change the climate regarding climate

Make Robots Not War

Some Scientists Refuse to Get Paid for Killer Ideas

Ascent of the Women

Surveying the Sex Wars at Chromosome Level

Satisfying a Zeta Jones

Brainiacs Around the World Apply Themselves to the Mathematical Challenge That Dared Not Speak Its Name—Until Now!