For well over 1,500 years, humanity accepted that Earth was the center of the solar system. After all, the Bible—which was the scientific authority at the time—said this was so.
Then along came Nicolaus Copernicus, who in the 16th century dared to challenge the church and mathematically described a solar system with the sun at its center. After his death, Galileo Galilei’s observations of heavenly bodies further supported the Copernican model. The Catholic Church, fearing such ...read more
On February 6, SpaceX wrote a new chapter in the ongoing book on commercial spaceflight with the successful launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket. Along for the ride was Musk’s red Tesla Roadster, which is now on an elliptical orbit around the Sun. But what about the risk to Earth? Could the car, which is estimated to last up to a few tens of millions of years, ever pose the threat of raining down from the sky as a fireball in the future?
The answer, as it turns out, is probably not. A&n ...read more
In 1981, when I was nine years old, my father took me to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. Although I had to squint my eyes during some of the scary scenes, I loved it – in particular because I was fairly sure that Harrison Ford’s character was based on my dad. My father was a paleontologist at the University of Chicago, and I’d gone on several field trips with him to the Rocky Mountains, where he seemed to transform into a rock-hammer-wielding superhero.
That illusion was shattere ...read more
Although many people believe that dogs can read their owners' emotions, it was only recently shown that dogs can visually differentiate between happiness and anger. In fact, they are the first animals shown to discriminate emotions in another species. This study extends this line of research, adding an auditory component—they test whether dogs can match visual and sound representation of emotions. The researchers showed the pooches a face and either a concordant (matchi ...read more
Darting spaceships. Dazzling lasers. Fiery explosions. All of these are things that a war in space would almost certainly not involve.
Ever since Star Wars, the public has been fascinated by the visuals of space conflict — it's futuristic, thrilling, and cosmic battles are bereft of the gore that so often accompanies terrestrial conflict. And ever since Sputnik, humans have been putting things into space, pieces of technology that are now vital cogs in the machinery of society. We rely on ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine