Category Archives: Science

Astronomy, Chemistry, Electromagnetism, Engineering, Imaging, Physics, Science, Space, Technology

To Catch a Comet

March 17, 2014 Nicholas Gerbis Leave a comment

Rosetta and Philae at their destination. Image courtesy ESA.

For a spacecraft to overtake a comet, let alone touch down and ride it sunward, requires trick-shot billiards on an astronomical scale. But that’s exactly what the ESA/NASA International Rosetta Mission to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is doing. Launched a decade ago aboard an Ariane 5 rocket, its loop-the-loop, gravity-slingshotting journey has juiced its speed enough to overtake the comet, which can reach speeds of up to 83,885 mph (135,000 kph), and set it up to land in November 2014. Which raises the question…

How do you land a spaceship on a comet?

Astronomy, Climatology and Meteorology, Electromagnetism, Engineering, Geoscience, History, Imaging, Physics, Science, Space, Technology, Top 10

The Other Grand Tour: 10 Stunning Space Stopovers

February 27, 2014 Nicholas Gerbis Leave a comment

Cosmos is back, and Neil deGrasse Tyson is tooling around the universe in Carl Sagan’s Ship of the Imagination. But suppose someone handed you the proverbial keys? Where in space and/or time would you go?

If you don’t have a ready answer, never fear. I’ve put together an itinerary that can’t fail, whether your tastes run to science or sightseeing. Sure, we might have to break a few physical laws and grow a few extra senses along the way but, hey, it’s not called the Ship of Literal Reality, is it? So hang your fuzzy planets from the rearview and strap in for a star-spanning tour, a jaunt from the local neighborhood to the unreachably distant (and disproportionately dangerous) corners of the universe, en route to…

10 Space Landmarks We’d Like to Visit

Culture, Medicine, Neuroscience, Psychology, Science, Weird

Nocturnal Commissions: Water Bowl v. Bladder Control

January 27, 2014 Nicholas Gerbis Leave a comment

We’ve all heard stories of bedwetting brought about by placing a sleeper’s hand in a pan of warm water. Yet attempts at experimental confirmation have hardly been flush with success. Are the stories true? And if so, what urological or psychological mechanism is at work?

We spend years developing the ability to stay dry at night. Why not spend a few minutes reading about how easily it can be undone?

Will Putting People’s Hands in Warm Water Really Make Them Wet the Bed?

Consumer, Electromagnetism, Gadgets, How To, Technology, Travel

Not-so-Final Destination: Landing at the Wrong Airport

January 14, 2014 Nicholas Gerbis Leave a comment

“Uh, ladies and gentlemen, this is the flight deck. Thank you for choosing Airborne Airways, where your destination is always up in the air. If you’ll look out your window, you’ll see…well, we’re hoping you can tell us. Anything look familiar?”

Yes, it’s preposterous, embarrassing and more than a little dangerous, but flight crews touch down at the wrong airfield or runway more often than you might think. Which raises the question: If GPS navigation can direct any idiot with a car to his or her destination, how can a trained flight crew with state-of-the-art navigation screw up so badly? In other words…

How Can a Plane Land at the Wrong Airport?

Auto, Biochemistry, Computing, Consumer, Engineering, Gadgets, Genetics, Green, Health, History, Imaging, Internet, Materials, Medicine, Neuroscience, Physics, Science, Space, Technology, Top 10

The Future: At the Corner of Close and Soon

January 3, 2014 Nicholas Gerbis Leave a comment

Somehow the future we get is never quite the one we were promised. Then again, sometimes the very ideas wrapped in the pages of sci-fi and Popular Science are right under our noses, in disguise. After all, we have hand-held sensor-communicators and miraculous supermaterials – they just take the rather mundane form of carbon-fiber-wrapped smartphones.

Maybe our blindness arises from our physical and electronic architecture. Has exchanging Googie buildings for Google caused us to overlook the flying-car equivalents that fill our everyday lives, or soon will? Read on.

Our 10 Favorite Replacements for ‘Where’s My Flying Car?’

Writing • Editing • Commentary