Yearly Archives: 2013

Improbable meteor causes chaos in Russia

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

If you had told me 24 hours ago that this would happen in my lifetime, I would have been skeptical–most of all that a meteoroid of this size could punch deep enough into the atmosphere to do any serious damage. … Continue reading →

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2012 DA14 will pass us by, but what is the risk from elsewhere?

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

You may have heard that an asteroid called 2012 DA14 will pass close by Earth this Friday, dipping below our ring of communications satellites at just 28,000 km (17,000 miles). At 50 meters wide (half the size of a football … Continue reading →

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Astronaut records first song from space

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

Chris Hadfield, Commander of Expedition 34 on the International Space Station, joined Ed Robertson, lead singer of Barenaked Ladies, to perform the first song composed and recorded (partly) in space. The result: I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing). Check it out. This … Continue reading →

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Carbon planets

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

We may be carbon-based life forms, but carbon is actually pretty rare on Earth. If fact, only 0.03% of Earth’s crust is made of carbon, hundreds of times rarer than the foundations of the planet–silicon, aluminum, iron, and, oddly enough, … Continue reading →

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Book review: The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen L. Carter

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

Now for a little bit different kind of book: alternate history. Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter asks, what if Abraham Lincoln had survived being shot by John Wilkes Booth on the night of April 14, 1865? If he had, … Continue reading →

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Some advice about writing advice

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

If you want to be a writer, you must write. But on everything else, it’s not so black and white. Whether around the Internet or in a real life writing group, writers will offer you plenty of advice, much of … Continue reading →

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The end of spam?

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

Kaspersky Lab reported last week that spam email is on the decline, having fallen from 80%-85% of all email over the past few years to about 65% at the end of 2012. There are two main reasons for this. First … Continue reading →

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How to be a writer in 1 easy step

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

I know that at least some of the readers of this blog are also writers, and perhaps some of you want to start writing and aren’t quite sure where to start. Well, you’re in luck, because I am about to … Continue reading →

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Waterworlds

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

Super-Earths are odd things. They’re bigger than Earth, but smaller than gas giant planets, different from anything in our Solar System. The exact definition is a little fuzzy. Astronomers who find planets by the motions of their stars and usually … Continue reading →

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Finding little planets

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

The easiest planets to find are the biggest ones. The larger a planet is, the larger the effect on its parent star, which is what we can see. It’s also easiest to spot planets close to their stars, since they … Continue reading →

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