Monthly Archives: March 2011

An Earthly haze

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Meng Bomin

Wired Science has a short piece on the Solar Dynamics Observatory‘s eclipse season and features an image of a partially occluded sun, much like the one below. As the article describes, the shadow of the Earth does not form a … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mercury Rising

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Meng Bomin

Yesterday, the MESSENGER spacecraft released the above image as the first of the main stage of its mission, orbiting around the innermost planet and surveying the surface.  When that’s complete, we will have the first complete detailed map of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Science | Tagged , | 1 Comment

The New York Times explores the 2010 Census

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Meng Bomin

Last year, I pointed to an interactive racial/ethnic dot map modeled on the maps of Eric Fischer that The New York Times had created using the Census projections available at the time.  With the release of the 2010 Census data, … Continue reading →

Posted in Maps | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

U.S. set to enter another war

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Meng Bomin

Today, the United Nations Security Council voted 10-0 (with Russia, China, Germany, India, and Brazil abstaining) to authorize the creation of a no-fly zone over Libya, a country locked into a civil war after troops began firing on protesters who … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Two spacecraft milestones

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Meng Bomin

Today, two different spacecraft at different ends of the solar system are closing in on major milestones.  The first is the New Horizons spacecraft, destined for a flyby of Pluto in 2015.  Tomorrow, it will pass the orbit of Uranus, … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Science | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Beware genetic paternalism

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Meng Bomin

Razib Khan has a post raising the alarm over a potential batch of new regulations running through the FDA that will restrict consumer’s access to their own genetic data.  He includes this video: It is depressing to see this sort … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, Science | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment