DC: Quit making your characters assholes and they’ll be more cinematic.

Are we sure it’s not ...

*facepalm*

I thought the internet was done with this. I really don’t have the energy to explain all of the downsides to trying to make fuel from algae... I thought the internet was done with that fad... but I can assure you algae->oil has a ton of downsides.

Very smart people have literally thrown hundreds of millions…

I really, really am getting tired of hearing a reference to Star Wars every time someone comes up with a multiple star system. George Lucas hardly invented the idea. Here is Lucian Rudaux showing us back in the 1930s what some of the effects might be of living on a planet with more than one sun (2 is the shadow cast…

Argentine ants are starving off horned lizards? Exterminate the bastards.

and you can stream Ghost Army for free online (Amazon Prime has it, I assume others do too). Great documentary.

“Worker bees are mindless, cooperative drones”

(Editor’s Note: Like I’m ever going to pass up a story that makes fun of Tim Hortons...)

Andean textiles are amazing. It still blows my mind that we have examples of brightly-colored, barely faded pieces of cloth that are almost 2,000 years old.

Actually, 60% of California's agricultural water goes to pasture and field crops rather than fruits and vegetables, so there is considerable room to reduce water usage without touching the fruits and vegetables.

They're dating the rock to 300-600mya. They're dating the impact to 300mya. I'm sure there's a window for these things, though. The Woodleigh impact was implicated in the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse, but it's now thought this one occurred in the late Devonian.

In celebration of today's Pi Day of the Century, take some time off to watch this curious Pi Day video...

UMM 15+6= 21...not 23... I think you'd get left at the altar, too.

This isn't really a surprise. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation is in a negative phase at the moment.

"it would mean that all alien civilizations would have to find space too big to bother with, or that interstellar space travel is technologically unfeasible. Neither is likely true."

Heteromeles, the Turbosails are not Magnus effect sails, as they do not consist of rotating cylinders. Their shape is ovoidal, and it esence they are sort of boundary layer control systems, by suction. When placed in the correct angle into the wind, they deflect the wind to one side creating a lateral lift force, just…

Isn't this common knowledge? Not being bitchy, genuine question. I work with people that take various meds and everyone is aware of that.

I hate to be that guy, but NASA's "warp drive" is a variant of the Alcubierre drive. To work it requires "exotic matter" with negative energy density. No one knows how to make it, or where to find it. There are other problems too, most notably that the front end of the ship is causally disconnected from the back. And…

As you might expect, "White Earth" isn't the term of choice for this these days...