So pretty! I want to walk on it. And then possibly get my tongue stuck to it, because it kind of looks like slightly melted ice cream. :P

This is awesome. And yeah, the response to a woman making this choice would be different — but the cultural context would be different. In a story like this about a female CEO sacrificing career for family, yes, some people would be upset — but there would also be a ton of conservatives posting about how this "proves"…

Dang, I missed the livestream — but their website says that the rendezvous went well! :) Also they've released some really pretty pictures of the comet. These were actually taken a couple days ago, apparently, and are just being published now. They're already quite stunning, and vaguely delicious-looking, like a big…

I can't wait to see some really close-up images. :) It's pretty exciting — it's the closest we can come today to the sense of discovery and exploration that must have existed back when the first probes were reaching the Moon and Mars, I think. We'll get to see a comet in a way that one has never been seen before.

"Don't even need a ladder."

Thanks! I do love talking about space stuff. :P

Yep, that is the idea behind the ion drive. It produces very little thrust, but is very efficient. However, even an ion thruster is much more powerful than the pressure of pure light. Ion thrusters use electric charge to accelerate gas particles, which are thrown out the back and act as the propellant. (So an ion…

The Dean machine! The Dean machine! You stick it right in a submarine. And it flies so high that it can't be seen! The wonderful, wonderful Dean machine.

I saw precisely one headline about the doctors brought back for treatment, and the article only mentioned that some people may be worried about Ebola spreading within the U.S. in passing. I did think of that story when reading this article, yes, but I actually thought the chart may be referring to a more general sense…

I wish netbooks were still a thing. I still have an Acer netbook I got for a bit over $300, and it's still chugging along merrily. It isn't going to win any beauty contests, but it sure as heck is more useful than a tablet in about a million situations. It has enough horsepower to perform any task that a full desktop…

I think it's pretty understandable that this diagram, without any further context whatsoever, might need to be explained to people. Taken by itself, it does seem pretty callous. And here... we're being invited to take it by itself.

The article doesn't say anything about what country or continent or specific situation it's regarding. It's saying "you're not going to catch Ebola, shut up about it." I can assure you from personal experience that, amazingly, the Internet is, in fact, accessible in countries outside of the United States.

Oh noes, someone out there is enjoying a gender-inappropriate thing! Quick, go tell them how wrong they are, and how deeply you disapprove, or the cooties may spread to you, too!

It's definitely fascinating! One of the the things that amazes me about science is that some of the truths it teaches us about the universe are really counter-intuitive — and yet they're still real. Intuitively, it's incredibly difficult to grasp, say, why faster-than-light travel is impossible, or just about anything…

I'm wondering why this still hasn't been cross-posted by io9. :(

Ah, no, the problem with the fan-powered sail isn't where the fan gets its electricity — it's in the whole "every action has an equal and opposite reaction" thing. The pressure on the sail would push it forward, but the fan would be pushing itself backward by the very act of pumping air towards the sail. The two…

If this is true, we have the reactionless thruster. The possibilities implied are endless, and go far beyond "cheaper satellites."

This sounds like a guess, really. I think that no-one actually knows how the heck it works. Which is incredibly fascinating.

It's a "solar sail" that takes its energy source with it. Imagine an old-fashioned wind sail, pushed by airflow from a big fan... that's sitting on the deck of the sailing ship. That's why it's not supposed to work.

Okay, remember that article a few days ago about what kind of stories we'd like to see on io9? I think I found a new kind of story that maybe we can do without: "clouds that are shaped like genitals."