Science Behind Things

Spaceship2 Carrier Plane Loses Left Landing Gear

SpaceShipTwo

(Mojave, California) Scaled, a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman (NOC.N), experienced a “minor” accident yesterday (Thursday, August 19) when its carrier aircraft known as WhiteKnightTwo lost its left landing gear. SpaceShipTwo was not attached at that time, and it isn’t known what prompted the accident or whether the amazing plane was taking off or landing. What is know is that no one was hurt, and that Scaled is proving to the world that American ingenuity is alive and well, with no need for a government-run billion dollar space programs to transport people into space. Scaled hope to begin to do so in late 2011 or 2012.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSB68371720100820

Going Green Just Got Easier

Dupont is working on ways to store energy more efficienctly after the sun sets or wind stops blowing.  Right now conventional energy is far more effective than green energy  because oil and gas can burn 24 hours a day, unless they run out.  DuPont is collaborating with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Bosch and 3M, and using a recently awarded grant of $1.6 million by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

Source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/dupont/clean-energy-research/prweb4325564.htm

Voyager 2

Ever since April 22 of this year, Voyager 2 has not been doing well at its distance of 8.6 billion (8,600,000,000) miles from earth, as it travels literally faster than a speeding bullet toward the edge of the solar system.  But it may only be a fixable hiccup that is contributing to the 33 year old spacecraft.  It may be suffering from a bit flip.  A bit flip is defined as an unintentional state switch from 0 to 1, or vice versa, of a bit stored to random access memory or other medium.  Since computer language is ultimately just ones and zeros, switching them is like switching letters of the alphabet and then trying to communicate with another person.  Voyager should soon be back in working order and communicating valuable information from 13 light- hours out in space.

Source: http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1005/11voyager2/

CSI Fingerprinting Advances

A typical fingerprint

I like TV shows such as CSI, Lie to Me, Criminal Minds, and Numb3rs, where science is used to get the bad guy.  But Nick Stokes & Dr. Ray Langston, Dr. Cal Lightman, Rossi & “Hotch”, and Don and his little brother Charlie are sometimes not able to get fingerprints due, even with the help of dusting or cyanoacrylate (SuperGlue fuming), because of porous surfaces, or some other complication that just gets in the way.  But now there is a new method to get around that.

Using something called “conformal coating”, CSIs will soon be able to retrieve fingerprints from their physical properties rather than from their chemistry left behind, making it a lot easier to identify who left the print.  In fact, some researchers even believe that even after the fingerprints are developed using the coating, forensics experts could still sample the fingerprint material to determine specifics about the person who left the prints.  Interesting.

Researchers, and soon CSIs, (will) use a form of physical vapor deposition, a method that uses a vacuum that allows vaporized materials to condense on a surface, creating a thin film. Normally, the deposition process requires exceptionally clean surfaces because any speck of dust or grease on the coated surface shows up as a deformity. However with fingerprints the point is to have the surface material’s ridges and valleys — topography — show up on the new surface so analysts can read them using an optical device without the necessity of chemical development or microscopy.  Cool, huh?  Another benefit of this approach is that fingerprints can be retrieved off fragments from incendiary or explosive devices and are still able to be analyzed for the chemicals used in the device.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100511102121.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29

Element 112 Discovered

A team of scientists in the German city, Darmstadt, led led by Sigurd Hofmann at the Helmholtz Center, first produced element 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 120 meter (394 foot) long particle accelerator to hit a lead target.  The lead and zinc nuclei were fused together for a fraction of a second to form the nucleus of the new element, also known as Ununbium, which is Latin for 112.  The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) confirmed the discovery of 112 and has asked for an official name.

Creating new elements helped researchers to understand how nuclear power plants and atomic bombs function.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE55A34V20090611?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews

(In)accurate Predictions

Weathermen say tomorrow will be sunny and beautiful in the mid 80′s.  No, wait.  Now they say it’ll be rainy all day, and in the 50′s.  Er, um…now they say there’s a 50% chance of rain and a 50% chance of sun, maybe.

Let’s move on to something else; one of my favorite topics: Astronomy (which, by the way, is not astrology).  Scientists say that Mercury might (or might not) collide with earth in one billion years.

I suggest we carefully consider the wisdom of listening to, and believing, those who routinely make inaccurate predictions regarding somewhat routine matters (i.e. the weather), and yet make outlandish predictions (i.e. global warming, planetary collisions, etc.)

Christianity, which is confirmed again and again by indisputable facts, makes predictions that should concern us all.  Even Jesus said to Nicodemus, “If you don’t believe Me when I tell you earthly things [testable with our scientific instruments], how will you believe Me when I tell you heavenly things?”  Jesus Christ is coming again, and we all need to be ready for His return.  That is a fact.

Source: Rush Limbaugh

Evolution is an Idea, like Gravity; and Nothing Really is Nothing

Amazing.  After about ten years of hearing from evolutionists that the universe is made up of mostly dark matter and dark energy, to cover up for their refusal to even consider the supernatural when it comes to trying to explain the structure and interaction of galaxies, religious philosophers who call themselves darwinian evolutionary scientists, are increasingly rejecting dark matter and dark energy, which have absolutely no evidence, but were invented to explain in more and more bizarre ways the behavior of the universe.  Now, interestingly, gravity is being reconsidered, after already having been modified three times for (1) velocities near the speed of light (Special Theory of Relativity), (2) objects near large masses with lots of gravity (General Relativity), and very, very small, yeah, verily, sub-atomic scales (Quantum Mechanics). Dark matter and dark energy don’t explain certain phenomena in the universe, and so the modification of Newton’s understanding of gravity is necessary according to some people.  So “Modified Newtonian Dynamics” (MOND) has been proposed.  I’ll be reporting on this new idea in the coming months, and get back to you.

US NIF laser Ready For Testing

 

 

Nif lasers will ignite a small hydrogen pellet

The world has been trying for almost 50 years to find clean, almost free energy, through nuclear fusion.  The U.S. National Ignition Facility in California is trying it out with the world’s most powerful collection of lasers, all 192 of them pointing inward toward a tiny pellet of a 150-microgram mix of deuterium and tritium, for 20 billionths (20/1,000,000,000) of a second, at about 500 trillion (500,000,000,000,000) watts, which is how much electricity is used by five trillion (5,000,000,000,000) 100-watt light bulbs.  100 million degrees Celsius is rerquired because the pressures here on earth are far lower than that of the core of the sun.

If scientists are successful, the hydrogen fuel wil be plentifully found in the earth’s oceans and lithium (unless politically correct extreme environmental groups forbid us from extracting the fuel, just as they won’t allow ‘unsightly’ wind mills to be built in California’s deserts, where no one but perceived-to-be-threatened turtles live).  But also, the science behind nuclear fusion might be wrong, since the core of the sun is the wrong size for nuclear fusion, but exactly the right size if the only source of power in the sun is gravitational collapse.  But since evolution is believed through blind faith, any evidence against evolution must be rejected by some.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7972865.stm

Orion Spacecraft Unveiled

 

 

Orion spacecraft unveiled to the public

The space shuttle is set for retirement next year.  AFter that, NASA plans to send astronauts in Orion to the International Space Station by 2015, the moon by 2015, and to Mars by the mid-2030s.  Orion is named after the bright constellation in honor of a mythological Greek hunter.  Although Orion is a lot smaller than the shuttle, and looks like the old 1960′s era Apollo spacecraft, it is larger (able to carry six astronauts rather than Apollo’s three) and safer.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE52T6XH20090330?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews

Evolution, Masquerading as Science, Desperately Tries To Exclusively Force Its Way Into Texas Schools

The debate continues between Evolutionism and Creation Science in Texas, where evolutionists are desperately trying to label Creation Science as “non-science” supposedly lacking in evidence, while labeling their faith based religious philosophy of evolution as “science”, even though evolution continues to have gaping holes and no scientific support.

Evolutionists also continue to act as if they won in the 1926 “Scopes Trial” (State versus Scopes, Scopes versus State) in Tennessee.  But they lost.  They also continue to fiercely resist not only Creations Science, but also Intelligent Design (ID).  ID is so obvious in the universe and biology, and is routinely used in forensics and other areas of science, but labeled religion when it is used in biology or cosmology, which shows the heavy bias of supposedly unbiased scientists, who actually are unscientific.

I pray for eyes to be opened, and eyes to see the simple and obvious truth that Creation Science is evidence based, and not a shot in the dark like Darwinian evolutionism is.