Simulated mission to Mars

A week ago, ESA initiated a call for applicants to participate in a simulated round-trip mission to the Red Planet, which will involve being inside a sealed facility for more than 500 days performing what I presume are relatively uncreative tasks that require plenty of concentration. Some further descriptive content has appeared on their website [...]

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Spreading wings

A quick post to celebrate Duncan’s forging outward: his new blog is Well-bred Insolence, covering extrasolar planets, astrobiology and I expect some politics too, because frankly you can’t keep the Scots out of it. The amusing byline is ‘Forming Planets… and Opinions,’ and the blog is sure to attract a good readership before long—so get [...]

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Against impact

Because I spend insufficiently little time feeling as though I’m still an undergraduate, may I politely agitate for others to follow the advice of Chris Bertram:

Those of you working in higher education in the UK already know about the barbarous proposal to make future support for research depend on a government assessment of its “impact” [...]

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Smartphones: The Smart Option?

I must admit that smartphones have impacted my consciousness quite severely in the last few weeks.  Things came to a head when a friend shared the link to this wonderful new phone on Facebook…check it out before the jump…

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