Tag: science

  • Onwards and Upwards

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Yesterday SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy rocket on its maiden voyage, and then recaptured several, though not all, of its reusable rockets. The Falcon Heavy represents the most powerful rocket available to mankind today, though NASA’s Saturn V of the Apollo programme era was considerably more powerful. That was all the stuff you could read…

  • All Your Base Are Belong to Internets

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Over the weekend news broke that since November, plans for military bases around the world were available to anyone and everyone on the internets. How? Why? Well, it turns out that soldiers using wearable tech to track their rides or cycling routes had forgotten to disable that feature whilst on military installations. And so when…

  • Earthquake Early Warning

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last month, two massive earthquakes devastated Mexico. Now, if you were like me, you were captivated by the photos and videos of the quakes striking and tearing down buildings and infrastructure. But, think about it for a second, how did people know to take out their mobiles and record the tremors for posterity’s sake? Well,…

  • How Big Was Irma?

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Like many Americans I followed the story of Hurricane Irma over the weekend. One of my favourite pieces of reporting was this article from the Washington Post. It did a really nice job of visually comparing Irma to some recent and more historic storms, such as 1992’s Hurricane Andrew. It can be difficult to truly…

  • The Timeline of the Voyager Mission

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    There are a bunch of things to look at this week, but what am I most excited about? Voyager. No, not Star Trek. (Did you know that the Vger entity from the first Star Trek film was a replica of the Voyager probes?) I am of course talking about the Voyager mission to the outer…

  • Plotting Cries for Help

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    So I thought I would be done with Harvey coverage, but this morning I saw this map from the New York Times that plotted out requests for aid throughout the storm. You can really see the storm’s movement through the impacts upon the people. It’s especially true later in the timeline as the storm moved…

  • Harvey’s Rainfall Part Two

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Let’s consider today a follow-up to yesterday’s piece. (No, I do not believe I have ever done a follow-up piece, but why not start now all these years later.) Yesterday we looked at the Post, Journal, and Times for their coverage of the fallen rain amounts in southeast Texas. But at the time, we only…

  • The Solar Eclipse as Seen from Philly

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    As my last two posts pointed out, yesterday was the Solar Eclipse. It certainly garnered media attention as a news helicopter hovered over my building during the height of the eclipse. Very peaceful indeed. But, knowing that my smartphone would not be able to take the best photos of the eclipse, even with a solar filter,…

  • Solar Eclipse Day

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today is Solar Eclipse Day. Thankfully Vox has put together a great interactive piece to help you plan your day. This is for my viewing area in Philadelphia. We only max out at 75% of the sun, but that is still pretty fantastic. Credit for the piece goes to Casey Miller, Ryan Mark, and Brian…

  • The New Dinosaur Family Tree

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today’s post is not a particular great graphic in that it is far from revolutionary. Instead, you could say it far more evolutionary. A new finding by Matthew Baron posits a rather unusual dinosaur named Chilesaurus, discovered in Chile as its name suggests, is actually a cousin to both the tyrannosaurs and raptors as well as…