“It was in the White House screening room and Reagan got up to thank me for bringing the film to show the President, the First Lady and all of their guests, which included Sandra Day O’Connor in her first week of as a Justice of the Supreme Court, and it included some astronauts… I think […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
Ground Control to Mr. Meline
When a beloved teacher is killed, his students figure out a way to pay tribute to him by sending him into space. A story of loss, mental illness, and an inspiring educator: “For as long as Nae’Ana Aguon could remember, she wanted Mr. Meline as a teacher. Her older brother had been in Mr. Meline’s […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
All You Have Eaten: On Keeping a Perfect Record
An experiment in food as a mnemonic device.
Posted inUncategorized
“As an astronaut, especially during launch, half of the risk of a six-month flight is in the first nine minutes. So as a crew, how do you stay focused, and how do you not get paralyzed by the fear of it? “And the way we do it is to break down what are the risks. […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Medical Research: Cell Division
Fifty years ago, a microbiologist named Leonard Hayflick developed a strain of cells named WI-38 from the lungs of an aborted fetus. The strain of cells have been used to produce life-savings vaccines worldwide, but have also had a history riddled with controversy: “The cells have played ‘a very critical role in studying cellular senescence,’ […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Who Killed The Deep Space Climate Observatory? (2011)
NASA built a satellite designed to track global warming. It never launched, and more than a decade later, it sits in a box in Maryland: “It has never become entirely clear why the satellite had ended up here. In his 2009 book Our Choice, Gore wrote, ‘The Bush Cheney administration canceled the launch within days […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Welcome to the Real Space Age
Despite fears that NASA and the United States have given up on space exploration, the focus has simply shifted to private companies like Virgin and SpaceX, which are preparing for commercial space travel: “This was the International Symposium for Personal and Commerical Spaceflight. It had been co-founded eight years earlier by a New Mexico State […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Whoa, Dude, Are We Inside a Computer Right Now?
Meet a NASA scientist who suggests the possibility that we’re all living inside a video game: “Two years ago, Rich Terrile appeared on Through the Wormhole, the Science Channel’s show about the mysteries of life and the universe. He was invited onto the program to discuss the theory that the human experience can be boiled […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Well-Hung Boy Next Door
Men rarely become porn stars, but James Deen has found a large following simply by being “average”: “James Deen, whose real name is Bryan Sevilla, grew up in Pasadena, California. His parents are both, after a fashion, rocket scientists. His father is a mechanical engineer for NASA. His mother does data analysis for the space […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Scientist in a Strange Land
[Not single-page] The research, financed mostly by NASA and published initially in the online edition of Science, jolted the scientific community. If confirmed, scientists said, the discovery would mean that this high mountain lake hosts a form of life distinct from all others known on Earth. It would open up the possibility of a shadow […]
