TB Science Corner

via the Big Picture blog's Saturn: That Ringed Bitch series.

Because I'm tired of cataloging the ways in which our society moves backwards.

Third time’s a charm, Congress passes science act
Ho ho, finally Democrats figured out a way so that Congress could vote on a bill that creates growth, creates jobs, and provides much needed funding to science and technology, but also not prove they're all sex obsessed fiends who love government employees looking at porn. Because when it comes down to voting for scientific advancement in this country or voting against scientific advancement because some cheap procedural trick made you susceptible to "pro-porn" attack ads, our elected betters will always choose to hamper our future. At least they found a way around it... this time.

BP OK's test of Costner's oil-cleaning device
Yes, the celebrities will finally be allowed to save us. Costner's machine, which separates 97% of oil from water and can do 210,000 gallons of water a day, will be allowed to be tested in the Gulf. I think this marks the first cleanup attempt that will not involve spraying the most harmful chemicals, or improperly setting up booms, or pumping mud, trash, and golf balls into the sea in order to slow the oil. If you're counting at home, that makes it one outside idea that's being listened to. And why not, it looks like BP has a handle on this whole thing.

Hubble Watches as Star Slowly Devours Planet
And you thought the Hubble was just for science. No, it's for perversely watching the death of planets many, many light years away. In this case a sun slowly devouring a planet over 10 million years. Of course we won't get 10 million years of "Ahh, ahhh, we put our tip in the sun again", it'll just a few seconds of "Hey.... did the sun just get fifty billion times larger and start expanding this way at a rapid rate? No, I'm not fucking around." and then we'll be immediately incinerated. That is if our society can last for another couple billion years. It's not looking good. One century at a time, civilization, one century at a time.

What is the Air Force doing with space?
Without even reading the article, I'm going to guess... militarize it. Yup, *pumps fist* I was right. But the Bad Astronomy blog looks into the Air Force and the mysterious Mach 6 hitting X-51A and the even more mysterious X-37 B "Flying Twinkie". At least one of the sectors of government is committed to making the ship technology of Battlestar Galactica a reality.

Quantum teleportation achieved over 16 km
Good news if you're a photon and you need to get information to another photon 16km away. You can now teleport it instead of calling or e-mailing it. I going to take a wild stab at this and say we're literally a few weeks away from Verizon and Comcast handing out Quantum Entangled Particle cards for our cell phones and internet connections so we can text and download porn instantaneously.The future is here, people.