The South China Morning Post reports, on January 12, 2022, that “China has built an artificial moon that simulates low-gravity conditions on Earth“. The report begins: China has built a research facility that simulates the low-gravity environment on the moon – and it was inspired by experiments using magnets to levitate a frog. Further details: […]
On a broad, bright, moonlit* night would you expect outdoor crime rates to be higher or lower than on an overcast night with little or no moonlight? Numerous investigations have shown that, as a general rule, increasing environmental light levels can lead to a decrease in outdoor crime rates. By extension then, one might think […]
History has shown* that astronauts, or more accurately lunarnauts, often like to skip about when they’re on the Moon. But, fun though it might seem, is skipping (in reduced gravity situations) an efficient way to get around? Research teams from the Laboratory of Physiomechanics of Locomotion, Department of Pathophysiology and Transplantation, University of Milan, Italy, […]
“In due course we may see the presence of thousands of human beings in Space. What copyright law will they take with them, and how will it be exercised and administered?” – asks extraterrestrial copyright specialist Adrian Sterling, who is a Professorial Fellow at Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute, University of London. “It appears […]
The team that won an Ig Nobel Prize for discovering how dung beetles relate to the Milky Way has now, plus or minus some colleagues, discovered how the those beetles and their cousins relate, also, to the sun. They tell about it in a new study: “Neural coding underlying the cue preference for celestial orientation,” Basil el […]
Edward Schreiber and Orson Anderson once tested whether the Moon really could be made of green cheese. Caltech planetary scientist David Stephenson discussed that achievement, in Box 1 of his article in Physics Today in November 2014. In their 1970 article in the journal Science, Schreiber and Anderson compared the speeds of sound waves in rocks that were […]
It would be even better on the moon. Yes, here on earth you can run atop a pool of water-mixed-with-cornstarch, as people are doing in this video: But you could also run atop a pool of pure water—if you and that water were somewhere that has weaker gravity. The moon is one such place. An […]
Joel Ivy collected and edited this video compendium of astronauts on the moon, falling and getting up. Or so says the info on YouTube. (HT Lisa Yoo)
Investigator Dan Heck summarizes a new study. Heck says: “Moon dust, or above ground dirt, is apparently as toxic as regular ground dirt, but not ground dirt, which is about as toxic as unground dirt.” The study is: “Estimate of safe human exposure levels for lunar dust based on comparative benchmark dose modeling,” John T. […]
In the history of astronomy, there were many dreams about what humans would find if and when they reached the surface of the moon. One such dream is conveyed in the 1961 movie “Nude on the Moon“. (Thanks to investigator Stevyn Colgan for bringing it to our attention.) Click on the image to be shot […]