RT @MarylandMorning From this AM: The Maryland company that wants to jumpstart offshore wind power by laying an underwater transmission grid. http://ow.ly/2UhmU

Check out this How

Stuff Works article on history, health benefits and physiology of marathons. http://bit.ly/bnsoEI

RT @froylance Yikes! Astronomers @ the S. Pole discover largest galaxy cluster, w/ mass of 800 trillion suns, 7 bil light yrs away. http://bit.ly/a1ZX9o

Pics from last night’s exciting lecture & tour w/ Odyssey Marine Exploration Pres. Mark Gordon: http://on.fb.me/deptVp

RT @Discovery_News Science too good to be true: http://ow.ly/2U31P

Thursday

Walk the plank to a ghoulishly good time at our Halloween costume party, Spooky Science, 10/30: http://on.fb.me/9xrfZS

The inventor of the Super Soaker believes he holds the key to affordable solar power: http://bit.ly/apjwJ1 (from @TheAtlantic)

RT @PopSci Video: Japanese Fembot Learns to Sing By Mimicking Pop Stars http://bit.ly/bX8Rc4

RT @homeschoolMD Just noticed some Wed #homeschool workshops @MDScienceCenter full, but some good classes are still left. http://fb.me/zEFoXdeD

RT @chelandria Went to the @mdsciencecenter yesterday.. had a good time. loved petting the snake and watching niece/nephew lay on bed of nails.

Wednesday

RT @katekatebear @kira_in_africa is drying her hair in the hurricane simulator @mdsciencecenter http://twitpic.com/2xcmnh

Remember “habitable” planet Gliese 581g from a couple weeks ago? It might not exist: http://bit.ly/9G3KmP

Giraffe-sized, prehistoric pterosaurs might have been able to fly 10K miles nonstop! http://bit.ly/bWFun7

Tuesday

Some special visitARRHS had a jolly roger of a time at SHIPWRECK! Pirates & Treasure today: http://on.fb.me/9QigML

Watch the trailer for Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk, then see it in 3D in our IMAX. http://ow.ly/2Sotp

RT @froylance Toxic red sludge spill in Hungary is visible from space. Here’s a view from NASA’s Earth Observing (EO-1 satellite. http://bit.ly/bas5nN

RT @PopSci Giant Undersea Network Will Bring Offshore Wind Power to East Coast, With Google Investment http://bit.ly/b9xZXt

Monday

Virgin Galactic’s Private Spaceship Makes First Solo Glide Flight (@spacedotcom): http://bit.ly/b6kR1e

RT @subelsky Announcing the first Baltimore Hackathon: 11/19-11/21 Build. Meet People. Have fun! http://bhat1.eventbrite.com/

Format

Friday
RT @MarylandMorning From this AM: The Maryland company that wants to jumpstart offshore wind power by laying an underwater transmission grid. http://ow.ly/2UhmU
Check out this How Stuff Works article on history, health benefits and physiology of marathons. http://bit.ly/bnsoEI
RT @froylance Yikes! Astronomers @ the S. Pole discover largest galaxy cluster, w/ mass of 800 trillion suns, 7 bil light yrs away. http://bit.ly/a1ZX9o
Pics from last night’s exciting lecture & tour w/ Odyssey Marine Exploration Pres. Mark Gordon: http://on.fb.me/deptVp
RT @Discovery_News Science too good to be true: http://ow.ly/2U31P
Thursday
Walk the plank to a ghoulishly good time at our Halloween costume party, Spooky Science, 10/30: http://on.fb.me/9xrfZS
The inventor of the Super Soaker believes he holds the key to affordable solar power: http://bit.ly/apjwJ1 (from @TheAtlantic)
RT @PopSci Video: Japanese Fembot Learns to Sing By Mimicking Pop Stars http://bit.ly/bX8Rc4
RT @homeschoolMD Just noticed some Wed #homeschool workshops @MDScienceCenter full, but some good classes are still left. http://fb.me/zEFoXdeD
RT @chelandria Went to the @mdsciencecenter yesterday.. had a good time. loved petting the snake and watching niece/nephew lay on bed of nails.
Wednesday
RT @katekatebear @kira_in_africa is drying her hair in the hurricane simulator @mdsciencecenter http://twitpic.com/2xcmnh
Remember “habitable” planet Gliese 581g from a couple weeks ago? It might not exist: http://bit.ly/9G3KmP
Giraffe-sized, prehistoric pterosaurs might have been able to fly 10K miles nonstop! http://bit.ly/bWFun7
Tuesday
Some special visitARRHS had a jolly roger of a time at SHIPWRECK! Pirates & Treasure today: http://on.fb.me/9QigML
Watch the trailer for Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk, then see it in 3D in our IMAX. http://ow.ly/2Sotp
RT @froylance Toxic red sludge spill in Hungary is visible from space. Here’s a view from NASA’s Earth Observing (EO-1 satellite. http://bit.ly/bas5nN
RT @PopSci Giant Undersea Network Will Bring Offshore Wind Power to East Coast, With Google Investment http://bit.ly/b9xZXt
Monday
Virgin Galactic’s Private Spaceship Makes First Solo Glide Flight (@spacedotcom): http://bit.ly/b6kR1e
RT @subelsky Announcing the first Baltimore Hackathon: 11/19-11/21 Build. Meet People. Have fun! http://bhat1.eventbrite.com/
Path:

If you’re a Halo addict like me, you can’t help but spend the

couple minutes a day you AREN’T playing Halo wondering about alien civilizations: Would they be friendly? Would they engage us in an intergalactic war of Halo-esque proportions? Are they so far away that we could never hope to communicate with them?

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the first modern experiment in the search for extraterrestrial life. In September 1960, Cornell University Astronomer Frank Drake pointed a radio telescope at the stars and began searching for electromagnetic signals from distant civilizations. Later, Drake developed the Drake Equation , a formula for estimating the number of potential intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way and founded the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute

Over the last 60 years, SETI hasn’t heard from any civilizations, although the “WOW” signal remains of interest to those in the field. The signal was detected by Dr. Jerry R. Ehman in 1977, at Ohio State University’s The Big Ear radio telescope. For 72 seconds, the telescope observed a signal that had the hallmarks of being alien in origin. And then it was gone, never to be heard from again.

Ray Villard recently wrote an article for Discovery News about what the future may or may not hold for SETI. It’s definitely an intriguing read. Ray is a former planetarium director at the Maryland Science Center, astronomy professor, and current Public information Office at the Baltimore Space Telescope Science Institute.

Famed cosmologist and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking thinks alien life is likely, but in his recent Discovery Channel miniseries “Into the Universe” suggested Earth lay low . After all, who knows what contact with an alien civilization could mean for humanity? It could be messy.

Hawking’s opinion isn’t unanimous in the scientific community. In this video , Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium, questions Hawking’s conclusions.

Hopefully Hawking is being overly pessimistic. I mean, I’m pretty good at Halo, but I’d rather not fight an intergalactic war.

Our Spacelink Manager Amy Wood & Sr. Exhibit Specialist Manjit Goldberg at @ASTCCon 2010: http://twitpic.com/2vqi8g

They say the camera adds 10 pounds. But new software

can subtract them in post-production: http://bit.ly/c7ND3L

A Whale (and Dolphin) of a Show Light Up the Night Sky (from @spacedotcom) http://bit.ly/b8RcrH

Thursday

Pre-Exercise Stretching Is Killing Your Workout! (from @wiredplaybook) – http://bit.ly/d32bb9

Before there were #dinosaurs, there were dinosauromorphs. And their world was a grim one: http://bit.ly/cE407L

RT @NASAGoddard Gotta love liquid nitrogen. JWST cold temp survival skills explained by our own Dr. Amber Straughn on @myfoxdc http://bit.ly/bAQmTb

Wednesday

Great pics of some of the more than 200 new species recent discovered in Papua New Guinea: http://bit.ly/artcAX

Skywatching Tips: Observing Venus Without Staring at the Sun (from @spacedotcom) http://bit.ly/bXc42k

Tuesday

YARR! See SHIPWRECK!, then set sail w/ Urban Pirates for price that won’t shiver ye timbers: http://bit.ly/9sNr7m

FINALLY, the RatCar! A vehicle controlled by the brain signals of a rat. It’s about time: http://bit.ly/a8SfnL

Maria Dennis from @Mix1065FM just took a spin in the SHIPWRECK! hurricane simulator. Pics: http://bit.ly/dfQkWk

FAQ about the newly found, possibly habitable planet Gliese 581g: http://bit.ly/ahgmeV (@spacedotcom)

44 state hospitals have adopted @JohnsHopkins Dr. Peter Pronovost’s infection prevention program: http://bit.ly/cYyS2g

Monday

RT @froylance Fly with an unmanned NASA drone as it probes Hurricane Karl last month. Takeoff to landing in under 4 minutes. http://bit.ly/dbQbxx

RT @NatGeoChannel PREVIEW: The #crystal #caves are a beautiful mystery – but they can kill a human in 30 min. http://on.natgeo.com/deoo1o

Amazing footage of volcanologists at the remote Marum volcano in the South Pacific: http://bit.ly/cvUlp6

RT @Discovery_News Meet the man that’s sure there’s UFO life on the new ‘Earth’: http://ow.ly/2OiVv

RT @nytimesscience Rediscovering the First Miracle Drug http://nyti.ms/bfXOYO

RT @BBCEarthLifeIs To celebrate #WorldAnimalDay we’ll post facts about 10 animals whose qualities we admire each hr. RT us #animals #bbcearth #nature

RT @ NASA Today in 1957: Sputnik I was launched. Check out the feature we did for the 50th anniversary http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/SpaceAge

RT @NASA_Lunar Happy World Space Week everyone!

Congrats to Robert G. Edwards, winner of The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2010: http://bit.ly/d9SW4c

Dino-mite! RT @BaltimoreSun A 7-year-old uncovers the 1st jawbone from a meat-eating dinosaur ever found in Md. http://bit.ly/cytQHT

of them.

What’s going on?

This seems to be a “mast year” for acorns. Every four to seven years, oak trees produce more acorns than normal.

But why?

Acorns are the nut of white and red oak trees. There is a seed inside the hard shell of an acorn. They may be a nuisance to us but they are an important part of the ecosystem – they are eaten by the birds, squirrels and deer that we see in the Fall. (Acorns have lots of the protein, carbs and fat that the animals need now and throughout the winter.) And seeds develop into future generations of oak trees.

As you might expect, trees (like all living things) respond to their environment. And the acorn plopping is simply a response to our local trees’ environment. The wet Spring meant that trees “drank” a lot of water. Then we had our brutally hot summer. We didn’t, but the trees loved the heat and humidity – they produced bigger, fatter, and more acorns. But lately it’s been exceptionally dry. So in the absence of getting water from the rain, trees do what they need to do to make sure they have enough water to thrive and survive. As noted in this interesting paper by the University of Tennessee Extension, they “often abort acorns during periods of stress, thereby conserving resources such as water and nutrients.”

This article gives some explanations about mast years. Here’s a pretty complex but enlightening explanation of masting.

I think I will sleep easier tonight knowing that I may have my little annoyance on the roof is good for the furry creatures scampering through my neighborhood.

what we need… new bugs.

Stink bugs, or more scientifically, the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (Halyomorpha halys) come to us from Asia (probably in shipping containers) and are multiplying very rapidly throughout the mid-Atlantic. The bugs laid their eggs over the summer, and now that the weather is getting colder, they’re looking for a place to hang out. They creep inside our houses through any opening – window sills, cracks near doors and vents. The bugs like to eat fruits, vegetables, trees and shrubs, and are completely harmless to humans. They don’t bite or sting.

But they sure do smell! When they are crushed, the reek like smelly, sweaty feet. (The smell is a defense mechanism against birds and mammals.)

The Extension services of the state universities in Maryland and Pennsylvania have some good information about these pesky pests and the Washington Post and ABC News have good advice on how to get rid of them.

If There’s Life on Alien Planet Gliese 581g, How Do We Find It? (from @spacedotcom) http://bit.ly/diMM3t

RT @PopSci Archive Gallery: Experimental Medical Procedures From the Pages

of PopSci http://bit.ly/baQUiN

RT @BaltimoreMD Odyssey’s SHIPWRECK! Pirates & Treasure opens today at the @mdsciencecenter. I’mma check it out. http://bit.ly/bhJz1R

SHIPWRECK is open! “Part pirate fantasy, part high-tech odyssey”- @BaltimoreSun’s Chris Kaltenbach http://bit.ly/cA8iky

World Space Week starts Monday and we’re your headquarters for out of this world fun! http://bit.ly/cndJJy

Thursday

RT @froylance Astonishing! A family sends a weather balloon with an HD camera to the edge of space. http://bit.ly/b1Pi1A

Cool article from @Discovery_News on the reappearance of mammals once thought extinct: http://bit.ly/agoDl5

Wednesday

RT @Discovery_News BREAKING NEWS: WE MAY NOT BE THE ONLY LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE: http://ow.ly/2LXfU

Bad news: There’s a 50% chance that time will end within the next 3.7 billion years. http://bit.ly/bkz7Go

RT @EmmaHayden Just previewed SHIPWRECK! Pirates & Treasure here @MDScienceCenter! Tested out the hurricane tunnel! I was blown away! Get it! Get it?

The Pennant Race is here! 1 mistake can end your season! The science of choking under pressure: http://bit.ly/cLaKIH

Awesome diagram! Physiology and mechanics of the average phone call: http://bit.ly/9Soh6F

RT @JohnsHopkins NPR covers JHU in Afghanistan: training midwives to save mothers/babies. First JHU mention about 2 mins. into audio.) http://n.pr/a28kM3

Discovery_News Try on an #ironman exo-skeleton: http://ow.ly/2LDDS

Curator Ellen Gerth talks to @WJZNews’s Don & Marty inside our new SHIPWRECK! exhibition: http://twitpic.com/2t2zo8

Tuesday

Photographer from @BaltimoreSun getting pics for story on Shipwreck! – exhibit opens Friday! http://twitpic.com/2sto5r

Monday:

RT @baltimoresun Our power grid region used 203.7 million megawatt-hours this summer, enough electricity to run Mexico for a year. http://bit.ly/clo1th

Would you be willing to fly on a plane without a human pilot? The tech is almost here: http://bit.ly/bDIujr

Patients to be frozen into state of suspended animation for surgery (from @TelegraphUKNews) http://bit.ly/bUwv0d

The I-Team from @wbaltv11 is here shooting a promo! Lots of activity: http://twitpic.com/2sj81l

Did we ever think that would actually be good advice?

The talk of the town this summer has been bed bugs. We’ve heard the stories… people forced out of their homes because of infestation

s, others refusing to go to public places for fear of getting them, and public facilities closing while they eradicate the pesky creatures. Unfortunately, the stories are not urban myths. Bed bugs are back.

Here are some facts:

Bedbugs (the scientific name is Cimex lectularius) are tiny, reddish-brown wingless insects that feed (get ready for this…) on human blood. They are attracted to warm places and are most active at night, which is why they are so drawn to us as we lie sleeping in our nice warm beds. A bedbug pierces human skin with two hollow tubes – it injects its saliva into its victim with one tube and sucks a tiny bit of blood from the other.

The bite is painless. It often causes the victim’s skin to become irritated and inflamed, or to develop a small welt. And then there’s the itching, which can last from several hours to days. Scratching may cause the welts to become infected. Then, as if they haven’t done enough to upset us, they leave behind their “droppings” on our walls and furniture.

Bedbugs quickly spread from person to person and home to home in a number of ways: they cling to clothing or get carried into our homes on packages, furniture, or other items we bring in. They can easily move from one area to another, and are brought inside on pets or animals. Female bed bugs lay up to 12 eggs per day. The eggs are sticky so they attach to whatever they can grab, where they hatch in 6 to 17 days.

Bed bugs are not new. They have been detected in the US since colonial days. They haven’t been very prevalent since the 1940s when the use of insecticides and stronger household cleaning products increased. But…

They’re back. Entomologists (people who study insects) think that the re-emergence is due to Americans’ increasing travel to less developed foreign countries, where there pest control chemicals aren’t used.

Here are a couple of interesting pages that further explain bed bugs and offer some suggestions for how to get rid of them:

Bed Bugs (Ohio State University)

Bed Bugs: Biology and Control (North Carolina State)

The Return of Bed Bugs: Smart Ones (Weird Science)

Bed Bugs 101 (CornellCast)

Atomic clocks prove you age faster at h

igher altitudes, even couple of steps higher on staircase! http://bit.ly/9e8Nxp

Thursday

“New Horned Dinosaurs From America’s Lost Continent” @laelaps’s Dino Tracking blog has details http://bit.ly/bs1TlV

Yeah science! We’re one of top 3 in both Best Places to Take Kids & Best Non-Art Museum in @city_paper’s Readers Poll

Author says Titanic sinking caused by steering error due to differing sailing/steamship commands: http://bit.ly/c072ny

Awesome video of @NASA’s new, plutonium-powered Mars rover, Curiosity, scheduled for 2011 launch http://bit.ly/aVgJyV

Wednesday

Maybe it should have stayed extinct? Horror fly returns from the dead: http://bit.ly/d3Oqjv

After two decades of R&D, genetically modified salmon might be heading towards our plates: http://bit.ly/cCFSqo

Watch the trailer for Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk, then see it in 3D in our IMAX. http://ow.ly/2IeRf

RT @GuyKawasaki For ‘Avatar’ sequel, Cameron dives to deepest point in ocean http://tinyurl.com/25qst7t

Saber-toothed cat ancestor & bear-sized ground sloth among fossils found at LA construction site http://lat.ms/aqNt0W

Turns out, Omaniundu Reed Frog, Cave Splayfoot Salamander & Mount Nimba Reed Frog are NOT extinct http://bit.ly/b8Af8P

Tuesday

Live from the NW Territories: Northern lights live! Canadian Space Agency’s new AuroraMAX stream: http://bit.ly/bathzF

Thinking about sticking your hand into the Large Hadron Collider? Watch this video first: http://bit.ly/adPJba

RT @froylance Toured Maryland’s new Forensic Medical Center t’day. State-of-the-art. Marylanders could not wish for a better place to be autopsied.

RT @chesbayprogram RT @USGovNews: NOAA Project to Investigate Impacts of Shallow Water Hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay http://bit.ly/bTzcv5

Skywatchers: Your schedule is packed! The fun starts tonight at 8 - http://bit.ly/aGLtUQ

RT @FrankSummers Jupiter at opposition tonight, closest since 1963 http://bit.ly/d1dGqJ

Monday

New @BoeingAirplanes spy plane will fly for 5 years straight: http://bit.ly/dkpUit

Imagining the future of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence: http://bit.ly/ahcLmQ

osing its will” on the opposition.

Well, I know what the football gurus are talking about but it seems rather goofy to say it that way. Every play of every game is physical! Or should I say involves physics: The trajectory of the ball, the speed and acceleration of the players, the leverage of blockers, the force of a linebacker on a ball carrier and then, the ball carrier on the ground. And the science of football goes FAR beyond physics. There’s physiology, weather, statistics and all the cutting-edge technology required to bring the game from the stadium into your living room.

NBC, in cooperation with the NFL and the National Science Foundation, is currently producing a series of videos “The Science of NFL Football.” Four episodes are already online, covering the nutrition required for such strenuous activity, projectile motion of punts, vectors of passes and the kinematics of running backs’ evasive moves.

Another great resource for cool videos about football science is ESPN’s Sport Science. While Sport Science covers all sports, it’s focusing a lot on football lately. I think the best feature of the series is that Sport Science invites star athletes to its lab to get exact measurements on their speed and power. Some of the numbers will floor you! You definitely will want to see their video of Ray Lewis crashing through a door with 1,000 lbs of force.

Scientific American has a great archive of football-related science articles, with information on how randomized play calling keeps defenses off balance, the medical explanation of turf toe, the consistency and performance of grass vs. turf fields, and the technology that allows for the first down marker to be represented by a yellow line on your TV screen.

Preventing and treating concussions is now a top priority for football leagues of all levels. The long-term damage that results from repeated concussions and returning to action too soon after a concussion has been made evident by recent medical studies of retired football players. ESPN Page 2’s Gregg Easterbrook, who writes the Tuesday Morning Quarterback, spends a large part of this week’s column talking talking about the latest concussion science and football’s response. While it may be a bit upsetting, it’s a must-read for all sports fans.

Here’s hoping for a great 22 weeks of safe, live science demonstrations by the NFL.

T. Rex Renaissance: Big Decade For Dino Research: http://n.pr/974EEj (from @NPRnews)

Tomorrow is International Observe the Moon Night! Info: buy cialis online

>http://observethemoonnight.org/

Thursday

Newly discovered spider in Madagascar spins a 25 meter web. http://bbc.in/cem82b

RT @WiredAutopia Ultra-aerodynamic Auto X Prize winner weighs 830 lbs, gets 102..5 mpg http://bit.ly/cMvVPK

Wednesday

RT @PopSci Giving Traffic Lights a Mind of Their Own Can Reduce Congestion http://bit.ly/dpBth6

RT @Froylance Cool nights mean stink bugs will B moving indoors. Md. reports “extraordinarily high populations” are damaging crops: http://bit.ly/884NED

Connected & contagious: Popular people get flu first – http://bit.ly/diPcp9

Shoot-’em-up video games improve ability to translate sensory info into accurate decisions: http://bit.ly/csQ2wc

Self-taught rocketeer’s backyard is Jetson-like reality: http://bit.ly/dobyKH

RT @Discovery_News Why is yawning contagious? http://ow.ly/2ED8Q

RT @PopSci In Sweet Breakthrough, Scientists Led By Makers of M&Ms Sequence the Chocolate Genome http://bit.ly/cUTBcR

Elusive Mercury Visible at Dawn This Week: http://bit.ly/bStPwT (from @spacedotcom)

Tuesday

Elusive Mercury Visible at Dawn This Week: http://bit.ly/bStPwT (from @spacedotcom)

RT @Froylance Great rundown for stargazers on Sept’s close encounter with planet Jupiter. Best from 1963-2022. From Sky & Telescope: http://bit.ly/9rC4K3

Video on @NationalZoo’s plan to breed the 5 ft long (!) Japanese Giant Salamander: http://bit.ly/cMwnyr

RT @Discovery_News #Photo: Two hurricanes at once: http://ow.ly/2E7Ob

Cool @spacedotcom article on new launch system proposals by @NASA engineers: http://bit.ly/dhcc8K

Monday

Without cigarettes to mask offending smells, Oktoberfest turning to bacteria eat up nasty odors: http://bit.ly/aaNopW