Author Archives: Dylan

I can’t figure this out. With crude oil prices almost at a record-high $50/barrel, you’d think gasoline prices would be shooting up, too. But they’re not. In fact, the price of gasoline remains at historically low levels, when adjusted for … Continue reading →

The molecules making up microtubules, the protein filaments that form the internal “scaffolding” of your body’s cells, are replaced every 10 minutes. Actin filaments in the dendrites of your neurons are recycled even quicker: every 40 seconds. In fact, the … Continue reading →

I have to admit I’m insanely jealous: The multitalented Xeni Jardin will be flying on one of Zero-G’s first commercial zero-gravity air flights, 32,000 feet up. NASA has used parabolic flight trajectories to train astronauts in weightlessness for years. Now, … Continue reading →

Police in Paris discovered a fully equipped movie theater in a large and previously uncharted part of Les Catacombes, underneath the 16th arondissement. A smaller cave next door had been turned into a restaurant and bar. When police returned a … Continue reading →

Want to know what happened on a particular day in history? dMarie’s Time Capsuler will tell you: Just enter a date and it gives you the top headlines, songs, and more. Very fun!

This BusinessWeek interview with Linus Torvalds contains a very interesting point: Torvalds compares the open-source way of developing software to the scientific method. Programmers put ideas forward; they’re critiqued publicly; and, if they stand up to scrutiny and to repeated … Continue reading →

“Oedipus, as you know, was the tragic king who killed his father, then married his mother — a sequence of events that seldom turns out well.” -Bob Costas, commenting on the 2004 Athens Olympics opening ceremony

NASA Technology Transfer Bulletin #A101-753B explains it all for you.

I just had a short article about the upcoming Perseid meteor shower published in the San Francisco Chronicle. This was a fun piece to do–I got to talk with NASA scientists, enthusiastic amateur astronomers, and even dropped in on a … Continue reading →

Good advice on how to be creative: “If I was just starting out writing, say, a novel or a screenplay, or maybe starting up a new software company, I wouldn’t try to quit my job for a year and make … Continue reading →