Recent quotes:
Lost in space
In the darkness, I get turned around and upside down. I can see only what’s immediately in front of my face, like a scuba diver in murky waters, and it’s completely disorienting. Everything looks unfamiliar in the dark. I start to head in a direction I think is the right one, then realize it’s wrong, but I can’t tell whether I’m upside down or right side up. I read some mile markers—numbers attached to the handrails—to Megan [in Mission Control], hoping she can help tell me where I am. “It looks much different in the dark,” I tell Megan. “Roger that,” she says. “Did I not go far enough aft?” I ask. “Let me go back to my safety tether.” I figure once I find the place where my tether is attached I’ll be able to get my bearings. “We’re working on cuing up the sun for you,” Megan jokes, “but it’s going to be another five minutes.” I look in the direction I think is Earth, hoping to catch a glimpse of some city lights 250 miles below in the darkness to get my bearings.If I just knew which way Earth is, I could figure out where I am on the truss. When I look around, all I see is black.Physicists Detect Gravitational Waves, Proving Einstein Right - The New York Times
If replicated by future experiments, that simple chirp, which rose to the note of middle C before abruptly stopping, seems destined to take its place among the great sound bites of science, ranking with Alexander Graham Bell’s “Mr. Watson — come here” and Sputnik’s first beeps from orbit.Brain has internal ‘odometer’ and ‘stopwatch’
To prove the contrary, researchers put rats on treadmills and recorded the activity of grid cells, keeping either distance or duration of running unchanged, and only varying the speed. As a result, 92% of grid cells in rats emitted signals at specific moments: for instance, one cell would fire 8 seconds into the run, not taking into account speed or distance covered, and another cell would emit a signal every 400 cm, not depending on speed or duration of the run. 50 percent of the cells were affected by distance, another half by time, and around 40 percent by both factors. "Space and time are ever-present dimensions by which events can be organized in memory," senior study author Howard Eichenbaum, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Boston University, said in the official press release.Landing on a Comet, 317 Million Miles From Home
Our guide explained that the horses, despite being extraordinarily intelligent beings, had a hard time making sense of seeing their friends appear out of nowhere, then disappear into the distance. Falling out of sight held the terror of being forever lost. My horse was calling out, making sure his friend was still there – that neither was lost. Underneath the geographic disorientation, one can imagine, lies a primal fear of losing control.
"We've taken pictures of both the doughnut and jelly parts, and
the got the first data on the composition of the jelly
yesterday.
"It's like nothing we've ever seen before," he said. "It's very
high in sulphur, it's very high in magnesium, it's got twice as
much manganese as we've ever seen in anything on Mars.
"I don't know what any of this means. We're completely confused,
and everyone in the team is arguing and fighting (over what it
means).