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I know this has nothing to do with space exploration, but my Dad posted a video of his trip up and down the spiral staircase he built around the outside of a tree on his property (I grew on up Hornby Island, BC). The staircase has 99 stairs and goes up for about 75 feet (25 meters). He's built a platform at the top where you can sit and see mountains and the ocean. And I spend my summer visits pulling the kids off the thing. Here's a link to Dad's blog (he's a photographer, by trade, so I have a well documented childhood).

P.S. Oh, and Dad made it clear that the bird's nest was old and empty.

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Sure, I love the Mars Global Surveyor, who doesn't? But Universe Today minstrel Nancy Atkinson has put her heartfelt feelings to song in today's episode of 365 Days of Astronomy podcast. Seriously, Nancy wrote a song, and performed it for the podcast. Of course, this is the second time Nancy has performed a song for the podcast. Her first was an ode to the International Space Station. Thanks Nancy… you rock!

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Universe Today has a new position open for a researcher, and we were wondering if anyone out there on the Internets is interested in applying.

We're looking for a researcher who can help support the blogging team to find space and astronomy news stories and aggregate them together. This means tracking thousands of RSS feeds, watching twitter feeds until your eyes bleed, and lurking through many many discussion forums. You'll cosy up to NASA press officers and university researchers, deriving hidden meaning from their slightest innuendo. And then, like a mighty hunter, you'll return to Universe Today HQ with a bag filled with breaking space news to keep the bloggers busy.

Are you the right person for the job? Ask yourself:

• Do you love space and astronomy?
• Do you love to make lists? Do you have lists of your lists?
• Do you have a burning need to know everything? Does it annoy you that somebody out there might know something that you don't?
• Do you have a strong opinion of what's interesting, and what's boring. What's cool and what's lame?
• Are your friends tired of you telling them cool stuff you've found out? (we'll never tire of it)
• Do you already have a fully stuffed RSS reader pulling in stories from all directions like a hungry black hole?

I'm thinking that this'll be a part-time job – 20 hours/week? And you'll be able to work from the comfort of your own home – in any country. Oh, and it doesn't pay very well. But it does pay.

So, if that's you, send in an email to info@universetoday.com and tell me your story.

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I just got an email out of the blue from former CNN anchor Miles O'Brien letting me know about a recent blog post at True/Slant about the recent repair of the Hubble Space Telescope. It's a great article, go read it and then dig back through the archives. I think the first article is here.

When I first got the email, I was a little puzzled about why it was coming from regular Miles O'Brien, and not CNN anchor O'Brien, so I did a little digging and it turns out CNN started dismantling their science and technology division earlier this year. Yes, I'm completely out of touch with current events, and possibly even reality.

Are they insane? Universe Today has been growing in leaps and bounds, to the point that I've got several writers working with me to feed your voracious appetite for space news. And as science progresses at an exponentially faster rate, people will need better and better coverage to comprehend the complicated implications of scientific discovery. I can guarantee that the demand is there, we just need people who can explain it better, and stand up for the science.

Science and technology is doing just fine thank you very much. Feel free to leave the field CNN, I'm happy to fill the void.

Anyway, if you want to catch up with Miles O'Brien, he's got his blogging gig over at True/Slant and he's doing a weekly video cast for Boing Boing called This Week in Space.

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You might have heard through the celestial grape vine that Universe Today correspondent Ian O'Neill has been tagged to lead the space news team over at the Discovery Channel's space blog network. So if you're wondering why there aren't many O'Neill articles over here, or at his own website Astroengine.com, that's because he writing (and editing) his big heart over at Discovery.com: Space Disco. The previous producer, Dave Mosher has moved on to manage the web development for a non-profit foundation.

A big thanks to Ian for all his dedicated work on Universe Today and I really hope everything goes well with his work over at the Discovery Channel.

Ian has promised he'll still be contributing the occasional article for Universe Today. And if he's too busy for that, we'll still be linking to his coverage when we can.

So congrats Ian!

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I'm sure you all knew this was coming. I enabled comments on Universe Today about 6 months ago, and it was great to have everyone's feedback. But now people are abusing the system, being rude to each other and advertising their personal theories, so it's time to crack down. I'm going to implement some new policies that should keep things cleaner. This is a shortened version, inspired by the powerful (but fair) rules over at the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today forum.

The writers and I will be deleting any posts that break the following rules:

• Be nice – Don't abuse other readers, the writers, or the Universe in general. Don't swear, make racist or sexist comments, etc. I think you know when you're being rude. Stop it.
• Be brief – Don't write a long rambling comment that's longer than the original article.
• Don't advertise – Don't use the site to promote your product, service, or your own website. If you'd like to promote your stuff, buy advertising.
• Don't promote your personal, alternative physics theories – This is the same as advertising. You've got an idea and you want the world to know about it, then start up your own website, and blog away, but don't do it here.

I'm also going to make commenters register with the website shortly, so you have to create an account to be able to comment.

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Hey everyone, I've noticed there's a Twitterstorm going on out there over the kinds of ads showing up on Universe Today. You know the ones for 2012, and strange theories about how Einstein was wrong. These are the contextual ads provided by Google Adsense, and without them, Universe Today would be a shadow of its former self.

Tim Farley over at Skeptical Software Tools wrote a reasoned response to the controversy of allowing woowoo ads on a scientific site, and it pretty much matches my point of view. But I chimed in on the comments of his site with a more detailed response. Here's what I had to say:

Thanks Tim, I appreciate the reasoned response to the situation. What you’ve described is essentially my position on the matter. Google Adsense is the only advertiser out there that will actually pay the bills, so I can pay the writers, server costs, etc. Without the money from Adsense, Universe Today would be a shadow of its current self. I’d layoff the writers, move the site to a $10/month host, and go get a real job.

And don’t think that I haven’t tried to bring in real advertisers. I’ve started up advertising networks, cold-called every telescope manufacturer, and begged my readers to help find sponsors for Universe Today – and that was met with silence. I know that it’s just a matter of time before lots of advertising moves online, but until then what do people suggest we do?

So for now, it’s Adsense. Big, bold Adsense ads that take up a tiny fraction of the site’s total real estate. Compare that to a newspaper or magazine and you’ll see that UT has less advertising.

The big complaint, obviously, is that there are 2012 and woowoo ads selling all kinds of nutty theories. But those ads paid for a multi-part series of articles that debunked every aspect of the 2012 silliness. Those ads keep the BAUT forum going. And they’re not the only ads on the site, there are also ads for telescopes, trips to the Kennedy Space Center and other space-related stuff.

So why don’t I filter out the woowoo ads? I tried that. Within a day or so, I filled up my filter list completely and it was just a fraction of the ads out there. And there’s no way I can see them all. And if you filter some, it just lets others float to the top.

We’re at an uncomfortable time in the world economy, with massive advertising resources shifting from the old media publishers to the new online world. Universe Today and the other space media sites are perfectly positioned to reap the rewards when the shift is actually finished. And when it does, we’ll have lots of very appropriate advertisers, spending the kind of money required to keep these kinds of sites going. It’ll be awesome, and there’ll be ice cream for everyone.

But until then, we have to do what we can to survive. I’m grateful that I can pay salaries to 6 full and part time writers and still feed my children. And the woowoos are contributing to that. I think it’s a hilarious transfer of wealth, honestly.

Universe Today is financially stable and growing nicely. As it grows, I can bring on more writers and provide better coverage. The site is almost completely immune the current troubles in the world economy. (I’ve worked in my basement developing Universe Today in my spare time before and I can do it again)

If you don’t like ads, I suggest you install Adblock for Firefox. Zip done, never see an ad again. And the when the future has arrived, I’ll let you know.

But if you want to complain about Universe Today, I beg you to complain about the content, tone and coverage of the articles and our respect for science and skepticism. Don’t worry about the ads, they’ll get sorted out soon enough.

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

So there you go.

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Hey everyone, I just wanted to inform you of a little anniversary. I started up Universe Today exactly 10 years ago today, on March 23rd, 1999. Since very few of you know the actual story of Universe Today, I thought I'd regale you with it on this 10-year anniversary.

I was living in Vancouver at the time, working as a project manager in an Internet company. We were helping clients develop websites, but I felt that I didn't have enough personal experience developing and maintaining a website to really give good advice. I was thinking I should run a website on the side about a topic I was passionate about… but what subject?
Read more…

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Naming Pluto explores the chain of events that lead to Pluto's naming and in 2007 sees Venetia Phair viewing Pluto for the very first time through a telescope, on her 89th birthday, 77 years after Pluto's discovery. A wonderful, intimate look into the story behind how Pluto got its name. A review of the short film directed and produced by Ginita Jimenez, distributed by Father Films.

In recent years, Pluto has seen its status change from being a planet to what many people view as a planetary underclass. The reasons behind this have been set out by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to cater for the increasing number of Solar System bodies being discovered; the traditional nine planets have had to make room for a growing minor planet population. Unfortunately, Pluto was at the front line as it inhabits a region of space dominated by the gas giant Neptune, plus thousands of other Kuiper belt objects. Although the mysterious body lost its planetary status (as it does not have the ability to "clear its own orbit"), it has taken the title of "dwarf planet" and now has an entire class of object named in its honour: "Plutoids".

However, the recent tumultuous history of the traditional "9th planet" has not impacted the fascination we have for Pluto. It has, and always will be, viewed with intrigue and wonder.

The key to Pluto's romantic tale begins in the year 1930 when a mysterious heavenly was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh, a 23 year-old astronomer working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. However, the honour of naming Pluto didn't rest on Tombaugh's shoulders. Over 5000 miles away in Oxford (UK) an 11 year old girl was having breakfast with her grandfather, wondering what this newly discovered planet should be called…
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Nothing works better than repetition. 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy! We've said it more than a few times before, and you'll read a lot of coverage over the next year here on Universe Today. But last night we got to officially kick things off and celebrate the beginning of IYA 2009 events in the US.
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If you live near Long Beach or are there for the American Astronomical Society meeting, meet Fraser, Ian and the Astronomy Cast LIVE team at a "Blogger Meet-up" on Wed. January 7 at the Rock Bottom Brewery from 6pm – 9pm. The team hopes you can make it! (Have a tall cold one for me, OK?!)

And here's the schedule for today's press conferences, which will be streamed LIVE at Astronomy Cast LIVE's UStream Channel: (all times Pacific Standard Time)

9:30 am: Black Holes
11:00 am: Ballistic Stellar Interlopers
12:30 pm: Extragalactic Background

Check it out!

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After a day of crazy traveling through a Vancouver blizzard I'm now having my first full day down at the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Long Beach, California. As you've probably read, Ian's here with me and Nancy's supporting us back at Atkinson HQ.

My last AAS meeting was a year ago. It was fun but a really frustrating experience. I spent the whole conference sitting in the press room, pounding out stories based on press releases released at the conference. I was writing 10-12 stories a day, but there was a terrible irony. I was doing work I could have done from home, without even attending the convention. In fact, I got so busy working on articles that I didn't even bother going to the press conferences at all. And the whole point of attending a convention like this is to meet with people, to find the news that you just can't find anywhere else.
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The nominations are in, the votes have been counted and the Universe Today writers have been consulted; the Top 10 Scientific Endeavours of 2008 are decided! After much consideration by the readers of the Universe Today, it became quickly apparent what the popular choice would be, and some of the Top 10 may not come as a surprise. However, there are some nominations we weren't expecting, and certainly cannot be found on any other "Top 10" list. Therefore, I believe the Universe Today's Top 10 Scientific Endeavours of 2008 is the most comprehensive list out there, combining the votes of our readers, nominating a huge variety of articles available through one of the biggest space news websites on the Web.

For more information about the motivation behind the Universe Today's Top 10, be sure to check out the nominations page…

Without further ado, here is the Universe Today's definitive Top 10 Scientific Endeavours of 2008…
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2008 has been a landmark year for space science and physics endeavour. We've peered deep into the cosmos and fitted new pieces into some of the most intriguing universal puzzles. We've explored other planets with technology we wouldn't have recognised a decade ago. We've assembled some of the most complex experiments to test theories of the very small and the very big. 2008 has built strong foundations for the future of the exploration of the Universe in so many ways…
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In an effort to bring the space news efforts from the Internet to the radio, I have my own little radio show every Wednesday!

I've been a regular guest on Paranormal Radio with Captain Jack (his awesome show will start immediately after mine, so stay tuned) for a few months now and it looks like they enjoy what I have to say and gave me this two hour slot each week!

I'm really excited about the possibilities this opens up as it is a great way to promote not only articles on the Universe Today and my space science blog Astroengine.com, but the whole space blogosphere. Key to this will be a regular slot for the Carnival of Space where a superb collection space news can be found on the finest space blogs. So, I hope to give the CoS good coverage each week, starting with the 80th week of the Carnival (I'm looking at you Ethan!)…
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