Category: Blog

I just received a review copy of Battlestar Galactica Season 2.5, the DVD that covers episodes 11-20. In case you’ve been living under a rock, this is the new Battlestar Galactica series running on the Scifi channel in the US. I’m going to preface this with the disclaimer that I’m already a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica – I’ve seen every episode multiple times, and I think it’s one of the best television shows on TV. It’s also impossible for me to really talk about what’s in the episodes without ruining some part of the plot for somebody. I’m a notorious show-ruiner, so I won’t even go there. (My friends call ruining the end of a movie “Frasering”).
Continue reading “Battlestar Galactic Season 2.5 DVD Giveaway”

I wanted to take a moment and point your browsers at a few websites that I really enjoy, and I think you will too. You’ve probably heard of the Bad Astronomer, but do you know of the Angry Astronomer? Jon Voisey is an astronomy major at the University of Kansas. Jon has recently been journaling the battle against intelligent design and antiscience movements, but if you dig a little deeper into his archives, you’ll see some great articles explaining concepts in astronomy.
Continue reading “Angry Astronomy and Centauri Dreaming”

I’m #126, I’m #126! Okay, according to Feedster’s Top 500 blogs on the Internet, Universe Today is #126. Not bad when you consider there are millions of blogs out there. And especially considering that Universe Today isn’t really a blog. In fact, I think I just got suckered into promoting Feedster. 🙂

But I want to take a moment out of my self-congratulation and point your browsers towards my RSS feed, which I suppose is Universe Today’s most blogesque feature. If you’re reading this article from the website, or in my email newsletter, you really should consider switching over to the RSS feed. I make a compelling case on this page. Don’t worry, I’ll keep putting out both web and email editions, but it’s such a better way to get news.

See you in the top 100!

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

P.S. And you should listen to my Podcast too. Okay… I’m done.

Several years ago, scientists at University of California, Berkeley came across a situation in which more data was being gathered by a radio telescope than could be analyzed by any single computer. The solution to this problem was to use the idle time of personal computers all around the world. This resulted in the creation of SETI@Home, a downloadable application that would do some calculations on a very small piece of the gathered data. The results would then be returned to SETI@Home’s servers to be combined back with results from other computers all around the world. This later branched into BOINC, a project that allows one to choose from multiple projects such as SETI@Home and run many projects on one computer. The user can even allot how much time is spent on each project. BOINC runs at a low priority on one’s computer, which means when other programs (Word, Internet Explorer, etc.) request the processor, BOINC hands it over and allows the program to do as it wishes. When the program is done, BOINC picks up where it left off.

The Bad Astronomy/Universe Today forum currently has a team for four of the BOINC projects. The team is named BABB, but that will soon change when the BAUT forum name is finalized. The name will change to reflect the BAUT name. Though the team is named after the forum, those who are not a part of the forum are welcome to join.

The Einstein@Home project searches for spinning neutron stars known as pulsars by searching for gravity waves in data from the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors. Anyone wishing to sign up for Einstein@Home can do so here and can sign up for the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today team by clicking join here.

The LHC@Home project allows for the simulation of a particle travelling through a large particle accelerator that is due to be completed by 2007 by CERN known as the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). Anyone wishing to sign up for Einstein@Home can do so here and can sign up for the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today team by clicking join here.

The SETI@Home project searches for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence through radio waves received from the Arecibo Observatory. Anyone wishing to sign up for SETI@Home can do so here and can sign up for the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today team by clicking join here.

The orbit@home project will take data from observations of asteroids and calculate their orbits. This will assist in the search for any asteroids in an eventual collision course with the Earth, as well as catalogue the orbits of the asteroids. This project is not running yet, but soon will be in the test phase. Member creation is shutdown for the time being. The project will have to be tested for a while before it goes online.

The team has a web page and member stats. Any questions regarding this project can be asked at this thread on the BAUT forum or sent to [email protected].

As I mentioned a few days ago, Phil Plait from Bad Astronomy and I have decided to merge our two forums into one super-space forum. The new forum is now live, and accessible from http://www.bautforum.com. This new forum has more than 10,000 members, and almost 550,000 posts.

Although the forum is functional and ready for conversations, we’ll still be tweaking it over the next few days, weeks, months. Let us know if you find any bugs. Please also let us know if you’re having any problems logging in with your username.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been investing a lot of time, effort, and money into improving Universe Today over the last few years. There’s a lot of original content that you won’t find anywhere else on the Internet. I get emails every day that say Universe Today is their favorite place on the Internet, so there must be at least a few fans. If you find Universe Today valuable, please take a moment and send in a donation. I continually reinvest these donations back into the website itself, so anything you can spare is greatly appreciated.

Click this link and donate online with Paypal.

Thanks!

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

P.S. I’m just in the process of redesigning the site to make it a little easier to read and use – yes, and bigger pictures. Check out a prototype and give me some feedback.

You might have noticed, I’ve got a new logo for Universe Today – I figured it was time for a change. 🙂 A big thanks to Liam at neopod for the design. We’re actually working on redesigning the website itself, so if you have any suggestions, now’s the time. Just drop me an email at [email protected].

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

P.S. Oh, I blew through my 50 Gmail invites, but Google has refilled my pool, so I’ve got another 50 to give away. I’ve actually switched over all my email to run through Gmail, and it’s made my life a lot more productive. If you want an invite to try it out, drop me an email at [email protected].

With all the recent news about asteroids and comets, I figure you’ve got a lot of questions. Well, now’s your chance to get some answers. We’ve lined up astronomer Dr. David J. Tholen, a professor at the University of Hawaii, Institute for Astronomy who specializes in the search for Earth-crossing asteroids. Once again, visit the forum, post your questions for David, and we’ll pick through and send him some zingers. I’ll publish his answers in an upcoming issue of Universe Today.

Click here to visit the forum and post your question.

Thanks!

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

If you’ve signed up to receive Universe Today for free by email, but you haven’t been getting them, you’ll need to see if your email provider has set up some kind of SPAM-blocking software. Unfortunately, the Universe Today newsletter smells like SPAM to some of these blocking programs, and it’ll never reach you. Check to see if it’s automatically being dumped into your junk mail folder. Complain to your system administrator. Demand your Universe… today!

Alternatively, you can always join the Universe Today Gmail swap in the forum. I love Gmail, especially since it doesn’t mark Universe Today as SPAM – wise move Google. If you want an invite, visit the forum. If you’ve got invites to spare, visit the forum.

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

For those of you who get Universe Today by email, you’ll notice this is the 1000th issue of the newsletter. 1000 issues. Wow. That’s several hours a day of my life for nearly 6 years. Here’s a link to the first edition of Universe Today, which went out to about 10 of my closest friends (aka “Test Subjects”). And here’s a link to what the website looked like early on.

There have been a few design changes and technology upgrades over the last 6 years, but I’ve really tried to keep Universe Today faithful to its original goal: encapsulating the major events in space and astronomy in a consistent, easily digestible format. And as long as I’m around, that will always be the case.

For the longest time, it was a one-man effort, but that’s changing now. I’ve got lots of help these days. From the moderators and community support team in the forum, to the freelance writers contributing stories.

A big thanks to all 27,000 subscribers. Your feedback, friendship and emails make it all worth while.

Here’s to another 1,000!

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

P.S. Yes, that’s another shameless picture of Chloe and Logan. Here’s a bigger version.