Ahh,... to fly like a bird! Well, it can and has been done with the Snowbird!

Humans have dreamed of flying like birds under their own power ever since time began. Paul MacCready accomplished this feat in 1977 when he flew the Gossamer Albatross over the English Channel. It was quite true that he flew under his own power, but the wings of his craft were fixed and unmoving, except for directional controls. Still, this was an awesome achievement and MacReady was named by some to be the Engineer Of The Century.

But now there is Snowbird, a craft that is also completely human powered once it's in the air. And Snowbird, as what's known as an ornithopter, actually flaps its wings to sustain flight. True, it does need a pull from a car to get airborne, but once it's up,... well just watch the extraordinary video below!

On July 31st and August 2nd, 2010 the Snowbird maintained altitude and airspeed for 19.3 seconds - the world's firstself-powered flapping wing flight!

Ahhh,... to fly like a bird!

For more information: Check out the Human Powered Ornithopter Project website.
To watch this video on YouTube: World's First Human-Powered Ornithopter
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Stand Up For Science - Evolution is REAL Science!

I ran across the two videos below on YouTube. If you're teetering on the edge of believing or not believing evolution theory, these videos might just inspire you. If you're sure that evolution is bunkum, then you too might want to check out the videos. And if you're already sure that evolution is the way to go, then these videos might just answer some questions for you anyway!

First up: Does the fossil record support Evolution?

Next up: Where are the Transitional Forms?

As I have asserted before on Gather.com and other sites, and as this video explains, nearly every species can be considered a transitional form. That is, all species stand somewhere between a former species and a later species on the evolutionary tree of life!

For those of you who do not accept the theory of Evolution, ignorance may be bliss, but I'm here to tell you that a little science knowledge can work even greater wonders!

For more videos and information: Stand up for REAL science

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My other places: Eclectic Universe Home Page - Eclectic Universe Forum - Eclectic's Universe Blog - Thinking With Reason
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The Milky Way Big Picture (Showcase) - NASA Spitzer Space Telescope

The Milky Way Big Picture (Showcase) - NASA Spitzer Space Telescope

This is a video of the Spitzer Space Telescope's mission to capture over half of our Milky Way Galaxy, gloriously illustrated with wondrous visions, and explained beautifully by an astronomer.

It really is a Must See video!!


I do hope you enjoyed it!
--Gary D. Timothy--

I Finally Found Uranus and YOU can too!

Now, this is a special event for me because I’ve never positively identified it before in the night sky. There have been times when I thought I was looking at Uranus, but I’ve never before been sure of it. At its brightest, it is sometimes barely visible to the naked eye in very dark skies with no light pollution, but it usually requires a good star chart to find.

Uranus is the seventh planet out from the Sun, beyond Saturn and smaller than Saturn too, so it’s no wonder that it’s much more difficult to see. Below is an image captured by the Voyager 2 spacecraft during it’s flyby of the planet in 1986.



Above: Voyager 2’s view of Uranus. As you can see, Uranus is quite featureless – it’s one of the gas giants, so you are basically looking at its opaque atmosphere although it is thought to have a rocky core. Both Voyager 1 and 2 are still functioning and sending data back to Earth after over 33 years! They are both currently leaving the Solar System and are, respectively about 17 and 14 billion kilometers from the Sun.