An Ode to Space Haters

Da Moon Rulez #1

"Probably the only thing more irritating than shits that necessitate multiple wiping trips are people who hate space." Nary a truer word hath been spake. We here at PS do our best to convince readers of the virtues of Space and scorn the faithless, but it takes a true wordsmith to deliver sort of artful and scathing critique of anti-Space culture that Vice Magazine has delivered here. Homie Darren pointed this out to us. Enjoy!

MMMMM Protein

NOMZ IN SPACE!

One of the problems with sending people into Space is feeding them, especially over prolonged periods of time. The Chinese, historically known for their awesome problem-solving skills (smelting pig iron in backyards 'stimulate' the economy, sending peasants off to starve on the frontier to 'avoid' famine, 'defeating' capitalism by allowing capitalism, etc.) have proposed an interesting solution to this issue: self-sustaining on-board dietary silkworm farms. Despite the lulz this idea may inspire, it kinda makes sense assuming you can get astronauts to eat them; they breed quickly, produce little waste, and are super high in protein. Some people in China actually consider them a delicacy. For the record, I would like to state that I will never consider any type of bug a delicacy. Sorry China, your food is weird. But if in order to go to space, I had to eat silkworms, I probably would.

"ViddyHo" attack

There's a deady worm passing through gChat; I was attacked this afternoon! I survived by not doing anything. Don't give them your gmail information!

A phishing attack is quickly spreading through instant-messaging sessions, including Google Chat, and directing victims to a Web site called “ViddyHo.”


A link, shortened through TinyURL, directs message recipients to a ViddyHo login page. That page instructs them to enter their Google account information, which is then used to break into the victim’s account and send the link to other users in the victim’s address book or buddy list.






That’s particularly risky in the case of Google, he said, since a spammer with access to a victim’s GChat account might use it to tap his or her Gmail, Blogger or other Google accounts.

UPDATE: Kevin Gilbertson, TinyURL’s founder, said that the site is now blocking any TinyURLs from being created that point to the site.

Readers, have you been spammed by these phishing attacks yet? Have you seen them anywhere else?

via http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/02/24/viddyho-attack-spreads-through-chat-sessions/

MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY

one comet, two tails, one night left.  Look up into the sky, Comet Lulin may never pass by the earth again.  If you are reading PS from your unibomber cabin in the woods, you can see it with the naked eye, otherwise you may need some binoculars or an amateur telescope.  Let me know in the comments if you're able to see it.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090223-green-comet-lulin.html

Hibernating Animals Face Less Extinction Risk

Investigative reporting from my Gmail "Web Clips" bar uncovered this article from Discovery News. Scientists found that of the mammals around today, those that hibernate are less likely to be in danger of extinction. Makes sense. Captain Obvious, do you concur?

Happy 1234567890 Day!

Jason uses UNIX.

"Happy [Science-related-topic] Day" posts seem to be a recurring theme on PS lately, huh? You better get used to it, because every day is Science-related in some way! Today is kind of a big deal, because in addition to it being Friday the 13th, it is also 1234567890. Or at least it is if you are a UNIX based computing system or a giant fucking nerd. According to the UNIX system of reckoning time and date, today at 3:31:30 PM, UNIX time will read, yes that's right, 1234567890! Cool, I guess? If you care, here is a link explaining how to express time as a numeric string, a la UNIX time.

Oh also, yesterday also happened to be Abe Lincoln's 200th bday. Cool dudes' birthdays abound!

Happy Darwin Day!

200 years ago, today, Charles Darwin was born. Praise him, and Science!!! I'm not going to say anymore about this man, because if you don't already know who he is/what he did, you are dumb.

Two Papers: Yikes!

The Orphan Nuclear Receptor REV-ERBalpha Controls Circadian Transcription within the Positive Limb of the Mammalian Circadian Oscillator

Ribosomal S6 Kinase Cooperates with Casein Kinase 2 to Modulate the Drosophila Circadian Molecular Oscillator