The Mitsubishi Minato Mirai Industrial Museum is just a street away from Ruther's office building. So one day, we decided to go there on our own and the boys had such a fun time. I had a fun time too! Here are some photos:

A model of a rocket.

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Investigating what goes on inside a space shuttle.

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As an undying fan of science, from my childhood onwards, it breaks my heart to see how stubbornly "Intelligent Design" ('Creationism in a cheap tuxedo') is making its stand in the United Sates. Surely, after all these years of piling evidence in favour of Charles Darwin's elegant and century old theory, there should be a massive support, if not a total one, in the modern world. And yet the so called remaining "Superpower" (of which I am more and more embarrassed to be part of) seems to be the current bastion of "Intelligent Design". It will come to no surprise to anyone that 90% of Americans believe in a deity. (how else would you explain that more than 40% of Americans don't believe in Evolution AT ALL ! and that a lot of the ones left question it !).

I AM ROBOT. OH YEAH

Within 25 years, robot intelligence is to past the cognitive abilities of human intelligence. That is the current best estimation. Add to that info, that robotics and material "intelligence" will soon be ever increasingly surrounding us. We have a great science fiction set up for the overthrow of humankind, by robots, or by secretive groups designing robots to overthrow someone else's. Within 10 years, it is believed the robot population will surpass the human.

I can't believe I forgot one of the biggest things I was thankful for this past weekend: Sylvain did the laundry! Yep, he did it on Friday because he had the day off and because he's just a sweetie.  He got his mom to put the soap where he could reach it and away he went. I could not believe the huge difference it made in my mood having that chore OFF my shoulders for the whole weekend. He said he enjoyed doing it so much that from now on we should take turns. Well, okay then!

We are going away next week for a vacation. I am SO thankful for all the blessings that come together to allow us to do this. We have jobs that permit it. We have enough money to do it.  We live in gorgeous Ontario just a day's drive from Algonquin Park and the Muskokas.

Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, one of many leaders in the Pagan community, was recently diagnosed with cancer. A recent blog post from Morning Glory Zell, his wife, informs that he is on the mend. As it happens, Oberon has had surgery to remove a large portion of the offending tissue, and is now in recovery. Hopefully, he makes a full turn-around or at least finds a point of easing.

The family is still asking for magickal assistance, of course, and while I think the highest principle behind such workings is mostly psychological and only personal, Morning Glory asks for "probability enhancement."

http://sciencehack.com/

Science Hack is a search engine for videos, which can be very helpful for students working on science projects.  Fields covered include: Chemistry, Physics, Space, Psychology, Computer Science, Robotics, Biology, Mathematics, Nature and more.  The site states that each video is screened by a scientist to verify accuracy and quality.

Technology is a wonderful thing. In many ways it’s why we enjoy a high level of comfort in our lives, improving our working and living conditions. But do you think our reliance on technology goes too far? Or is technology merely a tool for social development?

As a writer I’ve explored the moral and ethical use of technology quite heavily in my work but I’ve always had a favourable view of technology. However a recent experience has made me question that. I was shopping the other day, getting a couple of DVDs, and I was thrilled when I saw they were on sale; buy two and get 20% off the second. Perfect! So I grabbed both and queued up.

According to this site. 43% of Americans will choose the next president due to their ability to tackle scientific issues. And 80% feel that the nominees need to have a debate on Scientific Issues.

One nominee has already submitted his answers to the Top 14 Science Questions facing America. YOu can view his answers here.

You can check out the site. And, contribute your name to tell the candidates that you feel issues of science are important and deserve their attention.

Earlier today I posted a link to some of the unsolved problems in physics and asked which of them could not be solved by saying 'God did it'. Go take a look if you haven't already.

Done? Great. 

One aspect of a scientific theory that Creationists frequently ignore is that a coherent theory must be able to explain the evidence and make testable predictions (more on that some other time). What do I mean by explaining the evidence? I'll give a few examples.

We find that geographically isolated populations (most notably those on remote islands) tend to be similar but different to their counterparts on nearby mainland areas. This makes perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view: the island populations adapted to their surroundings and, incapable of interbreeding with their mainland counterparts, began to develop along a slightly diverging evolutionary path.

I ran across this story by Andrew Simms at the Guardian which predicts imminent doom and sets the time conservatively at 100 months. Their rational is standard affair.

They start with this cool picture of earth.

Good effect, everyone likes Earth, most of us live there. They follow it with this statement.

Because in just 100 months' time, if we are lucky, and based on a quite conservative estimate, we could reach a tipping point for the beginnings of runaway climate change.