The Woodstock Mystery Hole is perhaps Oregon’s only meta-theme park. Constructed in the backyard of a house off SE Woodstock, the Mystery Hole (and accompanying Mystery Pole and History Mole) will invite you to climb down a 20-foot wooden ladder into the earth, but not before signing a waiver stating, “I, the undersigned, do hereby […]
Astronomy
Posted inAstronomy
Cosmic Sun Burp!
Greetings, fellow stargazers and astronomy nerds, it’s time to start your space boners! Hot on the heels of the discovery two weeks ago of the biggest thing ever deep in the void of outer-est space, a new and exciting astronomical development has occurred closer to home: on the surface of our very own sun. It […]
Posted inAstronomy
GODDAMMIT THEY’RE REMAKING TOTAL RECALL
YEEEAARRRRRAAARRRAARRRUUUUUUUGGYGYAAAAA Thanks for ruining my day, press release: CULVER CITY, Calif., July 29, 2010—Len Wiseman [Underworld, Underworld: Evolution, Live Free or Die Hard, AND HE SOMEHOW TRICKED KATE BECKINSALE INTO MARRYING HIM TOO] is in final negotiations to direct Columbia Pictures’ Total Recall, it was announced today by Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach, presidents of […]
Posted inAstronomy
Biggest Star Ever Discovered
M. Kornmesser, ESO Astronomers at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom announced today that they’ve discovered the BIGGEST STAR EVER. R136a1 is 265 times bigger than the sun (astronomers have previously assumed the largest a star could get is 150 times bigger), and it’s 10 million times brighter and seven times hotter. Even […]
Posted inArtsy
PHART CHART TOPPER!
This week’s PHART CHART TOPPER is Ben Canales! Congrats, and look! We’ve animated it for you! Will you be the next Phart Chart Topper? Submit your art or photos to the Mercury‘s Flickr group, and start PHART-ing today!!
Posted inAstronomy
I’m Starting to Get a Little Worried About Dan Aykroyd
This is from April 30’s episode of Larry King Live, and… well… I first thought Dan Aykroyd was kidding. Right? I mean, the way he suggests that aliens were watching 9/11, and then in the same sentence suggests that they didn’t see it—otherwise we’d all be dead? His weird, non-sequitur, 30-years-too-late condemnation of cocaine? The […]
Posted inPuppy
Somebody Call PETA: Animals in Zero Gravity
Okay, so for some reason I’m all obsessed today with what happens to animals when they are put in zero gravity situations. So I found a couple of old YouTubes on the subject, and have decided that people who put animals in zero gravity situations are dicks. Now that that’s settled, I now return you […]
Posted inAstronomy
Your Daily Dose of Carl Sagan, Now with Help from Hollywood.
Watch it. [Video pulled by Vimeo for some reason. Annoying. Sorry. Uh… never mind, I guess.] Via Gizmodo and Brian Michael Bendis.
Posted inAstronomy
New Symphony of Science Makes Me Sad, Yet Again, That I Am Not a Scientist
As I’ve noted before, I really like the Symphony of Science videos. I’m not sure why: They inevitably make me want to be a scientist, but that makes me sad, because I am terrible at science and math and pretty much anything else that requires book learnin’. I will never be a scientist. Unless maybe […]
Posted inAstronomy
Gettin’ Wuzzy with Symphony of Science.
New Symphony of Science video! As the jumble of tags before this post’s headline (sort of) implies, this one’s genetics-related—and it’s guaranteed to be billions and billions of times more interesting than your high school biology class.
Posted inAstronomy
What Can You Get a Wookiee for Christmas?
Above: Artwork inspired by the most terrifying piece of slash fanfic ever written. Last year, dear Blogtown denizens, I gave you “Christmas in the Stars” and “R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” (YOU’RE WELCOME.) This year: the nonsensical “What Can You Get a Wookiee for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb?)” and the […]
Posted inAstronomy
The Known Universe
This film shows the known universe as mapped through astronomical observations. Every satellite, moon, planet, star and galaxy is represented to scale and in its correct, measured location according to the best scientific research to-date. Kind of makes this whole Tiger Woods thing seem sort of insignificant, huh? (via the AMNH and Gruber)