For the last two months, almost all the planets have been hiding behind the sun, but this week they all emerge and are arrayed in a grand line above the rising sun.

[Source, LiveScience, Six Planets Now Aligned in the Dawn Sky by Geoff Gaherty]

Picture credit: Starry Night Software. Picture borrowed from LiveScience

Inspire your children. Awe them with the wonders of the universe. Arise early. Hear the birds. See the planets.

If you get confused looking at objects in the sky, consider the iPhone/iPad app "GoSkyWatch" It is undeniably one of my favorite applications. I spent most of my life with astronomy books unsure if I was correctly identifying objects in the sky. GoSkyWatch removes all doubt, adds factoids, and makes star gazing so much more fun. [Link to app]

For a month and a half, there’s absolutely no Sun in Greenland because of Earth’s angle in relation to our home star. People there eagerly await for January 13, when the Sun rises again, every year. Except this one. This year, the Sun rose 48 hours ahead of its projected date. … [Source, Gizmodo]

Read more

This lunar eclipse falls on the date of the northern winter solstice. How rare is that? Total lunar eclipses in northern winter are fairly common. There have been three of them in the past ten years alone. A lunar eclipse smack-dab on the date of the solstice, however, is unusual. Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory inspected a list of eclipses going back 2000 years. "Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638 DEC 21," says Chester. "Fortunately we won’t have to wait 372 years for the next one…that will be on 2094 DEC 21." [Source, NASA Science, Solstice Lunar Eclipse]

Blessed be!

The genetically modified microbe has been programmed to swim down fine cracks in concrete and once at the bottom it produces a mixture of calcium carbonate and a bacterial glue. This glue combines with the filamentous bacterial cells, ultimately hardening to the same strength as the surrounding concrete and essentially “knitting” the building back together. [Source, LiveScience, Designer Bacteria Can Heal Cracks in Concrete Buildings]

An experimental drug developed by researchers at the University of Edinburgh reverses age-related memory decline in mice, returning their brains to a more youthful state of cognitive function. The compound is designed to dampen the production of glucocorticoids, stress hormones that are thought to damage the brain’s learning and memory centers over time. [Source, Technology Review, Experimental Drug Preserves Memory in Rodents]

"What’s most surprising is that even short-term inhibition was able to reverse memory loss in old mice. I don’t think people had realized this was so reversible. It takes [the animals] back to being relatively young." Sign me up! I hereby declare my readiness to be a human subject in this testing of this drug!

h/t Kurzweilai.net

NASA is again going to attempt to launch an Air Force Minotaur I rocket carrying the Air Force Research Laboratory’s TacSat-3 satellite, NASA’s PharmaSat microsatellite, and NASA’s CubeSat Technology Demonstration experiments, which includes three four-inch cubed satellites, developed by universities and industry. [Source] The launch will be from the NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. I read that if the skies are clear, the launch will be visible up to 800 miles away (but I could be misinformed). Knoxville is roughly 450 miles as the crow flies. If you don’t want to leave the house, NASA has the most exceptional webcasts available. The Wallops launch is already streaming live. Read more at the Wallops site or follow @NASA_Wallops on Twitter. Be sure to also follow @ATKRocketNews Trina Patterson of ATK who gives additional Twitter commentary on the launch.

Jonathan Goode (grade 7) applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking: physics shows that women have a lower center of gravity than men, making them more suited to carrying groceries and laundry baskets; biology shows that women were designed to carry un-born babies in their wombs and to feed born babies milk, making them the natural choice for child rearing; social sciences show that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay; and exegetics shows that God created Eve as a companion for Adam, not as a co-worker. [Source, OBJECTIVE: Ministries, Fellowship Baptist Creation Science Fair 2001 Article by Dr. Richard Paley & FBCSF Staff]

Other winners:

Elementary School Level

1st Place: "My Uncle Is A Man Named Steve (Not A Monkey)"

2nd Place: "Pine Cones Are Complicated"

Middle School Level

1st Place: "Life Doesn’t Come From Non-Life"

2nd Place: "Women Were Designed For Homemaking"

High School Level

1st Place: "Using Prayer To Microevolve Latent Antibiotic Resistance In Bacteria"

2nd Place: "Maximal Packing Of Rodentia Kinds: A Feasibility Study"

The Creation Science Fair honorable mentions are equally as great with my favorite being a tie between "Pokemon Prove Evolutionism Is False" and "Thermodynamics Of Hell Fire."

Temperature conversion by OnlineConversion.com.

Watt’s it matter?