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New views of Mercury

Mercury and the Nobels

Early on the morning of Tuesday, 07 October the MESSENGER spacecraft made its second flyby of our innermost planet, Mercury. This flyby, a prelude to MESSENGER's eventual orbital mission, revealed parts of Mercury never seen before by a spacecraft.

At about the same time, the Swedish Academy of Sciences was making phone calls to this year's recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics (alas, not to me...). The prize is shared between Yoichiro Nambu, Makoto Kobayashi, and Toshihide Maskawa for work on symmetery breaking in subatomic particle physics. Visit the Nobel web site above to find out what that means!

The navigation bar to your left is your guide to my pages, and special content is highlighted below. Watch this space for the latest news!

Cricket Still Jacobs Tubbs

Genealogy

The Needham genealogy was updated on 20 January 2007. There are quite a lot of changes, which are outlined on the introductory page of the site. Besides updating the lineage, there are three new photo galleries and a variety of other added documents.

The Simmons family tree has finally received its long-promised update as of 20 June 2007. The big news here is the discovery that Daniel Boone is my sixth-great-uncle. The Boone line is a well-researched one, so many new families have been added to the database.

I've just discovered that I'm a ninth cousin of the next President of the United States, Barack Obama. His mother, from Kansas, was a Dunham and descended of Jonathan Singletary/Dunham (1639-1724). I've also learned of a similar relationships to the Bushes, by way of John Prescott (1604-1681), and to Richard Nixon on both sides of the family through Henry Howland (father of Pilgrim John Howland) and Martha Strode (a grandparent of Daniel Boone). I'll get all the details posted to the family sites soon.

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon

Space Exploration

Every April Kansas State University hosts a Boy Scout merit badge conference, where local experts counsel Scouts concerning a variety of topics. I've counseled the Space Exploration merit badge for several years now. The first half of the class includes a PowerPoint presentation focusing on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. After that, we go out and launch model rockets (usually into the teeth of a strong Kansas spring breeze!).

Several of my presentations are archived here. The requirements were finally updated last year, but since the Vision for Space Exploration is revolutionizing our approach to space travel, I'll be rather freely interpreting things to stay current.

The Winds of Change

President-Elect Barack Obama

It's 11:30 pm on Election Night. Outside, a 25 mph breeze is whipping up. Those are the winds of change blowing!

Senator John McCain has graciously conceded the field and President-Elect Barack Obama has made a magnanimous acceptance speech. A speech where he rightly outlined the tremendous challenges ahead and the hard work that begins now to correct the errors of our recent past. Twice he made explicit reference to the role of science in that effort. Landing men on the moon and building our nation's technological pre-eminence both prove that "Yes, We Can".

The new President's coattails are proving long; it looks like the new Senate will have 57 Democrats, and, of course, they maintain a solid majority in the House.

In Kansas, control of the Board of Education will remain in the hands of thoughtful moderates, with only a single wing-nut creationist retaining her seat (sadly, a wing-nut from my own district).

Time to get to work.

What I'm Reading

  • The First Scientific American, Joyce Chaplin, Basic Books, 2006
  • Stealing God's Thunder, Philip Dray, Random House, 2005

Last updated on Monday, 10-Nov-2008