Star Trek

In an effort to work through some of my Discovery News backlog, I’ve decided to do a grab bag where I give a quick overview of a whole bunch of stories that you might want to read, instead of going into a lot of detail about just one. These are ones that are shorter or I have less to say about, or they’re so old they’re risking going out of date.

• ANCIENT MOSAICS REVEAL CHANGING FISH SIZE 13 September 2011: Using mosaics scientists have been able to infer data about fish sizes from before people kept size records, demonstrating the effects of mass fishing on fish populations.
• LAUGHTER REALLY IS THE BEST MEDICINE 14 September 2011: Laughter increases pain tolerance, and thus improves overall health. The study does note that just laughing doesn’t work, you have actually feel the laugh and be truly joyful.
• JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE SAVED? 14 September 2011: The half-finished telescope narrowly avoided cancellation and manages to get its funding back on track. Finally, after fools nearly decided to completely waste the money already spent.
• BABY RHINO RESCUED FROM TREE 15 September 2011: Yes, a tree. and no, you can’t make this sort of thing up. Poor little thing freaked out after poachers shot momma and got stuck in the fork of a tree after he ran away. Poor little thing.
• STAR TREK INSPIRATION? MEET THE REAL JEAN PICARD 17 September 2011: The article describes the historical personality that was Gene Roddenberry’s inspiration for Star Trek’s Jean-luc Picard, the 17th century astronomer Jean-Felix Picard.