A while back, during one of my video live chats, I was asked what star I’d like to see up close. That’s a good question, so I recorded my answer. It morphed into a discussion of what a nebula, an interstellar gas cloud, would look like if you traveled up close to one. Here’s the video:

I’m doing another live chat on Sunday! If you have any questions, ask them then, and maybe I’ll do a video of them, too.

Personally, I like the current logo for The Skeptologists:

But some people are complaining that it looks too much like the logo for Indiana Jones. Well, duh. It’s supposed to! Still and all, we decided that it’s time to get a new one. So we’re opening up the floor on this one: got any talent? Create a logo, and then email it to brian[at]skeptoid.com or fax it to 949-606-9611. The contest ends Saturday, May 3, so get drawing!

The Arecibo radio telescope is the single biggest telescope in the world. It has been used for decades to further our understanding of the Universe, so of course its funding is threatened.

However, Senator Hillary Clinton has introduced a bill to get much-needed money for the telescope’s operation. Since Cornell (which is in New York) operates the observatory, this isn’t totally altruistic of her, but still. Her official statement hits all the right marks.

I’m not thrilled that this is an earmark, because that forces money to go certain places and takes discretion out of the hands of the people who get the money (in this case, the Nation Science Foundation). However, in this case, the NSF has made the wrong decision, choosing to cut funding for this much-needed observatory. Besides all the science it does, it also can be used to get accurate orbits for near-Earth asteroids (by pinging them with radar), which is an obviously important function.

I asked my friend, astronomer Seth Shostak — an advocate of the ‘scope — what he thinks on this, and here’s his reply:

It’s great that the legislature has noted the threat to Arecibo. This is one of radio astronomy’s most useful instruments — it’s used to study pulsars, galaxies, asteroids and for SETI, as well as for other research. This antenna simply has no peer. There’s no other instrument where you can wield 18 acres of metal mesh to catch the faintest radio static from the cosmos. Admittedly, it’s regrettable that this effort to save Arecibo involves earmarks. It would be better if American science policy was pursued in less ad hoc ways. But one shouldn’t let the idealistic wish for perfection interfere with a practical result that’s good. I hope that this gets passed, and that Arecibo continues to scan the skies.

Mind you, this bill has only been introduced, not voted on. A similar bill stalled earlier, so I urge you to contact your Reps and let them know what you think. Action for Space has the details.

Great news! The hi-res astronomy videos I made last month are now available on Vuze. That means people can get them internationally!

They’ve been uploaded to the channel SpaceRip, my partner Thomas Lucas’s channel there. Unfortunately I don’t see any way to embed them in the blog, but we’re still thinking about ways of getting these out there. Next time, we’ll try to get the Hulu.com and Vuze uploads done around the same time, so people all over the planet can see them.

I’m going to start working on scripts for the next set very soon, so stay tuned!

Abstinence-only education does not work. This is beyond a doubt: test after test, study after study show that it does not lower pregnancy rates, nor lower the amount of sexually transmitted diseases, nor does it change the average age when sexual activity begins.

And the feds have funded it to the tune of over a billion dollars over the past 20 years.

Several health experts and scientists testified before Congress recently, once again saying these obvious truths:

“Those adolescents who choose to abstain from sexual intercourse should obviously be encouraged and supported in their decisions by their families, peers and communities. But abstinence should not be the only strategy that is discussed,” [American Academy of Pediatrics member Dr. Margaret ] Blythe said.

A logical course of action and a thoughtful statement.

However, how do you think Rep. John Duncan (R-TN) responded to this? He said

… it seems “rather elitist” that people with academic degrees in health think they know better than parents what type of sex education is appropriate. “I don’t think it’s something we should abandon,” he said of abstinence-only funding.

And there you have it. The antiscience bigotry is now out in the open for all to see. Experts with decades of total experience in the field, studying teen habits, observing and testing their reactions to abstinence-only programs versus other methods… they’re elitist. Wow. Someone ought to tell the Congressman to face it: these experts do know more than most parents. That’s what studying does: it makes you learn. That’s why they’re experts.

I almost have to admire Representative Duncan. Such obstinance and stubborn refusal to look reality in the eye, to even admit reality exists… it’s so pure and unadulterated adherence to dogma that it’s almost artful.

Is it too much to ask that one of the governing bodies of the United States of America be occupied by people who understand how reality works? Maybe if I say please?

Hey folks-

I’ll be doing another video live chat this weekend, at 3:00 p.m. Mountain Time (21:00 UT) on Sunday, April 27.

You have options on how to do this. I have embedded a viewer below, so just come back to this blog post on Sunday at the right time, and you’ll hear me blabbing away when it starts. A better way, though, is to go directly to my chat page on UStream.tv. If you go there you can also enter the chat room and participate directly!

I tested this the other day and things seem to be working, so hopefully the software won’t fall apart like last time.

A few things to amuse you over coffee today:

1) PZ has run into an old friend of Bad Astronomy: one Charles Schults III, who sees fossils littering the surface of Mars. His followers have been posting to the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today board for years. Needless to say, their arguments are impervious to such trivialities as logic, reason, and evidence.

2) A NASA intern hopes to go on a spacewalk before his term ends in June… at least, according to the Onion. It’s pretty funny, but in fact that sense of entitlement smacks a bit much of things I hear from antiscientists. They sent me a seven-screen email IN ALL CAPS, after all; how dare I not take several hours to go through their math to find they divided by zero in the third equation?

3) Skeptics in 1939 were pretty sharp. Too bad scammers and frauds still abound.

4) Celestis, the company that launches peoples’ ashes into space (and which launched, lost, and subsequently found the remains of Jimmy Doohan, Scotty from Star Trek), will be sending a new payload of ashes on the next SpaceX launch, scheduled for June. I hadn’t heard that SpaceX was trying to launch again so soon, and this is a weird and somewhat macabre way to find out. Incidentally, they want to launch human remains to the Moon by 2010.

Tips o’ the tin foil beanies to BABLoggees Shaven Yak (It’s Yaksmas!), Austin Burns, and Seonaid Barrett.