Space X, a private company hoping — with reason — to be the first to launch a commercial rocket into orbit, test-fired their new Merlin 1C engine yesterday. The cool thing: it’s on the rocket, and the rocket is on the pad! The only thing that prevented liftoff was a restraining arm holding the rocket in place.

The launch window for this flight runs from July through September, and it will be the third attempt for Space X. The first rocket was lost shortly after liftoff, and the second just barely didn’t make it to orbit. This one looks pretty good. It will launch from Omelek Island in the Kwajalein Atoll in the pacific ocean. The rocket, called a Falcon 1, will carry a Department of Defense Trailblazer satellite.

A couple of pareidolisms for you today.

One is this cartoon from the very oddly named blog Greasy Belches. It’s funny and to the point. Awesome.

The other is the Virgin Mary, who apparently is a hippie! Why else would she appear in a lava lamp? That should make James Dobson’s head explode. A good thing, too. This picture was sent to me by BABloggee Sean Specht, who was himself visited unto by the groovy Mary. Gnarly.

The Gemini South massive 8-meter telescope captured a beautiful moment in a destructive dance.

Wow.

These two galaxies, individually called NGC 5426 (left) and NGC 5427 (right) are together called Arp 271. Halton Arp is an astronomer who spent quite a bit of time cataloging unusual galaxy systems, and almost all of them turned out to be interacting. In this case, the two magnificent spirals, lying 90 million light years away from Earth, are just starting to collide. Although they look intact, tell-tale signs of their mutual gravitational train-wreck are there: the spiral arms are just starting to distort, and the giant gas clouds (seen as the pinkish blobs) are more common than expected. Also, they appear to be knottier and more abundant on the sides of each galaxy closest to the other galaxy (despite appearances, I think the left side of NGC 5426 is closer to NGC 5427 which is behind the more face-on galaxy; it can be difficult to judge these things in an image though).

This means that the two galaxies are beginning the first steps of a dance that will take 100 million years to complete. They will pass each other, slow, then tangle again. This may happen several times, but in the end they will most likely merge, forming a large, puffy, elliptical galaxy. The fireworks will be spectacular as cloud collisions hugely accelerates star formation, lighting up the gas, causing frequent supernova…

… and also, perhaps, dumping gas into the central black holes no doubt lurking in the hearts of both galaxies. When that happens, the matter will heat up and glow incredibly brightly, turning this mess into an active galaxy. But eventually even that will settle down, and in the end, the signs that the one elliptical was once two stately spirals will be subtle and few.

Don’t forget: we’re headed toward the Andromeda galaxy as well. In a billion years or two, this will be us. Looking outward sometimes helps us look inward. The fate of the denizens of the universe is sometimes our own, too.

Remember a little while ago when I wrote about an evolutionary mutation seen in E. coli in the lab?

Well, the author of the study, Richard Lenski of Michigan State University, was not-so-subtly attacked on his work by Andy Schlafly, a creationist. The initial letter, by Schlafly, is pretty rude. Lenski replied, and Schlafly replied to that… and then it gets hilarious. Scientist Lenski hands antiscientist Schlafly his head, and it’s a wonder to behold.

Funny thing is, it’s discussed on Conservapedia, a wiki full of spin, incredible distortions of reality, and outright antiscience. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. So I won’t link to it there; I’d rather not have to soak my website in hydrogen peroxide afterwards.

But the really funny thing is the whole story is now up on RationalWiki, with some back story too.

And the funniest thing is, it appears that the Conservapedia folks left some critical things out, and then erased the evidence. Heh. That pesky Ninth Commandment again.

Anyway, RationalWiki looks pretty cool, so I’ll have to poke around there.

Tip o’ the test tube to Josh Asher.

So a new Gallup poll was released saying that 60% — sixty percent — of Republicans polled believe humans were created as is 10,000 years ago.

But before you Dems get all smug about this, note that 38% of you guys think the same thing.

So Republicans as a whole are more likely to be wrong, but Dems show a strong lack of reality grasping themselves. Independents are at the 40% mark, within the margin of error of Dems.

So, yikes. YIKES.

Here’s the graph in question:

Looking through the poll results is eye-opening. 92% of Republicans think that either God created Man as is or guided evolution. Democrats and independents are at 77% and 76%, respectively.

God played no part? Republicans: 4%. Dems: 17%. Indies: 19%.

I’m not sure how to interpret this. Maybe that claiming allegiance or affiliation with a political party makes it likely you will withdraw from reality to toe the party line. Maybe it’s the other way around.

But one thing is interesting: these numbers haven’t changed much at all in the past 26 years Gallup has been asking these questions. So it wasn’t Newt’s takeover of Congress, or Bush stomping science to death, or the Dems rolling over on their backs whenever a contentious issue reared its head, or anything else like that. People’s beliefs have correlated with their party affiliation like this for decades. And there aren’t any sharp fluctuations, either, so despite the current polarization of politics, these beliefs that the Earth is young and/or that God guided evolution are rock steady. This, despite the very radical changes in the parties since 1982.

This is very thought-provoking, and I’m wondering what it means. The key thing here, I suspect, is that lack of change in belief versus party affiliation despite the changes in the party. I think it may mean that people stick with a political party even though it may evolve — ha! — substantially over time. I’m not sure a Dem or Repub from 1982 would recognize either party these days. In many cases their policies have switched entirely.

What a mess.

Welcome to America. We have a long, long way to go.

I got a note from NOVA promotions letting me know that the new (third) season of NOVA Science Now premiers tonight on PBS (Check yer local listings blah blah blah).

This is a pretty good show, talking about science in a fun and informal way; in fact it’s pretty much the kind of show I’ve always wanted to do. Sadly, they had to compromise and get Neil Tyson to do it. Neil is a buddy of mine and really one of the best people we have going for science outreach. That’s why we had him as the keynote speaker at TAM! He’s a great host for Science Now.

I plan on watching. So should you.

I sometimes wonder just how messed up some people’s logic can be.

The answer, in many cases, is none. None more messed up.

I present to you one Rob Hood, commentator on The Conservative Voice. He has written a remarkably logic-free screed saying that the Mars Phoenix Lander is a waste of taxpayer’s money. Why?

Because searching for conditions supporting life on Mars is silly. We already know where life came from. Can you guess? Bueller? Bueller?

Mars is a desert planet and perhaps there is ice and maybe even water there. So what? Who cares? It’s water! That doesn’t mean a thing. Life originated on Earth when God spoke it into existence and there is no need in wasting billions of dollars of taxpayer money searching for an answer that is based upon faulty evolutionary ideas.

Ignoring the fact that we’ve known about water ice on Mars for decades, and that Phoenix didn’t cost billions, and that lots of people care about exploring the real universe around us, and that evolution is a fact, there is still a pretty big hole in his logic.

Applying his (heh) reasoning, I guess there’s no reason for, say, research into malaria. If God created it, why cure it? It’s part of God’s plan. Same goes with cancer, smallpox, lupus, Down’s syndrome, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, glaucoma, pertussis, and oh, say, one million other ailments. After all, as he points out in the case of astrobiology, all our medical research — all of it — is based on "faulty evolutionary ideas".

Not to mention trying to predict earthquakes, or tornadoes, or floods, or hurricanes, or meteor impacts, or solar flares, or heat waves, or ice storms, and thus potentially saving millions of lives. After all, this science is based on the same principles that show that the Earth is older than 6000 years, and that clearly can’t be correct, right?

What’s funny is that he actually contradicts himself here in his own essay:

The same billions of dollars that goes into these hopeless projects to look for water on Mars or other places could be better spent. We people of Earth need new bridges, new highways, new dams. We could use the money to feed people, fight disease, rebuild our infrastructure, research cancer (ethically, of course), and to help those who have little or no clothing, shelter, food, etc.

Ignoring this same tired false dichotomy trotted out by everyone who doesn’t understand anything about space exploration, I find it very funny that he uses God to deny funding to us understanding the Universe, but then invokes God to fund what is essentially the very same thing.

Sorry, dude. You don’t get to pick and choose what aspects of science you’re willing to believe in and what you’re not. Reality is a package deal. If we can use science to develop the engineering to build dams, to develop the medical knowledge to cure cancer, and to develop the agricultural methods necessary to feed the hungry, then we also have to acknowledge that science works.

It does. So you may wail and rant about reality-based scientists exploring Mars all you want, but you’ll be wrong. And while Phoenix buries its scoop into the Martian sand, you keep right on burying your own head in the sand here on Earth. I myself, and millions of others, prefer to look upward and outward.

Tip o’ the Phoenix TEGA to BABloggee dehbeaver0.