Over the past few days, huge storms have exploded over the US midwest. The GOES 13 geostationary weather satellite had a birds-eye view of the whole thing, and its images were used to make animation showing five days of meteorological action:

Wow. It’s positively creepy how those cells burst into life with what looks like no trigger or precursor. They’re just suddenly there. Terrifying.

I was in Kansas over the weekend for my nephew’s college graduation (congrats Derek!), and literally minutes before the ceremony was to start there was a tornado warning. We had to huddle in the building’s basement for about 45 minutes before the all-clear was sounded; the tornado spotted was to the northwest and missed us (although right as the warning started I was able to get a picture of the weird rolling mammatus clouds overhead).

After the ceremony we saw the storm raging to the north of us, and I got this photo of it:

That’s a several second exposure at (I think) f/8. The lightning was never more than 5 – 10 seconds away for quite some time. It was awe-inspiring.

The next day we left Lawrence to come home, and a fierce black cloud stretched from horizon to horizon to our west. It missed us, and by the time we got on the road it was gone… but I have to wonder if that was the same storm system that produced the tornado that swept through Joplin, Missouri. I’ve never seen an actual tornado in real life, but that’s as close as I ever want to come.

If you want to help folks whose lives have been affected by these storms, The Nation has a list of charities and other organizations helping out in Missouri.

Video credit: Movie Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project, Dennis Chesters

I like the metric system. I really do. It’s so much easier than trying to remember how many inches there are to a mile, or roods per square furlong^*. I prefer metric over the imperial system, and use it all the time. I really wish the U.S. would just knuckle under and convert to it, and join the rest of the entire world in the 21st century.

Well, the rest of the entire world except for Burma and Liberia. Yay?^†

Still.

The thing is, I do have a problem with the metric system. Not as a way of measuring things, but because it’s really awful for aphorisms. Seriously. This has bugged me for a long time, but it came up again while writing a blog post where I wanted to use the phrase "That asteroid will miss us by a cosmic mile," a play on the phrase "country mile", a colloquialism for a long distance. I used the phrase because I liked it, but had to wonder how many of my non-American readers had no clue what I was talking about.

As I pondered more on this, it got worse.

Who can really refer to a diminutive friend as "0.2366 liter"? Will we bury people 5.5 1.83 meters under? Will contemplative people have a 914.4 meter stare? Will a liter be a kilogram the world around?

And it’s not just phrases that will suffer. Will bars sell a 0.914 meters of ale? (more…)

This is just a quick note to let y’all know that the two radio interviews I did over the past weekend are now archived.

The Star Talk Radio interview with Neil Tyson and Leighann Lord is stored right here on Discover Magazine’s site, and you can also get it on iTunes.

The Think Atheist interview is available on their website.

They were both fun to do, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

You know what you don’t get enough of? Hearing me blather on about astronomy and skepticism on a Sunday. So you’re in luck: I’ll be doing two interviews on Sunday:

1) At 6:00 p.m. Eastern (US) time (22:00 UT) I’ll be on Star Talk Radio with my old pal and all around cool dude Neil deGrasse Tyson, and my new pal, comedian and all around cool chick Leighann Lord (we’re the three on the left of that pic with producers Helen Matsos and Leslie Mullen on the right). We’ll be dissecting the science in science fiction movies and basically having a good time with it. You can listen to the show when it airs, but keep in mind we pre-recorded it when I was in NYC last week for NECSS.

What I will do, though, is listen along when it airs Sunday, and then I’ll be on Twitter making dumb jokes and snarky comments as usual. So join me there and I’ll answer your questions if I can.

2) I’ll be on the Think Atheist radio/podcast at 8:00 Eastern (US) time (midnight UT), and this one is live! So you can call in and ask questions. If you need more info, a pink unicorn will help:

So there you go. Mark your calendar! Twice!

Hey, who has two thumbs and is hosting Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour on Thursday?

Well, usually the answer would be Kiki Sanford, the host. Assuming she has two thumbs. I’ve never really paid that close of attention, honestly. But Thursday the answer will be: me! Kiki hatched a youngling, and so she’s off on maternity leave. She asked a few people to sub for her, one of them being me.

Mwuhahaha!

Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour is a live streaming video science talk show, and my shot at stardom will be at 4:00 p.m. Pacific time (23:00 GMT) on Thursday (tomorrow) March 17.

I’ll also have a very special guest on the show! It’s a secret, but here’s a hint: his name is ZACH WEINER!

The show can be watched LIVE at TWIT TV. There’s also a chat room there, so you can log in and ask questions, or you can ask via Twitter, but to be honest it’ll be hard to check the tweets during the show itself.

If you want to see what the show is like, I was guest a while back and the video is embedded there.

This will be a lot of fun! Zach and I will talk about science, web comics, ascii art (ahem!), and other stuff.

Please stop on by and watch! I guarantee, you’ll regret it. I mean, won’t regret it. Yes. Won’t.

The magnitude 8.9 earthquake that hit Japan last night has done a vast amount of damage. I’m seeing lots of information scattered around the web, and figured a post listing them might help.

First, if you need info about the quake, CNET has a long list of links for finding lost loved ones, information on the quake in general, and more.

Second, our own Discover Magazine has an excellent article with the science behind what happened. The article notes that science and engineering prevented this disaster from being a lot worse.

There are many charitable, non-profit organizations that may or will be providing aid and relief. I asked on Twitter which ones people liked, and here are a few. I do not necessarily endorse these groups, but provide this for your information.

• Oxfam
• The Red Cross has info, and also a page where you can contribute directly to quake relief
• Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders)
• Red Cross through WePay
• Global Giving
• ShelterBox

Before you donate, please watch this video of the tsunami crashing through Japan:

Yes, those are buildings on fire as they are being swept along with the water. That is one of the most terrifying, horrifying things I have ever seen.

Discovery News has more video of the tsunami and damage from the quake.

My co-blogger at Discover Magazine, Sean Carroll, has some info and thoughts on this as well.

Here is a false-color map of the tsunami height which will give you an idea of the far-reaching nature of this event.

I will try to add more links to this as more information becomes available.

I haven’t posted a Caturday picture in a while, and this one presented itself to me.

How proud am I, that on a cold Boulder winter’s day, Canis Major sought out the brightest astronomical infrared source she could find?