Here we are at another page in science history, and despite going through a period of not being able to sleep well even with the aid of powerful drugs, here I am.

I am serious, my sleep has been crap lately even with Quetiapine’s help. It takes me a long time to fall asleep, and when I wake up, I don’t feel a heck of a lot better.

Guess it is just some disturbance in my sleep cycle, or maybe something is bothering me and I can’t tell what it is consciously.

Either way, it will sort itself out eventually.

On with the science!

The Real Flying Saucer

Here is a blast from the past : the United States government has finally declassified the plans for an actual flying saucer type aircraft.

It was called Project 1794, and it was developed way back in 1956 or so by the United States Air Force. The idea was that it would reach Mach 3 or 4 at a top height of 100,000 feet, with a range of 1,000 miles.

And it got its initial round of funding and everything, so this is no mere sketchbook project, although a full working prototype was never built, as far as we know.

And judging by the results of other attempts to build saucer type aircraft, it is not hard to guess why the project did not get all that far. Generally speaking, generating thrust via spinning turbines pointed at the ground is futile. Forget 100,000 feet, you will be lucky if you get 4 feet for very long, and it will be very shaky and unstable hovering, not Mach 3 flight.

That said, it is not hard to see how this project got as far as it did, because come on… FLYING SAUCERS! It has been my deduction for some time that the United States military chooses things to fund with the same hardnosed and pragmatic attitude used by eight year old boys choosing toys on a Toys R Us spree.

Basically, they go for what seems cool and fun. So they have billions for things like stealth aircraft and flying saucers, and they want them so bad they will pay cost overruns quite cheerfully. Just so they get their big shiny awesome toys as soon as possible!

And on that basis, who could resist a Real Live Flying Saucer? That will leave those Ruskies peeing their pants in fear!

And because these thing will never actually be used in war (probably), nobody will ever know that they are nothing but shiny crap?

What do you expect to get when little boys in men’s clothes get to spend money that is not theirs?

Girl’s Best Friend

And now, something for the ladies : recently, scientists have revealed that there is an exoplanet out there that is made of diamond.

You read that right. It’s an entire planet which is almost entirely made of that lovely crystalline compressed carbon we lovingly call “diamond”.

Imagine the size of the coal it was before Superman compressed it!

And it’s only 40 light years away! Why, that is only 4 years journey via Alcubierre Drive! And so what if the surface temperature is over 3900 degrees Ferenheit! That is no object when it comes to securing the mother of all diamond engagement rings and lording it over all the other women at the country club!

Well OK, maybe we will not be going there any time soon. You are looking at a wait of thirty years minimum on that particular order from DeBeers.

And that is just to develop the technology to get there. Then there is the four years travel time, and of course, it will take a while to figure out how to cool it down, and it will take forever for all those diamond cutting jewelers to cut and polish and mount the thing on a ring as big as one of Saturn’s… you are probably looking at, oh, at least fifty years.

But if you are healthy and marry young, I am sure it can be delivered not too long before you die.

And really, won’t it all be worth it to know your husband loves you that much?

Because as diamond ads have taught us, love is measured strictly in carats.

The Spiders of Mars

Last but definitely not least, we have this story about spider-like figures on Mars.

Sadly, they are probably not gigantic black spiders the size of sports stadiums (stadia?) that prowl the Martian desert looking for their natural prey, Biker Mike.

But still, looking at a picture like this, you have to wonder what is going on down there.

Like ants on a fresh dog turd.

Right now, the most plausible explanation is that what we are seeing here are actually geysers of some kind of black liquid, probably dirty liquid CO2.

What might that look like? It might look like this :

Artist’s rendition by Ron Miller/JPL/Arizona State University

Hard not to shout “Black gold! Texas Tea!”, isn’t it? Or maybe that is just me.

And they are not there all the time :

Every Martian spring, they appear out of nowhere, showing up — 70 percent of the time — where they were the year before. They pop up suddenly, sometimes overnight. When winter comes, they vanish.

So while they are not Martian animal life, they are a genuine seasonal phenomena on Mars, which goes against the image of Mars as a cold place where nothing happens.

And who knows? Where there is an energy release like that, there might just be the conditions ripe for a seasonal life form or two, or even a whole seasonal ecosystem, like we have in some of the more extreme environments on earth.

So while they might not actually be giant Mars spiders, they might be a great big arrow saying “search for life here!” for future Mars missions.

And I am sure that we must be able to find a use for all that energy being released.

Seeya next week folks!