Pseudonymous Bosch's Blog, page 2

They're back

Soyuz Re-Entry

Seen from the International Space Station, the Soyuz TMA-05M descent module begins to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere, leaving a plasma trail as the Expedition 33 crew streaks toward a pre-dawn landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan.
Expedition 33 Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Aki Hoshide landed northeast of the remote town of Arkalyk at 8:56 p.m. ESRead More...

Congrats to secret friend Natalie Standiford...

Author of The Secret Tree, now a New York Times Notable Book of the Year! For more on Standiford and her secret book of secrets, see http://www.nataliestandiford.com/

Can YOU crack the pigeon's code?

A coded message found attached to the remains of a hero D-Day carrier pigeon may never be cracked, British top codebreakers have admitted.

Hand-written on a small sheet of paper headed "Pigeon Service," the message was found in a red cylinder still attached to the bird's leg bone.

The pigeon's skeleton emerged in 1982 from the chimney of 17th-century home in Bletchingley, Surrey, when the home's current owner David Martin decided to restore the fireplace.

Unseen Read More...

that's using your noggin

The Word of the Day for November 28 is:

numen   NOO-mun   noun
: a spiritual force or influence often identified with a natural object, phenomenon, or place

Examples:
We were in a village that had hardly changed in a thousand years, and we felt a numen that transcended earthly religions and human histories.

Did you know?
How did "numen," a Latin term meaning "nod of the head," come to be associated with spiritual power? The answer lies in theRead More...

our bodies in space

Commander Kelly on the Station

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, Expedition 25 flight engineer, is pictured in the Cupola of the International Space Station on Oct. 14, 2010.

NASA has selected Kelly for a one-year mission aboard the station in 2015. Kelly will join Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko on a mission that will collect scientific data important to future human exploration of Read More...

gobble

The Wordnik Word of the Day for November 22, 2012 is

engastration
http://www.wordnik.com/words/engastra...

(noun) The placing of a fowl, as a stuffing, inside another fowl.

Example:
Do we really need 'turducken' for a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey, when chefs already have the splendid word 'engastration' for the business of stuffing one creature inside another?
--B. Comber, ‘Recycling of Used Words,’ Gulf Daily News, November 4, 2010

Now we have to watch out for TWO suns?

Double Prominence Eruptions

The Sun erupted with two prominence eruptions, one after the other over a four-hour period on Nov. 16, 2012. The action was captured in the 304 Angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. It seems possible that the disruption to the Sun’s magnetic field might have triggered the second event since they were in relatively close proximity to each other. The expandRead More...

waiter i thought you said souffle

The Wordnik Word of the Day for November 19, 2012 is

mouffle
http://www.wordnik.com/words/mouflle

(noun) The loose covering around the nose and upper lips of the moose or elk. Prized for stewing or roasting.

‘Mouffle’ is French in origin and comes from ‘muffle,’ the fleshy, hairless snout of certain mammals, such as ruminants.

 

Example:
The crowning dish was that grandest of all dishes, moose mouffle. This is the immense upper lip and noRead More...

fancy dress

Here are some secret fans dressed up as some secret characters:

 

(image of kid as jester)

 

(image of kid as dr l)

I wanna be a star

An Exploded Star's Remains and Its Murky Environment

Supernova remnant W44 is the focus of this new image created by combining data from the European Space Agency's Herschel and XMM-Newton space observatories. W44 is the vast purple sphere that dominates the left hand side of this image, and measures about 100 light-years across. XMM-Newton data reveal that the remnant is filled with X-ray Read More...