The Cambrian period - In the Cambrian period, roughly 540 million years to 485 million years ago, most of the types of animals that are with us today got their start, even if it’s difficult to recognize them.

catching up with early life - Most of the history of life on our world is about single cells. Life made up of millions-billions-trillions of cells, (just for one critter!) only arrived in the last 700,000,000 years.

Not an episode - With the eb and flow of events, I wasn’t able to do the research for the next real episode. So, here’s an artificial episode instead.

Let’s get back to life - Today, I share a bit of what’s happened with my digital organisms, my ongoing experiments with some software-based artificial life I wrote, and talk about where we’re going next. The general system is very close to where I wa...

Jets and jet engines - While doing the research for an episode on nuclear powered aircraft, I ran across a bunch of information on how jet engines work. I thought, gee, the history design and physics of jet engines would make a nifty episode.

From television to nuclear fusion - In 2005, a small team, headed by Robert Bussard, built a nuclear fusion reactor. The design was a descendent of a fusion reactor invented by the same man who invented the television.

It can’t melt down if it’s already melted - Today we look at the latest and greatest in reactor design, molten salt nuclear reactors. Here’s a link to Moltex Energy - Moltex Energy - Here’s a link to a short video that explains the Moltex react...

Nuclear powered aircraft - In the 1950/s the United States Airforce and Navy considered nuclear powered aircraft. Instead of burning fuel to heat air and provide thrust, a nuclear-powered jet engine would heat the air from the heat generated by a nucl...

Blast me to the moons! - Once you’ve learned how to tap nuclear energy, what can you do with it? One proposal was to take a couple thousand nuclear bombs, drop them behind a spacecraft, and set them off to push the craft from the Earth’s surface,

Nuclear alchemy - The medieval alchemists wanted to change lead into gold. It was, by the methods they were attempting to use, impossible, but modern physics might be able to turn gold into lead. it is possible to change one chemical element into anot...