Today is the Vernal Equinox (in N.A.); otherwise known as the first day of spring.

Twice a year the length of the day and the night are equal (exactly twelve hours each), these days are the equinoxes. The spring equinox signals the start of longer days until the longest day, which is known as Summer Solstice. Then the days become shorter until the fall equinox (where the the night and day are of equal length again) and continue to shrink until the shortest day, which is Winter Solstice.

Or, if you are in the southern hemisphere you experience the season opposite of the northern hemisphere and today you celebrate the Autumnal Equinox.

Here is a fun little Equinox quiz to celebrate today.

See, I knew computer games were good for me! Thank you to Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, for showing that playing action video games improves the spatial resolution of people’s vision. Not only does this study help justify playing computer games, but there may also be a therapeutic application. People who have vision problems such as “lazy-eye” or even those suffering the ravages of time can improve their vision by playing Quake 4!

The European Space Agency announced that Paolo Nespoli (from Italy) will be a Mission Specialist for the STS-120 mission to the International Space Station. One of the main goals of this twenty third mission to the shuttle is the delivery of the Italian built Node 2, a connecting module, which is an important piece as it will allow two new laboratories to be added to the station.

Remember less than one hundred years ago this was science fiction.

We’ll need a new image of the ISS! (see the 1x page)

Never before have geologists been able to so precisely determine the date of geological processes that a rock experiences as time passes. A new device uses a mineral called monazite, which acts as a petrologic black box to determine when a rock was exposed to events such as: extreme heat, the pressure of a glacier, or an impact with another rock. The task of utilizing the properties to monazite fell to the University of Massachusetts and a French analytical instrumentation company. Together, they created a machine called ‘Ultrachron’! Sadly, I do not think that Ultrachron transforms, but read more about it anyway.

We always enjoy discovering that we have been featured in the media.

I found this very nice article at Global National today. Thank You to Marilynn Miller of Minneapolis who wrote a letter to recommend our site.

We also received an email Saturday from John M. to let us know we were mentioned in the Charlotte Observer. Thank you John.

March Break is approaching! Jeff and I will be working on a new aspect of Starship Dimensions. We are going to start a page of science fiction characters, to scale, and drag-able. How big is the mother Alien compared to E.T.? I don’t know yet, but we’ll figure it out.