Presenting the fact and fiction of tomorrow since 2001
Astronomy is changing fast. Ten years ago, planets around other star systems were still essentially theoretical; now we’re not only capturing them on telescopes but discovering carbon dioxide in exoplanetary atmospheres. A little bit of sensawunda for your Monday morning. 
When people suggest humans should colonise space, it’s often said that first they should attempt to conquer an alien world on our own doorstep - the oceans. The deep cold and pressure of the seabed is just as much a challenge as the vacuum of space and the creatures that live there are just as strange as any in science fiction.
Take a look at some of these Tunicates, that look like glass tulips rising in stems from the seabed. A recent Antarctic expedition found many new species a mile underwater.
Whilst space has its own challenges and fascinations, there are still some parts of our world that have never before been glimpsed by human eyes.
[story and image via the guardian]
Two chaps from Columbia University have published a scheme for chemically extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by passing it through a "chemical sponge". Critics of the scheme point out that the extraction process would be powered by electricity, and that we’d be better off cutting down the amount of greenhouse gas emissions we produce rather than looking for ways to recapture them. I’m no climate scientist, so I can’t pass judgement on which is the better plan … but at least there’s evidence that the prizes like Richard Branson’s Earth Challenge get people thinking about solutions to the big problems. [FuturePundit] [Image by Ju-X]
According to NASA-funded research on drill-cores from Australia, Earth’s atmosphere contained significant amounts of oxygen nearly 2.5 billion years ago, millions of years earlier than previously assumed. Let’s see the Young Earth Creationists spin that one.
