Recent Discoveries

I have been making all kinds of discoveries recently. Here they are.

Food
A friend and I wandered through Portland’s Pearl District. Oh, the weather was lovely for walking. We happened upon Sweet Masterpiece, a quiet chocolate shop. The proprietor shared with us the most marvelous lemon cream: it had the perfect balance of sweetness and tartness, lightness and richness. I ordered a jasmine and clementine chocolate, an alderwood smoked caramel, and something else with milk chocolate and cinnamon. There were several floral blends, including one with lavender that I ought to have tried. Next time, perhaps.

Thought
I found a blog that is a good blend of irreverent and heartfelt. It is called Write on Through, and it speaks for itself. [Edit on 3/2/2017: the blog appears to no longer exist. I am sad.]

Life
The Habitability Primer is online! European astrobiologists and the Astrobiology editorial staff got together and created this special issue of the journal, focused on the search for habitable planets beyond our solar system (exoplanets! see my previous blog post here). This issue represents a significant collaboration and effort, so I am quite pleased to see it online. Would you like to read a paper or two? Go ahead, because right now the entire issue is available for free!

Robots
What can I say about the Robot Astronomy Talk Show? I can say that it is awesome. The Spitzer Space Telescope folks have created a variety of videos under the name IRrelevant Astronomy. You can view the Spitzer Space Telescope Musical, a Spitzer Space Telescope action film featuring Sean Astin, and RATS: the Robot Astronomy Talk Show. RATS is quirky, funny, and educational; it presents hard-core astronomy lessons and space marvels. Recent episodes have featured guests including George Takei, Mark Hamill, and Linda Hamilton. And the episode “Sculpting with Stars” has a copy-editing joke in it.

Why the IR in IRrelevant? Because Spitzer detects infrared radiation, commonly abbreviated IR.

Hooray for discoveries!