Google Earth

Having read about it a couple of times, I finally decided to download Google Earth today - you need a broadband connection, Windows XP and a computer that's not too old (my two and a half year old laptop managed just fine). Unfortunately I live too far outside the main metropolitan area to get much detail of my place at this stage, but I spent a couple of interesting hours sight-seeing - try Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. I'm sure there's a lot more to the program than I've found just through trial and error and it will be interesting to explore it further next time I feel like "travelling".

New physics blog

Sean Carroll of Preposterous Universe fame has started a new group blog at Cosmic Variance with 4 other physicists - 2 of whom I am pleased to say are women - another one to add to my regular reading list, I think.

And while I’m mentioning regular reading, it has been remiss of me not to mention Quantum Hobby, a blog by an amateur scientist looking to teach himself graduate level quantum mechanics – an ambitious and admirable goal that I wish him all the best with.

125th anniversary of Science magazine

The 125th anniversary issue of Science magazine includes a special section called "What we don't know" which details 25 of the big questions facing science at the moment and also briefly touches on 100 other questions. Full PDFs are available (at the moment, anyway) from here - just scroll down the page. Now, is it too ambitious for me to want to reach a point in my knowledge of science where I can at least understand all these questions???