Weblog Licentiae Moeticae

And, in the category of "WTF?"

We have: Firm patents premature orgasm pill - for women :

Coming soon: the drug company that brought us Viagra has set its sights on solving a rather less notorious sexual problem - the premature female orgasm. The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has patented drugs to make it harder for women to climax during sex.

This may be a parody or a hoax - but, frankly, if it is I don't really want to know.  If it's a parody or a hoax then this comment byDouglas Savage (director of the Leger Clinic in Doncaster, whatever that is):

"It sounds very strange. We spend most of our time trying to give ladies orgasms."

- really can't be my quote of the day, and I very much want it to be my quote of the day.

So there.

They've Landed.

Everything looks safe, and thank God for that.

Now retire the Orbiters to the proper museums and build new spaceships.  Proper new spaceships, mind you: ones that go up on a pillar of flame and touch down on a pillar of flame, just like God and Bob Heinlein intended in the first place.  I love the Shuttles, but they're old - and while I respect the willingness of our astronaut corps to accept risks, this is one risk that they shouldn't have to accept.

And I also think that it's well past time that we reassessed the current civilian/military division of the American space program.  Navy for preference - full disclosure; the fiancee might end up benefiting from that - but the Air Force will be fine, too.  Hell, bring in the Coast Guard... huh.  That's actually not a bad notion.  Go figure.

So, how many ergs in the standard kaplooey?

As if I'd know an erg if one bit me on the butt, of course - but this is fairly unique scientific writing:

As the planets tugged on the rubble, the rubble tugged back, and that nudged Uranus, Neptune and Saturn outward from the sun and Jupiter inward, as previous research has suggested. That in turn affected how long each planet took to complete an orbit of the sun, since a wider orbit takes longer. At some point, Saturn started taking exactly twice as long as Jupiter to complete a lap.

Then all hell broke loose.

Because of their tugs on each other, Jupiter and Saturn began to leave circular orbits and follow more oval-shaped paths similar to what's observed today. That wreaked gravitational havoc on the much less massive Uranus and Neptune, making their orbits "totally nuts," Levison said. It sent the two planets outward and into the ring of planetary rubble which, as Levison put it, went "kaplooey."