This is why we have a space program

The International Space Station was intended as a giant laboratory in space, and despite numerous delays and screw-ups in getting it up there, it is producing interesting and important scientific research. I'd like to highlight one of the most recent discoveries to come down to Earth from the ISS.

Boomerangs work in zero G. When thrown inside the ISS, the boomerang flew the same way it does on Earth.

This is cool. For a start, I didn't think the ISS was big enough to get a decent throw of a boomerang without hitting the walls. I'd like to see this research extended to see how boomerangs fly in zero g without an atmosphere. I think it would be different, but I'm not sure how much of the motion is purely from the rotational motion, and how much is the interaction between the rotational motion and an atmosphere.

There should be more of this sort of stuff going on up in space.

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Writing time: 17 minutes
Time since last post: half an hour or so
Current media: jPod

For Posterity

The following was found while doing the first stage of preparing to move. It is a song written during an honours solid state lecture. It is intended to be in the genre of heavy metal/punk. I'm putting here to preserve it for future generations and so I can get rid of one more bit of paper.

Semiconductor by the Conduction Band

I'm above the forbidden gap
Apply a potential and I'll move in a snap
Those in the valence band are caught in a trap
About them no one gives a crap

chorus: I'm an electron in a semiconductor
I don't drive a real big truck
Computers and such they all need me
But I don't give a flying duck

In an intrinsic semiconductor
Currents due to temperature
My motion is a complete blur
I'll put your head into a whirl

chorus

For everyone in the conduction band
A hole remains in the valence band
If we all went back to our home land
We'd all be colder than a bear in Iceland

chorus

Guitar solo, lots (I mean lots) of distortion

Some semiconductors are full of dope
Without them you don't have a hope
Around disruptions electrons have to grope
They're more impure than the pope

End Post
Typing time: 7 minutes
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: iTunes Shuffle, currently Drop the Hate by Fatboy Slim

Postscript: I found it rather amusing that iTunes is considered a misspelling of tunes by the apple spellchecker