"Star Trek: The Next Generation" premiered my first year of grad school, and the last episode aired my last year. It bookended my career as a student getting a PhD in astronomy, and so it has personal meaning for me. Also, I simply loved the show. And I mean love like grown-up love; I accepted its faults as well as the times it exceeded the sum of its parts.

On reddit, I found a link to this video, an interview with Marina Sirtis (Troi) and Jonathan Frakes (Riker), and if you’re a TNG fan, it’s a must-see. It’s simply wonderful.

It starts off a little goofy and fun, and ends really quite warmly. They seem like genuinely nice people — and if you read Wil Wheaton’s Memories of the Future you’ll find out they really were. That’s nice to know.

I've just done a Slate piece elaborating on what would happen if a hurricane hit the Gulf oil slick, based upon further research and interviewing. Here's an excerpt:
Much depends on the angle at which the storm crosses the slick. In the Northern Hemisphere, hurricanes rotate counterclockwise, with the largest storm surge occurring where the winds blow in the direction the storm as a whole is traveling—that's in front of the eye and off to the right. (Meteorologists worry over a hurricane's dangerous "right-front quadrant.") So if a powerful storm approached the slick from the southwest, say, its most potent winds would push the oil forward, instead of sweeping it off to the side and out of the storm's path. If the storm then plowed into the Gulf Coast, you'd expect an oily landfall. And how would the slick affect the storm? Not much if at all:
...by the time winds reach hurricane force (greater than 74 mph), they cause so much ocean mixing that any oil slick on the surface would be driven down into the depths and generally broken up. MIT hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel has tested the phenomenon on a small scale using an enclosed tank, half filled with water, ...

UPDATE:  SOLVED by Steve at 12:20 CDT

All right!  We’re back to Saturday and the riddle.  Is everybody alert and ready for this one?  I’m thinking it will go fast, but I wanted to do this one.  I think you’ll find it fun, but hurry!

So, without further ado, your riddle:

Today’s riddle is an event.

Nobody on Earth witnessed the event; but almost everybody on Earth knows about it.

This event has been widely studied in modern times.

The answer to today’s riddle was the answer to an even bigger riddle.

Events like this one are frequent plot devices.

Although there is physical evidence for the event, it took a long time for scientists to realize what the evidence meant.

There is still controversy surrounding the event.

Did  you get that?  Do you know what the answer is?  Get your guess out quickly because I’m thinking this poor riddle will be shot down in about 6 minutes flat.  I’m in the comments.

I'll come out when Trudy stops threatening me!

This is a barking owl, photographed at Caversham Wildlife Park in Perth. It’s a well-named creature, which, according to Wikipedia, emits noises that “range from a barking dog noise to a shrill woman-like scream of great intensity”. It’s said to be a potential source for Australia’s Bunyip legend, and I’m sure the striking yellow eyes don’t help either.

I’ve got some public face time coming up:

Tuesday, May 25, 5:30 pm: In San Diego, I’ll be talking at the American Society for Microbiology. I was asked to speak at the President’s Forum, “Tell the Story of Science.” My own talk is, “Newspapers, Blogs, And Other Vectors: Infecting Minds With Science In the Age of New Media.”

Random House will be kindly providing copies of Microcosm for sale at the meeting. I will spend some time signing them all when I get to the conference Monday. The books will be available at the American Society for Microbiology Press Booth. (I’ll update this post when I know exactly where the booth is located.)

I’ll also plan on hanging out at the booth at some point on Wednesday, hoping that I can meet face to face with some of the Loom’s microbiologist readers. (Again, I’ll update this post about exactly when I’ll be there once I get to the meeting.)

Thursday, June 3, 7 pm: The World Science Festival returns to New York for its third year, and I’m delighted to enter my third year of moderating panels for them. I’ll be part of “Modern MacGyvers,” a gathering of innovative thinkers who are designing solar panels for camels, cook stoves that could save millions of lives, and other important inventions.

I may be asked to moderate other panels; if so, I’ll update this post accordingly. I will definitely be going to some other sessions as an audience member: the line-up looks great.

Thursday June 3, 8 pm and 10 pm: The Science Channel is airing, “Creating Synthetic Life,” a show about Craig Venter’s new hand-made cell. The producers asked me to talk about the research Craig Venter and his team have been carrying out for the past fifteen years on the path to creating artificial life. At the time they interviewed me (a few weeks ago), I knew there was some big news coming down the pike, but wasn’t able to talk about the particulars. So I expect that I’ll turn up on the show speaking in hazy generalities set in the future tense. Feel free to set your TV on mute when I show up. But based on the previews, I think the rest of the show is worth checking out.