Achenblog - The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach on whatever strikes his fancy - February 8, 2009

Dross In Space

[My story, just published online, about space junk. More on this to come in your morning paper.] Satellite 33442 orbits the earth every 91 minutes, circling at an inclination of 56.1 degrees to the Equator and gradually slowing down,...

Darwin's Big Idea

A question has been nagging at me: Who was the third most important person born Feb. 12, 1809? We know the top two. One saved the Union and emancipated the slaves, the other figured out the secret of life...

Demolition Derby in Space

I wouldn't be shocked if this situation got worse before it got better: Two space satellites have slammed into one another and converted themselves into two giant clouds of debris in an already junked-up Low Earth Orbit. The Hubble...

Diary of a Barefoot Newshound

Finally I've got a new hobby! For years I've suffered from a severe paucity of hobbies. I've kicked myself for missing out on so many nifty hobbies, like windsurfing, chandelier-collecting and cross-dressing. When I see someone in a Confederate soldier...

Obama's First Prime-Time Presser

Brevity not his bag, the president last night fielded something like 13 questions in an hour-long news conference. His first answer was as long as "Dr. Zhivago." Best question was from our Mike Fletcher, on A-Rod, and Obama did...

Atom Smasher Still in the Shop

You recall that the Large Hadron Collider has had some major issues. We try to keep track of this stuff here on the A-blog, because if they discover the secret of, or accidentally annihilate, the universe, we want to...

Here They Are, The Beetles

[A day late: Here's my story on the cabinet of wonders containing Wallace's specimen collection.] It was in 1979, in an antiques shop in Arlington, that a young law school graduate named Robert Heggestad noticed a lovely rosewood cabinet...

Achenblog: February 8, 2009 - February 14, 2009