The Core: Flying bricks, pacemakers, and quantum avian eyeballs

Forgetability

The valley of forgetability (The Core) between science-respecting sci-fi (e.g. Arrival) and totally bonkers nonsense (e.g. Jupiter Ascending).

Space shuttle

Landing the “flying brick.”

Bird navigation

Magnetite beaks. The possibility of quantum eyeball magnetic navigation HUDs. Corvid appreciation. Why birds don’t all fly into our windows and our eyeballs.

Pacemakers

Keeping your heart on-rhythm. Not as immediate a death sentence as portrayed.

Earth’s outer core

The absurd energies in the spinning of Earth’s core - a ball of iron the size of Mars, spinning a thousand miles an hour

That’s a whole lot of energy. If it doesn’t sound like much, let’s convert it to megatons: it’s the equivalent energy of five trillion one megaton bombs going off.

Phil Plait on the spinning outer core

Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy Review of The Core: BadAstronomy.com

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