The Grand Council of the Great and Serious Men of Science recently conducted a survey to determine which unanswered questions of science vexed us most. The results comprised the usual suspects, such as “What is the biological basis for consciousness?” and “Do deeper principles underlie quantum uncertainty and nonlocality?”
However, the most vexing of all was [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘MIT’
October 22, 2009
Stop dribbling
April 23, 2009
MIT just got even less athletic
Pax Arcana
It was math nerds that inadvertently caused the global economic meltdown, so I guess the chickens had to come home to roost at some point. We received word today that MIT — where I once mopped the hallways as a janitor while secretly solving complex math riddles — is shutting the doors on several [...]
November 12, 2008
Football coach you never knew existed retires
Pax Arcana
MIT has announced that head football coach Dwight Smith has will retire from his position. In other news, did you guys know MIT had a football team?
Actually, that’s a little mean considering Smith was the 1999 New England Football Conference Coach of the Year. In other news, did you guys know there was a [...]
October 16, 2008
MIT exactly $1 million closer to athletic glory
Pax Arcana
The centerpiece of MIT’s athletic facility is Steinbrenner Stadium, named after the father of Yankee majority owner George Steinbrenner.
Wait just a minute. I’m confused. MIT has an athletic facility?
(Googles “steinbrenner stadium”)
It’s true! You can see it pictured below, just next to the Tetris Building:
Anyway, George Steinbrenner — who donated millions to build the stadium [...]
October 13, 2008
The wall-climbing robots will invade your bedroom
Pax Arcana
A few weeks ago, as he was nestled in bed with with two copies of Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich (one in each hand — helps reduce time wasted flipping pages), Pax Arcana bolted out of bed, flipped on the lights, and stared menacingly at the headboard — fists clenched, battle stations manned.
Such [...]
August 25, 2008
We are complacent about climate change problems because we’re idiots
Pax Arcana
Show a thousand Americans a snapshot of any endangered fuzzy mammal, and there’s a good chance most of them will volunteer to donate money, time, or shelter to save the adorable little fuckers.
Global climate change threatens to turn the entire planet into giant spherical conflagration of hot gases and flames, yet we stare blankly [...]
July 31, 2008
MIT researchers have captured the Sun
Pax Arcana
In dramatic leap forward for humankind, researchers from MIT have announced that humans are almost as smart as plants.
Specifically, they say we are close to an inexpensive, efficient mechanism for storing energy from the sun — a process modeled on photosynthesis that could go a long way to saving us from the carbon-emitting power [...]
February 20, 2008
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon
Pax Arcana
Those crazy kids at MIT are at it again. First they wanted to strap you to an asteroid. Now they want to put telescopes on the moon.
Not all over the moon, mind you, just on the dark side — which, if I’m remembering my Astronomy 301 seminar correctly, is where most of the cheese [...]
December 13, 2007
MIT raises army of two-assed flatworms
Flatworms are famous for their ability to regenerate a head or tail after either has been severed from its body, a fact that has completely derailed science’s efforts to create an awesome two-assed flatworm for shits and giggles.
Now, thanks to the work of Peter Reddien and his colleagues, that obstacle has finally been hurdled. The [...]
November 7, 2007
Believe it or not, this building is poorly designed
The building pictured above is a relatively new landmark in the Boston area. Designed by architect Frank Gehry for MIT, the Stata Center is one of those buildings that evokes fear and hatred from people who fear and hate oddly-proportioned buildings that look like set pieces for a Tim Burton movie.
Pax Arcana, it should be [...]
