The implosion of Titan opens up the age-old question of how much risk should anyone take.  The standard blowback is to stay in bed and certainly avoid leaving home if you want to avoid risk.  True, whether it's merely falling or getting into a traffic accident, security is compromised when you venture forth.  Did you know that  second only to motor vehicle accidents is falling , which itself accounts for 15% of all accidental deaths in the U.S.   But why even live if you do nothing, something only a very few rich souls can enjoy.  So we all proceed through life in school, work, family stuff, watching TV, traveling, and the like.  Then there are those who hang glide, savor bungee jumping, do night scuba diving, and, if you can afford it, take Titan to see the Titanic or, like  Jeff Bezos , three years ago boarded his New Shepard rocket on an 11-minute journey on July 20 to coincide with the 52nd anniversary of Armstrong stepping on the Moon.   Odds were made before he left, and beca

Let me start with that blizzard warning this weekend.  Alaska, sure they had some snow and wind.  Perhaps that storm moving east along the Canadian-U.S. border?  Nope, the  Big Island of Hawaii .  The tops of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa began to accumulate snow last week.  The total snowfall could have been a foot by Sunday, with winds exceeding 100 MPH.  Just a typical winter over the telescopes on Mauna Kea, which might still someday build the Thirty Meter Telescope.  That  photo to the right  is actually from January of this year. More than a decade ago this blog site had a  series on eternal life .  This was linked to my  Huffington Post  article on  Science and the Future of Cloning:  Is Immortality Possible?   To quote: There are at least two pathways to continue your presence. One does not involve human cloning. Without going into telomeres and ribonucleoproteins, let me just say that science is actually close to finding and checking the aging gene. Someday, you might be able to tak

                                  From  Worldometer  (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):          DAY    USA    WORLD     Brazil      India      South Africa June     9    1093     4732         1185        246       82 July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572 Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130 Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82 Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85 Nov    25      2304    12025        620        518      118 Dec     30      3880    14748       1224       299      465 Jan      14       4142     15512        1151        189      712                  Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398 Mar     2        1989      9490        1726       110      194 April   6          906     11787         4211       631       37 May    4         853     13667         3025     3786      59   June   1         287    10637         2346      3205       95  July   7          251