The experiments scheduled to be launched on tomorrow’s space shuttle mission include one by students at the University of Florida called
Squids in Space
.
See www . universetoday . com/85175/several-student-led-experiments-to-fly-on-endeavour/ .
The great work begins!
Squee! That’s amazing!
For a squid, the first step — getting into orbit — is a doozy. After that, though, the universe awaits!
Don’t forget photosynthesizing. That sounds difficult.
Low-Earth Orbit is halfway to anywhere, Robert.
This is really, really cool.
I wonder who came up with the idea?
Speaking of charismatic sea creatures, my magazine is about to host a live chat with two scientists about the ethics of keeping dolphins in captivity. It starts at 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time this afternoon (2 p.m. blog time). Sorry about the late notice, but maybe some of you can drop by.
YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!
And so begins our journey towards domination of the universe….
You know, I wasn’t even aware of this! But good on them!
That is so cool.
Squids in space! That sounds so much like an old sci-fi movie. I agree with shadowfire. Whoever came up with this is awesome, and I want to know who they are.
I just found out (completely by coincidence) that there is a holiday called Cephalopodmas, and a website for it. It is on December 22, and it is awesome.
To boldly go where no squid has gone before.
One small step for a squid, one giant leap for MuseBlog.
THE CONQUEST BEGINS!!!!!
Not yet, unfortunately. Technical problems have delayed the launch of the space shuttle until Sunday at earliest.
Now they’re saying Monday at earliest.
Hypothesis: micro-gravity will cause the squid embryos to grow to enormous size, break open the shuttle, and colonize the depths of space.
That hypothesis has the ring not just of truth, but of inevitability.
Yes, the impression I got was that microgravity might effect certain bacteria on the squids that affect the squid’s shape and presumably size as well, so I imagine so. Even if that doesn’t happen, it wouldn’t make a difference; we could just breed giant squids for intelligence, give them some equipment, and send them into space.
But what would happen to the astronauts?
I believe we all know the answer to that question.
They would begin to worship the squids as their unholy deities?
ADSFJL;KFDSAL SQUIDS ARE CTHULHU
(I for one welcome our new cephalopodian overlords)
ALL HAIL THE SPACE SQUIDS, PRAISE THEM WITH GREAT PRAISE
ALL HAIL! This entire experiment is reminding me of a very strange picture book that I once read. I forget the title, but I think it was a date. Anyway, the book was about sending vegetables into space, and giant vegetables falling back to earth. Everyone thought that they were the vegetables sent into space, but in the end, it turns out that the giant vegetables were actually dropped by some squidlike aliens. Has anyone else read this? The squid experiment seemed to combine both elements of the book, so i felt like mentioning it.
The book is June 29, 1999, by David Wiesner. Most of his other books are equally strange.
I love that book! In fact, you were the one who introduced me to it and Wiesner’s other delights.
Yes, I’ve read that book! It’s a great one.
I also like his “Tuesday”, with the flying frogs on lily pads, “Flotsam”, about the magical camera that reveals strange worlds under the sea, and “Sector 7” with the cloud factory.
Flotsam! I loved that. Picture books with no words in are such fun…
yes! I love those too! I knew that he wrote Flotsam and Sector 7, but I didn’t know that he was the same guy who wrote Tuesday, which I have also read, but for some reason didn’t look at the author.
The idea of Mike Fincke being a harbinger of the apocalypse is amusing.
It’s never the one you expect…
I once joked about doing a fan-fic where he, Rusty Schweickart and Greg Jarvis are NASA assassins- nobody would suspect a thing, they all look so harmless!
You should really write it.
No, it’d be dumb even for me.
Not dumb, just crazy
?
I knew you were going to ask that. They turned into squids.
Merp. My post got eaten it seems. Anyway, WOOOOOOO YEAH
SOON.
SOON.
*cheers* Yeeha!
And we have liftoff!
w00tw00t!