Doctor Who 50th Anniversary

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At long last, the Day of the Doctor is upon us. After half a century of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff, today, November 23rd, 2013, is the 50th anniversary of the British science-fiction TV show Doctor Who, the longest-running science-fiction TV show in the world ever!

Obviously, I am terribly biased because I am a die-hard Whovian (a Doctor Who fan), but I simply could not let this opportunity pass by without writing at least a short blog post to acknowledge the other 50th landmark (besides JFK's assassination) this year. I have been waiting for this day for some time now, and it appears the Internet has been as excited as I am. There's been a big bang in Doctor Who stuff in the past two weeks after the BBC launched a Build the TARDIS site, which collects all the information tagged with the hashtag #SavetheDay. Check it out, it's very "cool," as the Eleventh Doctor would say.

Yesterday was a very Who day for me, starting from when Selina told me about the Google 'Whodle'. Without Selina, I'd never have realized that Google had done a doodle to celebrate one of my favourite TV shows turning 50 years old! I absolutely love that it was Selina who told me – it was a complete full circle/Who-esque moment. I introduced her to Doctor Who, and she would in turn tell me about the 'Whodle'. This is turning out to be a lot like a Doctor Who episode. No? Then "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," as the Tenth Doctor (AKA, my Doctor) would say.

Naturally, when I got home, I ran, got exterminated by Daleks, deleted by Cybermen and zapped back in time by the Weeping Angels and regenerated more than a few times. I was able to finally save the Google logo and defeat the Daleks – as the Doctor always does – and see all 11 Doctors united and rejoicing:

For reference, here's what the 11 Doctors look like:

And here is a video celebrating the 50 years, featuring all 11 Doctors in costume (Let me know if you want to talk Easter Eggs in the vid):

And a little bit of an introduction about Doctor Who from author Neil Gaiman for any new potential Whovians amongst my students (ahem, Sandy):

No, look, there's a blue box. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It can go anywhere in time and space and sometimes even where it's meant to go. And when it turns up, there's a bloke in it called The Doctor and there will be stuff wrong and he will do his best to sort it out and he will probably succeed 'cause he's awesome. Now sit down, shut up, and watch 'Blink'.

Continuing my Who celebrations – and because they didn't know who the Weeping Angels are and what they are capable of – Selina, Sandy and I then followed Neil Gaiman's advice and watched "Blink" together yesterday. It was creepy and "fantastic!" as the Ninth Doctor would say.

Anyway, this blog post has turned into me dashing about being really excited about "The Day of the Doctor" (and trying to insert as many Doctor Who references as possible). "The Day of the Doctor," the 50th anniversary special episode, is going to air this Sunday (11/24) at 3:50 AM in Taiwan on BBC Asia. Before you ask, yes, I will be up at the unearthly child hour.

Now some links to cool Doctor Who stuff done by our own:

• Selina has written two wonderful blog posts about two episodes that we watched together – "Father's Day" and "The Girl in the Fireplace."
• On the other hand, I have written a post on my other blog about my favourite episode of each season of the new Doctor Who.

That's all for now. Until then, you'll find me eating fish fingers and custard in the little shop – I love a little shop! Now, onto the TARDIS and to 23.11.13 we go! Geronimo! Allons-y! RUN!

P.S. Spoilers! I am going to be geeking out all of next week.

Join the Universe in Wishing Carl Sagan a Big Bang of a Birthday!

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This weekend we celebrate the birthday of beloved American astronomer, astrophysicist and cosmologist Carl Sagan on November 9. Sagan was born in 1934 and died in 1996.

Carl Sagan is famous for contributing to people's understanding of the cosmos – the universe – as a whole. He is the author of the science book and TV series Cosmos. Cosmos covered many scientific topics such as the origin of life and our place in the Universe. He also wrote the novel Contact, which was made into a movie in 1997.

Because Carl Sagan was able to communicate complex ideas very easily, he helped people understand our place, as humans, in the universe. He taught us how small the Earth is compared to the Universe but at the same time emphasized the value and importance of the human race. Sagan's work helped to discover the high surface temperatures on Venus, the second planet from the sun. His research also deals with the possibilities of extraterrestrial life (aliens!).

In honour of his birthday, here, from the 11th episode of Cosmos, is a quote from Sagan about the magic of books:

What an astonishing thing a book is. It is a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

To Infinity and Beyond! NASA Celebrates 55th Anniversary

October has come, and with it we celebrate the birth date of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known by its acronym NASA.

On July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower passed an act that established NASA with the purpose of encouraging peaceful human space exploration. The operation opened its doors on October 1st of the same year, and this year marks its 55th anniversary.

NASA is perhaps best known for the Apollo moon-landings. On July 20, 1969, only 12 years after NASA launched, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. As he stepped onto lunar surface, Armstrong described the event as "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." You can watch the televised moon-landing here.

Interestingly, Armstrong was not the first man to journey into outer space – Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin completed an orbit around the Earth in 1961. After World War II ended, the United States and Russia started fighting in the Cold War, a war that had no real physical fighting. Instead, the two countries both constantly threatened to use nuclear bombs on each other (but never did it) in the hopes of attaining global influence. The rivalry from the Cold War even led to a Space Race, which began when Russia sent the Sputnik 1, the first satellite, into space. During this time, both the U.S. and Russia tried to show their superiority by competing to achieve "firsts" in space exploration. 

The Space Race led to many great technological achievements in space exploration. Here are just some of the achievements that NASA has accomplished in its 55 years, with many, many more to come.

NASA

In honour of NASA, we conclude with one of the most famous phrases about space made popular by the science-fiction TV and film series Star Trek:

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.