Outdoor Activities Archives

70 Years Since the Dambusters Raid

This week is the 70th anniversary of the Dambusters raid, one of the most celebrated military operations of World War Two but not very well known outside the UK. All week here in the UK there have been special documentaries about the attack, as well as news features, and showings of the 1955 movie. This afternoon my home city is celebrating with a special service at the cathedral and a flyover by a Lancaster bomber, the plane that performed so spectacularly in 1943. Read more →

Merm-Aid Kickstarter Aims to Save Mermaid Parade

For years now, Coney Island’s Mermaid Parade has functioned as my own personal Rumspringa. For the rest of each year I might have seemed like nothing more than a mom, a homeschooler, a cub scout leader, a Sunday school teacher, an advocate–let’s face it, not the stuff of myth and legend. But one day each June, miles from the “Mom…Mom…Mom…” of home, I got to revel along with 750,000 like-minded, beach-bound souls at the largest, friendliest art parade in the country. Heaven. Read more →

Meteor Shower Sunday Night: View Live or via NASA Webcast

During the night of Sunday, May 5, you can view the Eta Aquaarid meteor shower as our planet travels through the orbit of Halley’s comet. Go out to view it yourself, or stay inside to catch NASA’s webcast of the livestream with chat. Read more →

Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains The Origins Of Atomic Elements

In our favorite astrophysicist’s latest installment on AOL On’s “School of Thought” series, Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses a little-known-about paper written in the 1950s, titled “Synthesis of the Elements in Stars” and published in several scholarly journals such as Reviews of Modern Physics. This paper discussed the formation of the fundamental elements on earth, those that are taught to us in the periodic table of the elements. Read more →

The MapMyFitness Team Declares: “Boston, We’re With You”

Loved this run someone did in San Francisco on April 16th, spelling out the word “Boston” with his footsteps. You can view the details of this route through the MapMyFitness map editor. The staff at MapMyFitness wrote a lovely tribute to the Boston Marathon tragedy on their company blog today. Click through below to read more. Read more →

Missing The Blue Angels Already? Keep Your Kids Looking Up With National Kite Month

April is National Kite Month! With the cancellation of the Blue Angels air shows, celebrating National Kite Month is one way to keep your kids looking up to the sky at the wonders of flight. Read more →

Geeky States of America: Ashfall Fossil Beds & Fossil Vacations, Royal, Nebraska

The Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park isn’t necessarily near anything. We endured a 360-mile round trip in one day — six hours worth of driving to and from our then-home in Bellevue, Nebraska — for about two hours of exploration in a very rural part of northeastern Nebraska. Read more →

What It’s Like to Die in a Black Hole

Just in case you sit around pondering questions such as this…in this month’s issue of Nature, Zeeya Merali discusses the latest in a debate on how black hole death might be: in one corner is “spaghettification” (being ripped apart), the other corner is “the wall of fire” (getting burned alive at the event horizon). Read more →

U.S. takes North Korean threat of nuclear EMP attack seriously – Investors.com

What do you think of life without electricity, like what you see on NBC’s Revolution, FX’s The Walking Dead, or in the book/upcoming film World War Z? That’s what a low-yield nuclear blast in the upper atmosphere would cause, by … Read more →

Solar Conjunction Puts NASA’s Curiosity Rover, Orbiter In Communication Blackout

Between April 4th and May 1st, the Mars Curiosity and Opportunity will be in minimal communication with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as it experiences a Mars solar conjunction. Click through to read more about what a solar conjunction is, and what impacts it will have on JPL’s communications with the fleet of Mars exploration vehicles. Read more →