He had a great science fiction series and several other shows on the Science Channel I enjoyed. Dr. Hawking has lost some scientific wagers though: with Kip Thorne; a "black hole war" with Leonard Susskind and Gerard t'Hooft; most recently with Peter Higgs (of the Higgs Boson).

On 27 November 1895, at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Nobel signed his last will and testament and set aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prizes, to be awarded annually without distinction of nationality. Wikipedia

The actual web site for the Nobel Prize appears to be down at the moment...

Worry not only how you will be remembered, but how you will proceed through life until its end. Personally, I want to check out with the same digits and body parts I checked in with (a little worse for the wear, understandably).

The thruster was developed under NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Project at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Glenn manufactured the test engine's core ionization chamber. Aerojet Rocketdyne of Sacramento, Calif., designed and built the ion acceleration assembly.

The 7-kilowatt class thruster could be used in a wide range of science missions, including deep space missions identified in NASA's Planetary Science Decadal Survey.

"A key finding of our work is to show that we can describe the basic sounds used by the artist with the same system used to describe speech sounds, which suggests that there is a common inventory of sounds that are drawn upon to create any vocal expression," Proctor said.

The research also sheds light on the human ability to emulate sounds, and on how the human instincts for music and language can overlap and converge. Also, "learning more about beatboxing and other forms of vocal musical expression may offer insights into novel future speech therapy," Narayanan said.

The scientists at the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI; Institute for Gravitational Physics at Leibniz Universität Hannover and Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics) in Hannover are hunting for elusive gravitational waves—a prediction from Einstein's general theory of relativity. Their first direction detection will open a new window to our Universe and usher in the era of gravitational-wave astronomy. The AEI researchers aim to detect these tiny space-time ripples using detectors like GEO600 near Hannover, Germany, and aLIGO in the U.S. These detectors use lasers to measure the tiny distance changes caused by passing gravitational waves. Thus, the continuous improvement of those lasers and the minimization of disturbances like stray laser light is of great importance.

I talked about this here, here, here and here. Wrote a book about it (literally).

We're given ourselves self-serving mythologies of "shining cities on a hill"; "chosen nation"; pursue multiple choice exams over education, creationism/intelligent design and other made-up "controversies"; junk science in the halls of congress, #scamdals, chimeras and "created realities" because pursuit of poltergeists allow pols not to do their actual elected jobs of managing the commonwealth for the common good (i.e. redistricting = Zombie government).

Our technology is literally superseding our need for certain workers.

For example, when some of us just "couldn't do college" a generation ago, Americans could get a job in a factory - I'll use the automotive industry - and build a decent middle-class life for themselves and a family. A blue collar job might have been to use a drill on an assembly line for lug nuts, bolts, etc. Now, that's done by a robot that doesn't call in sick; doesn't need vacation; won't demand a retirement. Most hiring by US firms is abroad where pay is lower than our national minimum wage. The other good option was the military - recall it was a "peacetime force" post Vietnam.

I am not advocating slowing down, "crawling in a cave"; running for the hills. The genie is out of the bottle now, and we're debating (if you want to call it that) problems that have no impact. Period.

Our sense of the "American Dream" is changing daily, as should our definition of middle class, upper class and financial plasticity - the ability to move freely from class-to-class (hopefully upward). We've got the most expensive health care on the planet, and I've had two good friends - one my fraternity line brother - perish due to lack thereof: insurance is an expensive business with real casualties. Our living longer puts stress on geriatrics, resources and food supplies. Weather, whether you want to call it climate change or a rather heated solar cycle, is now part of what is briefed in the actual Situation Room. We either accept these realities, and prepare our children academically and morally for them: or, inherit the whirlwind of societal instability. This is Sky-net in slow-mo, and "The Hunger Games"; "Brave New World"  nor "1984" should not be a blueprint for our collective futures.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

Don't panic: I know school's out for summer...and that's the chant from the teachers!

This is something I've thought about. In the seventies we had School House Rock (you better believe I have this DVD). A lot of great memories: multiplication, science, grammar, government and how it should work. As a teacher, I recall having to compete with the district demands of test prep, video game systems, mobile devices and the latest script-and-drama from reality TV. Rock was the innovation of its day, a way to engage us in passive learning. I can still sign most of the songs and recall things from its lessons (what I don't remember, I can now review in my living room).

This is just another means to engage kids in science, something as a nation we still need to do...

As part of a program created by Columbia professor Christopher Emdin, 10 New York City high school classes have been writing raps as a way to learn about science. The program is called Science Genius, and it sounds like the sort of patronizing pop-culture hijack kids hate more than anything. But when Wu-Tang’s GZA drops by a Bronx classroom to discuss the importance of scientific inquiry, you can see the actual moment when the students realize the program is legit.

To make the microbatteries, a team based at Harvard University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign printed precisely interlaced stacks of tiny battery electrodes, each less than the width of a human hair.

“Not only did we demonstrate for the first time that we can 3D-print a battery; we demonstrated it in the most rigorous way,” said Jennifer A. Lewis, senior author of the study, who is also the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and a Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. Lewis led the project in her prior position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in collaboration with co-author Shen Dillon, an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering there.

The results have been published online in the journal Advanced Materials.