"Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness."

-Zhuangzi

The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.

-Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

It definitely seems like there are some of us on this planet who look to the stars and dream about what lies ahead (for us on this planet and for our lives beyond) and then there are many who look no where but to the present.  I truly have been wondering more and more lately about the nature of humanity.  Are we bound to diverge so much that we become new, distinct species?  We already have groups of people who will not breed with other groups.  The far-right, conservative christians have entrenched themselves pretty deeply in some areas and seem to indoctrinate their children so heavily that those children don't fit in with modern day thinking.  How will our society continue to evolve when groups within cannot work together?  If Earth is our cradle, perhaps it is nurturing and raising us to be very different.  Perhaps part of biological evolution for conscious species is to diverge into new varieties.  I wonder if, when we do come to leave the cradle and "grow up", if a good proportion of what was humanity will remain behind, stuck in their ways and unwilling to change.

Gearing up to move forward with building a sulfur spring analog in the lab.  I realized I have forgotten a lot of what we covered in geochemistry for equilibrium constants, dissolution in solutions, solubility, and the like.  Going back and reading "Thermodynamics of Natural Systems" to try to build up a sound idea of the theory once again.  I hope I can get this thing moving forward before too long.

Here's a fun link.  Syd Mead is the guy who developed the futuristic scenery for films such as Blade Runner, Tron, Alien, and Minority Report.  His art is fantastic!  Check his site out:
http://sydmead.com/v/11/

Mmmmmm.  Big ol' cup of coffee and a relaxed morning.  Just what I needed.

Was just reading about yet another awesome discovery made using the Kepler space telescope.  Astronomers have discovered a saturn-size planet which orbits in a binary star system.  Much like the fictional Tatooine from "Star Wars", this planet experiences double-sunsets from its surface (and other cool variations of the two stars rising and setting at different distances from each other relative to the planet).  Too cool!    

Here's an image (artist rendering of course) from the NASA press release: