Last week's debut lecture in the UA College of Science's Cosmic Origins series was so crowded that they had to turn away some folks at the door of Centennial Hall—and others had to settle for sitting the aisles. This is a hot ticket on Tuesday nights. 100% free.

Tonight, you can learn how it all got started. And by all, we really mean all, courtesy of Christopher D. Impey, distinguished professor in astronomy:

The scientific story of creation begins 13.7 billion years ago in a circumstance of incredible temperature and density, when all matter and radiation was contained in a region smaller than an atom. The big bang is now a mature theory, with a web of observational evidence supporting it; and the size, shape and age of the universe have been measured with impressive accuracy. This talk will tell the story of how an iota of space-time turned into a vast cold universe of 100 billion galaxies.

Details here.

Or, y'know, you can turn to Bill O'Reilly for your science.

The UA College of Science kicks off its Cosmic Origins spring lecture series tonight at Centennial Hall with Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory discussing "Cosmology: Making Sense of the Universe."

A quick description:

Our "cosmology" is the sum of our assumptions and deductions of how the universe behaves. With the advent of modern physics, the term has been appropriated by physicists and astronomers to represent a scientific description of the origin and nature of the physical universe. But cosmologies can also be outlined in ways that don't use physics and astronomy. Indeed, there is continual feedback between prevailing nonscientific assumptions about the universe and the scientific picture, with each influencing the direction of the other. We'll look at a series of historical cosmologies, and discuss the sometimes hidden assumptions that underlie modern astronomy.

Shain Bergan tells us more about the series here. Last year's Mind and Brain series was phenomenal. We recommend you get out of the house for this.

More on the series here.

The following announcement and essay was submitted by Richy Feinberg.

The Foundation for Cardiovascular Health, a 501(c)3 non profit Community Foundation, will be offering the “Heart Series Program.” It was created by Charles Katzenberg MD, a preventive cardiologist and Edna Silva RN. It is a comprehensive, medically-directed, evidence-based, 12-week program for the prevention and reversal of coronary artery disease. The program is right for anyone who wants to prevent, halt, stabilize and reverse coronary artery disease. Two 12-week programs will be offered, Tuesday evenings starting February 1st from 6 to 9 p.m. and Wednesday afternoons starting February 2nd from 1 to 4 p.m. You must register for the program. Call Richy Feinberg for details and to register at 797-2281

• NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

I sure do love the photos of Mars taken by the UA's HiRISE camera. Here's a final shot of a crater in light-toned layered bedrock south of Oyama Crater.

You can find more HiRISE photos here. And if you really dig them, you can order a 2011 HiRISE calender here.

HiRISE team member Livio L. Tornabene tells us about how the above image was created:

Who wants color? My preferred HiRISE color product uses all three color bands (i.e, wavelengths) that HiRISE can image — IRB, which refers to Infrared-Red-Blue/Green. Ever heard of R-G-B (Red-Blue-Green)? These three primary colors essentially combine to make all the perceived colors that we know of.

By substituting a wavelength that is normally invisible to the human eye for one that is, like infrared for red, we are able to create a "false"-color image. The infrared is useful because its sensitive to iron-bearing minerals and their oxidation state (degree of "rusting"). Ferrous iron, the more oxidized variety, is what makes Mars so reddish. Basically, most of the materials on Mars are pretty oxidized/rusted, and therefore altered from the more original ferric iron state (the less oxidized iron common to volcanic minerals such as olivine and pyroxene). So in general, the bluer the materials in our IRB images the less

Here's what you missed last night, synced up with a Debussy piece that makes the event seem a little more important than it probably was. Classical music classes us any online video, I suppose.

When I was a kid and got an Sears knockoff of the Atari 2600 for Christmas, I never dreamed of this glorious age when I could have a digitally animated samurai yelling at me while playing a urine-powered video game.

Thank you, Japan.

The science geek on your shopping list is gonna love this: The UA's Lunar and Planetary Lab has assembled a dazzling 2011 calendar with luscious shots of Mars taken by the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. A mere $15—and you're supporting the space program! Details on ordering here.

The HiRISE team has recently uploaded another big batch of Martian surface photos you can browse here.

HiRISE team member Laszlo Kestay tells us about the aureole of Olympus Mons in the photo above:

The aureole that surrounds the Western and Northern sectors of Olympus Mons has puzzled Mars geologists. The most common idea is that these deposits formed as giant land slides as the volcano partially collapsed under its own weight.

This HiRISE image is centered on a dark and relatively dust-free part of the aureole. Where the dust

TED comes to Tucson tonight at the Rialto Theatre. Check out the details here.

Find a treasure trove of TED talks here.

Jim Gentile of the Tucson-based Research Corporation offers a prescription for job growth in the HuffPo:

The key to jobs in America has been, and remains, science and technology. In the second half of the 20th century, scientific and technological advances are estimated to have been responsible for well over 40 percent of U.S. prosperity. "It was innovation based on science," wrote Yale University President Richard Levin in Foreign Affairs, "that propelled the United States past Japan during the two decades prior to the crash of 2008. It was Japan's failure to innovate that caused it to lag behind."

Yet America's historic advantage in innovation is being allowed to dissipate. "Not long ago, America's global leadership in technology innovation was taken as a given," writes Stephen Ezell of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. "Research from U.S. corporate, academic, and government laboratories reeled off a string of transformative innovations, in everything from transistors, mobile phones, and personal computers to lasers, graphical user interfaces, search engines, the Internet, and genetic sequencing. But other countries have since closed the innovation gap, and in many cases far outpaced the United States."

Today in news that should please Patrick Stewart, scientists have made big advancements in creating and containing antimatter, the substance needed to power a theoretical starship. Researchers at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, say they have created 38 atoms of antihydrogen and kept them stable for one tenth of a second, more than any other lab. If that doesn’t sound impressive, keep in mind that antimatter and matter, like Highlanders, naturally destroy each other as soon as they come into contact.

“One of the main uses of antimatter would be a starship,” Michio Kaku, physicist and author of Physics of the Impossible, told PC Mag in an interview. “Because you want concentrated energy. And you can’t get more concentrated than antimatter."