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Credit: NASA/CXC/MIT/F. Baganoff, R. Shcherbakov et al. How do you probe a supermassive black hole? Take a look at the pulsars that orbit it. These rapidly spinning neutron stars flash regular radio pulses, and in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal astronomers say that the timing of such pulses could provide a new understanding of the 4 million solar mass black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

It's rather embarrassing that we still have a macroscopic chunk of something as the standard kilogram. The other fundamental units are defined in terms of atomic processes, but for mass we have a macro standard and an atomic standard. Scandalous! (I'm sure when the Higgs boson is found that everything will sort itself out.)

This is Rossi's blog...tomorrow's the day, if it's real. If so, hold on to your hats.