Friday, February 24, 2012
What can primates feel?
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Ancient (9K-12Kyears old) Rock Art of Anthropomorphic Figure Found in Central Brazil
Much more primitive than European cave art from the same time, but the Americas got a much later start, due to the ice ages.
Biggest photo of the night sky ever
If Mormons can baptize you into Mormonism after you die...
(props: Mike Elgan)
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
One for Team Einstein
It appears that the faster-than-light neutrino results, announced last September by the OPERA collaboration in Italy, was due to a mistake after all. A bad connection between a GPS unit and a computer may be to blame.
On the plus side: No taxidermy required!
"Seconds after it hit the air, numerous shots rang out," Hindi said in the release. "As an act of revenge for us shutting down the pigeon slaughter, they had shot down our copter."
Read more: http://thetandd.com/animal-rights-group-says-drone-shot-down/article_017a720a...
Alexander Graham Bell’s first sound recordings restored to life
http://www.gizmag.com/graham-bell-recordings-restored/21543
Need a giant superconducting magnet? "The Recycling of the Tevatron"
"... since Fermilab flagship particle collider, the Tevatron, was switched off in September 2011, the detector has been surplus stock — and it is now slowly being cannibalized for parts."
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
NASA Launches Rocket Into Northern Lights | Wired Science
Astronomers recently sent a 46-foot rocket sailing through the shimmering green band of energy known as aurora borealis, or the northern lights.
The NASA-funded mission launched on the frigid night of Feb. 18 from the Poker Flat Research Range, 30 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. The rocket, called the Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling in the Alfvén resonator (MICA), arced 200 miles upward and plunged directly into the lights.
Auroras occur when charged particles emanating from the sun hit Earth’s upper atmosphere, producing light. Instruments aboard MICA probed the electric and magnetic fields that arise from this collision, collecting data for 10 minutes before falling back to Earth.
The recorded information will help researchers understand how the charged particles, collectively known as the solar wind, affect Earth. Such data is important because the sun is currently entering a period of increased activity and electromagnetic storms can affect satellites orbiting the Earth.
MICA also studied a special form of electromagnetic energy known as Alfvén waves. These waves travel through hot ionized gas called plasma, and act similar to sound waves.
When solar wind hits the Earth’s ionosphere, it strikes a structure known as the Alfvén resonator, a narrow channel in the atmosphere several hundred miles tall but only six miles wide. Much like a plucked guitar string resonating at a certain frequency, this structure reverberates in response to the sun’s energy. Researchers think this action may produce auroras.
MICA is not the first rocket launched into the northern lights. Back in 2009, two rockets flew from Poker Flats through an aurora, collecting data from the top and bottom edges of the flickering green ribbon.
Images: 1) Terry E. Zaperach, NASA. 2) Donald Hampton
Marc Johns: two page dating map drawing for National Geographic
Monday, February 20, 2012
Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, Feb 2012
Full-res photos:
slideshow: http://tinyurl.com/748moha
all: http://photobucket.com/ridgefield2012
physorg: Russians revive extinct 30,000 yr-old Ice Age flower from frozen burrow
It was an Ice Age squirrel's treasure chamber, a burrow containing fruit and seeds that had been stuck in the Siberian permafrost for over 30,000 years. From the fruit tissues, a team of Russian scientists managed to resurrect an entire plant in a pioneering experiment that paves the way for the revival of other species.
The Silene stenophylla is the oldest plant ever to be regenerated, the researchers said, and it is fertile, producing white flowers and viable seeds.
http://pda.physorg.com/news/2012-02-russians-revive-ice-age-frozen.html#
Not a dead orb after all: NASA Spacecraft Reveals Recent Geological Activity on the Moon
This pulling apart tells us the moon is still active," said Richard Vondrak, LRO Project Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "LRO gives us a detailed look at that process.
full story:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/feb/HQ_12-055_LRO_Moon_Images.html
Friday, February 17, 2012
PlasmaTornadoes On the Surface of the Sun (video)
Click through for video.
(BTW the text refers to "dark" plasma; that's not right. Light sunspots, these only seem dark in comparison to the insanely bright parts.)
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Only 15% of 'Susan G. Komen for the Cure" budget goes towards cancer research
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-orenstein-komen-20120215...
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Satellite image, February 14, 2012 - "Russian Winter" in western Europe
In early February 2012, much of Europe shivered under the effects of a “Russian Winter” - intense cold and snow triggered by a strong Siberian anticyclone which hovered over northern Russia. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of the snowy landscape of France and the United Kingdom on February 11, 2012.
#candyheartrejects
this isn't happiness™ (John Cotton Dana’s 12 Rules for Reading)
John Cotton Dana’s 12 Rules for Reading
1. Read.
2. Read.
3. Read some more.
4. Read anything.
5. Read about everything.
6. Read enjoyable things.
7. Read things you yourself enjoy.
8. Read, and talk about it.
9. Read very carefully, some things.
10. Read on the run, most things.
11. Don’t think about reading, but
12. Just read.
---Libraryland
