Updates from January, 2010

  • la luna azul

    Emilily 11:13 am on January 4, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:

    So here is my post on the blue moon. Very appropriate that it follows your picture of the blue moon, since I have no actual picture of the last blue moon, only one I lifted from this Wikipedia article, of the December 2009 blue moon with a partial lunar eclipse, as was visible from certain parts of the world (I don’t know which parts, but not ours, obviously.) There is a lot of interesting information here, so I’d recommend reading the whole thing, but here are some of the highlights!

    • There are a number of different definitions of a blue moon, the most accepted being the 13th full moon in a year, occurring once every two to three years. The Farmers’ Almanac follows the rule of the extra (fourth) full moon in a season, and the definition of the blue moon as the second full moon in one month stems from a 1946 interpretation error, revealed in the May 2009 issue of Sky & Telescope. (In case you missed the May issue, here’s the article.)
    • The moon before the blue moon is called a betrayer moon, because it was seen as coming ahead of its appropriate time (the blue moon was one appearing at the right time, then?) and thus confusing the clergy when they were trying to determine the dates for Lent and Easter, which apparently were based on the dates of the full moon.
    • An interesting list of the traditional English names (e) for full moons, based on the Gregorian calendar, followed by the Native American (na) names, based on an older method of dating full moon according to seasons:

    January: old moon (e), wolf moon (na)
    February: wolf moon (e), snow moon (na)
    March: lenten moon (e), worm moon (na)
    April: egg moon (e), pink moon (na)
    May: milk moon (e), flower moon (na)
    June: flower moon (e), strawberry moon (na)
    July: hay moon (e), buck moon (na)
    August: grain moon (e), sturgeon moon (na)
    September: corn moon (e), harvest moon (na)
    October: harvest moon (e), hunter’s moon (na)
    November: hunter’s moon (e), beaver moon (na)
    December: oak moon (e), cold moon (na)

    • Finally, here is a handy equation you can use to calculate the dates of future full moons (all full moons, not just blue moons):

    d = 20.362955 + 29.530588861 \times N + 102.026 \times 10^{-12} \times N^2

    where d is the number of days since 1 January 2000 00:00:00 in the time scale known as Terrestial Time. For Universal Time (world clock time) add the following approximate correction to d:

    -0.000739 - (235 \times 10^{-12})\times N^2 days

    and where N is an integer number of full moons, starting with 0 for the first full moon of the year 2000. The true time of a full moon may differ from this approximation by up to about 14.5 hours as a result of the non-circularity of the moon’s orbit.

    The next time the blue moon will fall on New Year’s Eve is 2028, at which time there will also be a full lunar eclipse! Whoa! (I did not calculate this myself, although I feel like we should test this equation to make sure mathematician Jean Meeus is correct.)

     

  • Last night's moon

    Carmen 1:09 pm on January 1, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
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  • Movie Review/Science Education

    Carmen 4:43 pm on December 18, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: dark matter,

    So I watched Angels and Demons last night and my official review is this:  SO Good!

    It was actually quite beautiful as it takes place in Rome and the characters are whisking themselves to all the gorgeous historical buildings with all of their statues and fountains.  Also, I’m sure it was factually accurate so all of the information that Dr. Langdon spouts regarding Catholic and architectural history is an education in itself!  Not only that, but they show the Vatican Archives! (I’m sure its real and not a replicated set)  Now, the best part of this movie is in the beginning when they show the Large Hadron Collider in all its glory.  I had no idea that this movie was going to be such a treat with all of my favorite things, including a great soundtrack.  So in the beginning they show all the scientists busy at their LHC computers in a crisis about how and when to “harvest” some stuff which turns out to be antimatter.  Antimatter looks pretty cool in the movie – all glowy and powerful – but what is it exactly?  I have no idea.  So  I’m doing a little research…

    Turns out CERN (home of the LHC) has an Antimatter Academy.  Their site has tons of information about it and I am still trying to understand it and its implications.  Antimatter is definitely the way of the future.

     

  • A little LHC history...

    Carmen 9:07 am on December 12, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
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    In reading the New York Times this morning I came across an article that taught me alot about the history of supercolliders.  Did you know there was a miniature one built really close by, in Berkeley? Way back in 1932!  It was only a foot in diameter as opposed to the 17 mile loop of the LHC.  And speaking of big loops did you know there was one being built in Texas with a 54 mile loop?  Its true.  It was called the Superconducting Supercollider (an arrogant Texan obviously thought up that name).  But the SS program was shut down in 1993 because costs exceeded 11 Billion. Oh poor babies. 11 Billion? Oh yeah, thats way too much, especially because we have to spend 1.8 billion per week on our wars in the Middle East (according to msnbc).  So now because of that brilliant decision by Congress there will be no new discoveries concerning particle physics coming out of the U.S.  Which is probably a good thing, Europe will do a better job anyways.

     

  • LHC update...

    Carmen 12:37 pm on November 23, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
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    I just wanted to update you on the progress of the Large Hadron Collider.  Apparently, thier website gives out bulletins keeping everyone up to speed.  Unfortunately, these updates make no sense at all and are only written in their super secret science language.  So, I’d like to take a stab at translating for everyone (i’m talking to you emily (and my mom) since you’re the only one reading this).  Here is their bulletin, and here is my translation:

    “We have been shooting beams of energy into these pipes since last week and they have gotten about half way around this big ass circle we built.  We’re using some really expensive and sensitive equipment to track the particles moving around in there and so far, nothing has broken.  Pretty soon we’re going to start shooting particles into another tube going the opposite direction and in about a week we should be able to see these particles getting into some head-on collisions.”

    So there is your update, not too exciting yet.  Even if I don’t understand the specifics of what they are talking about I love reading bulletins that talk about such things as: “beams dumped just upstream of  the experiment cavern.” and “particles produced by the impact of the protons on the tertiary collimators left their tracks in the calorimeters and the muon chambers of the experiment.”

    And here’s a bonus if you are interested in learning the facts about a baguette being the guilty party in the LHC’s emergency shut down.

     

  • Lucid dreaming...

    Carmen 5:40 pm on November 16, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: dreams

    This last weekend we hosted a christening party for our friends who just had a baby (max is the godfather!). And I was chatting with an interesting woman who was telling me how lucid dreaming helped her friend overcome a traumatic event.  I had never heard of this method before but logically it made sense to me.  And then! after i went to sleep I proceeded to have multiple bad dreams! The dreams don’t sound that bad in the light of day:

    Playing with my niece Violet in the verdant landscape outside my dream house, its a beautiful sunny day.  Out of the corner of my eye I spot a Moose trotting towards us! I say “Holy shit, its a fucking moose!” (keep in mind, I don’t cuss like that in my waking life, only in my dreams).  Knowing what I do about moose I grab Violet and take off running, trying to be quiet and stealthy but I can see the moose tracking us so I tell Violet to be really quiet and we hide underneath some bushes.  But I can hear old moose creeping up with his heavy hooves and I know I’m about to get trampled to death. And then I wake up.

    After a couple other bad dreams I can’t seem to relax and I’m just laying there all tense and stressed out.  And then I remembered what I learned about lucid dreaming…  So I put myself back in the dream and imagine it happening all over again.  Except this time I yell at the moose “Hey Moose! You can’t terrorize me here! This is MY dream motherfucker!”

    And then I slept peacefully for the rest of the night.  If you ever have bad dreams you should try it out!

     

  • designer genes

    Emilily 4:32 pm on November 12, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: genes

    This article on the speech gene is pretty interesting. I know it is a rather simplistic supposition, but what if we could somehow put the human speech gene into an animal with adequate brain capacity for complex communication, like dolphins! Or maybe elephants, who it has been suggested have tribal, not just individual, memories – could they tell us what it’s like? And here’s one where we could borrow a gene – the ability to regenerate body parts – from a fish!

    I just left a smart-ass (if slightly illogical) comment on the Daily Galaxy Image of the Day, a photo of the HGC 87 galaxy group. In addition to making myself laugh, this has the added benefit of putting a link to our blog on their comments section!

     

  • Laser fusion and stuff...

    Carmen 1:24 pm on November 3, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply

    So, as I’m sure you know (!), the large hadron collider (LHC) is going to be starting up again in the next couple of weeks after that disappointing FAIL last year.  I feel like they are putting a whole lot of expectations on this thing.  I mean, they have spent SO much money to get this thing built, and its so huge (in terms of the space it takes up) and yet it is based on concepts and theories.  I admit that my knowledge of whats going on in the LHC is quite sparse so I’m going to assume that they had some very convincing data to get the kind of money they needed to build it in the beginning.  I mean, they don’t even know if the Higgs Boson exists but they plan on finding it!  I’m going to suspend my judgment and of course give them the benefit of the doubt because I truly want them to find everything they are looking for.    What I’m really hoping for is for a stargate to open up right the middle of that thing! That would be awesome!

    LHC

    I also came across this article while reading about the LHC which I find wholly incredible and exciting.  In case you don’t feel like reading the article, its about the very real possibility of creating unlimited energy for the world without the toxic waste that comes with electric and nuclear plants.  I feel like this should have been figured out a long time ago and it probably would have if greed did not exist.  I’m sure that technology in this area has been held back because people have been making way too much money on oil and energy in general.  Anyways, this new “National Ignition Facility”, which is in California (high five!) and starts up in 2010 and is also based on a theory (which they must have proven at some point to get the 3.5 billion start up cost).  The theory: “scientists will use the world’s most powerful laser to create 192 separate beams of light that will be directed at a bead of frozen hydrogen in a violent burst lasting five billionths of a second…the intense beams produce a powerful shockwave that crunches the fuel pellet at a million miles an hour, generating temperatures of around 100,000,000C. Under such extreme conditions, which are found only in the core of stars, the hydrogen atoms will fuse, producing helium and vast amounts of energy.”  Woah.

    NIC

     

  • Our universe...

    Carmen 2:01 pm on October 30, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply

    You just blew my mind University of Utah.

     

  • chicks on spaceships

    Emilily 11:55 am on October 23, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,

    Ok, I was a little intimidated by the 317 hours of SG-1 and SG-Atlantis I was going to have to watch to catch up to the current season, so I skipped right to the pilot episodes of SG-U. (I did read that entire Wikipedia article you linked to in your post, so I do feel somewhat educated on the franchise.) Now, I know that because I have been watching BSG a little longer, my loyalty might cause me to be slightly biased, but I think we need to discuss the role of women in both of these shows.

    (More …)

     

  • Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga

    Carmen 4:54 pm on October 13, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply

    I bet you are thinking – wtf?  And I agree. Totally wtf.  I don’t know if you hate spiders as much as I do but I learned something today that really makes me thankful to be the dominant species on the planet (other than viruses).  First I learned about a spider that is vegetarian who has a symbiotic relationship with “fearsome wasp-like ants”!  Then, from that article, I learned about another spider/wasp relationship that is way more horrific.  A wasp called the Hymenoepicsekljfklsdjf whatever – the Hymeno-turn-you-into-a-zombie wasp! AHHHHH!  Listen to this!

    “The adult female wasp temporarily paralyzes the spider and lays an egg on its abdomen. The egg hatches into a larva which sucks the spider’s blood through small holes, while the spider goes on about its normal web building and insect catching behavior for the next one to two weeks. When the larva is ready to pupate, it injects a chemical into the spider, causing it to build a web whose design is completely different from any it has ever made, and then to sit motionless in the middle of this web. The wasp larva then molts, kills the spider with a poison and sucks its body dry before discarding it and building a cocoon that hangs from the middle of the web the spider has just built. The larva pupates inside the cocoon, then emerges to mate and begin the cycle over again.”

    OH MY God, I’m freaking out.  What if these wasps somehow figure out how to do that to humans one day?! Or worse what if the government figures out what kind of chemical the wasps are using and then uses it on us?!  Or what if we do deep space travel eventually and find a planet with giant insects and spiders as the dominant species but then we can’t leave because our spaceship is broken?!  I’m never leaving the house again.

     

  • Wired!

    Emilily 12:11 pm on October 9, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,

    genome_foldingA 3-dimensional model of the human genome! According to the Wired article: In mathematical terms, the pieces of the genome are folded into something similar to a Hilbert curve, one of a family of shapes that can fill a two-dimensional space without ever overlapping — and then do the same trick in three dimensions. Trippy.

    The subscription should start in November, so your first issue will arrive in November or December, I think.

     

  • Whats this now?

    Carmen 2:07 pm on October 6, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:

    oh by the way – someone cured cancer aaaaaaand I can live forever now.

     

  • stupidity in government and advertising

    Emilily 2:35 pm on September 29, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Discovery On, Hulu

    This is kind of a lame post, but I’ve been slacking on my posts lately, and just thought I’d share whatever pointless information was on my mind at the moment.

    I don’t know if you are familiar with the advertising methods of Hulu, the online TV portal, but basically, they show little 30-second adverts, from one sponsor, two to three times during each episode. Their recent sponsor is Latisse, the prescription eyelash-growing treatment. Now, I am a sucker for anything that claims to make your eyelashes grow – I once paid someone $200 to individually glue fake eyelashes to each of my real eyelashes, and did not regret it for a minute – but I have two complaints about this product. First, they claim their product is for the treatment of “inadequate or not enough lashes.” Inadequate or not enough? Aren’t those the same thing? The redundancy bothers me – either their ad copy is written by an idiot, or they really are targeting two audiences: people who know what inadequate means, and stupid people who just don’t have enough lashes. Whichever it is, I’m annoyed, and if there’s one thing that will stop me from buying your product, it’s being annoyed by your marketing. The other thing that will stop me from buying a product is when the fine print side-effects are horrifying. They claim “Latisse may result in increased brown iris pigmentation, which is most likely permanent.” This intrigued me, so I did some internet research, and found that it literally means, for like 12-18% of the blue eyed people who underwent the clinical trials, it turned their blue eyes brown, forever. I’m sorry, but eye color is determined genetically, and the fact that this product alters that, and they are not even sure if it is reversible or not, makes me suspect they really have no clue what this product is doing to the parts of your face that are not eyelash.

    Update (after checking the website for a thumbnail image to accompany this post): I take that above statement back – they do have a clue, because the pigmentation warning is followed by “There is a potential for hair growth to occur in areas where Latisse solution comes in repeated contact with skin surfaces.” Hmmm, freaky. I think I’ll pass.

    nazcalinekazak

    I’ve been reading, and digging, the Discovery On website, and found this choice quote in the article on the geoglyphs discovered in Kazakhstan: “Recently the Kazakhstan Government toyed with the idea of creating a UFO landing field and an alien embassy.” I re-read this a couple times, and there was nothing indicating they were kidding. Heck, why not?

     

  • Nerd alert...

    Carmen 4:11 pm on September 23, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:

    I’m sharing your love for Wired Magazine today with their “Stunning Views of Glaciers from Space” (!)  I love looking at these pictures and just imagining the millions of years of time and information that locked in that ice.glacier

    Just perusing Wired’s list of Recent Articles is like finding a treasure trove of information.  So, I think you are right, we should get a subscription.

    Here is a list of some articles just to entice you:

    “Freaky new Ghostshark ID’d Off California Coast”

    “One Million Spiders make Golden Silk for Rare Cloth”

    “Details of Galactic Core Revealed in X-Rays”

    Ok, thats enough.

    Here’s something else nerdy that I thought you would like.  This article about our brain’s “dark network“.  Apparently, our brain is constantly traveling back and forth in time visiting our past and our future except when we have a task at hand and then the time traveling chatter falls silent so we can concentrate. Weird.

     

  • My brain hurts...

    Carmen 3:33 pm on September 14, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: string theory

    I’m sorry, but what are these people talking about?  I mean, I read it – I just don’t get it.  Time is disappearing???

     

  • Good morning!

    Emilily 9:56 am on August 25, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:

    How was your dinner party? I was bummed last night that I was missing it, but in retrospect, it is probably good I did not stay…it is “that time” again, and my god am I evil right now. I almost killed someone at work yesterday…but then I couldn’t decide who should be first.

    This article I read in the New York Times this morning was pretty interesting, but the most intriguing part was mention of this program called 23andMe. Basically, they offer discounted genetic testing, with the caveat that your DNA is mapped and all your results go into their data bank. I did some internet research (always reliable) and read that it is funded by Google*, which fascinates me. I can understand if it was funded by some random medical organization or a wealthy mad scientist, but Google? The big-brother-conspiracy-inspiring search-engine wizards? The whole concept just went from mostly innocuous to sinister, and undoubtedly very well organized. I was going to say we should do it, but then discovered that the stupid Times made a typo, and the discounted tests are $999, not $99. So until the price goes down, I’m keeping my DNA to myself…although now we know, I would part with it, and a C-note, in exchange for some probably useless medical trivia.

    *Here is the footnote to that asterisk: 23andMe is not actually funded by Google, but it was founded by the wife of the founder of Google. Which means it’s sleeping with Google, but not on the official payroll.

    (I feel like there should be a picture in this post, but I have nothing relevant banked. I guess there doesn’t always have to be a picture in the post…I just feel it makes it slightly more interesting to look at. I spent a few minutes trying to think of a picture that might illustrate discounted DNA testing, and came up with nothing…or, nothing appropriate, at least.)

     

  • Bode's Galaxy...

    Carmen 10:06 am on August 21, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: bode's galaxy,

    This can be seen by the naked eye, living in the constellation of the Great Bear. Only 11.6 million light years away!  There’s gotta be some aliens in there.

    galaxy

     

  • The crossroads where Japanese history meets deep space...

    Carmen 8:40 pm on August 19, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Himiko,

    I read this article a while ago and have been thinking about it ever since.  It describes how these researchers, using a variety of telescopes pointing into deep space, found an object that they can’t explain.  But they do know some very interesting tidbits about this object that make it very intriguing.  For example, they know that it is one of the oldest blobs that they have been able to capture on film.  They say that this object existed when the universe was only a little baby – 800 million years old.  To state this one assertion, however, brings up a whole host of questions.  Like, really? You know how old the universe is?  And I know this is a widely accepted theory (that the universe had a beginning) but I’m not on board with this theory just yet.  So, they are very surprised to see something so bright at such a stage of the universe.  And this is another interesting tidbit – this “stage” of the universe is commonly known as a transition point in the evolution of the universe called the “reionization epoch”. (what!) Yeah.  Put that in your long term memory just in case you play a game of Trivial Pursuit – Universe Edition. OH! and here’s where it meets Japanese history – they named this blob Himiko after a mysterious Japanese Queen.  And thats all they had to say to get me to look her up.  Apparently she ruled her particular kingdom through shamanism and sorcery!  Of course, details are kind of spotty because she lived so very long ago (yeah, just like the blob!).  And keep in mind the intrigue doesn’t stop there – just imagine that this picture of Himiko is reaching you after travelling across space for 12.9 billion light years!  Imagine what it looks like now…woah.himiko2

     

  • ethics shmethics

    Emilily 11:16 am on August 12, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:

    Did you read the article  in today’s Daily Galaxy yet, the one about improved memory? Fascinating stuff, however, what is the deal with this quote: “A team of scientists at the Spanish University of Malaga were working with rat brains, because of the combination of ethics and wimpiness that prevents human trials.” I mean, haven’t we been saying all this time, we’re ready already? I am going to be so bummed when I am 90 and the youth of tomorrow is getting all these biological and/or genetic enhancements and I’m stuck living out my golden years in a rocking chair on some shady porch with this completely obsolete 21st century brain I was born with. It’s rubbish.

     

  • I want one.

    Carmen 10:54 am on August 11, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Science

    Yes please!  Is there some way I can volunteer for this??  Sounds like Sci-Fi but researchers are trying to insert a third strand of DNA into our standard double-helix.  I totally want one.  (warning: you might have to read this article slowly to understand what they are talking about)

    Artificial DNA Article

     

  • holy crap...

    Carmen 10:18 am on August 6, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: extreme weather, lightening

    So close!  This picture was taken back in April.  Bad things almost happened!

    nuc reactor

     

  • Whole body nervous system scan...

    Carmen 10:31 am on August 5, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: MRI

    I thought this article was pretty fascinating.  Not necessarily because they have figured out how to do something never before done – map the entire nervous system of the body – but more because it describes in detail how an MRI machine works!  What an amazing invention.

    Map of the Nervous System mri scan

     

  • A few things for you this morning

    Emilily 8:59 am on August 3, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ,

    First, awesome: superpowers, nearly. I am not kidding when I say I would be willing to test like a robotic third arm or something to see if my brain could figure out what to do with it.

    Second, here’s a joke I read in Maxim:

    What’s the number one most effective pick-up line?

    (More …)

     

  • Your learning for today...

    Carmen 5:15 am on July 31, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply

    So, I know how much you like to learn new stuff. And my endeavor in life is to make you super smart so…

    In my reading today I’ve come across some good stuff. Did you know there is some crazy research being done these days on Cetaceans?

    Also, apparently the Rorschach tests have been let out in the public and a bunch of people are up in arms about it. I think its pretty ridiculous, but I love Rorschach tests even though they are almost complete bullshit.  I think they are still accurate in telling if someone is super duper crazy rather than just a little crazy.

    I like this guy’s art.

    And lastly, Mars! Astroids destroyed its magnetic flows man!

     

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