Updates from January, 2010 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Emilily 11:13 am on January 4, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    la luna azul 

    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.)

     

  • Carmen 1:09 pm on January 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Last night’s moon 

     

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

    Movie Review/Science Education 

    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.

     

    • Dave 11:58 am on December 21, 2009 Permalink

      Carmen, how does antimatter relate to strange, degenerate, exotic or dark matter? Speaking of elusive dark matter, indicators of it’s existence have been felt in a mine in Minnesota: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/dec/17/dark-matter-detected

      Happy Winter Solstice to you both!

    • Carmen 2:57 pm on December 21, 2009 Permalink

      Good article! Very interesting. I had no idea there was a group called the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search, I’ll have to contact them and see if they’re looking for new members. There is one thing in that article that seems contradictory… They were saying that dark matter has a unique characteristic that allows it to move through matter as if it didn’t exist and yet the only way they can detect it is to wait for dark matter particles to bump into their high powered sensing machines. Maybe what they meant to say is that their machines can sense when dark matter particles are passing through them, not bumping into them. Anyways, if thats true dark matter is probably in here right now!
      Also, thanks for the pop quiz Dave! Lucky for me the answer to your question is simple = Theoretically.

    • Emilily 10:13 pm on December 22, 2009 Permalink

      I have not yet seen the movie, but I did read the book, and really enjoyed the parts about the LHC. I am not really crazy about Tom Hanks, I feel he is a little too old and soft-looking to play the dashing Dr. Langdon (who is, I like to think, more of an Indiana Jones type, but maybe that’s just me romanticizing it) especially opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones, but I will probably check it out nonetheless…my superficial view of what the characters are supposed to look like will not get in the way of my love of CERN!

    • Emilily 10:46 pm on December 22, 2009 Permalink

      That was a great article, Dave. That was the first I had heard of supersymmetry being one of the goals of the LHC, or that dark matter might explain why time only travels forward. Fascinating! Although, I did question why a dark matter detector was located at the bottom of a mine in Minnesota? I would have thought they would put them in space, but underground? Where else do they have dark matter detectors? How many are scattered around the world…like, enough that I could run into one someday? What does it looks like? More research is in order….

  • Carmen 9:07 am on December 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    A little LHC history… 

    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.

     

    • Emilily 9:11 am on December 16, 2009 Permalink

      Well, you know I am as big a fan of cool science as you are, so I read the New York Times article too! I have to say, I did not know we had any supercolliders in this country, but props to the one in Illinois – even if it is a measly 3.9 miles around, Tevatron is an awesome name. Although we are about to get our physics butts kicked in a serious way.

  • Carmen 12:37 pm on November 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    LHC update… 

    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.

     

    • Atom Ant 5:17 pm on November 23, 2009 Permalink

      I beg your pardon? Emily is the only one reading? Far from true my little lily pad. I am a religious reader.

    • Carmen 5:29 pm on November 23, 2009 Permalink

      Ay dios mio! my apologies! I didn’t mean to exclude any of our religious readers. Please allow me to edit that part out…

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

    Lucid dreaming… 

    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!

     

    • Emilily 5:56 pm on November 17, 2009 Permalink

      Well, I read that Wikipedia article, and it was quite interesting. I do this sometimes, although I didn’t know what it was called, its just that sometimes in the middle of the dream, I’m like “oh, this is just a dream” and sometimes I wake up, sometimes not (well, obviously I wake up eventually!)

      What do you think was going on with your dream? I wonder what your dream house looks like? I did some research on the symbology of moose, and here’s what I got:

      According to Native American totem mythology…“One of the most ancient and unique power animals, the Moose energy brings in the power of self-esteem through recognizing ones own strengths and place in society….” In Pagan mythology, moose energy…“symbolizes expressing joy of accomplishment, not in a boasting way or to seek recognition…”, and is at “her” peak during late autumn. Were you running away from your self-worth? Since I don’t put a lot of stock in mythology, I should point out that the moose is also the Abercrombie & Fitch logo.

      All kidding aside, though, Wikipedia says “In terms of raw numbers, they attack more people than bears and wolves combined…” So it’s probably good you ran.

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

    designer 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!

     

    • Carmen 12:12 pm on November 13, 2009 Permalink

      Oh I’m so excited for the future. See, by the time we’re like 70 we can stop spending our money on anti-wrinkle creams because we’ll just be able to regenerate our skin! All of these beauty companies should really be putting their money into gene research and then progress would grow in leaps and bounds. Its all based on how useful it will be to the public. Thats why DARPA’s discoveries always have a dual purpose – one for the military and one for the percentage of the public who have lots of disposable cash. Just look at how space travel has grown when the focus is moved to getting the public to spend their money on it. Suddenly we have a space hotel under construction. Whatever, I’m all preachy today. As much as I love progress i think capitalism makes me angry. After doing a little research I might have to take back what I said about DARPA, most of their projects are only for the military. Unless the public wants one of these!

    • Emilily 12:45 pm on November 13, 2009 Permalink

      Holy batship Robin, I want one of those!

    • Emilily 1:08 pm on November 13, 2009 Permalink

      I just thought of something…that thing would be way more stealth if it didn’t have its own Wikipedia article.

    • Emilily 1:10 pm on November 13, 2009 Permalink

      We’re totally on the same page, here, too – capitalism is good for the pocketbook, bad for the soul.

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

    Laser fusion and stuff… 

    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

     

    • Emilily 3:25 pm on November 10, 2009 Permalink

      Okay, this reply is long overdue, but I had to set aside enough time to read all those articles. It’s so important to keep up on the science!

      First, the one from The Guardian about the LHC. I think it is amazing they fixed the problem already, I mean, a machine of that scale, with such specific conditions required to work, it’s no wonder it had a few problems! Do you think it is really possible it could create a black hole that will swallow the earth? I also like these guys, they have taken skepticism to a whole new fascinating level: …another group of physicists [who] say the production of Higgs bosons may be so abhorrent to nature that their creation would ripple backwards through time to stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveller trying to halt his own birth. Wow! Seriously, if humanity is going to destroy itself, that would be way cooler than slowly poisoning ourselves with our own sewage and pollution.

      I followed the link to the Wikipedia article on the Higgs Boson particle, and I’d just like to say, way to go Wikipedia, every link in that article led to another article that made even less sense than the first, like one of those Russian nesting dolls of obscure physics theories. In order to understand the God Particle, I had to read about scalar physics, which is “distinguished by its invariance under a Lorentz transformation, hence the name “scalar,” in contrast to a vector or tensor field. The quanta of the quantized scalar field are spin-zero particles, and as such are bosons.” I cannot even remember what I was originally reading about, but I did learn a new word! Quanta-the minimum unit of any physical entity involved in an interaction, and an entity is quantized when it is reduced to this minimum. I can’t use it in a sentence, but I feel like at least I have prevented one small fraction of this information from flying right over my head.

      I am sure this article about the National Ignition Facility and a potential clean, unlimited energy source is fascinating, but the time-bending dark-matter-spawning particle accelerator is a tough act to follow. Although, you make a good point about why haven’t we figured this out already – maybe if everyone weren’t focused on fixing the 60 billion dollar short-circuit at CERN, or manufacturing cars that have 3 rows of seats and DVD players instead of electric engines, we would have made some more progress on this by now.

    • Carmen 3:51 pm on November 10, 2009 Permalink

      Well, I hate to inundate you with even more information but another article regarding this so-called Higgs and its abhorrent nature which makes people want to time travel came out in the NYTimes – Collider article
      This will clear things up a little about the time traveling bit.
      I don’t know what you said about scalar and quanta-thes but it sounds good to me! And about black holes – yes, apparently black holes are being formed all the time so need to worry about them swallowing the planet. And if that should happen it will be super exciting! Looking forward to it!

    • Emilily 4:50 pm on November 10, 2009 Permalink

      That was AWESOME!!! Forces from the future are coming back to thwart the LHR!?! I was semi-mocking the whole idea in my last reply, but I have to say, once I learned this Dr. Holger Bech Nielsen is one of the founders of String Theory and a widely respected physicist (although I think they used the term “deep thinker” rather than “physicist” but same difference)…well, I can only say, this feeling is similar to what a 9-yr-old might experience if they suddenly found out that Santa Claus really did exist, after all.

    • Carmen 5:35 pm on November 10, 2009 Permalink

      yeah, i can’t wait for Christmas (the collider to start up)!

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

    Our universe… 

    You just blew my mind University of Utah.

     

    • Emilily 5:15 pm on October 30, 2009 Permalink

      Dude, this is awesome.

      How do you pronounce that thing: µ? According to microsoft office, it is called a Micro sign, but I think it is a Latin character…does it have a name?

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

    chicks on spaceships 

    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 …)

     

    • Carmen 4:16 pm on October 23, 2009 Permalink

      I think Battlestar Galactica is, hands down, the best show ever (except for Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia). One reason BSG has been the best is the depth of the character development. Another reason is that its not a typical show. They do things on that show that you will never see on a major network (I hope Syfy doesn’t get all butthurt that I said they weren’t a major network). They kill off major characters, they talk about abortion and racism, not to mention the entire human race is in danger of going completely extinct. And they have kickass females. Ok, I know they made a woman president in 24 but she wasn’t that impressive (and i only watched the first episode). I always found BSG president (Laura Roslin) to be surprising – in a good way. Like she made the decisions that even the men couldn’t stomach, she could detach herself from the emotion and do the right thing for the benefit of the greatest amount of people. You know, I could go on and on about each one of these ladies but the big difference between them and the SGU ladies (or most any other show with chicks on it) is the predictability. Whoever writes for the shows and decides what is acceptable has a very narrow spectrum of choices for their female characters. I think this is because people are scared to push the boundaries of these roles. If its been working this long then don’t fuck with it – thats their motto. BSG pushes those boundaries and opens it up for greater movement and creativity for their characters. I’m so tired of the same ol predictable characters. I can’t even watch romantic comedies anymore because I know exactly whats going to happen at every moment.
      Speaking of a narrow spectrum of creativity – can you tell how SGU ripped off some ideas of BSG? I don’t care, I’ll still watch it. They suckered me in with the whole stargate/wormhole idea. You had me at wormhole! *tear*
      Speaking of wormholes, have you seen Fringe yet? That is another really good show that has a fantastic leading character (a woman) who is not the typical lady. I’m always surprised when she wears her FBI uniform of traditional oxford button down and its NOT buttoned down so her boobs are hanging out (like CSI Miami – that show is a joke, a bad joke). AND it has parallel universes! Thats a winning combination.

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

    Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga 

    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.

     

    • olga 3:45 am on October 14, 2009 Permalink

      Don’t worry Carmen, humans have been trying for centuries to get silk to come out their behinds, never works. All we get is poop and it is really difficult to spin a web with that stuff.

    • Emilily 9:36 am on October 14, 2009 Permalink

      Oh no. You listened to the RadioLab podcast on parasites, didn’t you?!?! That wasp thing is soooo disgusting. I seriously worried about the same thing, what if those wasps evolve and can lay their eggs in us?!?! Or what if we someday discover some other insect that has a similar toxin that does have an affect on humans, there could be something like this living in the rainforests right now! And what about the one where the fly larva was growing in that guys scalp and he just left it there? I think they should sell purse-sized cans, just like pepper-spray, of nasty parasitical insect and alien repellent.

    • Emilily 10:54 am on October 16, 2009 Permalink

      That wasp-spider thing was so gross, I had to go find another.

      The female wasp of this species, the emerald cockroach wasp or jewel wasp (Ampulex compressa) stings a roach (specificially a Periplaneta americana, Periplaneta australasiae or Nauphoeta rhombifolia) twice, delivering venom into specific ganglia of the roach. She delivers an initial sting to a thoracic ganglion and injects venom to mildly and reversibly paralyze the front legs of the insect. This facilitates the second venomous sting at a carefully chosen spot in the roach’s head ganglia (brain), in the section that controls the escape reflex. As a result of this sting, the roach will first groom extensively, and then become sluggish and fail to show normal escape responses.

      The wasp proceeds to chew off half of each of the roach’s antennae. Researchers believe that the Wasp chews off the antenna to replenish fluids or possibly to regulate the amount of venom because too much could kill and too little would let the victim recover before the larva has grown. The wasp, which is too small to carry the roach, then leads the victim to the wasp’s burrow, by pulling one of the roach’s antennae in a manner similar to a leash. Once they reach the burrow, the wasp lays a white egg, about 2 mm long, on the roach’s abdomen.

      With its escape reflex disabled, the stung roach will simply rest in the burrow as the wasp’s egg hatches after about three days. The hatched larva feeds for 4–5 days on the exterior of the roach, then chews its way into its abdomen. Over a period of eight days, the wasp larva consumes the roach’s internal organs in an order which guarantees that the roach will stay alive, at least until the larva enters the pupal stage and forms a cocoon inside the roach’s body.

      I fully believe that there are people out there right now experimenting with toxins such as these. All we can hope is that they make us to do cool stuff like in Aeon Flux, like construct one of those giant utopian dome cities, or colonize other planets, and none of that gross waspy stuff.

    • Carmen 11:25 am on October 16, 2009 Permalink

      Holy Crap! That is just so wrong! Clearly these wasps need to take an ethics class.

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

    Wired! 

    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.

     

    • Carmen 2:27 pm on October 9, 2009 Permalink

      sweet!

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

    Whats this now? 

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

     

    • Emilily 2:42 pm on October 6, 2009 Permalink

      innnnteresting. It sort of looks like you’ll have to pick one or the other – either live forever as a telomerase-tumor-growing science project, or stay all mortal and low-tech.

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

    stupidity in government and advertising 

    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?

     

    • Carmen 3:20 pm on September 29, 2009 Permalink

      wow, good post! and WHAT?! they can permanently change blue eyes to brown?!?! And the reason is – let me see if i have this right – because your iris is growing hair on it? Also, I think some don’t have enough lashes and other people have enough but they are too thin (or something) to have real impact, thus, inadequate. Maybe that clears up the redundancy quandary you are having.

      I’m liking the Discovery On too, its kind of like Scientific American (which I love) but more tailored to my short attention span. I wonder if the people who “discovered” the geoglyphs thought about the possibility that these were just trails for goats and sheep?

    • Olga 6:50 am on September 30, 2009 Permalink

      So many things come to mind as I read your post Emily. 1. Are we going to be seeing an abundance of middle-age men with brown eyes in the future? I would think that the baldies of the world would be buying this product up in mass quantities and rubbing it all over their shiny lil’ heads. 2. What did the first few (girls?) think when their nice blue eyes started turning to Mayblline dark lash #21? 3. What will the rest of us think about brown-eyed-girls in the future? Maybe she was born with it… maybe she’s Latisse? 4. And here’s a tip for all you gangsters and fugitives out there, are your eyes blue on your wanted poster? Whallha! Insta-brown will save you from the FBI! So many possibilities, so little time.

      P.S. Speaking of genetic tom-foolery, I think that hair color is in a similar category. I was once (genetically) a brunette, now I’m L’oreal # 9A-bL

    • Carmen 10:08 am on September 30, 2009 Permalink

      I think we should all buy stocks in Latisse.

    • Emilily 10:47 am on September 30, 2009 Permalink

      That’s a really good idea!
      I think we should also try growing our own mustaches.
      (ok, kidding about that last one.)

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

    Nerd alert… 

    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.

     

    • Emilily 6:01 pm on September 23, 2009 Permalink

      I am on it! I love Wired. Except it is going to have to be sent to your house for now, and then perhaps you can send them to me after you’ve read them. But consider it done!

      Those glacier pictures are amazing! Seeing them is the closest we will ever get to seeing time freeze (I think, unless we learn to time travel, in which case it follows we will also learn to time stop, too…and I bet there’s a Wired article on that somewhere.) What strikes me the most is that, except for the brown land and the blue water, they are almost completely colorless, like in the hundreds of square miles between the ice and the sky, there is nothing to disrupt the purity of light and shadows. Beautiful.

      We must have been on the same page today, because I was looking at these images earlier. They’re high-megapixel panoramic views taken with cameras mounted on robotic arms at the tops of redwood trees. (From the image on that link, you can zoom in and pan across the horizon.) The excerpt for the image says: “This is a 360 degree panorama from atop the largest (not tallest) tree in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. This is the world’s tallest forest, containing over 100 of the 150 known trees on Earth over 350 feet.”

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

    My brain hurts… 

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

     

    • Emilily 5:03 pm on September 14, 2009 Permalink

      Whoa. Gives the phrase “we are running out of time” a whole new meaning. I like it somehow, or I like the direction it is going in…even if it is not right, it is approaching the expanding universe theory from another angle. And I agree that maybe time won’t always behave the way we expect it to, the way we experience it now, but if it is disappearing, where is it going? Is it turning into something else? Are all the other dimensions disappearing also? Does that means time was moving faster at the beginning of the universe? More explanations please!

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

    Good morning! 

    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.)

     

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

    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

     

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

    The crossroads where Japanese history meets deep space… 

    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

     

    • Emilily 4:35 pm on August 20, 2009 Permalink

      That was an awesome article. There are SO MANY concepts there I could ponder on for hours! My favorite was when the guy said “The farther out we look into space, the farther we go back in time.” What a great way to conceptualize the fourth dimension (time still is considered the fourth dimension, right?) It just makes sense! A one dimensional line increases into a two dimensional plane, which then increases into a three dimensional shape, and if you increase three dimensions far enough, you get closer and closer to a four dimensional space…although I guess we are always moving in the fourth dimension…but in a straight line, maybe traveling through deep space is like traveling through the fourth dimension in something other than a straight line…whoa. That makes a telescope the closest thing we have to a time machine.

      Or, wait, maybe this one is my favorite “…according to the concordance model of Big Bang cosmology, small objects form first and then merge to produce larger systems…” Okay, for lack of my knowledge of any alternative, I can go along with that, but what if this Himiko blob IS a small object? What if it only looks large to us because we only have the things within our current reach to compare it to, maybe on the scale of the rest of the universe, the Himiko blob is a brand spankin’ new teeny tiny speck?!

      I’m going to go read that article again.

    • Carmen 5:00 pm on August 20, 2009 Permalink

      Yeah! Thats what i’m saying! Maybe we should get this book about the TEN dimensions so we really know what we’re talking about. http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash2.php

    • Emilily 12:31 pm on August 21, 2009 Permalink

      I think we’ve looked at this book before. According to the psychobiologist who reviewed, we should read this, and I am inclined to agree with psychobiologists. We should read it at the same time so we can discuss it.

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

    ethics shmethics 

    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.

     

    • Carmen 10:02 pm on August 12, 2009 Permalink

      I know, I think in order to be considered for human trials we need to avail ourselves to other countries. And then, I would be too scared. So, I guess this law of not doing scientific research on humans is probably there for a reason. But, as far as I know, there is no law against doing scientific research on your OWN brain! Now where did I put that RGS-14 for my V2 secondary visual cortex…

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

    I want one. 

    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

     

    • Emilily 1:40 pm on August 11, 2009 Permalink

      Whoa. That was interesting. I made the mistake of reading the Scientific American article it was based on, and now my head hurts. I kind of got lost around page 4, but I do know a lot more about genes now – what a fascinating field of study! In conclusion – I’m sold, let the human experiments commence!

      This just goes to show that Science Fiction really should be renamed Science That Just Hasn’t Happened Yet, or Future Science.

      Scientific American Triple Helix Article

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

    holy crap… 

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

    nuc reactor

     

    • Emilily 11:15 am on August 6, 2009 Permalink

      Hmmm. I can see how this would be very very bad. I looked it up, and apparently there’s some cool new lightening prevention technology! The article is not that interesting, but their description of what this thing does is kind of intriguing: “Unlike antiquated lightning rods, which collect and direct lightning at a site, charge transfer technology prevents direct strikes by reducing the local electrical field to below lightning-collection potential.”

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

    Whole body nervous system scan… 

    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

     

    • Emilily 11:07 am on August 5, 2009 Permalink

      I would very much like to read about how an MRI works, but first let me say OH THANK GOD THAT SCROLL BAR IS GONE.

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

    A few things for you this morning 

    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 …)

     

    • Carmen 10:17 am on August 3, 2009 Permalink

      Sweet! Ok, i haven’t read the MIT article yet but I agree, I have often wished that I could insert electrodes into my brain and zap it in a few places just to see what happens. Did I send you the article on the Deep Brain Stimulation therapy going on right now (mainly in Europe)? They are using it to treat stuff like OCD and Depression and there is no invasive instruments just very concentrated waves. I’ll send you the article later.

      Also, Wired, ok. lets do it. I think Max has a bunch of back issues i could read to see if I’ll like it but if you say its good then I believe you!

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

    Your learning for today… 

    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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