TED Talk: JJ Abrams Mystery Box

Awesome talk for a Saturday morning =D

Doomsday on Dec 21st 2012?

This one's for you Rachel!!

A great article on the Mayan calendar and on all the hype surrounding the 2012 "catastrophe"
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/05/19/no-doomsday-in-2012/

I especially enjoyed the lesson on the "Long Count" Its really neat to see how they calculated dates. An excerpt from the linked article above:

...

Most of the Mayan calendars were short. The Tzolk’in calendar lasted for 260 days and the Haab’ approximated the solar year of 365 days. The Mayans then combined both the Tzolk’in and the Haab’ to form the “Calendar Round”, a cycle lasting 52 Haab’s (around 52 years, or the approximate length of a generation). Within the Calendar Round were the trecena (13 day cycle) and the veintena (20 day cycle).

Obviously, this system would only be of use when considering the 18,980 unique days over the course of 52 years. In addition to these systems, the Mayans also had the “Venus Cycle”. Being keen and highly accurate astronomers they formed a calendar based on the location of Venus in the night sky. It’s also possible they did the same with the other planets in the Solar System.

Using the Calendar Round is great if you simply wanted to remember the date of your birthday or significant religious periods, but what about recording history? There was no way to record a date older than 52 years.

The end of the Long Count = the end of the Earth?
The Mayans had a solution. Using an innovative method, they were able to expand on the 52 year Calendar Round. Up to this point, the Mayan Calendar may have sounded a little archaic - after all, it was possibly based on religious belief, the menstrual cycle, mathematical calculations using the numbers 13 and 20 as the base units and a heavy mix of astrological myth. The only principal correlation with the modern calendar is the Haab’ that recognized there were 365 days in one solar year (it’s not clear whether the Mayans accounted for leap years). The answer to a longer calendar could be found in the “Long Count”, a calendar lasting 5126 years.

I’m personally very impressed with this dating system. For starters, it is numerically predictable and it can accurately pinpoint historical dates. However, it depends on a base unit of 20 (where modern calendars use a base unit of 10). So how does this work?

The base year for the Mayan Long Count starts at “0.0.0.0.0″. Each zero goes from 0-19 and each represent a tally of Mayan days. So, for example, the first day in the Long Count is denoted as 0.0.0.0.1. On the 19th day we’ll have 0.0.0.0.19, on the 20th day it goes up one level and we’ll have 0.0.0.1.0. This count continues until 0.0.1.0.0 (about one year), 0.1.0.0.0 (about 20 years) and 1.0.0.0.0 (about 400 years). Therefore, if I pick an arbitrary date of 2.10.12.7.1, this represents the Mayan date of approximately 1012 years, 7 months and 1 day.

This is all very interesting, but what has this got to do with the end of the world? The Mayan Prophecy is wholly based on the assumption that something bad is going to happen when the Mayan Long Count calendar runs out. Experts are divided as to when the Long Count ends, but as the Maya used the numbers of 13 and 20 at the root of their numerical systems, the last day could occur on 13.0.0.0.0. When does this happen? Well, 13.0.0.0.0 represents 5126 years and the Long Count started on 0.0.0.0.0, which corresponds to the modern date of August 11th 3114 BC. Have you seen the problem yet? The Mayan Long Count ends 5126 years later on December 21st, 2012.

Doomsday
When something ends (even something as innocent as an ancient calendar), people seem to think up the most extreme possibilities for the end of civilization as we know it. A brief scan of the internet will pull up the most popular to some very weird ways that we will, with little logical thought, be wiped off the face of the planet.

Archaeologists and mythologists on the other hand believe that the Mayans predicted an age of enlightenment when 13.0.0.0.0 comes around; there isn’t actually much evidence to suggest doomsday will strike. If anything, the Mayans predict a religious miracle, not anything sinister.

Read the entire article, its really interesting. Also, they set out to debunk many of the more popular disaster scenarios. Check them out here:

2012: No Geomagnetic Reversal (posted October 3rd 2008)
2012: No Killer Solar Flare (posted June 21st 2008)
2012: Planet X Is Not Nibiru (posted June 19th 2008)
2012: No Planet X (posted May 25th 2008)
No Doomsday in 2012 (posted May 19th 2008)

Space: Who Knew, #20

Space: Who Knew - Index
Last post

So how big is the Sun?

Found this link a long time ago, and had it saved for one of my Who Knew posts. As I haven't posted to this series in a while, thought it about damn time! So how big is the sun? Check out this well written article:

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/04/06/what-is-the-biggest-star-in-the-universe/

Our sun is 870,000 miles across, with an Equatorial Radius of 432,200 miles. That is super hard to imagine, so to give some context to the number, Earth is nearly 8,000 miles across, with an Equatorial Radius of a mere 3,963.19 miles.

The article above also mentions that you could fit one million planet Earths inside the sun! What got me about the article above are the comparisons between our Sun and a few other- even larger suns. He briefly writes that Eta Carina is so massive, its unclear where the surface of the sun stops and its solar wind begins. At 100 times more massive than our sun, and 4 million times brighter, its hard to fathom just how powerful such a star is.

But wait, Eta Carina is small compared to VY Canis Majoris. This sun is so massive that if it were our sun in our solar system, its size would extend out past the orbit of Saturn- thats about 2,100 times larger than our sun, thats a whopping 1,827,000,000 miles!

So really, our sun, the heavyweight of our solar system (which accounts for 98% of the overall mass in our solar system) is really quite the light-weight! No pun intended!


Another source for this post was found here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080101043829/solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Earth&Display=Facts&System=Metric

Who knew???

Little Snake

Little snake I found on Sunday while out snapping pics. Thought he deserved a little more attention:

Today in Pictures: High Cliff

...So just posted some photos from my first stop yesterday, the Heckrodt Wetland Reserve, this post shows pics from my second stop. Not surprising, High Cliff was pretty full of people, but while on the trail, I only bumped into 3 small groups in about an hour and a half. So it was nice and quiet.

I always feel like that weird guy taking photos of plants when other people are around (you know, cuz everyone knows "that guy" haha), so it helped a little, being able to linger in an area and take the pictures I was looking to take.

Anyways! Here are some of my favs taken at High Cliff today:

You can see the whole set here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mariuccij/sets/72157616612841626/

For a slideshow, click here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mariuccij/sets/72157616612841626/show/

Today in Pictures: Heckrodt Wetland Area

Today was beautiful, the kind of weather we're supposed to have on holiday weekends!

It was SO nice... I decided I couldn't spend it indoors, it'd be wasted inside. Especially when the kids were playing at grandmas. So I took the opportunity to do some hiking/photography. Hit up the Heckrodt Wetland Reserve and High Cliff.

Today was certainly a gift. There were many moments where I was alone in the woods- could just feel the sun on my face and hear the birds chirping all around. I took many moments just to close my eyes and breathe in the fresh air, I wish life didn't pass by so quickly, moments like these are too rare... Too rare indeed.

Took too many pictures like always, so just posting the few that I liked the most. This batch is from the Wetland Reserve. I'll post another set just from the Highcliff batch.

You can see the whole set here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mariuccij/sets/72157618671675561/

For a slideshow, click here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mariuccij/sets/72157618671675561/show

Camera's back!

Whoo hooo! Just found out that my camera is back. All in all, I'm extremely happy with the service that Canon has provided. Yay, I can take pictures again!

Hope everyone can enjoy a great extended-weekend.

APOD: Above Earth

Gorgeous APOD today.

Hubble Pictures

Great photos from the last servicing mission on Hubble. I can't even fathom how amazing it must be to be on top of the world like this.

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/05/17/hubble-servicing-mission-4-in-pictures-part-1/

The Cure for Layoffs

Fire the boss.

http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/05/cure-layoffs-fire-boss

Oh and read her book called Shock Doctrine. The book was incredibly informative.

Onion: Chicken Shit Asteroid!

Lol this article makes me laugh:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/chicken_shit_asteroid_veers_away?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

"Guess it just didn't have the spuds to go through with it," Richard A. Kowalski of the school's Catalina Sky Survey said. "Real big surprise. Maybe you can try again when you accrete a little more mass than 6.32 x 10¹⁵ kilograms, okay? Chicken-shit."

Kowalski said that one month ago Asteroid 2009-XG2—nicknamed "Old Limp Dick"—was following a path that, even accounting for heat friction and gravitational pull from other celestial bodies, gave it a 97 percent chance of striking Earth. Further observation and calculations, however, indicated that the asteroid would instead tuck its balls between its legs and change its course by more than 22 degrees.

"This potential extinction-level event turned out to be a puss-out of cosmic proportions," Kowalski said. "Earth didn't even flinch. You know what, why don't you give it another go, little guy? Huh? You can even take a free shot at the moon to warm up."

After a brief pause Kowalski added, "That's what I thought."

...

Plans to launch a probe to measure the composition of the asteroid were scrapped after NASA scientists concluded it was made up of 0.5 percent basaltic crust, 0.5 percent carbonaceous chondrite, and 99 percent bullshit.

Lol nice guys... nice

A New Drake Equation?

Interesting topic:
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/05/13/a-new-drake-equation-other-life-not-likely-to-be-intelligent/

Seems that intelligent life as we know it may not be so common afterall. Though the Drake Equation was extremely variable in nature to begin with. I think it unlikely however that our civilization is the first of its kind in our cluster of galaxies. That seems a little too naive to claim imo. Also, looks like Juan Enriquez was one of the speakers, he's given a couple of good TED talks...

Star Trek

I went to see this last night and holy crap- stunning movie.

The visuals were breath-taking, there were several times were I found myself saying "wow", and even a few that left my mouth hanging open in disbelief. I'd wager I even drooled a little...

Complimenting the outstanding effects was a story line rich in character and quite thought provoking. I'd definitely give it 5 out of 5.

Here are more reviews:

http://www.google.com/movies/reviews?cid=b5b46b0ed66b4c41&hl=en&fq=star+trek+movie&ei=pRsISvzsEuKPmAfxk-z3BA&sa=X&oi=showtimes&ct=reviews&cd=1

Trailers can be found here:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/startrek/

\ || || live long and prosper.

Great Article on Basking Sharks

Very neat. I didn't know they were that elusive. I got a kick out of the comment in the 4th paragraph on the 2nd page.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/baskingshark/

Cobert Report- The Word 5/5/09

Hehfreakinglarious

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Captain Kangaroo Court
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Gay Marriage

Hobbits may belong on branch of Humanity's tree

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/hobbits/

The papers are the latest salvos in a battle that’s raged since 2003, when anthropologists found one semi-complete skeleton and fragments of six others in an Indonesian island cave. The skeletons appeared to come from hominids who stood just three feet tall and were anatomically distinct from H. sapiens.

Anthropologists who believed the fossils represented a new species named it after its home island of Flores, where local folk tales described a race of diminutive jungle dwellers. They hypothesized a direct-line descent from H. erectus, the last common ancestor of all human species, who left Africa 2.5 million years ago.

Hmm, so maybe that finally explains why I have hair on my toes?

TED Talk: Re-wiring the Brain

Very interesting speech

TED Talk: What went wrong at the LHC

Are you as geeky as I am? Want to know what went wrong with the Large Hadron Collider?

Here you go:

Gorgeous time-lapse of planet Earth

Isabella and I found this this evening doing animals and songs. Outstanding

Camera on the Fritz

Weell my camera is taking black pictures. = (

I turned it on recently to find I could see images that were taken on it in the view mode, but when I go to actually snap new ones, they are completely black. I see icons and text on the viewfinder, and none of the camera modes changes the outcome. Black black black.

Thankfully the camera is still under warranty and I've already called their service line to have it repaired. I'll be sending it out today and hopefully they can nurse my gimped cam back to life. I feel rather naked without it.

Culture May Be Encoded in DNA

/ramble...

So I've been pretty reclusive as of late.

Alot of stuff on my mind. I'll most likely pick back up here shortly, in fact I think I may have gone an entire month without even so much as a peep on my "Space: Who Knew" articles, and that my friends is not cool.

/end ramble

At any rate, came across this interesting article this afternoon. Thought I'd share...

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/songbirdculture/

Also, check out the MP3's about half way down, really exciting research they're doing.