Great Onion article today about Video Games

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/new_video_game_technology?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

LAS VEGAS—The buzz at this month's Consumer Electronics Show was all about a new breakthrough in the field of high-resolution 3-D graphics that has made it possible to render average-sized breasts on female video game characters. "For too long, game designers have been creatively stymied by a mammary-imaging technology only capable of rendering one type of breast—a heaving pair of massive, gravity-defying, torpedo-shaped bosoms," said Warren Hood, developer of the new Vex9 graphics card, which has finally enabled video game wire-frame artists to digitally sculpt breasts as small as B-cups. "At long last, we can give die-hard gamers the level of realism they've been looking for." Hood added that researchers are currently exploring technologies that would allow the shamans and clerics in World Of Warcraft to practice modern medicine instead of depending on unrealistic magical healing spells.

This is absolutely hilarious.

More bad news for the Polar Bears

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/04/28/icebergs-breaking-away-from-wilkins-ice-shelf/

The latest satellite images show that icebergs have begun to break away from the northern front of the Wilkins Ice Shelf – indicating that the huge shelf has become unstable. This follows the collapse three weeks ago of the ice bridge that had previously linked the Antarctic mainland to Charcot Island. On April 24, satellite data from ESA’s Envisat satellite and the German Aerospace Centre’s TerraSAR-X satellite showed that the first icebergs had started to break away from the fragile ice shelf. A very rough estimate suggests that, so far, about 700 sq km of ice has been lost from the Wilkins Ice Shelf.

...

“The retreat of Wilkins Ice Shelf is the latest and the largest of its kind. Eight separate ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula have shown signs of retreat over the last few decades. There is little doubt that these changes are the result of atmospheric warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, which has been the most rapid in the Southern Hemisphere,” explained David Vaughan from the British Antarctic Survey.

Portal to the Universe

New website launched chalked full of juicy Astronomy/Cosmology related stuffs!

http://www.portaltotheuniverse.org/

Among other news, you can watch the Sun/Hubble/ISS all live feeds, as well as a ton of interesting Podcasts and dozens of blogs. Really neat stuff!

This is from PTTU's press release:

Portal to the Universe will help the user to sift constructively through the wealth of information available and will promote interactions within the astronomy multimedia community. The vision for the Portal is to enable real-time access to content by aggregating (pulling) from providers of dynamic content like blogs, images, news, etc., and distributing (pushing) to users, as well as indexing and archiving, collecting and maintaining a central repository of useful information. RSS feeds and standardized metadata make it possible to tie all the suppliers of astronomy information together with a single, semi-automatically updating portal. The result is a technologically advanced site that brings together strands of astronomy content from across the worldwide web.

Project Manager Lars Lindberg Christensen says: “The project will develop with, and around, the community’s needs and lots of new features are planned, including adding resources such as educational materials, addresses for all astronomy stakeholders such as amateur clubs, planetariums and observatories.”

Earth population 'exceeds limits'

Uh, this is a no-brainer. What are we at now, 6 billion people on this planet? We're worse than cockroaches in so many ways.

http://www.earthportal.org/news/?p=2333
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7974995.stm

Again I'm reminded of this picture:

Colds suuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

Okay can I just say colds suck??? I'm going to say it. Yeah. Well you can't stop me.

Now I used to get one cold a year, and I mean like the bad cold that just knocks your socks off and leaves your head spinning. Well I just got over this years, or I should say it's still doing its last death throw.

And I've gotta say, I expect there'll be more.

Having kids certainly ups the ante so to speak when you're hoping to have a germ free house. Not that I'd like to blame it on them, but well why the hell not, they gave me a sinus infection! Little rugrats.

So I noticed something this time around. They were hit with it much less severe than I. I can only attribute it to the fact that they're young and resilient, and I'm... well uh... we won't go there. So why is it the adults are left to suffer!? Oh yeah I know, we're adults and don't have fun like the kids do nowadays. Makes me wonder if I'm truly a stubborn dwarf in a short human's body.

ANYWAYS, thank god I can hear in my left ear again. It at the very least spares you all from one less grumpy rant...

/grunt

Space Tornados power the Aurora Borealis

Very interesting article here.

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/04/23/new-finding-shows-super-huge-space-tornados-power-the-auroras/

A new finding by a cluster of five space probes – the THEMIS, or Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms show that electrical funnels which span a volume as large as Earth produce electrical currents exceeding 100,000 amperes. THEMIS recorded the extent and power of these electrical funnels as the probes passed through them during their orbit of Earth. Ground measurements showed that the space tornadoes channel the electrical current into the ionosphere to spark bright and colorful auroras on Earth.

Space tornadoes are rotating plasmas of hot, ionized gas flowing at speeds of more than a million miles per hour, far faster than the 200 m.p.h. winds of terrestrial tornadoes, according to Andreas Keiling, a research space physicist at the University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory.

...

The THEMIS spacecraft observed these tornadoes, or “flow vortices,” at a distance of about 40,000 miles from Earth. Simultaneous measurements by THEMIS ground observatories confirmed the tornadoes’ connection to the ionosphere.

Earth-sized planet found

They even say it is the first good "water world" candidate.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090421/ap_on_sc/eu_britain_new_planet

"This discovery is absolutely extraordinary," Marcy told The Associated Press by e-mail, calling the discoveries a significant step in the search for Earth-like planets.

While Gliese 581 e is too hot for life "it shows that nature makes such small planets, probably in large numbers," Marcy commented. "Surely the galaxy contains tens of billions of planets like the small, Earth-mass one announced here."

Nearly 350 planets have been found outside our solar system, but so far nearly every one of them was found to be extremely unlikely to harbor life.

Most were too close or too far from their sun, making them too hot or too cold for life. Others were too big and likely to be uninhabitable gas giants like Jupiter. Those that are too small are highly difficult to detect in the first place.

It's only a matter of time before we find a planet like ours. I'd wager we'll find one in the next two years.

Article about dark energy

Really interesting article here about a new hypothesis called "Dark Gulping"

It talks alittle about how super-massive black holes could have formed in the early universe, earlier than what scientists have previously thought was possible.

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/04/22/dark-matter-dark-energy-now-theres-dark-gulping/

APOD: Dripping dunes

Very cool effect on today's APOD. Check it out:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090420.html

Wingsuit Base Jumping

A friend had this linked on Facebook and I had to share it. MY GOD. This is the new definition of freaking bad-ass.

In fact it deserves a new label all its own.

95 Megapixels???

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/first-light-kep.html

The Kepler telescope has started its mission to search for rocky-Earth-like planets. Hopefully it lasts longer than the 3-1/2 years they're planning. Imagine having a 95 megapixel camera at your disposal....

NASA's scientists have it made.

Red Panda's are cute.

Dude, I'd love to have one of these for a pet.

And an added bonus- one of their names- Firefox! I had no idea. I should mention that I first discovered these guys about a year ago when I was pulling animal pictures off of National Geographic for Isabella's animal training. Before then I'd never even knew these guys existed.

They're probably pretty well known by now however, especially since the movie Kunfu-Panda had a Red Panda as a main character.

Ske-Duusch!

Satellites record how Earth moved during Italian Earthquake

Very interesting to see it quantified like this.

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/04/15/satellites-show-how-earth-moved-during-earthquake/

Hidden Orangutan Population Discovered

Hmm not very talkative today... Follow the link for more nfo. I love that pic btw.

NASA worried about Spirit

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/04/14/nasa-worried-spirit-reboots-rover-computer-twice/

Its pretty dang cool that this rover was only slated for a lifetime of 3 months, and instead she's still kicking at 5 years. Hopefully its just a temporary glitch.

Bears sign... a tire swing??

Oh no, Ashley's going to kill me for posting this haha.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/roster_depleted_bears_sign?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

CHICAGO—Anticipating that new Bears quarterback Jay Cutler will need more targets than converted cornerback Devin Hester and undersized journeyman Rashied Davis—the only receivers on their squad who have ever caught an NFL pass—the Chicago Bears signed a tire swing to their roster Tuesday. "We are expecting great things from this tire swing once the tire and Cutler get some practice time and develop some chemistry," receivers coach Darryl Drake said of the six-year-old Goodyear all-season radial suspended from a tree branch by a 7-foot length of rope. "This could easily be the best quarterback-receiver duo in recent Bears history." Analysts say that, while the move is somewhat unorthodox, Chicago was prudent in passing on veteran free agents Amani Toomer and Joe Jurevicius in favor of offering the tire swing a 3-year, $2.4 million contract.

High Cliff

Yesterday was SO nice.

A blue sky, a warm sun, a cool breeze... these elements made an afternoon hike at High Cliff extremely enjoyable. I was there with a friend, taking pictures around the state park for the better part of 4 hours.

Here are a couple of the photos:

(Yes, that's a bug in the water!)






(We followed a beaver or muskrat to this hole, he was moving fairly quick like so I couldn't be sure what it was. He had a big(ish) tail and was near(ish) water, but dunno, he wasn't quite beaver...)


(No residents thankfully.)


(This photo belongs to the Accent Color set)


(This was an old Lime Kiln)

You can find a the whole set here.

Volcanic Lightning

So I came across this article today on Alaska's Mount Redoubt eruption, thought it was worth a mention here.

Quoted from:
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/04/08/new-array-captures-redoubt-volcano-lightning/

“First, we see an eruptive or explosive phase,” physics professor Paul Krehbiel said. “Electrical activity is continuous and strong. We see a lot of small electrical discharges as hot gasses come out of the volcano.”

The second phase involves the ash cloud as it drifts away from the volcano with the wind. This phase is punctuated by discrete lightning – or lightning bolts.

“After the explosion is over, there is a subsequent phase of plume lightning,” Krehbiel said. “Full-fledged lightning occurs in the cloud of ash and water both above and downwind of the volcano.”

“The lightning activity was as strong as or stronger than we have seen in large Midwestern thunderstorms,” Krehbiel said. “The radio frequency noise was so strong and continuous that people living in the area would not have been able to watch broadcast VHF television stations.”

Flythrough Videos from HiRISE

Check them out, excellent videos from HiRISE, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Direct link: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/media/
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/04/07/new-collection-of-flythough-videos-from-hirise/

You'll need Quicktime to view.

Smog in Beijing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/06/beijing-pollution-carbon-cars

Does anyone else feel that perhaps just cutting cars out of this equation won't do much for the folks over there? I would think much of that smog is industry-produced. At any rate, I can't imagine looking forward to 24.3 more "blue" days in the year.

It's sad that human greed has trumped human ingenuity to the point where we put up with stories like this, while tried and true green technology is ignored, patented and many times buried by big business. By the way, this rant is mostly directed at American greed and ingenuity.

Good god.

Zooming in NGC7049

I'm fascinated by this stuff. I love that they record zooming in. It gives so much more insight into the vastness of space, more than any one image could ever convey.

http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0905.html

I highly suggest downloading the HD version. Check out the video page here.

Active Thermitic Material Discovered in WTC Dust

A friend linked this today:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Scientists_find_active_superthermite_in_WTC_0404.html

which was found through this site:
http://www.fark.com/

The article sites this research publication:
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM

and says:

"We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples we have studied of the dust produced by the destruction of the World Trade Center. Examination of four of these samples, collected from separate sites, is reported in this paper. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. One sample was collected by a Manhattan resident about ten minutes after the collapse of the second WTC Tower, two the next day, and a fourth about a week later. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red material contains grains approximately 100 nm across which are largely iron oxide, while aluminum is contained in tiny plate-like structures. Separation of components using methyl ethyl ketone demonstrated that elemental aluminum is present. The iron oxide and aluminum are intimately mixed in the red material. When ignited in a DSC device the chips exhibit large but narrow exotherms occurring at approximately 430 °C, far below the normal ignition temperature for conventional thermite. Numerous iron-rich spheres are clearly observed in the residue following the ignition of these peculiar red/gray chips. The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic."

Check out the 25 page research paper in pdf format. The introduction alone is worth reading.

Quoted from page 17 of the PDF linked directly above:

Our observations show that the red material contains substantial amounts of aluminum, iron and oxygen, mixed together very finely. In the sample soaked in MEK, we observed a clear migration and aggregation of the aluminum away from other elements and determined that elemental aluminum and iron oxide must be present. In the product collected after DSC ignition, we found spheres which were
not initially present. Many of these spheres were iron rich and elemental iron was found in the post-ignition debris.

Further, the DSC traces demonstrate that the red/gray chips react vigorously at a temperature below the melting point of aluminum and below the ignition (oxidation) point of ultrafine grain (UFG) aluminum in air [18]. These observations reminded us of nano-thermite fabricated at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and elsewhere; available papers describe this material as an intimate mixture of UFG
aluminum and iron oxide in nano-thermite composites to form pyrotechnics or explosives [19-21]. The thermite reaction involves aluminum and a metal oxide, as in this typical reaction with iron oxide:

2Al + Fe2O3 -> Al2O3 + 2Fe (molten iron), ��H = - 853.5 kJ/mole.

Commercially available thermite behaves as an incendiary when ignited [6], but when the ingredients are ultra-fine grain (UFG) and are intimately mixed, this “nano-thermite” reacts very rapidly, even explosively, and is sometimes referred
to as “super-thermite” [20, 22].

Orange Sun Oozing

Check this out:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090405.html

Its so completely intriguing to me that each one of the "little" granules in that picture is the size of a continent on earth. Also, check out the scale in the upper left. You could fit four Earth's side by side in this one shot of the sun.

Brilliant, and awe-inspiring for a geek at heart.

That's it... I'm getting old(er)

So I feel older than usual. I guess that's to be expected... Though it'd help if people stopped saying things like:

"Hey at least you're not thirty, cuz then it'd be like- what, you're, almost 40?"
"So you're 3/4 of the way to 40 eh?"
"Daddy, you're old."

I jest of course, I know I'm in for much worse next year. And I can't even begin to imagine the teasing I'll receive at 40... not sure how dad did it. Haha. Anyways, I'm rambling and need coffee.

...There that's better. So yeah, we celebrated my birthday on Saturday with my family. I may be gutting myself here, but I'm going to share what happened. A few months ago I made the mistake of making a Miley Cyrus Pandora station. Well, I made another mistake and listened to it while Ash was upstairs. Needless to say, she was beside herself. What is a 25(ish) year old doing listening to a teenage heartthrob? Well, mostly putting thumbs down on all the other crap the station throws at me.

...I like the music- hush up.

So yeah, she took the opportunity to throw me a "Miley Cyrus" birthday. I walked in and found Hannah Montana plates and stylish pink Hannah Montana napkins. Turn the corner and see a big ass pink and blue Miley Cyrus birthday cake, complete with a little cute pink guitar and Miley billboard.

Oh yeah.

Apparently she and the person she ordered the cake from had a good little chuckle at my expense. She asked Ash if the cake was for a boy or girl, and she said boy. She then picked out the Miley design and the person was like: "Are you sure? I thought you said its for a boy?"

At which point she confirmed it was. She then asked what my age was, and it was all over. I'm really happy that I, on my own birthday, can give the gift of laughter to so many others. Hehe. Anyways, it was even worse than I expected, I thought it was over with the cake. I should've known! When they handed out gifts I received two musical cards and a Miley Cyrus board game.

Oooh right!

I have to thank them though, it would have been 10x worse had we been in a restaurant. Its hard enough bearing my soul on the internet where billions of people can read about my trying day, but to be sitting in a room with 40 strangers looking over at me would have been utter despair. About the only good thing that came of it was a Miley CD.

And I've already listened to it. haha.

Oh I hope you've all enjoyed my humbling moment. Back to trying to recapture my masculinity.

/grunt

Amazing sea footage

I ran across these YouTube videos while Isabella and I were practising animals this evening. We stopped on Whale shark and I told her she could watch a video on it if she'd like. So I showed her this one:

Which then linked to these beauties! (Be sure to check them out in HD!!!)

Absolutely amazing.

Mark Thomas - Put People First G20 Protest

A friend linked to this on facebook, I had to share it.

Junkers

I was looking at the Times "Today in Pictures" and this one caught my eye...

The label: "Numerous scrapped taxis litter a yard in the center of Chongqing, China."


/sigh

Nice April Fools

Haha, these are a couple of the funnier ones I've found today:

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/04/01/nasa-could-be-criminally-negligent-over-brian-the-bat-death/

According to local press, NASA can be fined for the preventable death of the bat under the same state laws that govern goods transportation (i.e. company-owned vehicles are liable if they hit endangered animal species on Florida highways). Therefore, if a truck hit a free-tailed bat on a freeway, and the driver was pulled over by a police officer, the company who owns the truck would be accountable. "This is exactly the same rule that is being applied to NASA, a free-tailed bat was killed during the operations of the shuttle. In the county's eyes, that's no different from a Walmart truck running over a protected animal. Like a cougar [the state animal]," reported the Orlando Sentinel.

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/04/01/galaxy-zoo-team-discovers-new-class-of-galaxy-clusters/

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090401.html

http://www.wesh.com/cnn-news/19063789/detail.html

....oh wait... that last one wasn't a joke.... umm... yeah.

World's Largest Laser

This is awesome science, but is anyone else confused as to why on Earth they'd build this in California?

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/worlds-largest.html