Win an Invitation to Michio Kaku's "Physics of the Impossible"

Of late, I’ve become interested in Physics, and have enjoyed Michio Kaku’s articles about what may or may not be possible in the future. Of course, that  doesn’t necessarily mean that I understand Physics entirely and I think I know why. I have yet to reach the high level of total geekiosity necessary to understand the workings of of Quantum Physics.

The Science Channel just announced a new series starring Michio Kaku entitled “Physics of the Impossible” and is having a contest to select individuals to win an invitation to take part in the filming. As a non-science person, I found the parameters of the contest more than a little entertaining.

Not only do those entering the contest have to explain why they think they deserve an invitation, they are required to explain what they will wear to the filming- the announcement I read specified that costumes were welcome.  The questions get a little trickier from here on out: contestants have to explain the best method for protecting the earth in the unfortunate incident of an asteroid or comet impact, and have to explain their ideal solar system.

The filming will take place in New York City on Friday, April 23rd. Those wanting to enter the contest to attend can enter by e-mailing their answers to scifisciencecompetition@mkaku.org. For more information about the contest and the specific instructions for entering, please check out this link.

Large Hadron Collider Makes History

Scientists of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said that on Tuesday, March 30, 2010,  their $10 billion research tool,  the Large Hadron Collider, (LHC),  a 17-mile tunnel on the border of Switzerland and France, near Geneva, Switzerland, crashed two proton beams into each other at high energy, at  three times more force than ever before. Why is this important?  Because scientists are telling us that this is a breakthrough, marking a "new territory" in physics, " and "experiments at the LHC may help answer fundamental questions such as why Albert Einstein's theory of relativity -- which describes the world on a large scale -- doesn't jibe with quantum mechanics, which deals with matter far too small to see.The collider may help scientists discover new properties of nature. The as-yet theoretical Higgs boson, also called "the God particle" . May explain the big bang theory. May, may, may -- Some nay-sayers are still saying that it may in time cause black holes that will blow up the world.

News Source: BBC


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Big Blue Marble

NASA's Goddard Space Center

has been accumulating incredible high resolution images of Earth and then using post-processing software to "stitch" together many small images into detailed high resolution images of the entire planet. Goddard scientists and data specialists have stitched together months of observations in 2001 of the entire planet into a rotating mosaic of every square kilometer. They've even established a Flickr account to display these images, images and research paid for with all of our tax dollars and already being used to track resources, locate lost cities, and research atmospheric changes. You can find the NASA Blue Marble Flickr account here. I've linked to sample image in this post; click it for a larger version, and don't forget to enjoy the animation below.

 

Earthquake in Chile

Early this morning, a massive earthquake of 8.8 magnitude struck central Chile, causing buildings to collapsed, and setting off a  tsunami warning. The quake hit about 100km (60 miles) from Concepcion,  Chile's second-largest city, with a population of more than 200,000 people. The President of Chile, Michele Bachelet, declared a "'state of catastrophe." The quake in Chile was 1,000 times more powerful than the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that caused widespread damage in Haiti on Jan 12, killing at least 230,000. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/world/americas/28chile.html).


 Concepcion has been hit by destructive earthquakes in the past. In 1570, a strong quake destroyed the city.  The quake was accompanied by a tsunami, and aftershocks were felt for months.. In 1835, the city was left in ruins by another great quake. In  1939, 30000  were killed by earthquake in Concepcion. In 1960, an earthquake and a tsunami left many dead.



Yesterday a   A 7.3 quake also struck off the coast of Southern Japan.


New Sources: (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/27/AR201002...),(http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/27/chile.quake/?hpt=T1&imw=Y),(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxV-gmg5eUc),(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFU9XHexUUE).

Slowmo Lightening Devil's Tower, Wyoming

Tom Warner is an atmospheric sciences Ph.D. student at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. His research area is lightening and associated

phenomena, and he has created a method for recording lightening. He uses a high-speed video camera that can record up to 54,000 fps. in a continous recording that goes to a looping memory buffer (when the buffer fills, it starts overwriting). When Warner sees lightening, he triggers the camera at the end of the flash, which causes the camera to save to real memory the preceding 2.5 seconds of video. That video is then transferred to Warner's computer for later analysis.

This video shows lightening striking near Devil’s Tower, Wyoming. You can read more here

Snow Rollers: PhotoShop or Weather Phenomena?

I moved to Washington last year, and was overjoyed to have several beautiful snow falls. Alas, this year, we barely got any, though what we had was lovely. Elsewhere of course, from New England to old England, the story is very different. Massive amounts of snow, and record low temperatures are raising tempers and lowering temperatures all over. The weather has resulted in some pretty interesting conditions, like snow rollers, elsewhere.

Snow rollers are absolutely not

created by PhotoShop; they are quite natural and quite real. With so much snow, in many places the top layer of snow is really a crust of ice. That means that new fresh snow doesn't stick, but is wet and when the ambient air temperature is just above the melting point, and the wind kicks up, especially on a sloping hill or rolling plain, wind and gravity act to create, well hollow snow balls, that gather more snow and size as the wind "rolls" them along the ground and the new fallen snow. This is pretty much the way we make snowballs for snowmen, of course, but snow rollers tend to start out as small balls and become hollow cylinders because the inner layers of snow are lighter and easily frayed away by the wind. Snow rollers are rare because the conditions to form them are very specific and must all be present. Despite the rarity of the weather conditions, here are several documented occurrences of snow rollers.

Most recently, Ron Trevett and his wife Aileen walking their dogs in a snow covered field near their home in Yeovil, Somerset took these incredible pictures. You can see another example, one that shows the shaping effects of wind, here and here—notice the wind-driven path of the snow roller in the second image. I've heard old timers call them "snow doughnuts," and "the devil's spindles," because they do look a lot like doughnuts, or spools with a hole through their center.

MonsterQuest: "Mega Jaws"

Every time I watch MonsterQuest, I'm reminded of why I like Destination Truth so much more.  You know the old saw, "If you hear hoof beats in Central Park, think horses, not zebras"?  When MonsterQuest hears hoof beats, it thinks "Unicorns!"

In this episode from last season, MonsterQuest travels to the Baja Peninsula to track down rumors of a giant black shark local fishermen call "the Black Demon."  Despite the fact that the legend of the Black Demon matches whale sharks and great white sharks perfectly, MonsterQuest speculates that this could be a Megalodon on the loose.  See what I mean?

Megalodon was the biggest shark ever to roam the oceans.  By size comparison, you would be the same proportion to a Megalodon as a Fun Size Snickers Bar is to you.  Nom!  Megalodon preyed primarily on whales, which it attacked by either crushing their rib cage in its jaws, or by ripping off their fins so that they were unable to swim away.

The Black Demon has a small handful of characteristics.  It is very large (up to 60 feet long in some reports), it is black, it thrashes its tail at the surface, and it eats seals - either swallowing them whole, or leaving giant bite marks on their flanks.  (This bit about swallowing seals whole… who would notice?)

Whale sharks are very large, black, and often seen at the surface.  They are the world's largest fish, and feed exclusively on plankton.  Whale sharks are seen at the surface because they follow the plankton blooms up to the sunlit surface of the ocean.  

Great white sharks are known to patrol the Sea of Cortez, as are orca whales.  Both animals will strike at seals, and can leave huge bite marks on "the one that got away."

The investigation in Baja is intertwined with laboratory scenes regarding the analysis of a Megalodon tooth.  The tooth was dredged up by the HMS Challenger at the turn of the century.  Scientists in the 1950s dated the tooth at being only 10,000 years old, despite the fact that Megalodon is assumed to have gone extinct approximately 1.5 million years ago.

Unfortunately, the tests performed by the Natural History Museum of London were inconclusive.  There was not enough nitrogen in the tooth to perform carbon dating.

Meanwhile, in the Sea of Cortez, there may well be Megalodon sharks remaining in the world, but these guys sure aren't going to find it any time soon.  Their strategy for finding the elusive animal is to fly around in a spotter plane while using paramilitary radio jargon like "It's go time" and "We're oscar-mike that location."  

The team tips its hand early by not taking the least bit of precaution with the divers, who plan to splash into the water beside the Black Demon without chain mail or a diving cage.  I'm not sure how this could even be called a "hunt."  One of the divers also comments that a whale shark weighs "tens of thousands of tons," which is off by an order of magnitude (whale sharks weigh tens of thousands of POUNDS, being about 47,000 pounds).

At the end, MonsterQuest proves fairly conclusively that the local fishermen have been spotting whale sharks.  One wonders how professional fishermen can be so ignorant on the topic of marine biology, but I suppose they aren't hooking many whale sharks.  (What would you use for bait?) Until someone reels in better proof, we will have to continue to rely on movies from the Syfy Channel for our Megalodon fix.

Compulsive Dobermans: It's Genetic

Researchers fully decoded the dog genome about four years ago, and we have still only scratched the surface of what this means for the advancement for scientific knowledge.  Most recently, researchers have identified a particular gene as being the cause for compulsive behavior in dogs.

It must be stated up front that a lot of dogs who exhibit compulsive behavior come from challenging backgrounds.  Puppy mill dogs and dogs which have been abused often display strange compulsive behaviors.  The same can be said for dogs which are confined without enough exercise.  Dogs are meant to get exercise, and if you keep a dog cooped up day after day without regular walks and outdoor play sessions, they can slowly be driven insane.

However, a specific gene has been linked to a particular kind of compulsion, including sucking behavior in Dobermans and obsessive tail chasing in bull terriers.  It makes sense that these breed specific obsessions would have a genetic component, since each purebred dog comes from a very limited gene pool, even despite the best efforts of dog breeders to cross their dogs responsibly.  

Dobermans have long been known to frequently suffer from obsessive sucking behavior, which often begins with sucking on a blanket or favorite pillow.  It then commonly progresses to the dog curling up and sucking its own flanks for hours on end, typically to the point of developing broken skin and skin infections from the mechanical damage and from the skin being constantly moist and irritated.

Now that researchers have isolated the gene which is responsible for these breed specific stereotyped behaviors, there is a possibility that they could be fixed with gene therapy.  On a more organic level, if dog breeders can be made aware that this is a genetic disorder, they will hopefully cease breeding dogs which show these behaviors, and thus wean the genetic problem out of the breed's gene pool.

On a larger scale, many people are hopeful that this has a parallel in human biology.  That OCD and other anxiety related disorders may in fact be the result of genetic diseases.  However it should be noted that the behavior of dogs is far more genetically determined than our own.  Think of a Labrador retriever retrieving, or a German shorthaired pointer pointing.  Dog breeds are confined to a far smaller population of individual bloodlines compared to most humans (not counting people in very restricted geographic or social settings like the Pennsylvania Dutch or the British monarchy).

In the mean time, owners with dogs which suffer from obsessive behavior do have options.  There is a wide variety of medications available which can help curb the symptoms, and an experienced and understanding dog trainer can help you set up a routine of behavior modification.  And it bears repeating, over and over, that additional exercise alone is often enough to reduce and sometimes eliminate obsessive behavior in dogs.  In some cases the obsessive behavior can be brought about simply by too much time spent in confinement - think of a zoo animal pacing obsessively in its cage.

Creative Commons-licensed photo courtesy of Flickr user bfraz

Himalayan Glaciers May Just Be Fine by 2035

So it turns out the Himalayan Glacier may not be melting by 2035 afterall. The IPCC report from 2007, the one that was supposed to be the best available scientific information, the most reliable source from the best scientists in the world, was apparently quoting an article from New Science, and that article was from a phone interview with someone talking about just a piece of the glacier based on an article that had not been peer reviewed. So, what became a startling prediction in a UN-sponsored study that has been widely read and referenced, turns out to be a single-source quote from a speculative study written up in an unverified paper.

Here is the line from the report in 2007:

"Glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate." - IPCC Report, 2007

Take whatever amount of time you need to stand up, walk to the window and stare out at the world that is not melting, scratch your head and maybe throw the sugar bowl at the wall in the kitchen- who can you trust?

We’ve got one side telling us that the whole world is melting and by tomorrow night New York City will be underwater. Then on the other side we’ve got people saying it’s all natural, there’s nothing we can do about it, and we certainly aren’t causing it. I tend to look around and think that oil in the water and plastic in the ocean and dark smoke flooding out of smokestacks means that the way we are doing things is no good- whether it causes the Earth to warm or not- and that we need to move on and start living here another way- both as stewards and as admitted and happy parts of interconnected Earth.

But back to the glaciers in the Himalayas and that IPCC report- what happened?

"We are looking into the issue of the Himalayan glaciers, and will take a position on it in the next two or three days," said Rajendra Pachauri, U.N. Head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

What? Doesn’t publishing it in your report mean that is your position? I’m going to go ahead and answer that for you- yes, it does. The basic assertion from the Indian government and others is that there is no scientific evidence behind the assertion, and that while there is alarming melting going on with the glaciers, there are hundreds of them that are hundreds of feet thick and it is beyond the scope of imagination to consider them disappearing completely in 25 years or so.

Maybe that’s why it’s so scary- or maybe that prediction is just plain ridiculous.

Either way, the credibility of the UN panel and of climate change science in general hangs in the balance- not that this determines whether it’s true or not, but this certainly sheds light on the idea that some of the predictions need to be taken with a grain of salt- preferably sustainably harvested salt of course.

Photo Credit: Girl in the Rain (via Flickr under CCL)

A New Year and a Blue Moon

The second full moon

in a single month is a fairly rare occurence, rare enough that it's called a blue moon. A blue moon occurs every 2.7 years because our twelve month calendar doesn't quite match the lunar cycle or the time it takes for the moon to revolve around the Earth. A lunar cycle takes 29 days, 12 hours, and 44 minutes. Roughly. I should note that the moon doesn't, unfortunately, turn even slightly blue, but it's still an additional opportunity to view a full moon.

New Year's eve this year is a blue moon; we've already had one on December 2. But it's even more nifty than that. First, while a blue moon occurs about every 2 and a half years, we haven't had one on New Year's Eve since 1990.

For those of us in most of Europe, Africa, Asia or Australia, the New Year's blue moon will also partially eclipse; lucky viewers will see a noticeable darker edge along the moon's full disk.

So when you're making your resolutions, and drinking that sparkling wine, give a thought to going outside for a moment, and admiring our lovely satellite in all her glory. May 2010 be a year of peace, beauty, and abundance for all of us.

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