off on a tangent...

this is a truly cringe-worthy cartoon by luke surl, but i must admit that it made me laugh, cos it's funny. is that a sin?


not to go off on a tangent, but i wonder how many find her sec(c).

(confused? click here)

OK Go's 'White Knuckles'

here's another winning video from OK Go.



you can donate to animal rescue: here

NASA and etsy: space craft contest!

NASA and etsy have created a creative contest to commemorate the end of the NASA Space Shuttle Program: the Space Craft Contest. to enter, "share an original handmade item or work of art inspired by the NASA Space Shuttle Program and space exploration at large."

what a great idea!

prizes for the winners include etsy shopping sprees, stuff from nasa and etsy, and a trip to see the final space shuttle launch ever as NASA’s VIP guest!! and if that isnt enough awesome, your artwork might even be flown on the space shuttle.

the final space shuttle mission is currently scheduled for launch in february 2011 and will voyage to the international space station.

what's great about this contest, in my opinion, is that this contest ideally reaches an audience that science organizations like NASA should be making more of an effort to engage. of etsy's 5.9 million members, 96 percent are women, and most are under the age of 35.

no matter who you are**, submit your creative entries by november 2nd, 2010 (and post them here to so we can all see your work!).

i'm finding myself attracted to the wearable art, like the orbital earrings below, but there are many cool entries so far.



** the contest is open to legal US residents only.

floating in the stars

via this isnt happiness

on an extinct volcano

aloha from the top of hawai'i!

i'm sitting at the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) and will be here for the next 5 nights. my last visit was about a year ago and i posted a few descriptions that you can read for more pictures and stories: scenes from mauna kea and twinkle twinkle little star (about adaptive optics).

the peak of mauna kea is at 14000 ft, which is really really high (about 3 times higher than the tallest peak in the UK). the potential effects of such a high altitude on the human body have forced this observatory to limit the amount of time that people are allowed to stay at the summit to 14 hours. which is fine with me - 14 hours is a long work day/night, especially at high altitude!

during observing runs on mauna kea, astronomers sleep at hale pohaku which is at 9000 ft. i spent one night there in order to acclimate to altitude, before coming up to the summit the next night. the photo below shows the buildings where we stay, the visitor center, and some cinder cones from the extinct volcano.


tonight is my first night on the summit, and i just reread the safety material they gave me which describes some of the minor symptoms of high altitude: headaches, drowsiness, nausea, loss of balance, altered mental state, and impaired reason.

i had a headache earlier, but it's gone now. the bathroom is down a flight of stairs and i have to remember to walk back up to the control room veeeerrrrrryyy ssslloooooooowly, or else i get light-headed and dizzy. the altered mental state and impaired reason is annoying when i cannot remember the right word for something, but slightly amusing when i mix my words up into some humorous mutation of what i actually mean to say.

the clouds are coming and going pretty rapidly tonight. we start an observation series and by the end the weather is too bad to result in useful data. i cant even go outside to enjoy the night sky because its hazy and too fuzzy. so for tonight, and the next five nights, this is my station:


the three screens on the right allow me to choose targets and control the observations. the middle three allow me to monitor the weather and quality of the data collected. the four screens on the left display the data after preliminary processing so i know whether things are running smoothly.

time for my night lunch...

sixty symbols: star classification

our sun is classified as a "G2V" star, but what does that mean? here's a new sixty symbols video to explain how we classify stars.

the gift of art

soon after i arrived in ohio last week, my older sister told me she was excited about giving me a surprise that was brewing. i was intrigued, but didn't dwell on figuring out the mystery, because i like the anticipation before such an event! but seriously, i had NO idea what was coming!

my first night in town, we went to see a band and at the show she excitedly introduced me to her friend, pierre, saying "he reads your blog!" for the next week, i ran into pierre and his tiny dog all over town, which seemed strange because i had never met him over the many many many stays i've had in yellow springs.

on my final day in town, she seemed eager for us to walk to the coffee shop, which made me happy because i was very much in the mood for a tasty coffee treat. while i watched my niece and nephew run around like crazy people, in walked pierre carrying a painting. he handed it directly to me with a grin on his face and i was stunned.

my sister had commissioned this well-known local artist, pierre nagley, to paint something for me and this is what he created!


she talked over some ideas with him, but gave him creative freedom in the end. even though he and i had never met, he created this beautiful piece of art - and i couldn't be more pleased!!

the colors are fantastic and the details of the storm bands in jupiter's atmosphere are incredible. there are a few galilean moons floating around and in front of jupiter, including a close up view of callisto. when he saw that i enjoy seeing comets in the night sky, he included the dark features near the bottom of jupiter, which represent the temporary features created by the impact of comet shoemaker-levy 9 in 1994.

if you want to hear more, i actually described a lot of these features in the sixty symbols videos on jupiter and mysterious new spots on jupiter and venus.

here is pierre and my fabulous sister :)


so a big huge THANK YOU to lara and pierre!!

circle puzzle

here's a clever little puzzle for everyone to ponder. without measuring and using only the information on the image, can you figure out the radius of the circle?


please dont give away the solution in the comments, but feel free to share how long it took you or other puzzles you have enjoyed!

via The Marcos Kirsch Experience®

things to write home about

a list from mia nolting.

nobel prize in physics 2010: playing with tape!

this year's nobel prize in physics has been awarded to two scientists based in the UK: andre geim and 36 year old konstantin novoselov "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene."

of course, brady was prepared for the announcement this morning, and put together a nice sixty symbols video explaining the science behind this year's award.



i like that such a simple idea, that was essentially "let's stick tape to pencil lead and see how thin a layer we can pull off," turned out to be an incredibly successful experiment! interestingly, the two winners have been known throughout their careers as being quirky and creative scientists. geim is no stranger to winning prizes, as he also won an Ig Nobel award in 2000 for levitating a frog with magnets. amazing!

cheers fellas, for proving that creativity and fun should be applied to all aspects of life, including science!

ohio in the fall

i have begun a serious round of travel.

i'm currently in ohio, usa, in the city where i grew up. no matter how long i've been away or from how far away i come for a visit, i feel instantly comfortable and at ease in this house where i grew up. yesterday, i saw loads of family and old friends at my little sister's college graduation party. it was very fun, exhausting, and completely energizing to see so many familiar and supportive faces. everyone giggles at every word i say with any hint of a british accent, but it sounds to me like my midwestern drawl is back full force since i've been here nearly a week! in the flurry of continuous conversation, i managed not to take a single photo during the party :(

here are a few shots i've captured showing hints of the beautiful fall colors that so gracefully cover this part of the world each autumn.





this is my gorgeous niece's "birthday whippy!"

white chocolate pumpkin cookies

today is the 3rd birthday of this little miss. her big brother and i made some white chocolate pumpkin cookies to celebrate. she approved :)


in fact, the cookies have been such a success that i thought i'd share a recipe.

apologies to the brits who weigh flour and such with kitchen scales, but most people (that i know) in the US do not own them, so i couldnt measure the gravitational pull of the earth's mass on the individual ingredients.


white chocolate pumpkin cookies

8 oz fresh pumpkin (~2 cups)
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
1 cup self-rising flour
3 1/2 ounces white chocolate chunks

yields ~25 cookies

preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).

scoop out the seeds** of the pumpkin. cut away the skin and grate the flesh.

beat together the butter and sugar until creamy (i used the back of a spoon). add the grated pumpkin, then the egg, oatmeal, flour, and chocolate chunks.

grease cookie sheets. place spoonfuls of batter on the baking sheets and flatten them with a spoon. bake for 20-25 minutes until golden and no longer shiny. leave cookies on baking sheets for 2 minutes then move to wire rack to cool.

eat while they're warm and enjoy... then eat more after they cool!


** separate goop from seeds, dry seeds, and roast the seeds!

dam goats

this is amazing!


not sure where the image originally came from, but according to tywkiwdbi, "They apparently traverse the wall of the dam to lick salt or other minerals from the stonework." despite looking so precariously perched, from a video of the goats, they frolic about on the dam quite easily!

do physicists believe in god?

we are a small sample size, but the physicists of sixty symbols weigh in on the question... do you believe in god?



in addition, we also share our favorite "astronomical feature" in the video.

i havent written too much on my personal (lack of) belief in god on this blog, but here is something i wrote in 2006, if youre interested.

jupiter of holst

here is a musical piece in honor of jupiter remaining so bright in our night sky for a while.

between 1914 and 1916, the british composer gustav holst wrote a seven-movement orchestral suite called The Planets Op.32. here is jupiter:

super scientist to the rescue!

check out this comic from saturday morning breakfast cereal:





superman asks "who do i punch?" hahaha!

wait superman! there's no need for violence! what you need is a super scientist!!

;)

superman had a different idea.

LHC mural

we recently learned about what might happen if one stuck one's hand in the beam of the large hadron collider (LHC), here's something completely different about the LHC.

artist josef kristofoletti just completed a mural of the LHC's ATLAS detector, located above ground at CERN, where the LHC is currently up and running!




the event depicted in the mural is the decay of a Z boson into two muons.

photos of scotland: part 1

here is round one of my favorite photos from my recent trip to scotland. i was amazed at how the landscape changed as rapidly as the weather. luckily, we survived my first time ever driving on the left side of the road and driving from the right-hand side of the car! and we were only harassed by the infamous midges on one occasion.

during our first night in scotland we stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast near loch lomond. the common room had an excellent view!


we drove thru the amazingly beautiful glen coe which has jumped up to be one of my favorite places!




i hiked to the top of the highest peak in the UK: ben nevis. the summit isnt terribly far above sea level, at 1,344 meters (4,409 ft), but i was still sore for a solid two days after the climb!


i walked across the path of a waterfall on the way to the top.


unfortunately, thick clouds hung about halfway down the mountain, completely blocking the view. this was one of the last shots i took before the clouds became so thick that i could hear people walking along the rocks before i could see them approaching!


we watched this lovely sunset along the loch until the tiny midges won the battle :( notice the light post that is submerged during high tide...


a peaceful moment with the loch's clear water.


the day after the hike, we drove a lot throughout the highlands. on the way to loch ness, we passed a lake whose name amused me: loch lochy!


we drove along most of loch ness. its incredibly long, narrow and deep! we stopped along its bank to see the remains of urquart castle. see any evidence of nessie in those dark waters?


me neither.

we then crossed the bridge to the isle of skye which was absolutely stunning - when you could see through the weather! part of the magic of scotland is that you dont always get to see its beauty, but when the clouds clear enough to send a beam of light shooting down to some distant patch of land, you feel as though you are witnessing a great secret of time.




and i must not forget one of my most favorite features of scotland: the scotch whisky!


more about the whisky in part 2. for now, you can look at the full set of photos from scotland: part 1.

urania

i'm not sure what this is, but i saw it on fresh photons and think its awesome.

modern stained glass using x-ray images?


for some reason it reminds me of the images of humans suffering that i've seen in churches around the world, but i find this image really interesting, whereas i find a lot of the church images and statues rather creepy.

the north star, polaris

this beautiful artwork shows you how to find the north star using ursa major, the big dipper.


Encyclopédie du livre d’or pour garçons et filles-livre 6 Adaptation américaine
(Editions des deux coqs d’or-1972, Illustrateur: inconnu)

(via fresh photons)

the speedy peregrine falcon

the fastest animal on the planet is the peregrine falcon. it can reach speeds over 320 km/h (200 mph) and experiences up to 10 G's at the bottom of a swoop dive! in this BBC video, they strapped a camera onto a peregrine falcon so we can try to experience this level of speed for ourselves! i was most amazed by the second part, showing the bird's agility, as it speeds through a dense forest!

jupiter's opposition, the equinox, and the full moon

tomorrow is the equinox, which means that the hours of daylight and darkness are very nearly equal. welcome to a new season (and hopefully lots of colorful leaves in the trees in ohio when i visit next week!).

the next few evenings will also be lovely for looking towards the sky. maybe you've noticed an incredibly bright object shining in eastern skies over the last couple months? that's the planet jupiter. wednesday, the harvest moon will be full, and the brightly shining, nearby jupiter will be hanging in the sky just below it.


last night jupiter was at opposition (when the earth passes between the sun and jupiter), constituting jupiter's closest physical approach to us on earth! every earth year, jupiter goes thru an opposition position, but its physically a little closer or farther each time. this time, it happens to be closer than it has been since 1963 and closer than it will be again until the year 2022, and as such, it looks especially bright in our sky! the jovian giant is about 368 million miles away.

you can see below how the planets of our solar system are currently aligned (the map is not to scale).


earth is just to the right of the sun, and you can see jupiter in a straight line farther out to the right. even farther out is the planet uranus. in fact, if you look to the upper left of jupiter in the (northern hemisphere's) sky with the aid of binoculars or a small telescope, you should easily be able to spot uranus, and maybe even the 4 galilean moons of jupiter! from the southern hemisphere, you'll find uranus to the lower left of jupiter.

be sure to go out, take a look, take a picture, and enjoy the changing of the seasons.

dirty space news: jets at all scales

i did not attend this conference myself, but a fellow astrophysicist pointed out to me that the poster for a recent IAU symposium obviously fits the criteria for being dirty space news:


its just an added bonus that they called the meeting jets at all scales.

astro timelapse montage

i cant get enough of these landscape and sky-based timelaspe films! this one comes from mike flores on vimeo.

Timelapse Montage from Mike Flores on Vimeo.