oxford, england - part 2

the adventure continues (view part 1, here) from the top of st. mary's church...


the little gargoyle faces all over the city are sometimes eerie and sometimes funny, but always entertaining.



one lonely pink bulding face.


little people eater....




only 300 years late to meet edmund halley (of comet fame).



scenes about town...





an R2D2 builders club!!!!


enjoying a few drinks with the family that welcomed me to town!




view part 1 of the oxford series. still a bit more to come....

the science of love, and the future of women

i've been introduced to anthroplogist helen fisher thru a guest post at skepchick by laura davis by laura without labels. laura shares an excellent review of helen's new book, "Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love," which i now want to read.

here is helen fisher giving a talk at TED in 2006. i find her 20 minute video to be an inspiring and charming discussion on the ways we romantically love, especially the second half.

a micrometer from here

the name of this video caught my eye, but i thoroughly enjoyed the short film. the artist, amit zakai, describes the film: "my graduation project, at the HIT israely academy for design, is a comic film measuring daily life in single units and multiplying them by powers."

i particularly like (and dislike) the eyeball part around 3:05... it's uniquely done but makes me cringe, as anything in close proximity to the eye does!


"a micrometer from here" (eng sub) from amit zakai on Vimeo.

oxford, england - part 1

belinda grew up in oxford and took me along for a weekend family visit! shenanigans ensued....


belinda drives.

glad i'm not driving.



gorgeous old victorian homes.


evidence of belinda's existential phase of youth!







when belinda first told me the name of this bridge, i heard the "bridge of size." and i thought to myself, "but its not really that big!" then i read the little sign and realized my mistake... the bridge of sighs - oh! that name made much more sense when i heard the story of the original bridge of sighs in italy. still, i dont understand why the british didnt give this one their own, less depressing name!




a couple characters in front of the bodleian library


a rather large key hole!




annoying uber-tourist!

more to come...

fossil fuels

imagine that you're scientist dr. raul cano, on an expedition to find ancient microscopic creatures that might have some kind of medical value. instead, you find an ancient bee entombed inside a chunk of amber 45 (+- 15) million years ago (think jurassic park)! using a somewhat controversial new technique, you extract 45 million year old bacteria and yeast from inside the gut of the bee!!

what do you do?

you brew beer, of course! introducing the fossil fuels brewing company.


i'd very much like to try a pint whenever i visit northern california!

posh fish.

now serving free coke with any kebab!


seen in oxford, england.

TEDprize - james nachtwey

after watching this TED video by james nachtwey, i'm intrigued. he has been a war photographer for the last several decades - a witness to events that "should not be forgotten and must not be repeated." he shares a sobering series of photos and stories during his 2007 TED prize talk:



as the winner of the 2007 TED Prize, he was awarded $100,000 and one wish: "I'm working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age."

tomorrow, october 3rd, 2008, the story breaks... and i'm interested in the experience.

jules verne's journey to earth

in this case, i'm referring to the european space craft named jules verne, which just descended from orbit. in march of this year, i described the awesome triple flyby that we saw when jules verne approached the international space station (ISS), just after NASA's space shuttle endeavor undocked from the ISS! it's six months later now, jules verne successfully delivered the supplies it needed to deliver to the ISS, and it was time to return to earth's surface. jules verne was sent thru a de-orbit procedure that allowed it to re-enter earths atmosphere, break into several pieces, and crash the remaining pieces into the pacific ocean! you can watch a video of the event: HERE.

trouble for hubble

bad news, the hubble mission has been postponed until next spring :(

in short, no data is being sent from hubble to earth. NASA thinks they can put together a quick fix while astronauts train to accomplish the news tasks scheduled for the spring mission. a lot of training is needed for the simplest tasks, even for these amazingly capable space walkers! hopefully we'll be able to receive data again in a few weeks, and repair many things in addition to adding new instruments in the spring.

lots of people reporting on this so i'll direct you to other places for more details info:

NASA
dynamics of cats
julianne at cosmic variance
bad astronomy
NY Times