Billion-dollar pictures

Alan Boyle has this interesting entry on CosmicLog:

Is one picture worth a hundred billion dollars? That’s the mostly-in-jest price tag that was put on this week’s portrait of the virtually complete international space station. Pictures may not be the most practical payoff from space exploration, but they’re definitely the biggest crowd-pleasers, as demonstrated by the latest batch of “Month in Space” pictures.

The entertainment value of imagery from the final frontier is just one of the five E’s that justify jumping off this planet. The space station is expected to contribute to the other E’s as well – for example, through proposed energy-beaming experiments and a host of studies aimed at smoothing the way for future exploration.

When all that research is added to images such as this week’s “$100 billion photographs,” does that make the estimated cost of the space station project worth it?

via Billion-dollar pictures – Cosmic Log – msnbc.com.

Reminiscing with Carl Sagan

I just caught up on some of my RSS feeds and I was delighted to see that Hulu has posted all 13 episodes of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos online. Cosmos was a key factor in my interest of all things science. Rural Iowa was not the easiest place to cultivate a passion for science, but my father did quite well.

Growing up in the 70s and 80s in rural Iowa meant no cable TV, a satellite dish was something you planted in your back yard and any calls out of town were long distance. We still managed to stay informed through a handful of science and computer magazine subscriptions, the local library, and PBS.

Of all these factors, PBS was without a doubt the most instrumental in pointing me down the path to geekdom. Shows like NOVA and Cosmos stimulated my interest in science. Monty Python, Are You Being Served and Benny Hill built my appreciation for British comedy and Masterpiece Theater and Austin City Limits gave me an appreciation of the arts. Many of these shows still air on PBS today. NOVA is in it’s 36th Season, ACL is working on its 33rd season and Masterpiece Theatre is still going strong after 38 years. Many of the comedies are still finding air time on local PBS affiliates around the country, and Monty Python now has it’s own YouTube channel.

So if you haven’t given much thought to PBS in recent years, consider checking out NOVA and Cosmos on Hulu.

via Reminiscing with Carl Sagan | Geekdad from Wired.com.

Sitting in a tin can, not far from central Moscow: Russian scientists prepare for Mars mission | Science | The Guardian

In a car park not so far away … It is a big brother experiment like no other, an experiment which will boldly go where few have gone – or probably wanted to go – before.

Six apparently fearless volunteers are to take part in a unique test by being locked up in what amounts to a series of small steel tins off a parking lot in Moscow for 105 days as scientists simulate a space rocket ride to Mars.

On Tuesday the team will step into a chain of cramped metal capsules, connected by cables and corrugated metal pipes, in a hangar at the back of the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP) in the Russian capital, swing close the hatch and “blast off”.

The idea is for the 550 cubic-metre “ground exploration complex” (GEC) to recreate as closely as possible the atmosphere of a spacecraft racing through the solar system, bombarded by cosmic radiation. Any return flight to Mars – at least 34 million miles from our planet – would take between 18 months and three years, including landing and exploration.

The volunteers – four Russians, a French airline pilot and a German army engineer – will be kept under constant camera surveillance to record the physical and psychological impact of their time in the isolation chamber.

They will eat packaged rations, wash with damp tissues and spend several hours each day conducting experiments, just as astronauts would on a real space flight. They will use the same toilet as crew on the international space station, which has fans to propel waste into a “sanitary receptacle”. They will eat together, work out in a tiny gym – and may even get in to the odd punch-up.

Mark Belokovksy of the IMBP admitted the psychological pressure of living in close quarters with five other human beings could crack even the toughest guinea pigs.

“Tension is inevitable,” he said candidly. The fact the 105-day “flight” will be a single-sex trip on this occasion may be a blessing. During a similar experiment in 1999 the participants were given vodka to celebrate New Year’s Eve: two members then got in a fist fight after one tried to kiss a female volunteer from Canada.

The capsules have no windows and the explorers’ only contact with the outside world will be via an internal email system and a delayed radio link to the “control centre” positioned alongside the GEC. …

via Sitting in a tin can, not far from central Moscow: Russian scientists prepare for Mars mission | Science | The Guardian.

Solar storm could cause planetary disaster at any time, warn scientists

The Government was urged today to make contingency plans for a freak solar flare that could ‘knock out’ the National Grid and create severe water and food shortages.

Labour former minister Graham Stringer said Britain should be prepared for a repeat of the solar storm of 1859, which hit Earth and paralysed much of the telegraph system.

In a Commons motion, Mr Stringer said such an event could now ‘knock out the National Grid, which would lead to a loss of water supply, transport and food and therefore create a national emergency’.

The so-called ‘Carrington event’ was a magnetic storm that struck Earth in 1859 and caused the failure of telegraph systems all over Europe and North America. Auroras were reportedly seen as far south as Florida.

Now a report funded by NASA claims such a storm today would lead to ‘planetary disaster.’

The NAS study released this January outlined the devastating impact it would have. For instance it could leave half of the US without power within 90 seconds, without coal after 30 days and would take the country a decade to recover.

via Solar storm could cause planetary disaster at any time, warn scientists | Mail Online.

Surprise supernova: Massive star explodes despite being ‘too immature’ to self-destruct

A star one million times brighter than our own sun has exploded, taking the science community completely by surprise.

Physicists were stumped when the star, 200million light years from Earth, erupted into a super-sized supernova in 2005. The spectacular event was captured by Nasa’s Hubble Space Telescope.

Researchers from the Weizmann Institute and San Diego State University said it was the largest exploding star ever observed.

via Surprise supernova: Massive star explodes despite being ‘too immature’ to self-destruct | Mail Online.

Hobbit Skeleton Replica Goes On Display | LiveScience

A cast of a “hobbit” skeleton will go on public display for the first time as part of a human evolution symposium April 21 on Long Island, New York.

The hobbit fossils (and near fossils) were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003. Some scientists think the discovery represents a new species of human. Others argue it was human like us, only with a disorder called microcephaly which gave it an unusually small head.

The skeleton is set to go on display at Stony Brook University’s Staller Center for the Arts as part of the 7th Human Evolution Symposium there.

“A cast of the entire skeleton of the specimen has never been displayed anywhere, inside or outside of Indonesia. This is a real first,” said William Jungers, a professor of anatomy at Stony Brook.

As the debate rages on about Homo floresiensis — the so-called hobbit, the symposium will bring together the researchers currently in the process of describing and analyzing the remains.

via Hobbit Skeleton Replica Goes On Display | LiveScience.

Brilliant oval shaped light at high rate of speed followed by F/18′s

This is an interesting report from UFO Examiner. It is easy to get the impression that there is something big going on up there in the skies.

California, March 27, 2009 – A brilliant oval shaped light was seen traveling from the South to North East at a high rate of speed followed by F/18′s.

At 12:24pm the store owner and I were standing outside of his establishment in Poway, Ca at the corner of Poway and Pomerado road. We were talking while facing in a southerly direction.

It was a very clear day with no clouds in the sky and a minimal amount of humidity in the atmosphere. As I was speaking to him; I noticed a very bright light appear in the sky. It’s brilliance and movement drew my attention immediately. The light was so bright that I knew it wasn’t an aircraft or helicopter. It was approximately 12 inches (relative) above the southern horizon. Its point of origin was approximately 175 degrees on the compass.

It was traveling at an undetermined, but very high rate of speed. From the point of origin; it was traveling North, North East to a point on the compass that would have ended at approximately 20 degrees. The relative distance that it traveled was approximately two and a half feet from its point of origin. It covered this distance in approximately ten seconds. Approximately 3 minutes after the object disappeared two F/18′s traveling from the North East came to the point where the object disappeared.

They circled this area once then continued South West. Thirty seconds later a third “trailer” F/18 came from the same direction and loitered over the area where the UFO had been for approximately 3 minutes. It then egressed to the South West as well. The flight patterns of any aircraft either landing or taking off from Miramar Air Base is well known, as are the flight paths of aircraft that are in the area while performing carrier landings, touch and go exercises, or mutual support missions in this area. The flight path of the three F/18′s was well out of normal parameters. As the F/18′s approached the area where the object had been they slowed dramatically (no more than 300 knots).

These factors, coupled with the fact that their flight path would have put them in direct “Head On” contact with the object as they flew South West and it traveled North East, gave the impression that they were not only looking for what I had seen but had been on an intercept coarse. The owner of the establishment also saw the object and the F/18′s but without his permission I did not want to include his information.

The object was a brilliant oval shaped light. As it traveled North East it grew in size. When I first saw the object it was approximately five centimeters across. It had increased to approximately 12 centimeters before it disappeared. It’s change in distance to me as well as it motion makes it highly improbable that it was reflected light. The light was not only brilliant but constant and did not shimmer or shake. there were no visible anti collision lights of any pattern including red or green.

In fact the light from the sun was so bright that the anti collision lights from the F/18′s were not visible either. The object made no sound, left no vapor or exhaust trail, and if it’s rate of travel was above 620 mph it made no sonic boom. After several second of observing the object I got an uneasy feeling. I would not describe it as fear but unrest as my mind went through the possible causes of the light and continued to fail to come up with a reasonable explanation.

The individual that I was with was equally disturbed. I saw the object first but after I pointed it out to him he couldn’t take his eye’s off of it. It was not exhibiting non-ballistic motion or any other flight characteristic, other than its speed and brilliance, that appeared to be abnormal. I did not have a camera on my person and the event would not have shown up on the phone/camera of my Motorola Razor. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact me.

Once again, assuming these accounts are legit, some military pilots definitely know more than the rest of us about what is really going on. Doing a search on google for this city, I found this interesting quote on godlikeproductions:

The same military insider that told me that we have 1 million marines stationed off planet also told me there is a huge underground space command base located in Poway, CA.

One million off-Earth marines? Some must be clones … or perhaps that’s where all of the people abducted by aliens year after year end up. Gary McKinnon, the UFO hacker, did mention that he found a list of extra-terrestrial officers when hacking a NASA web site.

“I found a list of officers’ names,” he claims, “under the heading ‘Non-Terrestrial Officers’… What I think it means is not earth-based. I found a list of ‘fleet-to-fleet transfers’ and a list of ship names. I looked them up. They weren’t U.S. Navy ships. What I saw made me believe they have some kind of spaceship, off-planet.”

Visitor Submitted UFO Photo

DSC03486.jpg, originally uploaded by xeno735.

This UFO was uploaded by some as yet unknown person.  If it was  you, please leave a comment letting us know more about it. Thanks, Xeno

Miracle Fruit turns sour foods sweet

The miracle fruit plant (Synsepalum dulcificum) produces berries that, when eaten, cause sour foods (such as lemons and limes) consumed later to taste sweet. The berry, also known as miracle, magic, miraculous or flavor berry,^[2][3] was first documented by explorer Chevalier des Marchais^[4] who searched for many different fruits during a 1725 excursion to its native West Africa. Marchais noticed that local tribes picked the berry from shrubs and chewed it before meals. The plant grows in bushes up to 20 feet (6.1 m) high in its native habitat, but does not usually grow higher than ten feet in cultivation, and it produces two crops per year, after the end of the rainy season. It is an evergreen plant that produces small red berries, with flowers that are white and which are produced for many months of the year. The seeds are about the size of coffee beans.

The berry contains an active glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin.^[5][6] When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue’s taste buds, causing sour foods to taste sweet. While the exact cause for this change is unknown, one hypothesis is that the effect may be caused if miraculin works by distorting the shape of sweetness receptors “so that they become responsive to acids, instead of sugar and other sweet things”.^[3] This effect lasts 15-30 minutes.^[7]

An attempt was made in the 1970s to commercialize the ability of the fruit to turn non-sweet foods into sweet foods without a caloric penalty, but ended in failure in controversial circumstances with accusations that the project was sabotaged and the research burgled by the sugar industry to prevent loss of business caused by a drop in the need for sugar.^[8] The FDA has always denied that pressure was put on it by the sugar industry, but refused to release any files on the subject.^[9] Similar arguments are noted for FDA’s regulation on stevia now labeled as a “dietary supplement” instead of a “sweetener”.

For a time in the 1970s, US dieters could purchase a pill form of miraculin.^[3] It was at this time that the idea of the “miraculin party”^[3] was conceived. Recently, this phenomenon has enjoyed some revival in food tasting events, referred to as “flavor tripping parties” by some.^[2] The tasters consume sour and bitter foods, such as lemons, radishes, pickles, hot sauce, and beer, to experience the taste changes that occur.

via Wikipedia

This sounds fun! Has anyone out there tried it? What was it like? The tablets are available on the net and samples are available for $13 to $20 – here or here or here – … less if you are not afraid to buy food products on ebay.

Do sweets still taste sweet after you eat this? As long as it is safe and works every time you use it, the miracle fruit could save many teeth by allowing people to cut out sugar yet still have sweet tasting meals.  Strep mutans, the bacteria which causes cavities in your teeth, would not do any harm if you were eating something sour and tricking your taste buds into thinking you were eating something sweet.

Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries

Many laptops these day have built in web cams, including my latest purchase, so this caught my attention. If your computer is compromised by GhostNet, someone in China may be watching you and recording your conversations.  I made a little flap to cover the camera on my laptop… just in case.

A vast electronic spying operation has infiltrated computers and has stolen documents from hundreds of government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, Canadian researchers have concluded.

In a report to be issued this weekend, the researchers said that the system was being controlled from computers based almost exclusively in China, but that they could not say conclusively that the Chinese government was involved.

The researchers, who are based at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto, had been asked by the office of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader whom China regularly denounces, to examine its computers for signs of malicious software, or malware.

Their sleuthing opened a window into a broader operation that, in less than two years, has infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including many belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices, as well as the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels, London and New York.

The researchers, who have a record of detecting computer espionage, said they believed that in addition to the spying on the Dalai Lama, the system, which they called GhostNet, was focused on the governments of South Asian and Southeast Asian countries.

Intelligence analysts say many governments, including those of China, Russia and the United States, and other parties use sophisticated computer programs to covertly gather information.

The newly reported spying operation is by far the largest to come to light in terms of countries affected.

This is also believed to be the first time researchers have been able to expose the workings of a computer system used in an intrusion of this magnitude.

Still going strong, the operation continues to invade and monitor more than a dozen new computers a week, the researchers said in their report, “Tracking ‘GhostNet’: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network.” They said they had found no evidence that United States government offices had been infiltrated, although a NATO computer was monitored by the spies for half a day and computers of the Indian Embassy in Washington were infiltrated.

The malware is remarkable both for its sweep — in computer jargon, it has not been merely “phishing” for random consumers’ information, but “whaling” for particular important targets — and for its Big Brother-style capacities. It can, for example, turn on the camera and audio-recording functions of an infected computer, enabling monitors to see and hear what goes on in a room. The investigators say they do not know if this facet has been employed.

via Vast Spy System Loots Computers in 103 Countries – NYTimes.com.