MAGIC OF SCIENCE

My Bad...

2011-11-13T21:17:00.000-08:00

At the end of the day, hey, let’s go under the radar and be proactive

Game changers, touching base while hitting the ground running;

Pushing the envelope while reaching for low hanging fruit

And giving 110 per cent knowing we can do this!

Sweet!

It is what it is 24/7 because the elephant in the room

Is none other than the 800-pound canary, which translates into

The user experience of putting lipstick on a pig while herding cats

Resulting in the takeaway that living in the moment resonates

With going the extra ginormous mile to get to that next level of synergy

Which is all good and gives us permission not to beat ourselves up.

Yes and no, despite the fact it’s a no-brainer on steroids, a bold re-imagining of

Not drinking the Kool-Aid while getting thrown under

The bus by incenting state-of-the-art tipping points in an impactful way.

Stick a fork in it…it’s done. We’re good to go!

Girlfriend, ramp-up the paradigm shifts by coloring outside the lines because

That was so ten minutes ago! Let’s be honest, I’m not going to lie to you.

We need boots on the ground to come to Jesus and our stakeholders.

So let’s circle back and reach out to the community through integrated increased

Bandwidth borrowing equally from all buckets.

Toxic Russian Mars Probe Likely Heading Back to Earth

2011-11-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

Russia's space agency has so far failed to contact its $13-million unmanned Phobos-Grunt Mars probe, which it lost contact with immediately after launch early on Wednesday -- and may end up as the 18th in a long string of unsuccessful Russian missions to the Red Planet.

My Saturn Return ate my Skywatch

2011-11-13T19:49:00.000-08:00

At least that’s what I’m blaming it on. Those of you on my mailing list already know this story, but after spending over two hours writing the November Skywatch a template glitch ate the entire thing before it could be posted. Thanks to those of you who suggested writing the article in a Word document and then transferring it into the website - I will definitely do that next time! The weird thing is I kept saving the document because I had a feeling something was going to happen. Anyway… Saturn transits tend to create delays and disappointments and events that frustrate us, all in the name of keeping one’s nose to the grindstone. My chart has Saturn, Sun and Neptune all in a nice little triad and while Saturn has completed the transit to my Saturn and Sun it is now sitting right on my Neptune. A very apt significator for the confusion of the disappearance into the ethers of my writing (Neptune rules fogs, mists, illusion and all things confusing, as well as the higher aspects of transcendence.)

But I will make up for it by posting everything that WOULD have been in Skywatch here at Astrological Musings.

During the month of November there are still no major interactions between the outer planets to create havoc, which means that any planetary transits to our own chart will be singular rather than the influence of a collective. It also means that we are likely not to have any significantly huge global events, so this continues to be a time of rest and rehabilitation as we gear up for the fun with Uranus and Pluto in 2012.

Neptune turns direct on November 9th after traveling retrograde since the summer. Since mid-October Neptune has been virtually stationary, shining its laser beam of inspirational light on us, and that will continue until late in November. Neptune urges us to transcend the boundaries of our ordinary day-to-day world, but can also lead us into confusion and delusion so care must be taken to honor that line between them.

Venus and Mercury both move into Sagittarius today, lightening the mood and bringing us out of the Scorpionic darkness into the more social season of adventure and travel. But both planets are in a square to Chiron over the next couple of days which may bring us into experiences of old wounds and deep feelings that perhaps we would rather ignore. Recognizing that feelings are just energy is a big help in allowing that energy to simply flow through and be released, and this is the Chironic process of healing. That process will be made easier by the trine of Mercury and Venus to Uranus, the planet of innovation and new ideas. As we open up to new ways of looking at the world the old wounds fall away effortlessly, releasing us into a new future.

Full Moon in Taurus, November 10, 2011

2011-11-13T19:44:00.000-08:00

Since she is a friend she probably won’t mind! The Moon will reach its fullness in Taurus at 3:16 pm Eastern time (7:16 pm GMT) on November 10, 2011. The Sun is in Scorpio, and with the climax of the lunar cycle at the Full Moon a tension exists between the solar conscious mind, currently influenced by Scorpio, and the instincts of the lunar principle in Taurus.

The Taurus/Scorpio polarity offers a primal dance between Mars (traditional ruler of Scorpio) and Venus (traditional ruler of Taurus). Mars is aggressive, assertive, rough, defensive, protective; Venus is soft, yielding, flowing, sensitive. Where Scorpio is aggressive in its need to eliminate and procreate, Taurus longs for stability and security. These two sides of our nature are both equally important, yet for many of us they battle in our psyche and require periodic adjustments to achieve a balance that will offer us some peace. Because Scorpio and Taurus are both fixed signs that do not adjust easily, there is greater tension in this polarity than in most of the other signs in opposition (Leo and Aquarius is the other fixed pair).

I like to think of Earth as being a ruler of Taurus, since Taurus embodies the love of Earth, gardening, and all things natural. And Pluto is the modern ruler of Scorpio. So we are also seeing here the polarity between Pluto, the Lord of the Underworld, and Gaia, the mother of all living things. Life and death – generation and regeneration. These are no small factors in the course of a life, and they are the primal factors underlying this Full Moon.

Biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases

2011-11-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.

The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.

"The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries — China, the United States and India, the world's top producers of greenhouse gases.

It is a "monster" increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate Department of Energy figures in the past.

Extra pollution in China and the U.S. account for more than half the increase in emissions last year, Marland said.

"It's a big jump," said Tom Boden, director of the Energy Department's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at Oak Ridge National Lab. "From an emissions standpoint, the global financial crisis seems to be over."

Boden said that in 2010 people were traveling, and manufacturing was back up worldwide, spurring the use of fossil fuels, the chief contributor of man-made climate change.

India and China are huge users of coal. Burning coal is the biggest carbon source worldwide and emissions from that jumped nearly 8 percent in 2010.

Biggest spike ever in global warming gases: US

2011-11-07T06:32:00.000-08:00

The amount of global warming gases sent into the atmosphere made an unprecedented jump in 2010, according to the US Department of Energy's latest world data on carbon dioxide emissions.

"It's big," said Tom Boden, director of the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center Environmental Sciences Division at the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

"Our data go back to 1751, even before the Industrial Revolution. Never before have we seen a 500-million-metric-ton carbon increase in a single year," he told AFP.

The 512 million metric ton increase amounted to a near six percent rise between 2009 and 2010, going from 8.6 billion metric tons to 9.1 billion.

Large jumps, measured from C02 emissions released into the atmosphere as a result of burning coal and gas, were visible in China, the United States and India, the world's top three polluters.

Significant spikes over 2009 were also seen in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, Poland and Kazakhstan.

Biography sees Jobs as crossroad of humanities, science .

2011-11-07T06:25:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A genius for mixing the humanities and sciences coupled with a Svengali-like ability to motivate people powered Steve Jobs's mission to change the world, biographer Walter Isaacson concludes in his exhaustive new study of the Apple co-founder.

"Michelangelo knew a lot about how to quarry stone, not just how to be a sculptor," Isaacson quotes Jobs as saying in one of the many interviews the Apple chief executive gave him in the months before Jobs's death on October 5.

Isaacson's "Steve Jobs" quickly became one of the most highly anticipated biographies of the year after the tech icon, the creative force behind products like the MacIntosh PC, iPod, iPhone and iPad, died of pancreatic cancer.

The 571-page volume hit bookstores on Oct. 24 but was released earlier than expected on Apple's iBooks online store and Amazon's Kindle the day before. Amazon later said it expected the book to be its top seller of the year. No doubt, Jobs would have loved that.

"Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science," Jobs tells Isaacson toward the end, when discussing his legacy. "I like that intersection. There's something magical about that place."

The book chronicles Jobs's achievements but presents a rounded and colorful portrait, warts and all.

It begins with a young, tearful Jobs trying to comprehend what it means to be adopted, a fact that some sources told Isaacson helped explain later behavior by Jobs such as his denying paternity of his first child.

"The real underlying problem was the theme of abandonment in Steve's life," Andy Hertzfeld, a former Apple colleague, told Isaacson.

The book portrays Jobs as a cutthroat businessman who championed aesthetic perfection over profit, with his character, aggressive behavior and startling inspirations tied part and parcel to his youthful search for identity.

Part of sun turns into stormy 'benevolent monster'

2011-11-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — After years of quiet, the sun is coming alive with solar storms in a big way.

The sun shot off a flare Thursday afternoon from a region that scientists are calling a "benevolent monster."

Scientists at the federal Space Weather Prediction Center say that area is the most active part of the sun since 2005. It has dozens of sunspots, including one that is the size of 17 Earths. Sunspots are kinks or knots in the sun's magnetic field.

"It's beautiful," said forecaster Jess Whittington. "It's still growing. The size is what blows me away."

Thursday's flare wasn't aimed at Earth. However, this active region is now slowly turning toward Earth, and scientists say it will be directly facing Earth in about five days.

That storm region will only affect Earth if it shoots off flares and they hit our planet, which doesn't always happen with stormy areas, said prediction center space scientist Joe Kunches.

The region will be facing Earth for about two weeks as it rotates, he said.

Solar flares send out bursts of electromagnetic energy that can occasionally disrupt communications and electrical systems.

For the past several years, the sun has been at a quiet end of its cycle and only recently has gotten more active. Solar cycles go in 11-year period. This cycle has had fewer storms than usual for this time in its cycle. But that may be changing.

"The sun is looking more like we think it should at this point in the solar cycle," Kunches said. "It's got a number of active centers."

A matter of gravity.

2011-11-06T08:09:00.000-08:00

As seen by a supersensitive gravity-detecting satellite, Earth isn’t a pale blue dot. It’s a colorful, irregular lump. Kind of like a tuber.

“Rotating potato — I don’t like this word,” said Roland Pail, a geoscientist at the Technical University of Munich. He and other researchers unveiled the new map of the Earth’s gravity field on March 31 at a scientific workshop in Munich.

Yet a rainbow potato it is. This image represents a sort of theoretical sea level known as the “geoid” — a surface where the ocean would rest if not pushed around by internal currents, tides and the weather.

Gravity varies from place to place because of many factors, such as the presence of mountain ranges, the bulge around Earth’s equator, and the moon’s gravitational influence. The new snapshot comes from the European Space Agency’s GOCE satellite, launched in 2009 to map the geoid. GOCE dances along at the top of the atmosphere, using six special accelerometers to measure, many times a second, how the Earth’s gravity tugs on the spacecraft.

A highly accurate gravity map will allow researchers to fine-tune their understanding of ocean currents, sea level height, ice caps and other changing parts of the planet.

Hibernation mystery.

2011-11-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

Don’t judge a bear by its temperature, or so suggests first-of-its-kind data on hibernation physiology.

There’s something as-yet-unknown going on with black bear hibernation that slows metabolic rates more than lower body temperatures alone can explain, reports ecological physiologist Øivind Tøien of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

In the depths of Alaskan winters, closely monitored black bears dropped their temperatures only a modest 5.5 degrees Celsius on average, Tøien and his colleagues report in the Feb. 18 Science and at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Washington, D.C. A standard physiologist’s calculation predicts that such a chill would slow metabolism to 65 percent of nonhibernating resting rates. But the bears’ metabolisms plunged down to even more energy-saving zones, averaging only 25 percent of the basic summer rate.

This sustained, big disconnect hasn’t shown up so far in research on any other hibernating mammal, says study coauthor Brian M. Barnes, also of UA Fairbanks.

Mammal hibernation matters to human medical research, says physiological ecologist Hank Harlow of the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Relying on mechanisms that scientists would love to understand, black bears spend five to seven months without eating, drinking or taking a single bathroom break. But unlike bedridden or spacefaring people, the hibernators don’t lose their muscle strength or bone mass. “Bears are just remarkable,” Harlow says.

This Alaska study is the first to manage continuous monitoring of metabolic rate and body temperature throughout bear hibernation in low-disturbance conditions, Tøien says. Other studies based on intermittent sampling with older instruments, indirect evidence or studying bears with lots of people nearby have left the matter “uncertain,” as he puts it.

Cosmic questions, answers pending.

2011-11-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

Throughout human history, great missions of exploration have been inspired by curiosity, the desire to find out about unknown realms. Such missions have taken explorers across wide oceans and far below their surfaces, deep into jungles, high onto mountain peaks and over vast stretches of ice to the Earth’s polar extremities.

Today’s greatest exploratory mission is no longer Earthbound. It’s the scientific quest to explain the cosmos, to answer the grandest questions about the universe as a whole.

What is the identity, for example, of the “dark” ingredients in the cosmic recipe, composing 95 percent of the universe’s content? And just what, if anything, occurred more than 13.7 billion years ago, when the universe accessible to astronomical observation was born? Will physicists ever succeed in devising a theory to encompass all the forces and particles of nature in one neat mathematical package (and in so doing, perhaps, help answer some of these other questions)? Will that package include the supposedly basic notions of space and time, or will such presumed preexisting elements of reality turn out to be mere illusions emerging from ur-material of impenetrable obscurity? And finally (fittingly), what about cosmic finality? Will the universe end in a bang, a whimper or the cosmic equivalent of a Bruce Willis movie (everything getting blown apart)?

In the pages that follow, Science News writers assess the state of the evidence on these momentous issues. In none of these arenas are the results yet firm. But as string theorist Brian Greene wrote in his book The Elegant Universe, “sometimes attaining the deepest familiarity with a question is our best substitute for actually having the answer.”

NASA Kepler Mission Manager Update 1 Novermber 2011

2011-11-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

Busy times are routine for the Kepler project team. Since my last update, we have announced several more confirmed planets -- Kepler-16b, and the Kepler 18 system (18b, 18c, and 18d). We were particularly excited about Kepler-16b as it confirms that planets orbiting two stars -- called circumbinary planets -- do exist, and we see more emerging from our data. Working on the Kepler-16b announcement was especially unique, since we had a chance to collaborate with Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic for the press conference.

Flight segment operations with the spacecraft have remained nominal. Routine operations are good for our mission operations team, as we have completed science data collection for quarter 10 and rolled the spacecraft into its Fall season attitude. This was the second full quarter in a row with no significant anomalies or unplanned science breaks. We are well into Quarter 11 science data collection and completed the latest science data download from the spacecraft on Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011.

As the Kepler spacecraft continues to drift farther away from Earth (now close to 51 million kilometers), we continue to drop our data rate to maintain X-band communication for semi-weekly contacts. Around the September roll we dropped down to 250 bits-per-second (bps). For the next 6 months, the spacecraft will be closer to Earth again and get up to 2000bps but then it will start to drift away again. Next summer, around the roll contact, we'll need one of NASA's biggest antennas (70-meter diameter) in the Deep Space Network just to maintain that 250bps link.

Finally, the Kepler Science Team is hosting the First Kepler Science Conference at NASA Ames Research Center Dec. 5-9, 2011. We are expecting more than 300 attendees at the conference. More than 200 abstracts have been submitted for presentation at the conference. Topics range from Earth-analog and sub-Neptune-size planets to multiple-planet systems to asteroseismology. This will be an opportunity to showcase not only the investigations of the Kepler Science Team, but also those of the wider science community using publicly accessible data from Kepler.

Paul Cornell Reveals DCnU History in STORMWATCH

2011-11-01T20:43:00.000-07:00

According to most DC comics in the publisher's "New 52," superheroes have only been around for five years.

But readers of Paul Cornell's comics know better.

As introduced in the pages of Cornell's Stormwatch — and reinforced in his Demon Knights title — there have been superpowered beings on the planet for generations before costumed "heroes" started showing up.

They just operated in secret.

Working with artist Miguel Sepulveda, Cornell has established a new Stormwatch team by combining new faces with a few revamps of well-known characters. Perhaps the most interesting for long-time comic fans is the inclusion of characters that were previously printed under the WildStorm imprint, which was just recently merged with DC for the relaunch.

CSU makes Halloween science demos with slime, dry ice and other spooky creations.

2011-11-01T20:35:00.000-07:00

Eight-year-old Windrem Smith enjoyed learning how to make slime, handle tarantulas and eat liquid nitrogen ice cream almost as much as his costume inspiration, Albert Einstein, enjoyed proving that E=MC squared.

“It’s pretty good. I like it,” said the miniature scientist about the Chemistry Club’s annual Halloween Mad Scientist Event. “But cross that out: I love it!”

Colorado State University’s Chemistry Club hosted a science-filled Halloween event last Friday.

“It’s a safe, free, and educational trick-or-treat environment for students,” said Robin Ward, who organized the event.

Candy and chemistry experiments were in abundance throughout the event, which featured activity booths for the many princesses, ghouls and Transformers milling about the Chemistry Building’s main lobby.

The children had their faces painted, colored masks of famous scientists, looked at a variety of insects, observed glowing chemicals, made slime, ate ice cream made with liquid nitrogen and sipped Kool-Aid cooled with dry ice.

“Kids love things that are messy, the parents — not so much,” said Emily Tully, who helped children make the two-parts Elmer’s Glue, one-part Borax slime concoction. “But some were interested. Almost everybody came to the slime booth and got some slime.”

The event also included the Mad Scientist Chemistry Show and the Science Toy Magic Show.

Lunar Bots.

2011-11-01T20:25:00.000-07:00

Red Rover and Black Rover, robots being developed for the return to the moon.

Caspian Seal.

2011-11-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

The endangered Caspian Seal (Pusa caspica) occurs throughout the Caspian Sea, using the winter ice sheets as a surface on which to give birth and nurse pups. Its population has declined by 90 percent over the last 100 years due to unsustainable levels of commercial hunting, habitat degradation and pollution.

Fishing Cat .

2011-11-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

The Fishing Cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) is a skilful swimmer, found mainly in wetland habitats such as swamps and mangrove areas. It is now listed as Endangered because of the severe decline throughout much of its Asian range. Threats include human settlement, draining of its habitat for agriculture, pollution, excessive hunting, wood-cutting and over-fishing.

Grey-Faced Sengi.

2011-11-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

The Grey-Faced Sengi (Rhynchocyon udzungwensis), an elephant-shrew from Tanzania, is listed as Vulnerable because it is known from only two areas. It belongs to a group of mammals called Afrotheria that evolved in Africa over 100 million years ago and whose relatives include elephants, sea cows, and the Aardvark. The Grey-faced Sengi was only described this year after being caught on film in 2005 in Tanzania’s Udzungwa Mountains..

Violent musk-ox.

2011-11-01T20:05:00.000-07:00

Bootherium bombifrons, an extinct musk-ox which lived 780,000–11,000 years ago, was one of at least four such species found in North America during the Pleistocene; only one still lives today. Both male and female musk-oxen have four-inch-thick horns, and the battles between males during mating season can be spectacularly violent in living musk-oxen. This specimen will be part of "Extreme Mammals: The biggest, smallest, and most amazing mammals of all time," an exhibition opening May 16, 2009, at the American Museum of Natural History

Ice Dome.

2011-11-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

They made the ice by spraying water onto this circular surface and waiting for it to freeze. The team also built a wooden tower in the middle to help support the dome segments during construction. (The steel rods sticking out of the ice were necessary to connect the ice segments to the lifting device later on.)

Amazing Unmanned Aircraft.

2011-11-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

Drones are unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that are used by the military in a number of ways, including missile testing, air strikes, aerial refueling, surveillance, transporting cargo, live-fire exercises and even long-range bombing. The U.S. military began experimenting with unmanned aircrafts as early as World War I, but they were called remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) at the time. Today, UAVs are used by various organizations, including the U.S. Air Force, Navy and the U.S. Geological Survey.