You can clearly see the darker shading to the landscape over northern Minnesota, pine trees appear darker from space - lower albedo absorbing more warmth from the suun, keeping temperatures a few degrees warmer.From meteorologist Paul Douglas' On Weather blog.
Brown-eyed, bearded, furrow faced, and tired: this is how Ötzi the Iceman might have looked, according to the latest reconstruction based on 20 years of research and investigations.
Realized by two Dutch experts, Alfons and Adrie Kennis, the model was produced with the latest in forensic mapping technology that uses three-dimensional images of the mummy's skull as well as infrared and tomographic images.
The new reconstruction shows a prematurely old man, with deep-set eyes, sunken cheeks, a furrowed face and ungroomed beard and hair.
Although he looks tired, Ötzi has vivid brown eyes. Indeed, recent research on the 5,300-year-old mummy has shown that the Stone Age man did not have blue eyes as previously thought.
Believed to have died around the age of 45, Ötzi was about 1.60 meters (5 foot, 3 inches) tall and weighed 50 kilograms (110 pounds).
This is actually a mosaic of about 1300 separate images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Wide-Angle Camera — the total size is a whopping 24,000 x 24,000 pixels, producing a resolution of about 145 meters/pixel...Note - the embed here is a JPEG; for full-res and zoomable images, visit the link at Discover.
Over time, as the Moon rotates underneath it, LRO can see the entire surface of the Moon. As it does this, the angle of sunlight changes, so care had to be taken when creating this mosaic to make it appear seamless; otherwise shadows would appear to jump suddenly from point to point. If you look carefully you’ll see where shadows point in different directions, but it still looks pretty natural.
But it’s not: when you see the full Moon from Earth, that means the Sun is shining straight down on the Moon — the Earth is essentially directly between the Moon and Sun. That means you don’t see any shadows on the surface when the Moon is full. Pictures of it taken from Earth look flat in that case, because our eyes and brains look to shadows to sense the topographical relief — the ups and downs in the surface. But this image shows those shadows, making it a unique view of the full Moon...
But it’s also one of the highest resolution image ever made too! You can appreciate that if you look at the full-res 145 meters/pixel zoom-and-pannable version, which is simply extraordinary... So my advice: take a little time and peruse the zoomable version online, and pretend you’re floating over the lunar surface.
Scientists have estimated the first cosmic census of planets in our galaxy and the numbers are astronomical: at least 50 billion planets in the Milky Way. At least 500 million of those planets are in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold zone where life could exist. The numbers were extrapolated from the early results of NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope.Photo ["Milky Way over Switzerland"] from NASA's APOD website.
The phenomenon called tears of wine is manifested as a ring of clear liquid, near the top of a glass of wine, from which droplets continuously form and drop back into the wine. It is most readily observed in a wine which has a high alcohol content. It is also referred to as wine legs, curtains, or church windows...Followed by this interesting notation:
Where the surface of the wine meets the side of the glass, capillary action makes the liquid climb the side of the glass. As it does so, both alcohol and water evaporate from the rising film, but the alcohol evaporates faster, due to its higher vapor pressure. The resulting decrease in the concentration of alcohol causes the surface tension of the liquid to increase, and this causes more liquid to be drawn up from the bulk of the wine, which has a lower surface tension because of its higher alcohol content. The wine which moves up the side of the glass and forms droplets that fall back under their own weight...
It is sometimes claimed incorrectly that wine with "lots of legs" is sweeter or of a better quality. In fact the intensity of this phenomenon depends only on alcohol content, and it can be eliminated completely by covering the wine glass (which stops the evaporation of the alcohol). British physicist C. V. Boys argues[4] that the biblical injunction“Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.” —Proverbs, 23:31refers to this effect. Since the "tears of wine" are most noticeable in wine which has a high alcohol content, the author may be suggesting this as a way to identify wines which should be avoided in the interest of sobriety.
Beading refers to the formation of stable bubbles when liquor is shaken. This occurs only in liquor that contains more than 46% alcohol. It is an example of the Marangoni effect. Shaking a whisky bottle to form bubbles is referred to as “beating [beading] the whisky”.I've added "bourbon" to the title this post after discovering that a video is available of the phenomenon using my favorite recreational beverage:
Developed by the company AeroVironment Inc., the miniature spybot looks like a hummingbird complete with flapping wings... The ornithopter can fly into buildings under the control of an operator flying the spybot with the help of a feed from its tiny video camera. The prototype is capable of flying at speeds of up to 18 km/h (11 mph) and weighs 19 grams, which is about the same as an AA battery... The specifications given to the firm by the Pentagon included being able to hover in an 8 km/h wind gust and being able to fly in and out of buildings via a normal door.More details at Physorg, which also had a video showing the spybot and the view from its camera:
The spybot was developed for the US military's research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The hummingbird appearance is intended to disguise the bot, although it would look decidedly out of place and would attract attention in most places in the world since hummingbirds are not found outside of the Americas... the final version is unlikely to look like a hummingbird, which is rare even in parts of the US, and he thinks a sparrow would be a better choice.
The US military has funded the project, giving AeroVironment around $4 million since 2006.
The Sun has unleashed its strongest flare in four years, observers say. The eruption is a so-called X-flare, the strongest type; such flares can affect communications on Earth.Additional info at this BBC followup article. And this PopSci article. Photo from APOD.
Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft recorded an intense flash of extreme ultraviolet radiation emanating from a sunspot. The British Geological Survey (BGS) has issued a geomagnetic storm warning, and says observers might be able to see aurorae from the northern UK.
The eruptions are expected to hit the Earth's magnetic field over the next couple of days, causing an increase in geomagnetic activity. The monster flare was recorded at 0156 GMT on 15 February and directed at the Earth. According to the US space agency, the source of this activity - sunspot 1158 - is growing rapidly.
Soybeans, corn, cotton and canola -- most of the acres planted in these crops in the United States are genetically altered. "Transgenic" seeds reduce the use of some insecticides. But herbicide use is higher, and respected experts argue that some genetically engineered crops may also pose serious health and environmental risks. The benefits of genetically engineered crops may be overstated.More at the link.
We don't have the complete picture. That's no accident. Multibillion-dollar agricultural corporations, including Monsanto and Syngenta, have restricted independent research on their genetically engineered crops. They have often refused to provide independent scientists with seeds, or they've set restrictive conditions that severely limit research options.
This is legal. Under U.S. law, genetically engineered crops are patentable inventions. Companies have broad power over the use of any patented product, including who can study it and how...
Beyond patent law, agricultural companies hold a pocketbook advantage in terms of research. For example, they fund much of the agricultural safety research done in the U.S. And when deciding whether to allow a genetically engineered crop onto the market, the Department of Agriculture and other regulatory agencies do not perform their own experiments on the performance and safety of the product; instead, they rely largely on studies submitted by the companies themselves...
The companies that produce the seeds claim that genetically engineered crops are safe and are better than traditional crops in a range of ways. It's time for these companies to back up their rhetoric. The only way to test their grand assertions is to let independent science take its course.
Frost quakes, a rare phenomena that simulate earthquakes, rattled hundreds of residents Thursday in Darke and Miami counties in Ohio and Randolph County in Indiana, emergency management officials said.I found confirmation of the phenomenon at Wikipedia:
The quake, or cryoseism as it’s known in scientific circles, occurs when moisture soaks into the soil and a quick freeze causes a sudden, even violent expansion and contraction. Darke County’s 911 director Brandon Redmond... who lives in Arcanum, experienced it Thursday morning in the shower. The shaking of his house caused him to rush out of the bathroom at 7:15 a.m...
The phenomenon has been reported mainly in northern states such as Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts and upstate New York.
Due to the perennial or seasonal frost conditions involved with cryoseisms, these events are limited to temperate climates which experience seasonal variation with subzero winters. Furthermore, the ground must be saturated with water, which can be caused by snowmelt, rain, sleet or flooding and the site of a cryoseism generally has little or no snow cover to insulate the ground.You learn something every day.
Sunday was the 60th anniversary of the coldest day ever recorded in Madison: January 30, 1951. The temperature that day reached an astounding 37 degrees below zero.
To get that cold, a lot of circumstances have to be in place. First, a fresh and relatively deep snow cover is a great help as snow radiates infrared energy exceptionally well. With the long nighttime hours of mid-winter, by the end of the night, a lot of energy has been radiated away from the surface of the snow, chilling the air just above it...
Second, crystal clear nights are needed to maximize the amount of energy loss near the surface... The calm winds prohibit vertical mixing of the air, again working toward keeping the near surface temperature as cold as possible. In fact, on the morning of January 30, the air temperature about 2 miles above the ground was minus-18 — a full 20 degrees warmer than the air at the surface. Had there been even light winds that night, some of that warmer air could have mixed to the surface and kept the temperature from getting as cold as it did.
The manipulated image is a top-down view of human lungs with the cosmic clouds represented by the blanket over the person's body on the right and the CT table cushion on the left. Fung digitally removed the rest.Via Physics Buzz.
Bematists accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaign in Asia. Their measurements of the distances traveled by Alexander's army show a high degree of precision to the point that it had been suggested that they must have used an odometer, although there is no direct mentioning of such a device.The earliest-recorded mechanical odometers were in Rome and China:
The odometer of Vitruvius was based on chariot wheels... For each revolution a pin on the axle engaged a 400 tooth cogwheel... This engaged another gear with holes along the circumference, where pebbles (calculus) were located, that were to drop one by one into a box. The distance travelled would thus be given simply by counting the number of pebbles...
Chinese texts of the 3rd century tell of the mechanical carriage's functions, and as one li is traversed, a mechanical-driven wooden figure strikes a drum, and when ten li is traversed, another wooden figure would strike a gong or a bell with its mechanical-operated arm...
The Sun Tzu Suan Ching (Master Sun's Mathematical Manual), dated from the 3rd century to 5th century, presented a mathematical problem for students involving the odometer. It involved a given distance between two cities, the small distance needed for one rotation of the carriage's wheel, and the posed question of how many rotations the wheels would have in all if the carriage was to travel between point A and B...
Q: How are temperatures in the higher atmosphere measured?Even more interesting was a question I'd always wondered about: How do meteorolosits get all that equipment back?
A: Meteorologists monitor the atmosphere above the surface by using a radio-equipped meteorological instrument package - called radiosondes - carried aloft by a helium-filled weather balloon. The radiosondes measure vertical profiles of air temperature, relative humidity and pressure from the ground all the way up to about 19 miles. Temperature and relative humidity are measured electronically; a small aneroid barometer measures pressure.
Wind speed and direction can also be determined by tracking the position of the balloon. When winds are also measured, the observation is called a rawinsonde.
At low air pressures in the stratosphere, the balloon expands so much that it explodes and the radiosonde drifts back to the ground underneath a small parachute.You learn something every day.
Belyaev and other Soviet-era biologists looked around at domesticated dogs, a species they knew had descended from wolves, and were puzzled. They could not figure out what mechanism could account for the differences in anatomy, physiology, and behavior... Belyaev hypothesized that the anatomical and physiological changes seen in domesticated animals could have been the result of selection on the basis of behavioral traits. More specifically, he believed that tameness was the critical factor...And as a bonus, this interesting tidbit:
Starting at one month of age, and continuing every month throughout infancy, the foxes were tested for their reactions to an experimenter. The experimenter would attempt to pet and handle the fox while offering it food. In addition, the experimenters noted whether the foxes preferred to hang out with other foxes, or with humans.
Then, upon reaching sexual maturity (seven to eight months), they had their final test and assigned an overall tameness score. They rated each fox's tendency to approach an experimenter standing at the front of its home pen, as well as each fox's tendency to bite the experimenters when they tried to touch it. Only those foxes that were least fearful and least aggressive were chosen for breeding...
The result of this breeding program conducted over more than 40 generations of silver foxes was a group of friendly, domesticated foxes. These domesticated foxes, which were bred on the basis of a single selection criteria, displayed behavioral, physiological, and anatomical characteristics that were not found in the wild population, or were found in wild foxes but with much lower frequency...
The domesticated foxes were more eager to hang out with humans, whimpered to attract attention, and sniffed and licked their caretakers. They wagged their tails when they were happy or excited...
More than 50 years have passed since Belyaev began his silver fox breeding program, and research with these foxes continues to uncover the genetic changes that occur with consequences for physiology, anatomy, behavior, and cognition, as a result of the process of domestication, though on a smaller scale. In 1996, the breeding population contained 700 individuals, but by 1999, it was down to 100. Because of the realities of the Russian economy and the shortage of funding for science, in order to maintain the research, some foxes had to be sold for fur, and some are now being sold as pets...
Darwin noted, in On the Origin of Species, that “not a single domestic animal can be named which has not, in some country, drooping ears.” Drooping ears is a feature that does not ever occur in the wild, except for in elephants...Upright ears being presumably more suited for the hazardous life in the wild. Many of the domesticated foxes developed drooping ears.
As water freezes in the upper atmosphere, small, flat, six-sided, ice crystals might be formed. As these crystals flutter to the ground, much time is spent with their faces flat, parallel to the ground. An observer may pass through the same plane as many of the falling ice crystals near sunrise or sunset. During this alignment, each crystal can act like a miniature lens, refracting sunlight into our view and creating phenomena like parhelia, the technical term for sundogs. The above image was taken last year in Stockholm, Sweden. Visible in the image center is the Sun, while two bright sundogs glow prominently from both the left and the right. Also visible is the bright 22 degree halo -- as well as the rarer and much fainter 46 degree halo -- also created by sunlight reflecting off of atmospheric ice crystals.
Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit.More at the link and at New Scientist. I have a family member who studies extremophiles and will be most interested in the results of the probe, but personally I like this Reddit comment: "What's 14 million years of divergent evolution in a lightless, freezing, high oxygen environment going to look like? I don't know, but I kinda hope it eats people."
The lake, which lies four kilometres below the icy surface of Antarctica, is unique in that it's been completely isolated from the other 150 subglacial lakes on the continent for such a long time. It's also oligotropic, meaning that it's supersaturated with oxygen -- levels of the element are 50 times higher than those found in most typical freshwater lakes.
"Once the lake is reached, the water pressure will push the working body and the drilling fluid upwards in the borehole, and then freeze again." The next season, the team will bore into that frozen water to recover a sample whose contents can then be analysed.
The drill bit currently sits less than 100 metres above the lake. Once it reaches 20-30 metres, the mechanical drill bit will be replaced with a thermal lance that's equipped with a camera...
The conditions in Lake Vostok are very similar to the conditions on Europa and Enceladus, so could also strengthen the case for extraterrestrial life.
"It's important to understand in all of this that, visually and mathematically speaking, there is no differnce between a moving earth revolving around a stationary sun and a moving sun revolving around a stationary earth... a demonstration is provided by those battery-powered models of the solar system sold at planetariums and most toy stores. Pick it up by the sun and hold that stationary, and all the planets will revolve as they are supposed to. But if you hold the mechanism up by the earth and hold that stationary, all the planets and now the sun, too will continue to revolve, in exactly the same relation to one another as before." (pp. 83-4)This sentence startled me:
"Apparently, Rudolf [Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II] had been peeking through his window as Brahe approached in his carriage, and -- fascinated as he was by all things mechanical -- was especially interested in an odometer he saw affixed by the wheel. Brahe had it brought to him, and after examining it carefully, Rudolf said he would have one made by his artisans according to the same pattern." (p. 137)Odometers in the 16th century?? Who knew? Topic bookmarked for a future separate post. Here's more about Rudolf:
"More a collector than a connoisseur, with tastes that were less eclectic than simply promiscuous, Rudolf sent his agents across Europe to purchase items that might excite his fancy. Some brought back Durers and Breugels, while others transported back objects by the thousands whose major organizing theme seems to have been their oddity. All were placed in his famous Kunstkammer - the private rooms in which he would increasingly shut himself off - which contained what was perhaps the largest private collection up until that time.There is a painting of Rudolf and a diagram of his family tree in the post below this one.
There, housed in myriad cabinets and displayed along tabletopes, lay thousands of disparate artifacts: beautiful porcelain cameos along with the shells of tortoises, crabs, and other sea creatures; the horn of a unicorn (which probably came from a narwhal) and rhinoceros horns mounted in gold; priceless gems; drawersful of gold, silver, and copper antique medals; as well as the dagger with which Caesar's wife was said to have been murdered and a knife swallowed by a Prague peasant. Mechanical objects were a special fascination: among the many clocks, globes, and astrolabes, records mention a mechanical peacock that walked, turned around, and fanned its featuers and a windup spider that could scurry across a table..." (p. 143)
Jessenius, one of the leading medical authorities of his time, wrote in some detail about urinary problems and their cures. He clearly had considerable experience in the area and recommended in one of his numerous publications "the small tubes, conceived by Venetian wound doctors, which are made of horn and made flexible by soaking them in warm water," rather than the "slim wax light used by Fabricius Aquapente (which he warms up and then inserts coated with almond oil)," as the latter were "not strong enough to overcome the resistance of the bladder opening or a bladder stone." (p. 213)A surprising sophistication in knowledge of urinary catheters - before the invention of plastic or the discovery of rubber. Since Brahe had access not only to physicians but to the physicians of the royal family, the fact that catheterization was not considered is prima facie evidence that the physicians attending him considered the acute renal failure to be nonobstructive in nature (or at least above the bladder). That, along with the mercury in the forensic analysis of his hair, constitutes the principal evidence of murder by poisoning.
