Continuing in our chain of sciencey threads...
If you had the controls of the mars rover and could place historic tire tracks on the Martian surface, what would you do?
Head to the nearest high value science target? Sign your name? Write: “Hi mom”?
Nope.
I’d do what the folks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory did. I’d draw a giant phallus.
We interupt this broadcast of insults, flamewars and name calling to post an important link of nerdly goodness. You may have seen this view of the universe, but this one is new and improved and otherwise awesome. See the scale and hugeness of the universe here.
Read more...Here at ATK we haven’t been posting much election stuff this year, which is a shame because during Presidential elections we typically have great traffic and a good time ridiculing conservatives.
While we have been discussing the 2nd Amendment here at ATK, the Curisoity rover has been blasting away on Mars with a gun - of sorts - of its own.
As you will see below, Curiosity has been zapping holes into rocks with a laser to examine their make-up. See the before and after below.
Neil Armstrong; August 5, 1930 - August 25, 2012. May he rest in peace.
Fitting, isn't it, that we can and will remember him every time we look up in the night sky at the moon. That's a helluva tomb stone...
If you missed it last night, here's the vid of the Entry, Descent and Landing portions of the Curiosity rover landing on Mars.
Mars.
I think at about 28:00, touchdown is confirmed. NASA JPL...erupts. It's just awesome.
Video streaming by Ustream
Look what we can do when we put our minds to it!
Here are the first 2 shots from Curiosity, confirming not only that it landed in a series of really complicated maneuvers (including a parachute, retro-rockets and a crane), but that it works. I'm all misty.
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| rear-facing "hazard cam;" lens a bit dusty, clear shadow of Curiosity on the surface of...oh...ANOTHER PLANET |
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| The surface of Mars, using a slightly higher-res camera. To the lower right is one of Curiosity's wheels. |
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| Higher res, (but not HD) image sent from Mars a couple hours after the above. This one is double the resolution. |
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| UPDATE 2 BY BOB - A shot of the parchute open above the lander as shot by the orbiter.
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H/T to Beavis and Butthead, of course.
But anyway, ever wonder what 270 solid rocket boosters and 405 main engines look like blasting-off simultaneously?
Yes?
Great! Since you've always wondered, here it is: all 135 shuttle launches in the history of the program, launching simultaneously.
OK Science nerds. on August 5 th a new rover will...hopefully land on Mars. Check out this video, which shows the sci-fi-like gymnastics this thing will undergo to deposit the rover Curiosity on the surface of Mars. Click here.
Read more...Perspective.
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| On board the International Space Station ESA astronaut André Kuipers looks through a drop of water containing a bubble of air. Credit: ESA/NASA |
As you all have seen in the news, Ray Bradbury passed away a few weeks ago on June 5. But just today, I stumbled across the video embedded below (H/T to It's Okay To Be Smart). This video, taken with yesterday's news that Voyager 1 is now in the "heliosheath," just about to break through into interstellar space, make a powerful statement to me about the value of human imagination and education.
A ship of our creation, directly in communication with us, an extension of us, breaking through the "barrier" of our solar system, our sun, our home. We are tall today.
A blog I frequent, Skepchick, is one of my favorite skeptic/science blogs sites on the interwebs, and it has really quality writing from honest-to-goodness scientists on topics from their field of study to feminism to pop culture. Skepchick is part of a network (the lead site in the network). One of the other sites in this network is Mad Art Lab, a skeptics-meets-artists bog.
That's an "around the ass to scratch my elbow" way of getting us to Zen Pencils. Zen Pencils is the work of an Asian-Autrialian named Gavin Aung Than who illustrates quotes and parts of speeches of famous and interesting people. I really dig his work, and am always inspired by TR's "Man in the Arena" speech, illustrated here.
Two of Than's illustrations really jumped out at me.
This one, an excerpt from Carl Sagan, when used in conjunction with the last 5 paragraphs of Pale Blue Dot (animated here), sums up pretty much my entire belief system. Than's illustration to Sagan's words that mean so much to what I hold true - somehow, "cartoony" lends a certain innocent simplicity and credibility to those words - that I get a little throat-lumpy and am pleased to share.
Finally, this illustration is one I am having Smitty Jr read, and one I'll share with the Wonder Twins. This is how excited I want them to be when it comes to uncovering - in a real way - their world. I want them to embrace science and learning and questioning and searching. The cartoon, based on Phil Plait's (Bad Astronomy, another favorite blog) speech to a science fair, I think is built perfectly to reach a smart kid.
I like where Than is headed with Zen Pencils. Not only did I not want to monkey with putting jpgs of his illustrations on here, I really want you to go to his site, hunt around, get inspired, and maybe even support him.
Happy Friday!
GASP...
Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod...
It's real. It's really real...
Cosmos - that Cosmos - is...
...wait for it...
getting a sequel!
Carl Sagan's widow and original Cosmos producer, Ann Druyan, is teaming-up with Seth McFarlane (yes...that Seth McFarlane) to air a 13-episode sequel to Cosmos.
And who's the host?
Oh god, I might pee...it's...NeildeGrasseTyson.
Dream. Come. TRUE.
Anyway, from the article:
The bad — or at least, potentially bad — news is that, because of MacFarlane’s involvement, the series will air in prime time, and on Fox.
Now, in one way I’m all for showing it in prime time on a major network, because it’ll be that much more likely that people who routinely ignore the Discovery Channel, the Science Channel and, yes, PBS will actually see it.
I’m less thrilled, though, that it will have to compete with other, more mainstream prime-time shows — and it’ll be on Fox, which doesn’t have the greatest track record for giving shows a chance to pull their ratings up once they go down.I agree with the middle paragraph. I think it's fine to run on mainstream TV, because that's who we're trying to reach. That's the intent of Cosmos. And I think it does help that it's Seth McFarlane, whom Fox has made gazillions off of. If it tanks just a little, McFarlane might have the juice to kep it going rather than having it pulled.
Smitty: "Speaking of geeked...gonna make a Transit of Venus viewer?"
Bob: "Too late. Its tomorrow. I will hold off until 2117."
No! It's not too late!
"First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"- The Movie: Contact
I wish I knew this guy. I wish I could have him over for dinner and have my kids learn from him.
So for now, I guess just seeing him on Mythbusters and his new show Unchained Reaction will have to suffice. Fortunately, my sons are enthralled by Mythbusters, and Smitty Jr is getting to where he is trying little experiments at home and asking questions - the right questions - about what he is seeing or experiencing. It forces me to re-research and re-learn a lot of the things I did well "back in the day" (when I took AP Chem and AP Physics in highschool, and took more advanced chem and physics in college for shits and grins).
Anyway, my role model Adam Savage on the newly-launched TED-Ed:
I have a man-crush on physicist and Nova host Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Here's why:
My favorite answer is Time's "10 Questions" is #3. We're made a star guts. Awesomesauce.
We're hosed, as a people:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Weathering Fights - Science: What's It Up To? | ||||
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I love science. Besides for providing insight into even the deepest questions, a lot of the time science is just fun. The discoveries scientists uncover are often vastly entertaining.
Take for instance this lovely article I stumbled upon yesterday that for me was the perfect confluence of 3 of my favorite subjects: science, beer, and sex: Beetles Die During Sex With Beer Bottles.
From the article:
Besotted beetles are dying while trying to get it on with discarded brown beer bottles, according to research conducted by Darryl Gwynne, a University of Toronto Mississauga professor.
It's a case of mistaken attraction, because the beer bottles happen to possess all of the features that drive male Australian jewel beetles wild. They're big and orangey brown in color, with a slightly dimpled surface near the bottom (designed to prevent the bottle from slipping out of one's grasp) that reflects light in much the same way as female wing covers.
"Ha," we all think, "them bugs is so stupid!"
But it turns out, it is probably "men" in general that are so stupid:
As a result, the beer bottles are irresistible to the male insects
Who knew that the male of a species would find beer bottles irresistible?
Read more...While I only digested the low lights of the Republican Presidential debate held last week, it got me thinking about their belief systems. What can we say about people who support, believe and worship the following concepts?
• Supply-side economics
• Creationism
• Tax cuts as government revenue generators
• Being gay is a choice
• Cutting spending as economic stimulus
It seems that every one of the Republican Presidential candidates has based their campaigns on various forms of fantasy.
Surely they are appealing to primary voters, so I must ask these voters: How can one go through life when everything you believe in has been shown through math, economics and science to be pure fiction? Is there comfort in blissful stupidity?
While all the above points to the GOP teahadists/diehards/candidates as being loony, it also demonstrates an electoral strength not held by the Democrats. When your supporters back you due to some sort of “faith” (economic or otherwise) it’s pretty hard for your opponents to shake their dedication at the polls.
Why do I try to understand these people?
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| I *could* have added a piece of classical art, but... |
Asked how likely it is that we all descended from Adam and Eve, Dennis Venema, a biologist at Trinity Western University, replies: "That would be against all the genomic evidence that we've assembled over the last 20 years, so not likely at all."Of course, we have the fire-and-brimstone crowd:
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And Venema is part of a growing cadre of Christian scholars who say they want their faith to come into the 21st century. Another one is John Schneider, who taught theology at Calvin College in Michigan until recently. He says it's time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence.
"Evolution makes it pretty clear that in nature, and in the moral experience of human beings, there never was any such paradise to be lost," Schneider says. "So Christians, I think, have a challenge, have a job on their hands to reformulate some of their tradition about human beginnings."
"From my viewpoint, a historical Adam and Eve is absolutely central to the truth claims of the Christian faith," says Fazale Rana, vice president of Reasons To Believe, an evangelical think tank that questions evolution. Rana, who has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Ohio University, readily admits that small details of Scripture could be wrong. [ed note: Gee, thanks for that little glimmer, Faz]Yeah, a mighty mighty big problem. But that's OK. The Fundy church has a way of dealing with its internal heretics:
"But if the parts of Scripture that you are claiming to be false, in effect, are responsible for creating the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, then you've got a problem," Rana says.
"You get evangelicals who push the envelope, maybe; they get the courage to work in sensitive, difficult areas," Harlow says. "And they get slapped down. They get fired or dismissed or pressured out."So when your scientific research finds you at odds with the bible, and you suggest that perhaps we be less dogmatic in our approach to fundamentalism and try to read that book-of-books as allegory and poetry, you get fired.
Harlow should know: Calvin College investigated him after he wrote an article questioning the historical Adam. His colleague and fellow theologian, John Schneider, wrote a similar article and was pressured to resign after 25 years at the college.
But others say Christians can no longer afford to ignore the evidence from the human genome and fossils just to maintain a literal view of Genesis.There is a certain pridefulness in Mohler's willingness to be an intellectual martyr over the tenets of his faith, and that is so typical of folks willing to dive head-long into the sand. Mohler's last comment is exactly why: the fear of what happens as your faith unravels in the face of real evidence.
"This stuff is unavoidable," says Dan Harlow at Calvin College. "Evangelicals have to either face up to it or they have to stick their head in the sand. And if they do that, they will lose whatever intellectual currency or respectability they have."
"If so, that's simply the price we'll have to pay," says Southern Baptist seminary's Albert Mohler. "The moment you say 'We have to abandon this theology in order to have the respect of the world,' you end up with neither biblical orthodoxy nor the respect of the world."
Mohler and others say if other Protestants want to accommodate science, fine. But they shouldn't be surprised if their faith unravels. [emphasis added]
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