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By Janet Evans
Saturday, Nov 29 2008, 09:21 AM
 An extravehicular activity (EVA) tool bag drifts away from the International Space Station during the
mission's first scheduled spacewalk for STS-126. Credit: NASA
We've all heard that every item used in the Space program has a huge price mark up, haven't we? And then there's the price of a toilet for the space station; $15 million? Well, when you've gotta go, you've gotta go. Plus, we don't want surprises floating around in space like that tool bag that recently was lost in space. That tool bag, which is now an old bag, cost $100,000. Well, I'm all for the space program to continue; especially now that we've sat for 40 years and let everyone else start catching up to us. It's just that there are some people somewhere making an awful lot of big bucks out there, and I know it isn't my son, who is an aerospace engineer. It's kind of like when you're in the hospital and they won't let you take your regular medications from home. You later find out that the same pill that costs $1dollar costs $8 dollars a day in the hospital. But I digress.
That “old bag” tool bag? There’s a lot of space junk flying around this planet. But that shiny tool bag isn't as lost as we may have thought it was.
I've always been interested in space, and there are many space enthusiasts out there, young and old. They've been tracking the tool bag since it left the space station.
"After sunset on Nov. 22, Edward Light, using 10 x 50 binoculars, spotted the bag in space while he scanned the sky from his backyard in Lakewood, N.J., Spaceweather.com reported. On the same night, Keven Fetter of Brockville, Ontario, video-recorded the bag as it passed by the star Eta Pisces in the constellation Pisces.
More bag-viewing opportunities are expected.
The tool bag can be seen through binoculars, a few minutes ahead of the space station's orbit. The satellite tracker predicts that the bag will be visible through binoculars from Europe and western North America during a series of passes this week. By late next week, the tool bag should appear in the evening skies over most of North America.
Like other space debris, the tool bag's show will have a fiery end. "We currently predict that the errant tool bag will fall back to Earth in June of next year," said Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "The date is dependent upon solar activity, so an earlier or later date is possible. As the reentry date draws nearer, a more accurate prediction can be made."
Read the complete article at Space.com HERE (scroll to bottom of page)
There's more exciting space news and it has to do with shining planets! This Monday, December 1st, look into southwest night sky and you will be able to see the moon, Venus and Jupiter shining brightly...but use your binoculars for a better view.
Look to the southwest after sunset on Dec. 1 for a close conjunction between three bright solar
system objects: the moon, Venus and Jupiter. If you have binoculars, you might even be able
to fit all three of them in the field of view. Between now and then, you can see Jupiter and Venus
getting closer together each evening.
Read all about it on msnbc HERE
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By Janet Evans
Sunday, Nov 23 2008, 10:08 AM
By Janet Evans
Tuesday, Nov 18 2008, 12:05 PM
WIRED found Ten Amazing Animal Videos for you to see.
Some are just too awesome.
Before you go, take a look at this video of a Great White Shark attack that I found. That’s got to be a seal or seal decoy he caught. At least, I sure hope so.
Pretty different from what we see at Sea World.
Just when you thought the water was safe again.
Wired Science Amazing Animal Videos ~ HERE
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By Janet Evans
Wednesday, Nov 12 2008, 06:45 AM
That’s the train of thought by some professionals.
In other words, depression leading those who are suffering to reach out for comfort.
That leading to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
It’s happened in the past.
"Doctors are wondering what the effect of the credit crunch will be on new year queues at genito-urinary clinics. Specialists in this area have noticed that some City workers, the first to feel the effects of recession, have suffered physically as well as financially. The pattern of graphs showing the decline in share prices could be mirrored by another showing the increase in sexually transmitted infections. Will more anxiety - induced by fear of unemployment, forced house sales, unpaid school fees and rocketing fuel bills - drive the depressed and insecure to escape grim reality with an exciting if transient affair and a visit to the clinic? "
HPV: An Unwanted Gift At Christmas
This is a British story…but there’s no denying that we have an STD problem here in the US.
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By Janet Evans
Thursday, Oct 23 2008, 11:45 AM
I can’t help it….I love this stuff.
And yeah..I even like science fairs.
When I saw this today, all I could think was, I need to get out my Seal-A-Meal and the Vacuum attachment for marinating and see if I can try this myself. I kid you not. Well, it probably wouldn’t work, and I wouldn’t have time to fiddle with it…but if I did have time, it would be cool.
What am I talking about?
Sticky tape has been found to be able to make X-rays when pulled under pressure!
Yeah…I know you are as excited a I am.
Read about it on Scientific American and check out their links for some other interesting stuff.
HERE
Watch a video clip here
Photo Carlos Camara and Juan Escobar
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By Janet Evans
Wednesday, Oct 22 2008, 05:43 PM
Geologist Winston Seiler with a few of the thousands of dinosaur
tracks found at the Arizona-Utah border.
Photo Credit: By Nicole Miller -- University Of Utah Via Associated Press
Is it a brontosaurus stomping ground?
Or a watering hole for a large crowd of brachiosaurus?
Nobody knows yet, but the place on the border of Arizona and Utah is filled with over 1000 dinosaur footprints. Is it for real?
Or a very well planned out trick?
The earth there is prime for it to have really happened.
But to have gone undiscovered this long?
I'm a dinosaur enthusiast....how about you?
I hope it is real.
Read about it at National Geographic HERE
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By Janet Evans
Thursday, Oct 16 2008, 11:56 AM
18-yr old rocket casing found in Australia
NASA reports that this 18-yr. old rocket casing has been recovered from Australia’s Outback
.".a Delta 2 launch vehicle used on 12 June 1990 to deliver the Indian INSAT-1D geosynchronous spacecraft from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.This solid rocket motor served as the launch vehicle’s third stage (U.S. Satellite Number 20645, International Designator 1990-051C), which carried the payload from a low altitude parking orbit into a geosynchronous transfer orbit of 135 km by 39,750 km with an inclination of 27.2 degrees. Reentry of the stage occurred a few months later.The object joins similar solid rocket motor casings found in Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Argentina during the past several years."
Continued on the Milwaukee Examiner HERE
Amazingly (or maybe not), there are literally tons of debris that falls from the sky all over the world.
Check it out HERE
Time to practice that old "duck and cover" from my childhood.
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By Janet Evans
Sunday, Oct 12 2008, 08:30 AM
Dismal, mainly because a study is reporting children are being harmed.
Mexico City has such high pollution levels that children are suffering from neurological problems...swollen tissues, cognitive disorders.
"Brain scans of many Mexico City youngsters revealed alterations that can impair the prefrontal cortex, a neural region heavily involved in memory and thinking skills, say environmental pathologist Lilian Calderón-Garcidueñas of the University of Montana in Missoula and her colleagues.
Similar brain alterations, as well as evidence of neural inflammation, appeared in 1- to 2-year-old dogs that had grown up in Mexico City, the investigation finds.
Widespread declines in intelligence of the type and magnitude observed in the new report would have a huge impact on a country’s economic productivity, says psychologist and study coauthor Randall Engle of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. “Saving money by failing to curb pollution truly is a matter of ‘pay me now or pay me later,’” Engle says."
Read the article from Science News HERE
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By Janet Evans
Saturday, Oct 4 2008, 04:21 PM
EVERYONE knows I’m a Lost fan. And Lost wouldn’t be lost if it weren’t for aviation. Why, one of the main characters, who has been rescued from the island that was his home for several months, spends his weekends flying in hopes of repeating the crash that made him “lost” in the first place!
But Lost isn’t the only movie or show that features aviation that’s been a hit with me. How about the original Tarzan The Ape Man? The plane crashing in the jungle…with an infant onboard, raised by apes. He grows up to fall in love with the beautiful Jane. Not trying to make “apes” the feature, but you can’t forget that King Kong, while on top of the Empire State building was attacked by a plane.
And then there’s Top Gun, with Tom Cruise, or Cliff Hanger with Sylvester Stallone. Or Apocalypse Now with Marlon Brando, Memphis Belle or A Bridge Too Far.
Can’t forget Airplane!, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, or Home Alone.
I know, some of these movies have aviation touching them only for a short period of time, while others have them as the main focus. But it was important just the same. The movie wouldn’t have gotten where it was supposed to be without aviation. Just like we wouldn’t be where we are today without it.
Just think where we have come and how quickly since 1903 when the Wright Bros. had their first success.
Aviation.com recognizes that and has put together what they believe are the Great Innovations In Aviation....
Take a look…what do you think?
GREAT INNOVATIONS IN AVIATION
Also, check out the Famous Firsts in Aviation
View scenes from the movie Cliffhanger
HERE
Warning: Viewer discretion advised - language/violence.
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By Janet Evans
Tuesday, Sep 30 2008, 11:46 AM
Mug shot of Michael Jackson
Oh, not that type of artificial nose…too bad, Michael.
Actually, that's artificial noses for scientific purposes....to help mankind.
" Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists said Monday they have moved closer to creating "artificial noses," after finding a way to mass-produce smell receptors in a laboratory.
Artificial noses could one day replace dogs that sniff out drugs and explosives, and could have numerous medical applications including identifying diseases that have distinct odors, according to Shuguang Zhang, associate director of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering and senior author of a study on the subject.
"Smell is perhaps one of the oldest and most primitive senses, but nobody really understands how it works," said Zhang.
"It still remains a tantalizing enigma."
In seeking to recreate smell, the MIT RealNose project seeks to recreate the most complex and least-understood of the five senses. "
Read the complete article HERE
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By Janet Evans
Friday, Sep 26 2008, 11:49 AM
The Best Science Images of 2008 have been announced by the National Science Foundation and the journal Science. The awards are given for “images that employ modern technology to visualize complex scientific topics."
Below is an Honorable Mention photo in all its glory…
Honorable Mention, Photography: "Squid Suckers: The Little Monsters That Feed the Beast"
Little Shop of Horrors fans may see a resemblance to the bloodthirsty plant from the 1986 movie in the above electron micrograph image.
Drexel University doctoral student Jessica Schiffman won an honorable mention in photography in the 2008 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge for capturing what's actually an array of suckers found on the tentacles of a long-finned squid.
Each sucker--about 400 micrometers wide, or a little smaller than the width of a human hair--is surrounded with "fangs" of chitin, a hard organic material.
Squid use their powerful suckers to secure unwitting prey and feed their robust appetites--much like the horror-movie plant that inspired the image's color scheme. —Image courtesy Jessica D. Schiffman and Caroline L. Schauer; Drexel University/Science
You can view more images from 2008, along with winners from past years at National Geographic
HERE
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By Janet Evans
Tuesday, Sep 23 2008, 07:24 AM
U.S. Satellite Vanguard Photo U.S. Navy
Sometimes the path it takes to get somewhere can be long or short, bumpy or smooth…
On December 6, 1957, hot on the heels of Sputnik, the United States Navy readied the first American satellite, Vanguard, for launch. The grapefruit-sized device lofted 3 feet from Earth before it exploded. Press and public jeered, dubbing it “Flopnik.” (“The exact cause is classified,” says the crisp narrator in a vintage video [below] of the attempt.) A red-faced U.S. government redoubled their efforts. Within a year and a half, Vanguard’s replacement took the first measurements of Earth’s upper atmosphere and its successor, Vanguard II, the first scan of Earth’s clouds. Meanwhile, NASA, the agency charged with managing this new technology, was born.
"Oh, what a flopnik! The Vanguard rocket that held the satellite failed miserably, blowing up before take-off."
Spaceborne observation of the planet has come a long way since Flopnik. Today, 150 Earth-observation satellites are in orbit, capturing more than 10 terabytes of information per day. NASA operates, in whole or in part, about 20 of them. The legacy of NASA's first assignment has radically altered our concept of the planet. In the view from space, political boundaries dissolve, Earth’s parts become a whole, and its changes are made visible and real.
Continue at POP SCI HERE
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By Janet Evans
Monday, Sep 22 2008, 05:32 PM
Well, not really…
Biggest?
No…15 participants.
I call that a why bother? What’s going on, don’t have enough money for s study, huh? Or was this a middle school science fair project, because actually, any science fair student could have done a better job.
Best?
No…There isn’t anything special about this one. It’s actually laughable…and you’ll see why. A control and one good test item and one bad test item. Not the best study in my opinion when there were a ton of varieties of items that could have been tried out.
Because of the small scope of this study, it was totally predictable. Either the result they achieved was going to happen…or the 15 testers were going to throw up.
I sure hope no one was paid big bucks for this study….
I won’t spoil it for you…have a look for yourself…
HERE
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By Janet Evans
Saturday, Sep 20 2008, 02:00 PM
The science project that some feared might end the world has encountered some problems.
This Is Really Huge
Of course, problems were to be expected. But this will only fuel the fire for those who continue to worry about the approach of an impending doomsday.
The Hadron Collider will be shut down for two months after just opening .
The giant Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most expensive scientific experiment, will be shut down for at least two months, scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Geneva said today.
The shutdown casts into doubt the hopes of CERN physicists to achieve high-energy collisions of protons in the machine before the end of the year.
“It’s too early to say whether we’ll still be having collisions this year,” James Gillies, head of communications for CERN, said in an e-mail message. The laboratory shuts down to save money on electricity during the winter.
A gala inauguration party scheduled for Oct. 21 will still take place, Dr. Gillies said.
A series of mishaps, including the failure of a 30-ton electrical transformer, have slowed progress since then. In the worst incident yet, on Friday, one of the giant superconducting magnets that guide the protons failed during a test. A large amount of helium, which is used to cool the magnets to within 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit of absolute zero, leaked into the collider tunnel.
Read the article HERE
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By Janet Evans
Friday, Sep 19 2008, 07:05 AM
I know, gas prices had been rising.
But then they tapered off.
If it hadn’t been for the hurricanes, they probably would have kept falling.
When I saw United Airlines was going to double its fee for a second checked bag to $50…I was shocked. That’s each way!
You know, you can mail a decent sized box of clothing to just about any state for $15, insured. Maybe that’s the way to go. If you can plan ahead for a trip, just pack up the wardrobe you need fro your vacation, and ship it off to your destination.
Extra bags or ones that weigh too much can add
hundreds of dollars to the price of flying. Kitchen/Getty
Extra bags or ones that weigh too much can add hundreds of dollars to the price of flying.
United has already made $700 million from the additional fees they have imposed. So it's not "irrational" for them to want to hike their fees more. They'll do it until passengers stop bringing the extra baggage and paying the higher fees.
Skyrocketing fuel prices prompted that trend, but on Thursday there was already one sign that competition may push it back: Air Canada said it would stop charging for a second checked bag. It had not added a fee for the first checked bag.
So if you want to do all you can to try and keep your luggage to one suitcase, what should you do?
Suitcase savvy
Battle those new luggage fees by adapting your packing habits.
1. Use soft-sided luggage or duffle bags. Some hardshell suitcases weigh up to 15 pounds when empty.
2. Select luggage that has multiple compartments, allowing suits to stay wrinkle-free and be kept separate from shoes and toiletries.
3. Instead of packing coordinated outfits that can be worn just once, choose clothing that can be mixed and matched to create multiple outfits.
4. Consider rolling jeans and T-shirts instead of folding them. This will save space and keep the clothes wrinkle-free.
5. Weigh your suitcase before leaving home. (Get on a scale with the bag, then without, then subtract.) If the bag is more than 50 pounds, remove a few items or use a second suitcase.
Checking a second bag is typically cheaper than the fee for overweight luggage.
Combat new airline luggage fees
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By Janet Evans
Sunday, Sep 14 2008, 08:26 PM
I know some things they may say.
Things like “The baby would have died eventually.”
Or, “Think about how many babies are being saved.”
Or, “This puts the parents through fewer traumas.”
Here is the question…
A heart stops beating in one baby. It is transplanted and restarted in another baby. But was the baby that the heart was taken from really dead?
It’s a harsh question. It shouldn’t have to be asked. But doctors are in a hurry. Medical technology and all…and someone has a baby waiting.
“Dead Donor Rule”…that comes in to play here…an ethical guideline stating that an organ donor must be declared dead before vital organs are prepared for transplantation. In past research, a heart has not restarted on its own more that 65 seconds after a person was taken off of a ventilator. Coroners are asked to wait between two and five minutes after the pulse stops to declare death. That is the general practice protocol of the dead donor rule.
A team of doctors at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Fla. preformed three heart transplants on babies. In the first transplant, the donor baby’s heart stopped 11.5 minutes after the baby was taken off of life support, with death being declared three minutes later and the transplant immediately following.
The next two transplants began 75 seconds after the donor’s pulse ceased. Each of the babies hearts stopped 27.5 and 16 minutes after each was taken off of life support. Because the team began the transplants after the shorter time period, and less time than the dead donor rule, it raised the question of whether the babies were in fact dead. Why did they do this? Because, as more time elapses between when circulation and the heart stop, and when transplantation begins, there can be more damage to the organ that is going to be donated.
I guess death is the vision of the physician...or should I say life....
"In another NEJM commentary, Robert Veatch, Ph.D., a biomedical ethicist at Georgetown University in Washington, opposed definitions of death that hinge on the impossibility of autoresuscitation.
"Anyone who had had a cardiac arrest lasting beyond the time at which autoresuscitation was possible would be legally deceased, even if the heart had been successfully restarted through external stimulation," he argued.
The third commentary, by two other medical ethicists, countered that the dead-donor rule should be reconsidered.
Robert D. Truog, M.D., of Children's Hospital Boston, and Franklin G. Miller, Ph.D., of the National Institutes of Health, contended that death definitions based on brain function were also flawed.
"There have been persistent questions about whether patients with massive brain injury, apnea, and loss of brain-stem reflexes are really dead," they said.
Drs. Truog and Miller suggested replacing the dead-donor rule with a system that would allow some donations of hearts and other vital organs prior to a declaration of death, subject to clear criteria including informed consent.
"Whether death occurs as a result of ventilator withdrawal or organ procurement, the ethically relevant precondition is valid consent by the patient or surrogate," they wrote. "With such consent, there is no harm or wrong done in retrieving vital organs before death."
In an editorial, Dr. Drazen acknowledged the criticisms of the Denver transplant protocol and said the journal was publishing the paper "to foster discussion of donation after cardiocirculatory death in general and its application to infant heart transplantation in particular."
But they also appeared to side with Dr. Boucek and colleagues. "As a result of their investigational protocol, three babies are now alive; had the procedures not been performed, it is virtually certain that all six babies would be dead," Dr. Drazen and colleagues wrote.
Dr. Boucek and colleagues said they had not undertaken their protocol lightly.
"Before the trial was begun, an extensive period of education, discussion, and preparation was undertaken within our hospital and in programs already using donors who died from cardiocirculatory causes," they wrote. "After each transplantation involving these donors, there was extensive institutional debriefing and review by the ethics committee and the data and safety monitoring board."
Read the entire article HERE
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By Janet Evans
Saturday, Sep 13 2008, 09:03 PM
What can I say…I’m having a bit of a science day on both of my blogs…
In a Burst of Light Gamma rays produce flashes that are brighter than a billion suns yet last only a few milliseconds and have been simply too fast to catch... until now. The artist's concept above depicts the sequence of events as a black hole devours a neutron star, producing gamma-ray bursts as it does so. Using data from the Swift observatory, scientists have gleaned tantalizing evidence of a black hole eating a neutron star--first stretching the neutron star into a crescent, swallowing it, and then gulping up crumbs of the broken star in the minutes and hours that followed.
Image Credit: NASA/Dana Berry
"NASA's Swift satellite detected the explosion - formally named GRB 080319B - at 2:13 a.m. EDT and pinpointed its position in the constellation Bootes. The event, called a gamma-ray burst, became bright enough for human eyes to see. Observations of the event are giving astronomers the most detailed portrait of a burst ever recorded.
"Swift was designed to find unusual bursts," said Swift principal investigator Neil Gehrels at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We really hit the jackpot with this one."
[…]
In a paper to appear in Thursday's issue of Nature, Judith Racusin of Penn State University and a team of 92 coauthors report on observations across the spectrum that began 30 minutes before the explosion and followed its afterglow for months. The team concludes the burst's extraordinary brightness arose from a jet that shot material directly toward Earth at 99.99995 percent the speed of light.
At the same moment Swift saw the burst, the Russian KONUS instrument on NASA's Wind satellite also sensed the gamma rays and provided a wide view of their spectral structure. A robotic wide-field optical camera called "Pi of the Sky" in Chile simultaneously captured the burst's first visible light. The system is operated by institutions from Poland.
Within the next 15 seconds, the burst brightened enough to be visible in a dark sky to human eyes. It briefly crested at a magnitude of 5.3 on the astronomical brightness scale. Incredibly, the dying star was 7.5 billion light-years away."
Read more at NASA:
"Naked-Eye" Gamma-Ray Burst Was Aimed Squarely At Earth"
Okay...I'll get a little less scientific... after all, it is Saturday night...
Gamma Ray ~ Beck
Gamma Ray
If I could hold
Hold out for now
With these icecaps melting down
With the transistor sound
And my Chevrolet terraplane
Going around around around
Come on little gamma ray
Standing in a hurricane
Your brains are bored like a refugee from a house that's burning
And the heat wave's calling your name
She's got a cactus crown
With a dot dot dot on her brow
And she speaks inside a cloud
With her countenance turning around
It hit me like a gamma ray
Standing in a hurricane
I'm pulling out thorns
Smokestack lightning out my window
I want to know what I've lost today
Come on little gamma ray
Standing in a hurricane
Your body's bored
Like a refugee from a house that's burning
And the backwater's calling your name
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By Janet Evans
Friday, Sep 12 2008, 08:40 PM
 Cows may have a sixth magnetic sense photo: flickr
If you ever find yourself lost in a field or in the woods…and don’t have a compass, moss on a tree or your new GPS…don’t fear…
Look to the animals to point you in the correct direction...they are able to sense magnetic fields.
This is a pretty cool article…
Have you ever noticed that herds of grazing animals all face the same way?
Images from Google Earth have confirmed that cattle tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction. Wild deer also display this behaviour - a phenomenon that has apparently gone unnoticed by herdsmen and hunters for thousands of years. In the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, scientists say the Earth's magnetic fields may influence the behaviour of these animals. The Earth can be viewed as a huge magnet, with magnetic north and south situated close to the geographical poles. Many species - including birds and salmon - are known to use the Earth's magnetic fields in migration, rather like a natural GPS. A few studies have shown that some mammals - including bats - also use a "magnetic compass" to help their sense of direction.
Continued HERE
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By Janet Evans
Monday, Sep 8 2008, 06:50 AM
 Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest and most complicated particle physics experiment ever seen,
will be turned on Wednesday, September 10th. It took almost 20 years and 7,000 scientists from 60 countries
to create this project. (Hadron Collider)
"Before the year is out, the LHC is projected to begin pumping out a tsunami of raw data equivalent to one DVD (five gigabytes) every five seconds. Its annual output of 15 petabytes (15 million gigabytes) will soon dwarf that of any other scientific experiment in history.The challenge is making that data accessible to a scientist anywhere in the world at the execution of a few commands on her laptop. The solution is a global computer network called the LHC Computing Grid, and with any luck, it may be giving us a glimpse of the Internet of the future. Once the LHC reaches full capacity sometime next year, it will be churning out snapshots of particle collisions by the hundreds every second, captured in four subterranean detectors standing from one and a half to eight stories tall. It is the grid's job to find the extremely rare events—a bit of missing energy here, a pattern of particles there—that could solve lingering mysteries such as the origin of mass or the nature of dark matter."
The Large Hadron Collider will be operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN. It is a circular underground tunnel, in which the partical beams ramp up to 99.99 percent of the speed of the light, are more than 300 feet below the earth. This is located at the foot of the Jura Mountains.
You can read more about the Hadron Collider HERE
and HERE
Hey, Professor....can someone explain this to me in Physics for Dummies terms?
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