Monthly Archives: July 2010

Exquisite Eco Villas!

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Alila VillasThe Indonesian Island of Bali has long caputred the imagination of the World. Recently there has been an explosion of eco friendly resorts. One resort that has been getting a lot of attention is Alila Villas Uluwatu a majestic resort located on the sloping hills in Bali’s Uluwatu region on the Southern Bukit Peninsula of the charming Indonesian island.

This beautifully designed complex straddles a striking white limestone cliff and an arid savanna on the tropical island’s arid Bukit Pennisula. The Alilas Villas resort is the first of its kind to achieve the highest level of certification for Environmentally Sustainable Development (ESD).

At the resort indoor and outdoor spaces blend together as verandas, canopies, bridges and passages weave through the resort. The architects drew inspiration for the stone walled court yards from the local farmer’s buildings, and the overall design is a fusion of low-slung vernacular Indonesian architecture and modernism. The villas are placed to follow the natural contour of the gently sloping land, leaving much of the local vegetation and natural formations intact and providing each with a view of the Indian Ocean.

Read more: Exquisite Alila Villas Uluwatu is the Ultimate Eco-Resort in Bali | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

NASA Spacecraft Camera Yields Most Accurate Mars Map

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Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," sprawls wide enough to reach from Los Angeles to nearly New York City, if it were located on Earth. The red outline box shows the location of a second, full-resolution image. Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University - Larger image

A camera aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has helped develop the most accurate global Martian map ever. Researchers and the public can access the map via several websites and explore and survey the entire surface of the Red Planet.

The map was constructed using nearly 21,000 images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS, a multi-band infrared camera on Odyssey. Researchers at Arizona State University's Mars Space Flight Facility in Tempe, in collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have been compiling the map since THEMIS observations began eight years ago.

The pictures have been smoothed, matched, blended and cartographically controlled to make a giant mosaic. Users can pan around images and zoom into them. At full zoom, the smallest surface details are 100 meters (330 feet) wide. While portions of Mars have been mapped at higher resolution, this map provides the most accurate view so far of the entire planet.

The new map is available at: http://www.mars.asu.edu/maps/?layer=thm_dayir_100m_v11 .

Advanced users with large bandwidth, powerful computers and software capable of handling images in the gigabyte range can download the full-resolution map in sections at: http://www.mars.asu.edu/data/thm_dir_100m .

"We've tied the images to the cartographic control grid provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, which also modeled the THEMIS camera's optics," said Philip Christensen, principal investigator for THEMIS and director of the Mars Space Flight Facility. "This approach lets us remove all instrument distortion, so features on the ground are correctly located to within a few pixels and provide the best global map of Mars to date."

Working with THEMIS images from the new map, the public can contribute to Mars exploration by aligning the images to within a pixel's accuracy at NASA's "Be a Martian" website, which was developed in cooperation with Microsoft Corp. Users can visit the site at: http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/maproom#/MapMars .

"The Mars Odyssey THEMIS team has assembled a spectacular product that will be the base map for Mars researchers for many years to come," said Jeffrey Plaut, Odyssey project scientist at JPL. "The map lays the framework for global studies of properties such as the mineral composition and physical nature of the surface materials."

Other sites build upon the base map. At Mars Image Explorer, which includes images from every Mars orbital mission since the mid-1970s, users can search for images using a map of Mars at: http://themis.asu.edu/maps .

"The broad purpose underlying all these sites is to make Mars exploration easy and engaging for everyone," Christensen said. "We are trying to create a user-friendly interface between the public and NASA's Planetary Data System, which does a terrific job of collecting, validating and archiving data."

Mars Odyssey was launched in April 2001 and reached the Red Planet in October 2001. Science operations began in February 2002. The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. NASA's Planetary Data System, sponsored by the Science Mission Directorate, archives and distributes scientific data from the agency's planetary missions, astronomical observations, and laboratory measurements.

For More Information Visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-244

The New Moon– absolutely still in the picture

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The New Moon: That was the title of Andy Chaikin’s public talk this week at the 3rd annual Lunar Science Forum, held at NASA Ames Research Center and hosted by the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI).  He claims the title was not inspired by recent pop culture… phenomenon… but that is besides the point.

Some say NASA is abandoning the Moon.  The future of manned spaceflight is unclear right now, and many are experiencing losses of jobs, but I want to look at something else:  Who cares about the beauty of real scientific exploration?  Judging by participation in the Lunar Science Forum this year, I would say a lot of people.  Is the Moon ‘dead’?  A resounding NO, judging from the highest attendance yet for the meeting, the amazing science results, and the many young faces of the Next Generation of Lunar Scientists and Engineers interested in the Moon.  They are not going anywhere, and that message is loud and clear!

Forked impact melt. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

I guess I should give the disclaimer that I work at the NLSI :) but also that I used to be a Mars person.  Mars is still exciting, of course, but  in the past few years the Moon really has become a whole new Moon, most obviously with the discovery of water in amounts different than expected (a simple statement with many scientific papers enveloped in it).

One of the highlights from the meeting for me was hearing that there are craters in the polar regions of the Moon that are estimated to have high levels of water available… less than 50 km from areas with near constant availability of sunlight.  All the recent science about the Moon greatly informs human exploration… and what is better than having science and exploration walk hand in hand?

If you want to know more about the lunar science shared at the Forum, go to http://lunarscience2010.arc.nasa.gov/agenda; the talks will be posted there shortly.

In the meantime, keep dreaming about all the undiscovered secrets of the Moon:  lava tubes, pockets of water, and combining awesome LROC image data with mini-RF data (really really cool insights!)

And it is only fitting that the Lunar Science Forum is being followed up by a NewSpace Conference.  A New Moon indeed!

Comic-Con: Where Ideas Have Sex With Abandon | Science Not Fiction

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300.comic.con.logo.052708“Dragons? Awesome. Napoleonic wars? Awesome. Together? Even more awesome.” So said Naomi Novik in kicking off yesterday’s Comic-Con panel on combining genres. Novik was so happy with that particular mishmash that she used it in her Temeraire series, which reared its dragony head for the sixth time with the publication of Tongues of Serpents this month.

All of the authors on the panel write in genre-bending styles, but they use the technique differently, and their reasons for doing it vary, too. Novik said her motivation for crossing the streams was simple: “It’s absolutely for short attention spans. The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup theory.”

Daryl Gregory, author of The Devil’s Alphabet (“transcription divergence syndrome” turns residents of small town into three different kinds of monsters—sci-fi/small-town drama), said it allows authors to reach out to more readers: “It lets you combine things and bring someone into something new. If they know dragons but not regency fiction, you can bring them in.”

Messing with genre came more serendipitously to Justin Cronin, author of the bestseller The Passage (immunity-boosting drug made from bat virus turns humans into vampirish things; apocalypse ensues), the movie rights to which were bought by Ridley Scott. Cronin said he used to write “regular fiction,” but then questioned it when his 9-year-old daughter became concerned it might be boring. So he planned The Passage in consultation with her. “The one rule we had was be interesting. That was the goal. The Passage is a combination of all genres, everything I loved. Adventure novels, postapocalyptic stories, Westerns, Thrillers, Poe, in a big happy bag. You put ideas together, they have idea sex.”

So fusing genres is inclusive, sexy, and fit for the short-attention-spanned. But it’s not all smiles and sunshine.

China Miéville, creator of the Lovecraft-inspired New Weird style, said the “aesthetic arithmetic” didn’t always wind up as described by Novik. “Awesome plus awesome is not always two awesomes. Sometimes it’s an abomination. Like Reese’s Peanut Butter cups.” (Apparently, taste in confections is a pretty subjective thing.) He said that the mashup style is not as new as it’s sometimes thought, and sometimes it’s just “gimmicky marketing…It’s the classic Hollywood formula: it’s dinosaur love story; it’s steampunk cookery.”

And other panelists came up with a couple of combinations that should never be perpetrated upon the reading public: young-adult erotica and driver’s ed books with unreliable narrators.

Doyle Rotary: Machining the Cylinder Retainers

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We've completed the cylinder block and have purchased and cut the cylinder sleeves. The pieces we are making now clamp the cylinder sleeves to the block (think of attaching old VW cylinders to the case with studs). The machining process can be seen live here.

We have also started working on the c

NCBI ROFL: And the most awkward sex of all time award goes to… | Discoblog

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49836398_d660043ade_bCoitus as Revealed by Ultrasound in One Volunteer Couple.

“The anatomy and function of the G-spot remain highly controversial. Ultrasound studies of the clitoral complex during intercourse have been conducted to gain insight into the role of the clitoris and its relation to vagina and urethra during arousal and penetration. Aim. Our task was to visualize the anterior vaginal wall and its relationship to the clitoris during intercourse. Methods. The ultrasound was performed during coitus of a volunteer couple with the Voluson(R) General Electric(R) Sonography system (Zipf, Austria) and a 12-MHz flat probe. The woman was in a gynecologic position, and her companion penetrated her with his erected penis from a standing position. We performed a coronal section on the top of the vulva during the penetration. Main Outcome Measure. We focused on the size of the clitoral bodies before and after coitus. Results. The coronal section demonstrated that the penis inflated the vagina and stretched the root of the clitoris that has consequently a very close relationship with the anterior vaginal wall. This could explain the pleasurable sensitivity of this anterior vaginal area called the G-spot. Conclusions. The clitoris and vagina must be seen as an anatomical and functional unit being activated by vaginal penetration during intercourse.”

coitus_ultrasound

Photo: flickr/jemsweb

Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: The pressing question this Penis Friday: how hard is hard enough?
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: What kind of erotic film clips should we use in female sex research? An exploratory study.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: The G-Spot: nature vs. nurture.

WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!


The CTIA Doesn’t Want SAR Radiation Levels Displayed On Phones [Lawsuit]

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They claim that it would make consumers feel some phones are safer than others without adequate scientific proof, and are thus suing the city of San Francisco to stop their mandatory radiation warning law. According to the FCC, all phones are safe below a certain SAR level; San Francisco says it just wants to inform users so that those concerned about radiation can more easily access that information. [Electronista] More »


Desktop Replacement Laptop

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Friends !

I'm looking for a desktop replacement laptop. It needs to have at least a Core i3 processor, 3GB of memory and a 320GB hard drive. Of course, more is always better, but I'm not looking to spend a fortune.

There are certain limmits in even the best Laptop, Keyboard, mouse [tho

Open Thread – July 23rd, 2010 | Gene Expression

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I was travelling on Monday so couldn’t post the open thread and then forgot. But now that I think about I think Friday would be better in any case, because I don’t post much on the weekends. So again, questions, links, what you’re reading. You know my motto, “Don’t be stupid” (fwiw, posting links to flickr photos of your cats is not stupid).