A dragon in the clouds. Click for a larger version. Credit: Jeff Schmaltz MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

NASA’s MODIS website captures some intriguing images of the Earth; this one is one of my recent favorites from the TERRA satellite.

The caption from the MODIS website (you can get different sizes of this image), explore it too they have lots of good stuff:

Creating a striking design which looks a bit like a serpent swimming through clouds, curling patterns of eddies are formed as air flows around and over the island of Tristan de Cunha in the South Atlantic. This image was captured by MODIS on the Terra satellite on July 14, 2010.

The island can be seen as a small circle of green at the far left of the image, at the tip of a dark blue triangle of ocean. To the southeast a string of ocean-blue circles are surrounded by rings of bright white cloud, illustrating the symmetric and swirling pattern of airflow on the leeward side of the island. These spiraling cloud patterns, caused when prevailing ocean winds encounter an island, are known as von Karman vortices or “vortex streets”.

Just like the swirls that can be seen in the wake of airplane wings, these vortex streets result from the separation of flow around an immobile body – in this case the island – causing neighboring areas of flow to circulate in alternating clockwise and counter-clockwise directions.

Home to about 275 people, Tristan de Cunha is considered to be the most remote inhabited island in the world, lying 2,816 km (1,750 mi) from South Africa, the nearest land, and 3,360 km (1,510 mi) from South America. The landmass is quite small, measuring 6 m (10 miles) wide, with a total area of 38 sq. m (98 sq. km). However, the terrain is very steep. Queen Mary’s Peak, an active volcano, rises to 2,062 m (6,765 feet) above sea level.

I’ve been seeing reports of the Earth-like planets found by Kepler and perhaps you have too.

The following press release was issued form the Ames Research Center:

The following NASA statement was sent to Dr. S. Pete Worden, Director, NASA Ames Research Center from the Kepler Science Council on Aug. 2, 2010.

“Recently there have been reports to the effect that Kepler has discovered many Earth-like planets. This is not the case. Analysis of the current Kepler data does not support the assertion that Kepler has found any Earth-like planets.

Kepler is producing excellent results and is on a path to achieving all its mission requirements and actually determining the frequency of Earth-size planets, especially in habitable zones. We will announce our results when they become available and are confirmed.”

Signed,

Edward W. Dunham, Kepler Science Team Lead
Thomas N. Gautier, Kepler Project Scientist
William J. Borucki, Kepler Principal Investigator

for the Kepler Science Council

No anonymity on future web says Google CEO:

“There was five exabytes [five billion gigabytes] of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003,” he said. “But that much information is now created every two days, and the pace is increasing… People aren’t ready for the technology revolution that’s going to happen to them.

…

The bulk of that information, Schmidt explained, comes in the form of user-generated data. Every digital interaction throws up information, he said. And that information can be used to minutely analyse and predict human behaviour.

…

Schmidt told delegates at the conference that the availability of information increased convenience, and enabled society to more effectively combat anti-social and criminal behaviour – but his talk raised some unsettling issues.

He said that addressing issues such as identity theft, for instance, required “true transparency and no anonymity”.

Last week, we discussed a poop-powered rocket. Now a new car promises we’ll see human waste’s potential closer to home–or further from home, but not as far as space. The Bio-Bug, a modified Volkswagen Beetle, can run on fuel made from raw sewage.

“Biogas upgrading” has allowed GENeco, Bio-Bug’s developer and part of the British waste-processing companies that make up Wessex Water, to create methane from human waste.

The process starts with anaerobic digestion: Microbes eat through waste in an airtight, oxygen-free container. They leave behind only digestate, which works as a fertilizer, and a gas mixture that is mostly carbon dioxide and methane. Methane is combustible in the modified car’s engine. So, after removing the carbon dioxide, the company has poop power.

Mohammed Saddiq, GENeco’s general manager, says on the company’s site, that human waste is only the beginning.

“Waste flushed down the toilets in homes in the city provides power for the Bio-Bug, but it won’t be long before further energy is produced when food waste is recycled at our sewage works. . . It will mean that both human waste and food waste will be put to good use . . .”

The company told the BBC that Bio-Bug operates (and smells) the same as the fossil fuel-burning alternative, and that waste from 70 homes could generate enough methane to drive the car, assuming it drives about 10,000 miles a year.

Related content:
Discoblog: Finally! A Self-Sustaining, Sewage-Processing, Poop-Powered Rocket
Discoblog: Buzz Aldrin Explains: How to Take a Whiz on the Moon
Discoblog: A Novel Geoengineering Idea: Increase the Ocean’s Quotient of Whale Poop
Discoblog: The Coolest Carnivorous Plant/Toilet Plant You’ll See This Week

Image: flickr / Stephen Sullivan Sr.

First names and perceptions of physical attractiveness.

“I examined the impact of first names on ratings of physical attractiveness as judged by British undergraduate subjects using male and female full-face pictures presented on photographic slides. The photographs were identified with attractive names, unattractive names, or without any name indicated. Subjects rated the stimulus figures for physical attractiveness. Names accounted for approximately 6% of the variance in subjects’ ratings of physical attractiveness. This effect was highly significant for pictures of women (p < .001), but nonsignificant for pictures of men (p > .05).”

Bonus quote from the materials and methods:
“The stimulus names were selected from a list of 160 names that had been rated for attractiveness by 10 male and 10 female subjects on a 7-point scale. Male and female names of approximately the same level of attractiveness were selected. One attractive and one unattractive name was used for each sex. The attractive female name was Danielle (M = 4.70) and the attractive male name was Alexander (M = 4.85). The unattractive female name was Tracey (M = 1.2) and the unattractive male name was Kenneth (M = 1. 15).”

Characteristics attributed to individuals on the basis of their first names.

“Characteristics connoted by first names were explored in 7 studies. Four factors were identified: Ethical Caring, Popular Fun, Successful, and Masculine-Feminine (Study 1, N = 165). Men’s names connoted more masculine characteristics, less ethical caring, and more successful characteristics than did women’s names (Study 2, N = 274). Nicknames connoted less successful characteristics, more popular fun, and less ethical caring characteristics than did given names (Study 3, N = 289). Androgynous names connoted more popular fun and less masculine characteristics for men and more popular fun, less ethical caring, and more masculine characteristics for women than did gender-specific names (Study 4, N = 378). Less conventionally spelled names connoted uniformly less attractive characteristics (Study 5, N = 145). For men only, longer names connoted more ethical caring, less popular fun, more successful, and less masculine characteristics (Study 6, N = 620). More anxiety and neuroticism were attributed to those with less common names and more exuberance was attributed to those with more attractive names (Study 7, N = 137).”

Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: He’s a rock climber? Then he definitely has the clap.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Effect of manipulated prestige-car ownership on both sex attractiveness ratings.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Gee, I wonder why guys don’t like lipstick?

WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!

If you’ve ever caught yourself fantasizing about infinite series of irrational numbers while out in the woods, this video is for you. Or if you just like cool graphics.

Cristobal Vila’s Nature by Numbers:

As you may’ve noticed, an important motif in the video is the Fibonacci Sequence. The series starts with 0 and 1. After those first two, you can calculate each subsequent number in the series by adding the previous two: 0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5 . . . Thus 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 . . .

Among other things, the series is good for making a Fibonacci Spiral (from squares with side lengths defined by each number in the sequence) which sort of matches a Golden Spiral, which sort of matches a Nautilus shell. The complete explanation of the numbers behind the nature is available on the Vila’s website, here.

Related content:
Discoblog: Hunting Sharks Are the Mathematicians of the Seas
Discoblog: Alien Math Shows Why Grad Student Doesn’t Have a Girlfriend
Discoblog: Danger! Car Salesmen Now in Possession of “Perfect Handshake” Equation
Discoblog: The OK Go Video: Playing With the Speed of Time
Discoblog: The Mother of all Rube Goldberg Machines!

Video: Cristobal Vila Nature by Numbers

In a breakout session here at Techonomy, David Keith of the University of Calgary and Margaret Leinen of the Climate Response Fund led a discussion of the prospect of geoengineering the climate—in other words, engaging in some type of deliberate intervention to alter the planet and thereby counteract global warming.

The reason scientists and policymakers are increasingly thinking about geoengineering is clear: Major climate change now looks increasingly unstoppable. As Leinen put it, even if the proposals on the table at Copenhagen had been adopted, we’d still end the century with an atmospheric carbon dioxide of 700 parts per million–more than enough to cause climate upheaval, raise seas dramatically, and so forth.

So it seems clear that if we can’t cut emissions, at some point we’ll be forced to consider a more radical alternative, at least if we want to preserve a planet anything like the one our species evolved on.

And as it happens, geoengineering does indeed appear to be on offer. According to Keith, the most popular and prominent idea for doing it—injecting sulfur particles into the stratosphere that would reflect sunlight away from the Earth, thereby causing a global cooling—could be begun almost immediately. “You could do this with current technology now,” Keith said, and he estimates that moreover, you could do so for about $ 1 billion a year. “Venice could pay to do it based solely on real estate prices,” said Keith. Read on….

On behalf of "Surly" Amy Roth and myself: thank you to everyone who bought Amy’s necklaces.

It’s official: a full-body security scanner can theoretically store your blurry nude picture. After a Freedom of Information Act request from the advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, the U.S. Marshals Service released 100 of 35,314 stored images taken by a scanner at an Orlando, Florida, courthouse. Though airport security scanners use similar radio wave technology to get a hazy peek under your clothes, whether these scanners can store your image still seems unclear.

Publications such as CNET question if these images mean a change in federal officials’ statement that the scanners cannot store images:

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.” [CNET]

The Transportation Security Administration responds on their blog that they stick by that original statement. Though the recently released images prove that the Marshal Service stores scanned images, the Marshal Service is not the TSA. The first falls under the Department of Justice, the second under the Department of Homeland Security.

As we’ve stated from the beginning, TSA has not, will not and the machines cannot store images of passengers at airports. The equipment sent by the manufacturer to airports cannot store, transmit or print images and operators at airports do not have the capability to activate any such function. [TSA]

Part of the reason for the now viral story is that the scanner images appearance comes just after a late-July announcement that the TSA will deploy additional “advanced imagining technology” at 28 airports.

The revelation comes at a tense time. Two weeks ago, when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said such scanners would appear in every major airport, privacy advocates such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington D.C. filed a lawsuit to stop the device rollout. [MSNBC.com]

The scanners employ a millimeter wave radiometer which uses radio frequency waves to image visitors. In a letter published on the Electronic Privacy Information Center site, the acting administrator of the TSA responds to the chairman of Homeland Security: it seems that though the machines at airports are manufactured with the capability to store images, but that capability is used in “testing mode” only–and not at airports. The letter also says that security officers cannot put the machines into this storage mode.

Still, the Center filed a lawsuit last month to suspend the deployment of body scanners at US airports, saying that the scanning program violates the Privacy Act, Administrative Procedure Act, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Fourth Amendment.

The TSA is looking to modify the machines further to protect passengers’ privacy, for example by replacing the somewhat realistic nude image with a “paper-doll-like figure,” The Boston Globe reports, but the Center isn’t satisfied.

The BP oil spill isn’t over. But, as CNN says, we could be at the beginning of the end.

The first part of BP’s “static kill,” in which it used mud to try to plug the leak, appears to have worked well and stemmed the flow of oil. Last night National Incident Commander Thad Allen gave the OK for the second part: pumping concrete. That could begin today.

BP’s “static kill” operation finished ahead of schedule. It took eight hours to fill the 13,000-foot well pipe with heavy drill mud, holding back the oil with its weight. … Now, the column of mud ensures that oil will never be released from the well again, officials say. A permanent cement plug will be put in place later this month [ABC News].

This business of pumping mud probably sounds familiar. That’s because it’s basically the same thing BP tried to do many weeks ago with its “top kill” maneuver. This time, though, the mud seems to be working, probably because the temporary cap BP put on the leak in July made it easier to smother the oil flow.

Hopefully their optimism isn’t misplaced, but it’s nice to see some hope on the horizon. While BP continues work on this plug, the relief wells near their target. They should intersect the well sometime later this month.

Now more attention turns to the other side of the disaster—cleaning it up. This week the U.S. government issued a report that sounded like good news, that it has accounted for most of the reported 5 million barrels of oil from the leak. Not everyone, though, was convinced by this rosy declaration.

The government was met with skepticism about its report that three-quarters of the oil from the well had evaporated, or had been removed in controlled burns, collected or dispersed. Critics accused the panel of government, industry and academic scientists who authored the report of being at best vague about how it reached its conclusions and at worst deliberately downplaying the environmental impact of the biggest oil spill in U.S. history [Houston Chronicle].

As we’ve seen over and over during the hundred-plus days of the BP oil spill, getting accurate figures is tricky. The first few guesses of the amount of oil leaking per day were wildly underestimated, and oceanographer Ian MacDonald tells Discovery News that the government’s announcement is based on more guesswork, not direct measurement.

Related Content:
80beats: BP Prepares for “Static Kill” Operation To Permanently Seal Leaking Well
80beats: One Cap Off, One Cap On: BP Tries Another Plan To Catch Leaking Oil
80beats: BP Oil Update: Tar Balls in Texas & Lake Pontchartrain
80beats: Gulf Coast Turtle News: No More Fiery Death; Relocating 70,000 Eggs

Image: U.S. Coast Guard

Amory Lovins bursts with so many ideas that if you blink you miss ten of them. Speaking at Techonomy today, he outlined an agenda he called Reinventing Fire–nothing less than obliterating all oil and gas usage by 2050. “We do transformation, not incrementalism,” Lovins explained. Yeah.

You can read some of the details of Lovins’ agenda here, and much of the arguments from his talk can also be found in this CNN.com piece.The basic argument is that we can entirely slash oil usage first through increasing efficiency—particularly for vehicles–and then secondarily by replacing it with natural gas and biofuels.

Some of Lovins most striking ideas concern remaking our vehicle fleet…READ ON.

Yesterday, a judge ruled that California’s Proposition 8 — which banned same sex marriage — is unconstitutional. He’s quite correct.

If you think letting gay people marry is somehow a threat to your marriage, you’re quite wrong.

Do yourself a favor: go look at these pictures. They may bother you, or even disgust you. But do you know what they show? People in love.

And who are we to say they cannot express that love? I’ll tell you who: nobody.

Brian Switek, one of the junior members of the science-blogging-whippersnapper brigade, has written a detailed look back at the saga of Darwinius, the primate fossil that held Mayor Bloomberg captive at a press conference. It was just published in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach and is free for the taking. Switek has kind things to say about the impact of the Loom’s coverage of the subject, although I’m pretty sure this blog–and the many others that hopped on this crazy story–won’t stop this sort of fiasco from happening again. All we can do is help set the record straight.

Yesterday at Techonomy–before the fun started–we heard from Stewart Brand, famed founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and author most recently of Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto. With his latest book, Brand is pioneering a new brand of environmentalism that discards some of the movement’s anti-technology habits, and reacquaints the green impulse with an openness to innovations that may be the key to solving our biggest problem—climate change.

According to Brand, environmentalism has a “legacy resistance” to nuclear power, and to transgenic crops or GMOs. In other words, the resistance isn’t really based on strong evidence of dangers, so much as an instinctive distrust of certain types of meddling with “nature.”…READ ON.