Monthly Archives: March 2014

Whale swims close to Perth beaches

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A whale spotted between Fremantle and Swanbourne yesterday. Picture: Twitter/Surf Lifesaving WA

A five-metre beaked whale has been spotted just 20 metres offshore at popular Perth beaches this week, prompting a warning for beachgoers to be careful.

The Department of Parks and Wildlife says it is monitoring the whale, which has been sighted between Cottesloe and Fremantle beaches for several days.

Senior marine wildlife officer Doug Coughran said it was rare for such an animal to be seen so close to Perth shores, and it could be due to illness.

"We will continue to monitor the situation, but we will not intervene unless it comes ashore," he said.

"Obviously we understand the curiosity beachgoers may have to get close to the animal, however we would like to remind the public that they should maintain a safe distance of 30m at all times in the water to ensure the whale's wellbeing is not compromised."

To report any sick or injured animals, call the Wildcare Helpline on 9474 9055.

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Whale swims close to Perth beaches

Migration of thousands of sharks closes Florida beaches

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FORT LAUDERDALE Thousands of migrating sharks swam close to South Florida beaches over the past few days, prompting beach closures and sending two people to the hospital with minor bites.

The beach at John D. MacArthur Beach State Park remained closed Monday after hundreds of sharks were sighted near swimming areas, many chasing fish "very close to shore," said Mara Burger, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Gulf Stream Park's beach was closed and reopened three times on Sunday, as lifeguards ordered swimmers from the water at the sight of sharks.

Off Delray Beach on Saturday afternoon, Kurt Hoffman was dragging his arm in the water from his kite board when he suddenly felt pressure on his arm.

"It was less than a second," he said. "It was a hit and a release. It felt like a bear trap. I pulled myself in pretty much like a rocket. And I pulled my feet up because I didn't want to get bitten again. All I see is blood running down my arm. I yelled 'Shark bite! A shark bit me!'"

Hoffman, whose company The Kite Doctor repairs damaged kiteboarding kites, suffered 15 to 18 puncture wounds across a seven-inch span. At St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, he was given antibiotics, in addition to treatment for his wound, because sharks' mouths team with bacteria.

On Friday, a 9-year-old boy on a surfboard or boogie board was bitten on his foot and ankle, said Lt. Anthony Giarrusso, of North Palm Beach Fire Rescue. He was taken to St. Mary's for treatment.

Every spring, a huge number of blacktip and spinner sharks migrate from their winter homes off Broward and Palm Beach counties north, with many going as far as the Carolinas.

"These two bites sound very much like what you'd expect around this time in South Florida," said Stephen Kajiura, associate professor of biology at Florida Atlantic University, who gathers data on the migration by air on flights between the Boca and Jupiter inlets. "We have large numbers of sharks that are migrating through here."

Blacktips and spinners reach a maximum length of six feet, not large enough to see a human being as prey. When they bite someone, Kajiura said, it is typically a case of mistaken identity in murky water.

"If you see a flash in the water, a hand or a foot, it looks like a little fish," he said. "They're fish eaters, and they're going after all these little baitfish, it's not a surprise that we're seeing this this time of year."

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Migration of thousands of sharks closes Florida beaches

CEdR/academic TV- Prof. Ian Dell Antonio-2. Astronomy, Cosmology, International Science – Video

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CEdR/academic TV- Prof. Ian Dell Antonio-2. Astronomy, Cosmology, International Science
HD discussion with Brown University collaborator in Astrobiology course, and Cosmologist. Dr. Ian #39;s views on research improvement.

By: CEdRacademic: Culture Education Discussion Research Network

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CEdR/academic TV- Prof. Ian Dell Antonio-2. Astronomy, Cosmology, International Science - Video

Comets cut Diamonds down to size

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By James Broadhurst

Last updated at 11:54, Monday, 24 March 2014

Newcastle Diamonds 46 Workington Comets 44 (Agg: 73-77): Workington Comets clinched the Ian Thomas Shield with a 77-73 aggregate victory over Newcastle Diamonds.

Workington Comets with the Ian Thomas Shield

Comets took a six point lead into yesterdays second leg match following a 33-27 win at Derwent Park on Saturday.

The aggregate lead in the second leg at Newcastles Brough Park swung backwards and forwards between the two teams.

Diamonds won the meeting by 46 to 44 but lost out on the shield on the aggregate scoreline.

A 5-1 score in heat 13 courtesy of new captain Rene Bach and number one Josh Grajczonek proved the pivotal moment and Comets went on to secure the shield with a 77-73 win.

The first leg on Saturday ended prematurely after the race was abandoned halfway through following a heavy rain shower which made the track hazardous and visibility poor.

After consulting with the riders and managers of both teams, referee Graham Flint abandoned the meeting after heat 10 and the result stood heading into the second leg last night at Newcastles Brough Park.

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Comets cut Diamonds down to size

'Cosmos' recap: The meaning and math of comets

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Some of us are old enough to remember the much-ballyhooed appearance of Halleys comet in 1986 -- it swoops past Earth only once every 76 years, after all, and isnt due back until 2061. (So mark your calendars!) It also provides a handy framework on which to hang the scientific concepts featured in this weeks episode of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey."

It starts with a nod to the human gift for pattern recognition -- both a blessing and a curse, since sometimes we see patterns that arent really there, like the face of Jesus in a piece of toast. (The technical term is pareidolia.)

We also see patterns and messages in the stars. We were born into a mystery, Neil deGrasse Tyson intones over an image of a baby in a basket, gazing up at the night sky as the stars are reflected in the infants eyes. We see shapes in the form of constellations, for instance, and past civilizations read dire portents of doom in the periodic appearance of comets streaking across the sky. Chinese astronomers began keeping records of comets around 1400 BC, including one in 240 BC that we now know as Halleys comet, after the 17thcentury astronomer Edmund Halley.

VIDEO: 'Cosmos' Q&A with Neil deGrasse Tyson and Seth MacFarlane

Halley first observed a comet in 1664. It happened to coincide with the outbreak of the plague in England, as well as the Great Fire of London, but it inspired the young Halleys love of the night sky. He gained notoriety for his voyage to map the stars of the Southern Hemisphere and soon became part of the vibrant intellectual community that frequented the local coffeehouses, vividly brought to life in another of the series clever animated sequences.

During one conversation, Halley offered to pay 40 shillings to the first person to demonstrate a simple mathematical law explaining why the planets move in elliptical orbits rather than perfect circles. But nobody could do the math -- except for Isaac Newton, who was a bit of a recluse by this point thanks to his squabbles with Hooke and many other scientists of that era. Newton was a difficult man. But he was also brilliant. Halley learned that Newton had solved this calculation five years earlier, part of the manuscript hed been writing: thePrincipia. Spoiler alert: This is one of the greatest scientific treatises ever written, outlining the laws of motion and the universal law of gravitation, as well as the invention of calculus.

It was just the sort of thing that the Royal Society would publish -- except the society was strapped for cash that year, having blown its budget on a lavishly illustrated tome called "History of Fish" that proved to be a colossal failure in terms of sales. Apparently the society was paying Halleys salary in copies of books it couldnt sell, which does make for an amusing domestic scene in which Halleys wife is dismayed when he comes home with yet another copy of "History of Fish."

PHOTOS: TV shows and their spinoffs

Long story short: Halley decided to pony up the cash to publish thePrincipiahimself, and a scientific revolution ensued. Newtons laws explain how nature works, and it does so in the language of mathematics. When mankind sent the first rockets to the moon, it was Newton in the drivers seat.

Newton was such a towering figure that we tend not to remember his gifted contemporaries -- like Halley, who did not actually discover the comet that bears his name. But he was the first to notice an interesting pattern in comet sightings, after poring over first-hand accounts from several centuries. He realized that the comet recorded in 1682 was the same as the one that had been recorded in 1531 and 1607. It was orbiting the sun in a long elliptical path. Halley predicted the same comet would reappear at the end of 1758 -- and it did.

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'Cosmos' recap: The meaning and math of comets

Cosmos Quest for Students: Comets and Pattern Recognition

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COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey,Episode 3, When Knowledge Conquered Fear, depicts the friendship between EdmondHalley and Isaac Newton and its consequences for science. Episode 3 also exploreshumans ability for pattern recognition. The proposed activities and discussion topics seekto deepen students understanding of comets, the myths that once surrounded theirappearance, false pattern recognition, and scientific prophecy.

Grade Levels 6-12

Episode Summary There was a time, not so long ago, when natural events could only be explained as gestures of displeasure by the gods or a God. The appearance of a comet in the sky inspired dread.Our understanding of comets and so much else was the byproduct of a deep friendshipbetween the brilliant polymath Edmond Halley and that paragon of genius, Isaac Newton.Robert Hooke, another scientific luminary of the time, falsely accused Newton of stealinghis ideas, and the resulting public humiliation drove Newton to withdraw from the scientificarena when he was in his early twenties. More than a decade later, through Halleyspatience and selfless generosity, Newton conquered his fearful isolation and found thecourage to publish his masterwork, the Principia Mathematica. This single work launchedthe scientific revolution, and gave science the power to accurately foretell events in thedistant future.The Ship of the Imagination will venture halfway out to the nearest star, to find thebrooding, frigid realm of the Oort Cloud, where a trillion comets wait. Our Ship takes us ona hair-raising ride, chasing a single comet through its million-year plunge toward the Sun.

The chapter ends with a prophecy of the events of several billion years from now, the spectacular collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Comets afford us an excellent opportunity to explore the double-edged sword of the human gift for pattern recognition, both false and true, and to relive that tipping point in history when our understanding of nature shifted from the one to the other. Discussion Topics Imagine you are a citizen of Earth 1,000 years ago. You and your friends are the first to witness the coming of a comet. How would you understand it? Where would you think it came from? Make up a story to explain it. What created the comets of our solar system? How many ways can comets die or depart from our solar system? On the topic of scientific prophecy: how is it possible to know decades before an astronomical event where the planets and stars will be? The photo below represents Barnard 33, a dark nebula approximately 1,500 light years from Earth but it is commonly referred to by another name because of the shape of its cloud of dark dust and gases as seen from the Earth. What do you think that name might be?

Proposed Activities Use examples referenced below and in the Online Resources to illustrate the concept of false pattern recognition for students. Present a sample of images to students that might include the image of a face in a grilled cheese sandwich, Halleys comet trajectories and the DNA barcodes of different creatures (pictured below), and clouds that look like something else. Challenge students to find patterns or pictures in the images. Which of these images have patterns because our eyes complete the picture and which have patterns that are really there? How can we tell the difference? At the beginning of this episode, we say, We came of age in a kind of cosmicquarantine without any notion of our true circumstances in the universe, like anabandoned baby without a note to explain anything about who we are, or how ourworld came to be, or any idea how to end the isolation.How would you compose acommunication to accompany the baby in the basket how would you explain whowe are, how we came to be, and how we could end our isolation?

Online Resources http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6511148/ns/us_news-weird_news/t/virgin-mary-grilledcheese-sells/ (Story on grilled cheese sandwich with face sold on ebay) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/9287627/Clouds-That-Look- Like-Things-a-new-book-from-the-Cloud-Appreciation-Society.html?frame=2229063 (Clouds that look like other things photo gallery) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/turn-me-on-dead-man/ (Supplemental article on false pattern recognition)

Relevant Scenes from COSMOS Act One: The Baby in the Basket Act Two: How Comets Were Perceived Throughout History & False Pattern Recognition Act Three: Edmund Halley and Isaac Newton Act Four: The Principia Mathematica Act Five: The Lasting Impact of Newtons Work Act Six: Halleys Comet For a deeper dive, more subjects touched on in Episode 3: Physics and astronomy of the Oort Cloud Origin and fate of comets Scientific reasoning that enabled Jan Oort to predict the Oort Clouds existence Distances from Earth to the center of the galaxy Gravitational interaction of comets with other bodies in the solar system Evolution of pattern recognition False pattern recognition and the interpretation of comets Comparative mythology (Aztec, Babylonian, Hindu, Masai, Zulu, Eghap, Djaga, Luba andBritish) The birth of Chinese astronomy

The lives, times and scientific achievements of Edmund, Halley, Robert Hooke and IsaacNewton and the revolutionary consequences of their personal lives and interactions

The mapping of the stars of the southern hemisphere The Royal Society and the significance of its credo The role of the 17th century English coffeehouse in the social political and scientific revolutions The Principia Mathematica and how it changed everything Marriage of physics and mathematics Gravitation on the local and galactic scale Science and prophecy

Written by Ann Druyan Produced by Cosmos Studios

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Cosmos Quest for Students: Comets and Pattern Recognition

Workington Comets cut Newcastle Diamonds down to size

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By James Broadhurst

Last updated at 11:54, Monday, 24 March 2014

Newcastle Diamonds 46 Workington Comets 44 (Agg: 73-77): Workington Comets clinched the Ian Thomas Shield with a 77-73 aggregate victory over Newcastle Diamonds.

Workington Comets with the Ian Thomas Shield

Comets took a six point lead into yesterdays second leg match following a 33-27 win at Derwent Park on Saturday.

The aggregate lead in the second leg at Newcastles Brough Park swung backwards and forwards between the two teams.

Diamonds won the meeting by 46 to 44 but lost out on the shield on the aggregate scoreline.

A 5-1 score in heat 13 courtesy of new captain Rene Bach and number one Josh Grajczonek proved the pivotal moment and Comets went on to secure the shield with a 77-73 win.

The first leg on Saturday ended prematurely after the race was abandoned halfway through following a heavy rain shower which made the track hazardous and visibility poor.

After consulting with the riders and managers of both teams, referee Graham Flint abandoned the meeting after heat 10 and the result stood heading into the second leg last night at Newcastles Brough Park.

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Workington Comets cut Newcastle Diamonds down to size