In late August, sea ice extent was way below average for that time of year, and it was predicted we were headed for at least a near-record low this year. Those predictions have, unfortunately, turned out to be true. On September 9, sea ice extent reached its yearly minimum, the second lowest since satellite records began in 1979 — and so close to the record low in 2007 that it’s a statistical tie.

NASA has posted series of pictures of sea ice this year taken by its Aqua Earth-observing satellite. Here’s the Arctic ice as it was in March (top) and September 2011 (bottom):

They put together a series of the images into an animation that really gives you a clear picture of what’s going on:

Of course, you expect more ice in the winter and less in the summer and fall, so by itself those pictures don’t tell you what this means. You need to compare the current extent with how things were in the past. As it happens, the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder does just that.

This graphic by the NSIDC shows the north pole (you can see North America at the bottom, Greenland to the right, and Asia at the top) with the ice extent on September 9, 2011 marked in white. The orange line marks the median extent of the ice from 1979 to 2000 as measured on September 9 of each of those years. Putting a number on this, the current extent is nearly a million square miles less than that median value.

Yikes.

How bad is this? Well, from what I can tell, it’s not good. In 2007, the sea ice cleared enough that the Northwest Passage became navigable by ship without the help of an icebreaker for the first time in recorded history. We’re there again right now. And it’s not just extent — that is, the area covered by ice — it’s also the volume: that’s at the lowest amount on record this year as well.

As pointed out above, the lack of ice means that the northernmost latitudes are able to be plied by ships in the summer. But every year there is less ice even at maximum, meaning more and more area is accessible year-round. It’s well-known that there are deposits of oil and natural gas up there, and of course the oil companies want access to them. That’s why it’s particularly interesting that Exxon is investing billions of dollars in offshore drilling there, in places previously not accessible due to ice (full disclosure: that article was written by my nephew-in-law Chris Jones). In other words, even Exxon is putting its money where its mouth is, saying not only is global warming real, but that its effects will be around for a while.

I have no grand conclusions here, no line in the sand to draw. This is simply yet another data point in an increasingly long line of evidence showing global warming is real, along with all the evidence that it’s getting worse, we’re causing it, and the spin against it by the deniers is approaching light speed. The Related Posts links below make all that clear.

I just hope that by talking about this, more and more voters will listen. In a very real sense, what happens next is up to us.

Image and video credits: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio, Goddard Space Flight Center; National Snow and Ice Data Center

Speaking of self-repair, here’s a fascinating new finding from Malin Hernebring in Sweden. Here’s the technical paper, from a few years ago; it’s part of Hernebring’s Ph.D. thesis work. (Via Richard Dawkins’s site.)

As we age, our cells gradually decay; the DNA stays relatively intact, but proteins degrade with time. This is a big part of the aging process, leading to wrinkled skin as well as more serious consequences. When you think about it a bit, that raises a puzzle. A newborn baby arises out of the cells of its parents. So if the proteins simply decay without repair, every generation would get handed down a degraded set of proteins. At some point, therefore, there has to be some repair job, so that the baby gets fully functioning proteins.

If this idea is right, you might guess that the repairs happen at the level of ovum and sperm; maybe when these cells are created, extra effort goes into tuning up their proteins into working order. But the new research says no — it’s actually after conception that the clean-up crew arrives. The newly conceived embryo consists of stem cells that soon begin differentiating themselves into the different kind of mature cells. It turns out that it’s during this differentiation process that proteasomes go to work, breaking down the damaged proteins and generally tuning up the engine. (Maybe this is when the soul is implanted in the embryo?)

The next obvious question is: why can’t these cellular clean-up crews be active all the time? There are clear implications for studies of (and therapeutic approaches to) aging. Nature wants all the individual animal organisms to die, making room for new generations; but there’s no reason we have to go along with the plan.

Update: An ungated version of the paper.

I used to spend a lot more time talking about cognitive science of religion on this weblog. It was an interest of mine, but I’ve come to a general resolution of what I think on this topic, and so I don’t spend much time discussing it. But in the comments below there was a lot of fast & furious accusation, often out of ignorance. I personally find that a little strange. I’ve been involved in freethought organizations in the past, and so have some acquaintance with “professional atheists.” Additionally, I’ve also been a participant and observer of the internet freethought websites since the mid-1990s (yes, I remember when alt.atheism was relevant!). In other words, I know of whom I speak (and I am not completely unsympathetic to their role in the broader ecology of ideas).

But the bigger issue is a cognitive model of how religiosity emerges. Luckily for me a paper came out which speaks to many of the points which I alluded to, Divine intuition: Cognitive style influences belief in God:

Some have argued that belief in God is intuitive, a natural (by-)product of the human mind given its cognitive structure and social context. If this is true, the extent to which one believes in God may be influenced by one’s more general tendency to rely on intuition versus reflection. Three studies support this hypothesis, linking intuitive cognitive style to belief in God. Study 1 showed that individual differences in cognitive style predict belief in God. Participants completed the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005), which employs math problems that, although easily solvable, have intuitively compelling incorrect answers. Participants who gave more intuitive answers on the CRT reported stronger belief in God. This effect was not mediated by education level, income, political orientation, or other demographic variables. Study 2 showed that the correlation between CRT scores and belief in God also holds when cognitive ability (IQ) and aspects of personality were controlled. Moreover, both studies demonstrated that intuitive CRT responses predicted the degree to which individuals reported having strengthened their belief in God since childhood, but not their familial religiosity during childhood, suggesting a causal relationship between cognitive style and change in belief over time. Study 3 revealed such a causal relationship over the short term: Experimentally inducing a mindset that favors intuition over reflection increases self-reported belief in God.

Recall that in many social domains where neurotypicals rely on innate, intuitive, and “fast” cognition, high functioning autistic individuals must reflect and reason. I don’t have access to the original paper, but there’s a nice piece in Harvard Gazette on the research. Here’s the last sentence: ““How people think about tricky math problems is reflected in their thinking — and ultimately their convictions — about the metaphysical order of the universe,” Shenhav said.”

[UPDATE: Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log is reporting that the satellite will definitely come down on Friday, though NASA is not sure yet exactly when and where.]

[UPDATE 2: Emily Lakdawalla at The Planetary Society blog has lots of detailed info now.]

By now you’ve probably heard that NASA’s Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS, pronounced YOO-arz, though in my head it’s always "You arse!") will burn up in our atmosphere some time between Thursday and Saturday. The satellite was decommissioned in 2005 and they used the remaining fuel to lower the orbit. It’s been slowly getting lower since then, but recently reached the part of our air where it slows and drops dramatically. As you can see from this plot (click to embiggen), it’s dropped from about 375 km to 200 in just the last few months, and down it’ll come later this week.

No one knows where or when it will hit, since the final flight path will depend on changing atmospheric conditions, orientation of the satellite, and so on. Most of the 6 ton satellite will burn up, but some two dozen or so pieces are expected to survive re-entry.

Speaking of which: I’m seeing some concern over people getting hit by this thing. The odds of that are extremely low. It’s possible — NASA rates the odds at about 1 in 3200 — but highly unlikely. Mind you, those are the odds of anyone getting hit by debris. The odds of a specific person, say me, getting hit are far lower — if I’m doing this math correctly, you’d multiply that number by the population of the Earth, nearly seven billion people. So the odds of me (or you, or pick someone) specifically getting hit are about 1 in 20 trillion. Pretty long odds.

In the meantime, on September, 15th, "amateur" astronomer Thierry Legault was able to capture video of the satellite while it passed over his location:

Cool, eh? You can see the rotation; it’s tumbling, apparently. Out of power, it can’t keep the correct attitude, and over time something has caused it to spin. Maybe it was a collision, or maybe it’s from other subtle but persistent forces over the years (solar wind, light pressure, drag through our tenuous upper atmosphere, slow fuel leak, what have you). Here are some stills from Thierry’s video to make that more clear:

Pretty cool. So stay tuned. I’ll update with more info when I get it; we’ll know the re-entry time and location much better as the week progresses. I’ll be tweeting about it as well as soon as I find anything out.

Credits: Orbit plot: Jonathan McDowell; UARS images: Thierry LeGault.

The spiny dogfish

What’s the News: Researchers found that squalamine, a steroid present in the bodies of the dogfish shark, has a protective effect against several human viruses, all of which are difficult or impossible to cure with existing drugs. The chemical has so far been shown to be relatively safe in humans and can be synthesized, suggesting it could have promise as an antiviral drug in humans.

How the Heck: 

• In one test, scientists injected hamsters with the yellow fever virus, which kills 30,000 people per year. Half of the hamsters got squalamine and half got nothing (a placebo). By day 11, all of the untreated hamsters were dead, but 60 percent of the squalamine-treated rodents survived.
• Next, researchers bathed lab-grown human endothelial cells—the type that line blood vessels—in varying concentrations of squalamine before introducing dengue virus. At the highest concentration of the chemical, none of the human cells became infected, nor suffered any visible ill effects from the squalamine.
• Researchers also tested squalamine’s ability to prevent replication of the hepatitis B and D viruses in cultured human liver cells. In cells treated with squalamine, viral replication was reduced 10-fold.

What’s the Context: 

• Squalamine has antibiotic, fungicidal, and anti-protozoan properties. It kills a wide variety of pathogens and one study found it could be used to treat multidrug-resistant bacteria. Researchers are also investigating its ability to treat cancer and fight macular degeneration.
• A positively charged steroid similar in structure to cholesterol, squalamine binds to cell surfaces and deactivates the membrane’s negative charge before entering the cell. Researchers suspect this activity may interfere with viruses’ ability to bind to and replicate within their host.
• The chemical was first found in the spiny dogfish, or Squalus acanthias, in 1993 and named for it. Dogfish and other sharks show a remarkable resistance to viruses and other pathogens that scientists think may be due in part to squalamine.

In the dark abyss of the ocean, animals cannot afford to be choosy. The odds of bumping into another individual are low, and appropriate willing mates are even harder to come by. To deal with this problem, the deep-sea squid Octopoteuthis deletron has become somewhat indiscriminate. The males will mate with any squid they come across, whether they’re male or female.

Hendrik  Hoving from the Montery Bay Aquarium Research Institute found evidence of these same-sex matings with a robot submarine. Controlled from a surface ship, these vehicles can explore depths that humans cannot. The subs have captured videos of O.deletron since 1992 (videos here), but the team have only just revealed the nature of the squid’s sex life by studying the archival footage.

O.deletron is a handsome red squid, around five inches long, with hook-lined arms and flashing patches on its flanks and arm tips. Most squid and octopuses deliver their sperm along one of their arms – a modified limb called a hectocotylus. O.deletron is unusual in having a separate penis, distinct from its arms. It uses this long organ to dab a female’s body, attaching a pouch called a spermatophore, which contains millions of sperm. The pouch discharges sacs called spermatangia, which implant themselves in the female’s body. The sacs are visible from the outside, marking out recently mated individuals for observant scientists to see.

Hoving found these sacs on the bodies of both male and female squid in equal proportions. Both sexes had been implanted with sperm.

This is just one of thousands of examples of homosexual behaviour in animals, and there have already been a few reports among cephalopods – the group that includes octopuses, squids and cuttlefish. The famous giant squid might even partake in gay sex from time to time. Of the twelve mature males that have been found, seven had spermatangia implanted on their arms.

However, Hoving notes that some of these squid were caught in nets, and in their distress, they may have mistakenly implanted themselves with their own sperm. He also says, “Accidental self-implantation during mating with a female is also a possibility.” But that’s not the case for O.deletron. Hoving noticed sperm sacs on parts of the males’ bodies that lie beyond the reach of their penises. They must have been stuck there by another male.

But why would O.deletron males waste their sperm on other males? Hoving thinks that speed is the answer. Many species of squid live fast and die young. They only have a narrow window in which to have sex before they perish, so they do so very quickly. There is little time for an elaborate courtship when your reproductive life is quickly ticking away.

A male O.deletron that encounters another individual has mere seconds to decide whether to implant its spermataphore or not. That choice isn’t helped by the fact that males and females are roughly the same size with only minor physical differences. If the male chooses poorly, and misses out on a suitable female, it could well die before it stumbles across another mate. Better to ejaculate on everyone, and ask questions later.

Reference: Hoving, Bush & Robson. 2011. A shot in the dark: same-sex sexual behaviour in a deep-sea squid. Biol Letters http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2011.0680

Image copyright of MBARI

More on squid:

• Rage-inducing chemical on squid eggs turns males into violent thugs
• Glowing squid use bacterial flashlights that double as an extra pair of “eyes”
• What the stomach contents of sperm whales tell us about giant squid and octopuses
• Single gene allows glowing bacteria to switch from fish to squid
• Climate change squeezes jumbo squid out of oxygen
• Camouflaged communication – the secret signals of squid
• A squid’s beak is a marvel of biological engineering

What’s the News: We may strive for humility, but we benefit from a little hubris, too, according to a study published last week in Nature. Overconfidence in your abilities can help you triumph in competitions you might not have won otherwise, the study found, and can impart an evolutionary advantage when the potential payoff is high compared to the cost of conflict.

How the Heck:

• To investigate the effects of overconfidence, the researchers set up a game theory-based computer model. In this model, two individuals could each “decide” (through computer algorithms) whether or not to lay claim to a desired resource. If they both claimed it, the stronger individual won the resource, but both individuals incurred a small cost, the toll of competition. If only one individual decided to go after the resource, that individual got the prize without incurring a cost from conflict; if neither did, neither got it.
• Each competitor decided whether or not to claim the resource based on what they knew of their abilities compared to their opponents’. But, as is usually the case in real life, the individuals didn’t have a complete, unbiased view of the situation: The model varied whether each individual was overconfident or underconfident in their own abilities, and how uncertain they were about their competitors’ abilities.
• The computer simulation went through thousands of generations of these competitions. To mimic natural selection, strategies with high fitness—meaning they resulted in more rewards, fewer costs—were passed down to the next generation.
• The researchers found that being overconfident in one’s own abilities paid off, and the trait got passed down. In particular, being overconfident was an advantage when there was uncertainty about an opponent’s strength, and when the reward for winning was high relative to the cost of competing. In other words, being overconfident helped competitors make the right—that is, the most profitable—decision [$].
• When the researchers tweaked the model to have three competitors instead of two, the same effect appeared: Overconfidence still led to success.

What’s the Context:

• A large body of research has shown that people are routinely overconfident, overestimating their financial acumen, leadership skills,driving abilities, and even attractiveness. If overconfidence sometimes confers an evolutionary benefit, as this study suggests, that could help explain why it’s so widespread.
• But, the researchers point out, these findings only apply to conflict and overconfidence on a small scale. Our tendency to have too much faith in our abilities may help explain current events caused in part by overconfidence—wars in which one side overestimated their power, the recent economic collapse—but it doesn’t have the same benefit in large, complex societies that it might in one-on-one competition. Overconfidence is like the body’s tendency to crave extra calories, the researchers say: an advantage at the time modern humans evolved, but sometimes a pitfall in today’s world.

References: 

• Dominic D. P. Johnson & James H. Fowler. “The evolution of overconfidence.” Nature, September 15, 2011. DOI: 10.1038/nature10384
• Matthijs van Veelen & Martin A. Nowak. “Evolution: Selection for Positive Illusions.” Nature, September 15, 2011. DOI: 10.1038/477282a

One of the more fascinating meta-qualities of the intertubez is how it’s opened up a bunch of sub-cultures to people who would otherwise have no idea they exist. Sure, we all know about Trekkers and Whovians and Steampunkers, but until the advent of Twitter, Facebook and the other social nets I was not aware of the popularity of crafters: people who make things. I mean people who knit, do papercraft, create clothes, and so on.

Oh sure, I knew it was a fun hobby and all that — what I didn’t know is how devoted some folks are to it. It’s pretty cool; they make cozies, socks, hats, skirts, dresses, sweaters… it’s amazing. And of course, this being the web and all, a lot of these folks are also space/math/science/scifi nerds. Still I never, ever, ever would’ve predicted this. I present to you The Vitruvian Dalek:

EXTERMIKNIT!^*

Spoonflower, the site that hosts this pattern, has tons of other nerdy ones, like math equations, a solar system diagram, and even the odd Ood or two.

Winter’s coming… I could use a quilt. Hmmm.

Tip o’ the sewing needle to Mary Firestone.

^* I know, it’s not knitting, and I used that joke once before. But it’s still funny.

I was in my home office yesterday morning, sipping my coffee and trying to wake up while perusing the latest news from Twitter and Google+. It took a second, but the sound coming from outside worked its way into my head… a rushing, roaring sound. "GGGGggggggshhhhhh! GGGGggggggshhhhhh!"

I knew what it was right away: the flame from a hot air balloon, the pilot giving the bag some gas. We get a lot of balloons here in Boulder; the cool air in the summer mornings coupled with the spectacular view of the mountains makes them really popular. But this time was different; the sound was much louder than usual. Hmph, I thought, better grab the camera.

I ran outside, and yeah, it was close:

Wow! [Click to fifthdimensionate.]

It actually rose up from behind my house, so I ran down the street to get a good view. It flew past me (where I got this shot) then passed overhead where I got that shot.

How close was it? Close enough to wave at the passengers in the gondola, and have them wave back. That was cool.

It slipped out of sight, and landed in a field across from my neighborhood. I went back inside, but a few minutes later my wife called out, "We’ve got two more!" I went into my back yard, and one was landing in the field behind my house, too:

I have to say, this is a great way to wake up in the morning. It’s simply delightful. And I have a sneaky suspicion that sometime in the next year or so I’ll have to taker a ride like this myself with my family. I’d love to be able to take pictures like this from the other side.

Building in part on my talk at the time conference, Scott Aaronson has a blog post about entropy and complexity that you should go read right now. It’s similar to one I’ve been contemplating myself, but more clever and original.

Back yet? Scott did foolishly at the end of the post mention the faster-than-light neutrino business. Which of course led to questions, in response to one of which he commented thusly:

Closed timelike curves seem to me to be a different order of strangeness from anything thus far discovered in physics—like maybe 1000 times stranger than relativity, QM, virtual particles, and black holes put together. And I don’t understand how one could have tachyonic neutrinos without getting CTCs as well—would anyone who accepts that possibility be kind enough to explain it to me?

The problem Scott is alluding to is that, in relativity, it’s the speed-of-light barrier that prevents particles (or anything) from zipping around and meeting themselves in the past — a closed loop in spacetime. On a diagram in which time stretches vertically and space horizontally, the possible paths of light from any event define light cones, and physical particles have to stay inside these light cones. “Spacelike” trajectories that leave the light cones simply aren’t allowed in the conventional way of doing things.

What you don’t see in this spacetime diagram is a slice representing “the universe at one fixed time,” because that kind of thing is completely observer-dependent in relativity. In particular, if you could move on a spacelike trajectory, there would be observers who would insist that you are traveling backwards in time. Once you can go faster than light, in other words, you can go back in time and meet yourself in the past. This is Scott’s reason for skepticism about the faster-than-light neutrinos: if you open that door even just a crack, all hell breaks loose.

But rest easy! It doesn’t necessarily follow. Theorists are more than ingenious enough to come up with ways to allow particles to move faster than light without letting them travel along closed curves through spacetime. One minor technical note: if some particle moves faster than light, it’s not “closed timelike curves” that we should be worried about, it’s “closed spacelike curves on which physical particles move.”

But we shouldn’t necessarily even worry about that. The usual argument that faster than light implies the ability to travel on a closed loop assumes Lorentz invariance; but if we discover a true FTL particle, your first guess should be that Lorentz invariance is broken. (Not your only possible guess, but a reasonable one.) Consider, for example, the existence of a heretofore unobserved fluid pervading the universe with a well-defined rest frame, that neutrinos interact with but photons do not. Or a vector field with similar properties. There are various ways we could imagine some background that actually picks out a preferred frame of reference, violating Lorentz invariance spontaneously.

If that’s true, the argument that FTL implies closed loops through spacetime no longer works. Even if neutrinos are able to sneak outside light cones, there may nevertheless be “neutrino cones” to which they are still confined. These neutrino cones could be a little bit broader than ordinary light cones, but they could still define a fixed notion of “going forward in time” that even neutrinos couldn’t violate.

There’s a nice (although technical) discussion of this in a short paper by Robert Geroch. Read Section 2 for the math, Section 3 for the words. From the discussion:

In short, the causal cones of special relativity, from this perspective, have no special place over and above the cones of any other system. This is democracy of causal cones with a vengeance. This, of course, is not the traditional view. That view — that the special relativity causal cones have a preferred role in physics — arises, I suspect, from the fact that a number of other systems — electromagnetism, the spin-s ?elds, etc — employ precisely those same cones as their own. And, indeed, it may be the case that the physical world is organized around such a commonality of cones. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that there exist any number of other systems — not yet observed (or maybe they have been!) — that employ quite di?erent sets of causal cones. And the cones of these “other systems” could very well lie outside the null cones of special relativity, i.e., these systems could very well manifest superluminal signals. None of this would contradict our fundamental ideas about how physics is structured: An initial-value formulation, causal cones governing signals, etc.

The odds are still long against the OPERA result being right at face value. But even if it’s right, it doesn’t immediately imply that neutrinos are time-travelers.

A Cassini view of Enceladus. Click for larger (full res below). Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Don’t know what happened to Marian, nary a peep from her.  I assume she has lost internet.

So, being out of town most of the day so far, no time to put a riddle together.  How about a nice Cassini image of Enceladus?

This one was taken on september 13th from a distance of 26,709 miles or 42,823 km.

Want to see a full res version?  Click here (links to NASA).

Top picks

In India’s lush Kaziranga National Park, a new policy allows rangers to shoot rhino poachers on sight. As a result, rhinos and tigers are thriving. An absolutely stonking piece of journalism.

Plant RNAs switch genes on and off in mammals. Wow. We really are what we eat.

“Somebody else can clean up this mess.” But no one did.” New study challenges the role of so-called longevity genes

Robert Krulwich’s paean to the awesome bar-tailed godwit, the toughest little bird you’ve never heard of

A useful rape analogy.

Singapore is growing by importing sand, at other nations’ environmental expense

Science “partially retracts” XMRV-chronic fatigue paper, and a nine-lab study fails to confirm the link. More from the NYT

This week a team of London surgeons separated twins joined at the head. How did they do it? Great explainer by Ferris Jabr

Premature particles perplex physicists. Phil Plait pontificates

Data – what the military have and what scientists get to see, from Geoff Brumfiel

Why being relaxed makes us spend more money, by Jonah Lehrer

With “utter disregard for the extraordinary environment”, a shrimp swims through liquid CO2. By Calbeb Scharf

“Don’t start bathing in the blood of virgins just yet,” advises Scicurious. Could a single injection make your older or younger? No. But the science is still awesome.

“In many respects, the history of technology is a history of failed machines”- Alice Bell on how the fridge got its hum

Good debate here on whether journos should ever fact-check content with sources. Hosted by David Kroll.

Science museums are failing grown-ups. And it’s a failure we can’t afford. Spot-on piece by Maggie Koerth-Baker

Brain scanner can recreate movie scenes you’ve watched. What this does do: after recording your brain activity as you watch movies, it can predict what scenes you’re watching later based on your brain activity. What this doesn’t do: record fresh brain activity and tell you what you’re looking at. Cool though.

Pretty. Emission spectra of the elements. Check out thallium and tungsten.

Science/news/writing

“It’s not the bad apples, it’s the bad barrels that corrupt good people.” Philip Zimbardo on evil  

Neuroscience of the intense Amazonian hallucinogen ayahuasca. Featuring a vomiting Vaughan Bell

NASA monitors over 20,000 bits of space junk circling Earth?

Heh. 50 Reasons I Reject Evolution

Neutrino stories move faster than the speed of science, by Martin Robbins

Don’t believe what other people think they see. Eyes (and Minds) Deceive: Witness Unreliability Casts Doubt on Death Penalty Rulings.

Newly Discovered Plant Bows Down and Buries Its Own Seeds

“No fewer than seven possible explanations for eggshell color”

The first Aboriginal genome has been sequenced.

Scientists Successfully Induce Hibernation in Animals for the First Time

Chemistry’s 10 grand challenges. Misses out No. 11, which is getting people to care about chemistry.

“Eye movement is one sign that things have gone wrong.” On unvetted drugs & the death penalty

Pack Your Umbrella: Friday’s Weather is Sunny, with a 1-in-21-Trillion Chance of Getting Hit by Orbital Debris

Measles cases in California reach 10-year high, mostly due to unvaccinated kids.

DEET scrambles insects’ sense of smell

Resurrected Woolly Mammoth Protein Proves to Work Well in the Cold

Too Hard For Science? Might investigating brains of conjoined twins helps shed light on consciousness?

How to Resurrect a Terror Croc.

The mind-blowing cost of patent trolling – £500bn since 1990.

Former Trainer Says Killer Whale Captivity Causes Attacks. Or mebbe making an apex apex predator do tricks is bad idea?

“How should we make hard decisions?” asks Jonah Lehrer.  I DON’T KNOW, JONAH. WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS?

Stubbornness Increases the More People Tell You You’re Wrong. And thus was the internet explained HT

How do you sequence bacteria that you cannot grow, without relying on Macgyver?

Why does the antlion make a larger deathtrap during the full moon? (Spoiler: We don’t know)

Synchronized Swimming: Patrolling for Pollution with Robotic Fish. We’ve come a long way since Billy Bigmouth

5 antique versions of modern social media – from Edison’s YouTube to Voltaire’s Facebook

Smartphone EEG

Doodle app turns your Kindle into An Etch-a-Sketch

Deborah Blum’s post on Dr Oz is great for this line: “the higher the valence bond number, the grabbier the compound”

41% of primatologists have been bitten by a non-human primate; 10% injured by needles containing bodily fluids/tissue

Global map of the world’s submarine cables

Researchers Find Out How Pigeons Make the “Milk” They Barf Into the Mouths of Their Young. This is all sounding a little “molecular”. I wonder if pigeon milk could make pigeon cheese? Or if pigeon cheese would go with pigeon?

How quirks of language can reveal subtle ‘Daily Mail’ racism. I say “subtle”. It’s all relative.

How do you counter a honeybee’s waggle dance? With a waggle song, of course

I’m a Scientist – the film.

On Oct 31, the 7 billionth human being will be born. Where, who?

Bottom of Form

There are nine US medical insurance codes for being attacked by a killer whale. Here are some other good ones.

The brain as a slum – nice metaphor via David Dobbs.

Genomics research by twitter: we need people who’ve had severe altitude sickness.

The Psychology Of Yogurt, or what probiotics can teach us about the mind-body problem

New ways to fund research, including crowdfunding and SciFund.

Heh/wow/huh

A phylogeny of bread clips

Things I like: misrepresenting airline safety cards. “In emergency, throttle your baby. Then grieve”

We really have to start doing this (XKCD on neutrinos)

A swimming feather-star. Utterly mesmeric

Hobbit homes!

Around World In 60 secs on International Space Station. Love the yellow line of the ionosphere

New Yorker cartoon made me laugh.

Beauty in mundanity. A Year of Mornings – how photographers do long-distance friendships

New life ambition

AskReddit’s “Hotel Workers, What’s The Weirdest Thing You’ve Ever Caught Guests Doing?”

Heh. “Scientists assume pupils are listening”

Journalism/internet/society

A journalist’s guide to Google+

A sad but fascinating tale about the human punching bag – a boxer who wasn’t very good but simply couldn’t be knocked out

Jay Rosen versus “he said, she said” journalism at NPR The Guardian live-blogs reading a book. I should live-blog reading their live-blog. No. No I shouldn’t.

“Facebook is killing taste… it’s somehow eluded Zuckerberg that sharing is fundamentally about choosing”

Amazon lets you borrow Kindle books from your local public library

Is Branded Journalism Still Journalism? No. Why not just call it PR?

Is Amazon Running a Sweatshop in Pennsylvania?

A woman next to me on a plane excitedly raved at her husband about this Daily Express headline: NEW ARTHRITIS JAB GIVES HOPE TO MILLIONS. She didn’t read paragraph 18, where you learn that it’s based on mouse experiments, or paragraph 21, which mentions an increased risk of bone cancer.

Nearly 40% of people online look for health info, but 90% think what we find is accurate!

What does getting “off the beaten path” really mean? Great travel blogging.

Astonishingly bad coverage from misogynistic media. Somehow, this study turns into bollocks about bossy women.

NASA has confirmed that the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellites, UARS, burned up over the Pacific Ocean last night, September 24, between 03:23 and 04:09 a.m. UTC (11:23 p.m. and 12:09 Eastern US time). I have no other reliable information on it, but I expect we’ll get more updates soon. There were lots of reports last night of it falling over Canada, but those were mistakes or hoaxes. Apparently some people were fooled by meteors, Chinese lanterns, and possibly even the planet Jupiter. That’s happened before.

If I find photos or such I’ll try to post them, but I’ve heard no reports of witnesses, and I’ll be away this afternoon for my TEDxBoulder talk, so if any pictures turn up I may not be able to get to them. I imagine SpaceWeather will post any if they crop up.

Thus ends that saga. If you’re curious, you can read about the history of the UARS and what we learned from its 15 year mission to investigate our planet’s atmosphere.

Schematic of the planet with two suns. Click for larger. Credit: Avi Shporer and team / University of California Santa Barbara

Ah this is very cool to think about even beyond Star wars.

By the way, I was out looking for the supernova this morning (thwarted by clouds) but was treated to the Moon and the star Sheratan, a bright bluish star only about 5 degrees away.  If you happen out tomorrow about 6 a.m. your time have a look.  Tomorrow, it should be clear enough here to also see the star Lorenzin Alpha ARI. Alpha ARI is a bit brighter than Sheratan and a bit yellower. The three should make for a nice pairing.

Back to the two suns, below is a fun snippit from the press release from the University of California Santa Barbara and clicking the “more” link at the bottom will get you the entire press release or you can just click the link.

The planet’s orbital period is 229 days, while the stellar binary has a 41-day orbit. Although the planet’s orbital period is close to that of Venus in our solar system, it is not an Earth-like, terrestrial planet. Its radius and mass are similar to those of Saturn, making it a gas giant planet. The two stars are both smaller than the Sun. The bigger of the two, the primary, measures 69 percent of the Sun’s mass and 65 percent of its radius. The smaller star, the secondary, is considerably smaller, with 20 percent of the Sun’s mass and 23 percent of its radius. In fact, the secondary star is the smallest low-mass star to have its mass and radius measured at such high precision.

UC Santa Barbara astrophysicist Avi Shporer is part of the NASA team that has found the first known planet with two “suns,” an idea popularized by the 1977 movie “Star Wars.” The discovery is published this week in the journal Science.

In the iconic scene from “Star Wars,” Luke Skywalker gazes into the distance as two suns set on the horizon. This type of planet is called a circumbinary planet, meaning it orbits a binary star system, as opposed to a single star like our Sun. Circumbinary planets have been pursued by astronomers for decades. Although some scientists have claimed to detect such a planet in the past, none of those claims have been widely accepted by the scientific community.

The Science article reports the first clear detection of a circumbinary planet. The system is called Kepler-16, and it is the 16th planetary system discovered by NASA’s Kepler space telescope. It is located approximately 220 light-years from our Sun, near the constellation Cygnus, in the Milky Way galaxy.

“It is the combination of the unprecedented precision and the continuous observations from space that allowed the detection of Kepler-16,” said Shporer, who is also a researcher with the UCSB-affiliated Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) based in Goleta.

At first, the system was identified as an eclipsing binary star, a system of two stars orbiting each other and showing eclipses once every orbital period. Excitement within the Kepler team grew when the scientists were able to identify transits — small, shallow eclipses induced by a small body such as a planet as it eclipses its parent stars. Further analysis confirmed that these transits are indeed induced by a planet in an orbit around both stars.

“This system is so fascinating since it is viewed edge-on, and all three bodies — the two stars and the planet — are all eclipsing each other,” said Laurance Doyle of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, lead author of the Science paper.

Kepler is a NASA discovery-class mission designed to look for Earth-like planets orbiting Sun-like stars in their habitable zone. Kepler is looking for these planets by continuously monitoring the light intensity of over 150,000 stars simultaneously. Kepler’s high sensitivity makes it capable of detecting the minute decrease in a star’s light caused by a small planet crossing the line of sight to the star, thereby momentarily blocking a small fraction of the light coming from the star.

“The transits and mutual eclipses enable a detailed characterization of the system, including the mass and radius of all objects and their orbits,” said Shporer.

The depth of an eclipse gives a sense of the size of the eclipsing body. In the case of Kepler-16, the exact timing of the eclipses is affected by the gravitational pull of the planet. Although the planet’s mass is small relative to the two stars, it is able to slightly affect their orbit, making the stellar eclipses occur earlier or later, by up to a minute, compared to a constant period model. As for the planetary transits, analysis of Kepler’s measurements is challenging because the timing of the transits deviates significantly from a constant period model, since each transit occurs at a different orbital phase of the inner star.

The planet’s orbital period is 229 days, while the stellar binary has a 41-day orbit. Although the planet’s orbital period is close to that of Venus in our solar system, it is not an Earth-like, terrestrial planet. Its radius and mass are similar to those of Saturn, making it a gas giant planet. The two stars are both smaller than the Sun. The bigger of the two, the primary, measures 69 percent of the Sun’s mass and 65 percent of its radius. The smaller star, the secondary, is considerably smaller, with 20 percent of the Sun’s mass and 23 percent of its radius. In fact, the secondary star is the smallest low-mass star to have its mass and radius measured at such high precision.

Ground-based observations are an important part of the Kepler project. “At LCOGT, we are using our telescopes as part of the large effort carried out by U.S. astronomers and others, to follow-up and accurately characterize the detections made by Kepler,” said Tim Brown, scientific director of LCOGT and an adjunct professor of physics at UCSB. Brown is an important member of the Kepler team.

The Kepler-16 discovery is one of a series of discoveries made by Kepler since its launch in March 2009. Shporer said the most interesting ones are probably yet to come as Kepler continues to monitor the stars.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Busy day for me sadly not around a computer or the internet, enjoy the video!

Source

Cassini's close up of the surface of the Saturn moon Rhea. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

A combo post of sorts because one thing has nothing to do with the other . . .

I was going to post about the ISS essentially being abandoned, but I’m not sure that’s really the case. Three of the staff aboard are coming home tomorrow and there have been rumors of the remainder returning in a couple of months if the space station cannot be resupplied by the end of November. Then I hear the Russians have scheduled manned flights for November 12th and December 20th with an unmanned cargo ship on October 30th. So I’m not totally sure of what is happening.

All the speculation stems from the loss of a unmanned Soyuz carrying cargo to the ISS prompting Russia to cancel all manned flights pending an investigation in to the mishap. Can’t find fault with that decision and with the demise of the shuttle program, well there you go, the whole thing isn’t too far a field from being halted.

So the image, well that’s a good close shot of a battered Rhea taken by Cassini from 12,000 miles (20,000 km).

From the Cassini website:

In this image obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on its closest flyby of Saturn’s moon Rhea, the heavily cratered surface of the moon appears in great detail. Just to the bottom right of the center of this image, a bright area appears to indicate a freshly excavated double crater. Double craters can appear when two gravitationally linked asteroids crash into a surface. This image was obtained by Cassini’s narrow-angle camera on Jan. 11, 2011, from a distance of about 20,000 kilometers (12,000 miles) away.

Mars Rover Opportunity does a self portrait on Sept. 11. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University

The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity took this self portrait on September 11, 2011 while exploring in the region of Endeavour crater called Cape York.

As of September 7, 2011 solar array energy production was 336 watt-hours, so it’s still pretty good.  The rover has traveled 20.86 miles on Mars so far.

The image is significant not because the ground it’s on, but that little American flag.  That flag is mounted on a piece of metal taken from the Twin Towers.  Sort of Oppy’s tribute.

Dawn's cameras show steep slopes on Vesta. Click for larger. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Nice picture of a big crater. If this is the southern pole region and it appears to be, the crater could be that 460 km job that it’s thought escavated almost 1 percent of Vesta.

Want a bigger image? See the image at the Dawn webpage.

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Dawn spacecraft obtained this image with its framing camera on Aug. 26, 2011. This image was taken through the camera’s clear filter. The image has a resolution of about 260 meters per pixel.

Take a look at this:

NASA

Unbelievable.  Here’s what NASA says about it:

I’m seriously impressed.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ha!  You knew I was going to put this up.  There’s some great footage too.

Source