Get a load of this image from NASA:

NASA image - check out the enlargement

Sunset Over South America

The Expedition 27 crew photographed this sunset over western South America from aboard the International Space Station. The station crew sees, on average, sixteen sunrises and sunsets during a 24-hour orbital period. Each changeover between day and night on the ground is marked by the terminator, or line separating the sunlit side of Earth from the side in darkness. While the terminator is conceptualized as a hard boundary–and is frequently presented as such in graphics and visualizations–in reality the boundary between light and dark is diffuse due to scattering of light by Earth’s atmosphere.

This zone of diffuse lighting is experienced as dusk or twilight on the ground–while the sun is no longer visible, some illumination is still present due to light scattering over the local horizon. The terminator is visible in this photograph trending across the image from lower left to upper right. This panoramic view across central South America, looking towards the northeast, was acquired at approximately 7:37 p.m. local time. Layers of Earth’s atmosphere, colored bright white to deep blue, are visible extending across the horizon. The highest cloud tops have a reddish glow from the direct light of the setting sun while lower clouds are in twilight. The Salar de Coipasa, a large salt lake in Bolivia, is dimly visible on the night side of the terminator. The salar provides a geographic reference point that allows the location and viewing orientation of the image to be determined.

The Allen Telescope Array in the Cascade Mountain in northern California is shown, in this August 18, 2006 publicity photo released to Reuters April 28, 2011. Credit: REUTERS/Seth Shostak/SETI Institute Handout

Remember the saying “the hurrier I go the behinder I get” by Lewis Carroll?

That’s what the SETI folks must be thinking. Kepler data yielded many targets which would be obvious targets for their methods of detecting intelligent life, namely listening.

Not so fast.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The search for intelligent life in the universe, at least beyond planet Earth, has been dealt a major blow by government budget constraints.

The world’s only radio telescope array specially designed to eavesdrop on potential signals from distant worlds was shut down earlier this month after money ran out, said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer for the group that runs the northern California facility.

Read the rest of this story by Steve Gorman and Alex Dobuzinskis at Reuters.

National Geographic is airing the season premiere of Known Universe starting tonight at 9pm ET/PT. Astronaut Mike Massimino will be showing us what it is like to live in space. Including going to the bathroom.

Nat Geo always puts on quality programming, here’s an overview of the eight show series:

Will mankind be able to conquer space travel? Technological advancements could make it possible, but man’s own body may be what’s holding us back. Now, Known Universe examines humans’ space endurance. We’ll experience six G’s in a centrifuge to demonstrate extreme gravitational effects. Study gravity’s effects on seemingly simple human activities in space, from sleeping to sex, and eating to digestion. See how the vacuum of space and its near-zero pressure can kill us within minutes, if not seconds. We’ll look at the ever-present dangers of solar radiation and how this invisible threat may be our biggest obstacle to extended human missions to the planets and beyond.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Take a few minutes and listen to Jeff Greason (XCOR Aerospace) give his excellent presentation entitled: Rocket Scientist: Making Space Pay and Having Fun Doing It.

Source

“Intermittent sun exposure and sunburn are strong predictors of cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM). On the other hand, melanomas may arise also in non-sun-exposed areas such as the vulva. However, little is known about a possible relationship between sun exposure and vulvar melanoma. Temporal and latitudinal dependencies of the incidence rates of vulvar melanoma were studied in comparison with those of CMM among Caucasians in Sweden, East Germany, USA and Victoria (Australia). The ratios of vulvar melanoma incidence rates to those of CMM tend to decrease with increasing CMM rates. The incidence rates of CMM have increased with time until recently, while those of vulvar melanoma have either decreased or remain constant. In USA vulvar melanoma incidence rates seem to increase from south to north, while for CMM incidence rates on sun exposed skin areas decrease from south to north. Comparison of latitudinal trends of the incidence rates of vulvar melanomas and CMM show opposite trends. Whenever CMM rates increase, either with time or with decreasing latitude (indicating increased sun exposure) the ratio of vulvar melanoma rates to CMM rates on exposed skin, seem to decrease. Thus, latitudinal trends seem to ...

In the mid-90s in the wake of The End of History and the Last Man Francis Fukuyama wrote Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity. Trust to some extent has a chicken & egg problem. High trust societies can overcome coordination problems which block social and economic development. A high level of social trust often results in positive spillover effects, which generate economic growth and broad based prosperity, which then boosts the levels of trust even further. In 2008-2009 I suggested that the biggest long term impact of the late great “financial crisis” is that many Americans no longer believe that doing well is an outcome of doing good. More accurately perhaps in many corrupt societies the presumption is that the path to wealth is itself a venal journey where all moral principles must be devoured by the will to power.

As a practical matter I understand and accepted the need to dampen the shocks of the impending financial doom in the wake of the 2008 crisis. But my attitude toward American capital has changed irrevocably. I know others who have experienced the same emotional flip. ...

The pith: there are differences between populations on genes which result in “novelty seeking.” These differences can be traced to migration out of Africa, and can’t be explained as an artifact of random genetic drift.

I’m not going to lie, when I first saw the headline “Out of Africa migration selected novelty-seeking genes”, I was a little worried. My immediate assumption was that a new paper on correlations between dopamine receptor genes, behavior genetics, and geographical variation had some out. I was right! But my worry was motivated by the fact that this would just be another in a long line of research which pushed the same result without adding anything new to the body of evidence. Let me be clear: there are decades of very robust evidence that much of the variation in human behavior we see around us is heritable. That the variation in our psychological dispositions, from intelligence to schizophrenia, is substantially explained by who our biological parents are. This is clear when you look at adoption studies which show a strong concordance between biological parents and biological children on many metrics as adults, as opposed ...

1) First, a post from the past: 10 questions for Judith Rich Harris.

2) Weird search query of the week (#5 keyword!): “dutch best language”

3) Comment of the week, in response to “One root for rice”:

Timely paper! Rice agriculture must have been brought to India by the Austro-Asiatics. But the the EDAR genes that the Austro-Asiatics also brought with them do not seem to have been selected in India unlike in East Asia. The Munda only have 5% East Asian EDAR while having 15 to 30% East Asian ancestry.

Why did the East Asian variant lose its selective advantage in India? The reason must be that EDAR selection in East Asia was by sexual selection. Darwin proposed this to be the reason for non-adaptive differences between the races. Sexual selection, especially for cosmetic factors, is mostly a matter of female choice – while men may prefer blondes they will readily settle for brunettes but women hold out for Mr. Right. The Austro-Asiatics spread in India by their men marrying local women. These women did not care one way or the other for the thick straight hair of the Austro-Asiatic men ...

The weave of the new translucent fabric traps sound, while letting light—and in this photo from the Swiss lab, a view of neighboring houses—through.

What’s the News: Noisy rooms are no fun, but neither are those smothered in heavy sound-canceling drapes. The solution? A translucent curtain that quenches sound by behaving like foam, developed by Swiss materials scientists and a textile designer.

How the Heck:

To get a grip on what kind of curtain would block sound but not light, the research team at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Research built a computer model of the acoustic qualities of fabric. This model helped pinpoint the exact properties—for example, the fabric’s density and the shape of the microscopic holes that pepper it—that the new textile would require. They then passed their findings off to the designer, Annette Douglas, to turn into reality.

The curtains were tested in a seminar room
built specifically for measuring acoustics.

Douglas—who has been ...

As you might expect, I am not a big fan of ghost hunting shows. Stopping every ten seconds and dramatically whispering "Did you hear that?" is not exactly the best way to run a scientific investigation.

So I’m pleased to see satires and such of those programs, and I think the web comic Dork Tower does it pretty well here.

Man, there’ve been a lot of good sciencey skeptical web comics lately. Keep ‘em coming, folks. It’s one of the best ways to spread the word.

Related posts:

- Ghostly reflections
- Ghost hunting results in death
- When is a man like a horse?
- TAPped out

The podcast 365 Days of Astronomy is a great show about space and astronomy. It was created as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, and was renewed for 2010 and again 2011.

The cool thing is, the podcast is created by you, the listener! Every daily episode is written and recorded by volunteers who want to talk about some aspect of the Universe that excited them. I think this is a great idea, since it really motivates people and gets them involved.

The problem is, though, they need more episodes! Right now, for example, the schedule for May 2011 is only half full.

Do you have some idea about astronomy you’re dying to talk about? Galaxies get you going, supernovae blow you away, you bought a new ‘scope and have advice for another newbie? If you have a topic you’d like to discuss, then check the podcast calendar, look for an open slot, and get to work!

To mark the publication of A Planet of Viruses, the University of Chicago Press asked me to participate in a weekly series of conversations with experts on some of the themes I explore in the book. They’ll be coming out each Friday in May. First up is an exchange between me and Ian Lipkin, a virus hunter at Columbia University and the subject of this 2010 profile I wrote for the New York Times. As if waving a piece of red meat before me, Lipkin wonders if viruses can alter our behavior. I then take the bait. Check it out.

What’s the News: The world’s population is projected to reach 7 billion this October and continue climbing, reaching 10.1 billion by the end of the 21st century, says an official United Nations report (PDF) released earlier this week. This is a significant departure from earlier projections that said the population would peak at just over 9 billion, then level off and even slightly decline.

How the Heck:

Projecting the world population is based on looking at fertility and mortality rates, and how they may be affected by government policies, available services, and behavior. Starting with a few possible fertility and mortality trajectories, researchers in the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs work out what those would mean for overall population.
These projections differ from earlier ones because fertility rates in many developing countries—particularly in Africa—aren’t declining as quickly as demographers had thought they would. Nigeria, for instance, is currently the most populous country in ...

What’s the News: The foundation of modern electronics, silicon transistors are miniature on/off switches that regulate electric current. This week, Intel demonstrated a new transistor design that’s being hailed by Intel as one of the most radical developments in transistors since the advent of integrated circuits of the 1950s. By adding tiny, vertical fins to normally flat transistors, Intel’s new Tri-Gate transistor allows for faster, smaller, and lower-voltage computer chips. “We’ve been talking about these 3-D circuits for more than 10 years, but no one has had the confidence to move them into manufacturing,” chip-manufacturing specialist Dan Hutcheson told The Wall Street Journal.

How the Heck:

Engineers added a fin-shaped structure to the part of the transistor that acts as a conducting channel for electrons; with the extra depth, more current flows through the transistor.
They also designed the gate, or the component that turns the current flow on and off, so that it surrounds the fin on all three sides, more effectively stanching current ...

This is a guest post by Jamie L. Vernon, Ph.D., an HIV research scientist and aspiring policy wonk, who recently moved to D.C. to get a taste of the action

Climate change skeptics, 9/11 truthers and “birthers,” those who deny President Obama’s American citizenship, have provided us with an extensive record of denialism within American culture that is worth studying. Indeed, entire disciplines have been established to understand and explain these behaviors. Chris Mooney and others have begun to put the pieces together in a way that allows us to formulate communications protocols that effectively counteract the drivers of “motivated reasoning.” However, because the above mentioned examples of motivated cognition arose simultaneously with this field of study, we have lacked the benefit of observing the transmogrification of the denialist mentality as it happens.

We are currently witnessing the de novo formulation of a new denialism in regards to the death of Osama bin Laden. As I was listening to C-SPAN radio, just yesterday, two callers a Democrat and a Republican agreed that bin Laden was not dead and the entire hullabaloo was orchestrated for political gain. Because we are now armed with at least a superficial understanding of the mechanisms behind this type of thinking, we can ask questions and test hypotheses while observing the development of this particular case of motivated thought.

For simplicity’s sake, I’ll call them “deathers.” Of particular interest when studying the deathers is what exactly are the competing interests between which they must make a satisfactory choice and what are the ends or goals to which they strive. One would expect that there are at least two competing interests in the minds of the deathers. The first could be a desire to believe that an existing threat, that of a terrorist mastermind, has been eliminated. The second interest appears to be a desire to find fault with President Obama, regardless of the benefits that might come from his service. According to Dan Kahan, one of the thought leaders in this field, this all happens subconsciously. Therefore, the deather must undergo a series of mental operations that lead him to choose the latter in order to satisfy a desired endpoint.

We can only speculate what that desired outcome might be. One example could be the need to be a loyal Republican to the extent that this requires questioning any good outcome produced by a Democratic President. A more sinister scenario might be that the individual harbors conscious or subconscious racist sentiments that motivate him to reject any semblance of excellence from a black President. An issue that complicates the matter is that individuals will have personal motivations to justify their denialism. In any case, the deather unknowingly processes the information provided to him in a way that supports his desired outcome. Clearly, the President’s speech will not satisfy the deather. In-depth interviews by others in the administration describing the details of the operation are also insufficient. Even the presentation of a photograph will be explained away as a forgery. In other words, the source of the conflict (in this case the Obama administration) can do little or nothing to overcome the internal processes that cause the deather’s brain to reject the facts.

So, how do we convince the deathers that Osama bin Laden is actually dead? I will venture to suggest that we must resolve the conflict between the deather’s two competing interests, the desire for the removal of a threat vs. finding fault with Obama, while allowing the deather to achieve his desired outcome (let’s say that he can still be a loyal Republican). This must be done without forcing him to accept that which causes him conflict (in this case that President Obama was responsible for a positive outcome).

If you’ll notice what’s happening in the media and on Capitol Hill, the attempts to credit President Bush with this mission are currently serving this purpose. By crediting President Bush with the intelligence information that led to bin Laden’s death, the deather can accept that bin Laden is dead without acknowledging the contribution from President Obama. Because I believe the deather movement is largely motivated by political partisanship, I predict that the more credit that is given to President Bush, the less we will hear from the deathers. If my prediction holds water, then similar approaches might be implemented with climate change skeptics and other denialist movements.

Consider this: Upon the accumulation of a preponderance of evidence in support of evolution, the Catholic Church re-evaluated its position on evolution to accept the mechanism while attributing it to the hand of God.

Thoughts?

Jamie Vernon is a CRTA Research Fellow at the National Cancer Institute and a former Science Policy Fellow at Scientists and Engineers for America

I’ve been posting amazing astronomical night sky time lapse videos, but how about one that shows a time lapse about astronomy?

Check out this video from cinematographer Patryk Kizny showing amateur astronomers preparing for the annual Astropolis Star Party in Jodlow, Poland in 2010:

If you’ve ever attended a star party you’ll know that it really does look like this (lots of extremely rapid, frantic movement while there’s still light, and then, suddenly, astronomy). Patryk did some special effects with the actual deep-sky images, adding the 3D star fields, but the shots of the sky movement at the end are pretty much as-is, and quite nice.

If Patryk’s name is familiar, he did the amazing video called The Chapel, showing an eerily beautiful decayed Protestant chapel in Poland. He used HDR (high dynamic range) techniques which gave that video an astonishing, mystical feel to it. It went viral quickly; I remember seeing it when it came out and it really is worth seeing the whole thing.

Having seen so many of these videos now, it’s clear that the music complements these videos tremendously. The visuals are moody and draw you in, but the ...

1

I’ve mentioned Elaine Ecklund’s research before on ‘spiritual atheists.’ Though I had a hard time understanding the thrust of her conclusions or inferences on occasion I could grapple with her raw quantitative results. But now she has a long paper out in Sociology of Religion, Scientists and Spirituality, which is based on long qualitative interviews. It is open access so you should be able to read the whole thing. Honestly I have a hard time figuring out if this is all a big semantic confusion. I’m curious if you can extract something interesting. Here’s the abstract:

We ask how scientists understand spirituality and its relation to religion and to science. Analyses are based on in-depth interviews with 275 natural and social scientists at 21 top U.S. research universities who were part of the Religion among Academic Scientists survey. We find that this subset of scientists have several distinct conceptual or categorical strategies for framing the connection spirituality has with science. Such distinct framings are instantiated in spiritual beliefs more congruent with science than religion, as manifested in the possibility of “spiritual atheism,” those who see themselves as spiritual yet do not believe in God or a god. Scientists stress ...

Do the neoclassical canons still describe the beauty of faces? An anthropometric study on 50 Caucasian models.

“Since a long time has gone from their definitions, the authors’ aim was to determine whether or not the neoclassical canons are still valid to describe the facial beauty in Italian women. The photographs of 50 italian models selected for an important beauty contest were obtained. All the pictures were taken by a professional photographer with a professional digital reflex camera with a millimeter-graduated scale white background. All the pictures were printed in 1:1 dimensions. Eleven neoclassical canons were measured and the results statistically evaluated. The results of the present study showed that the medium face third is reduced when compared to the upper and the lower thirds and that the two upper quarters of the face are decreased if compared to the two lower quarters (p<0.01). The nose height was smaller than ear height and the nose width smaller than 1/4 of facial width. In 72% of cases the ear axis was steeper than the nose. The intercanthal width in this study resulted smaller than nose width and smaller than eye width (p<0.05). ...

A monkey frog

The Pith: The Amazon Rainforest has a lot of species because it’s been around for a very long time.

I really don’t know much about ecology, alas. So my understanding of evolution framed in its proper ecological context is a touch on the coarse side. When I say I don’t know much about ecology, I mean that I lack a thick network of descriptive detail. So that means that I have some rather simple models in my head, which upon closer inspection turn out to be false in many specific instances. That’s what you get for relying on theory. Today I ran into a paper which presented me with some mildly surprising results.

The question: why is the Amazon Rainforest characterized by such a diversity of species? If you’d asked me that question 1 hour ago I would have said that it was a matter of physics. That is, the physical parameters of a high but consistent rainfall and temperature regime. This means the basic energetic inputs into the biome is high, and its consistency allows the organisms to plan their life schedule efficiently, maximizing the inputs. All ...