Never too late to Go GOP!!
From Eric Dondero:
An 86-year old eastern Oklahoman makes the switch to GOP. He's a WWII veteran. And last week at a campaign function in McAlester for Republican congressional candidate Dustin Rowe, he officially signed the card to switch his affiliation.
Rowe introduces Floyd Miller (2:00 minute mark) to a hearty round of applause.
Bob McDonnell comes to the defense of the Republican challenger
From the Charlottesville Examiner, "Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell says GOP stands for ‘equal opportunity for all’":
According to press reports, the reelection campaign of Democratic state Senator Janet Howell, a 20-year incumbent from Virginia’s 32nd senate district, has been appealing to anti-gay prejudices as a tactic against Republican challenger Patrick Forrest.
In an audio recording obtained by the Washington Blade, Howell campaign volunteer is heard exclaiming: “What my campaign is saying is here’s your Republican candidate. He’s a homosexual. Why would you want to vote for someone who’s a homosexual and is going to push his agenda in your schools?” (Excerpts of the recording were published in the Blade on October 14.)
Governor McDonnell interviewed by the Examiner:
“I don’t know what she’s doing but I can only say that Patrick and I -- and I think all of us in our party -- stand for equal opportunities for all people. I think you heard his message about job creation. He’s not focused on divisive social issues. He’s focused on the two things that really matter, getting people back to work and getting our spending and our government under control, and I think that’s what people care about, especially independent voters right now.”
OVERSEAS NEWS...
Muslim group calls him a "hedonist"
From Phuketwan.com:
Members of an opposition Islamic party have called on Muslim-majority Malaysia to ban next month's concert by Elton John, saying that the gay singer promotes "hedonism".
Editor's note - Curiously, there is zero coverage of this story in the American gay media, and zero coverage on so-called "libertarian" news sites. Muslims attacking gays. Must not fit the template?
Ed Coleman is seeking re-election to the Indianapolis City-County Council. This ad has run in his district for all of October, and up until Election Day. Check it out!
As you are aware, the 2012 national LP convention will be held on the first week of May in Las Vegas, Nevada. Delegations will be credentialed from each state. How big and how important do you want Region 3 to play in this? YOU DO have influence on our standing at the national convention. HOW? [...]
Time: Saturday, October 29 · 9:30am – 12:30pm Location: Heine’s World Famous Roast Beef 7040 Madison Ave. Indianapolis, IN 46227 More Info: We’re down to the last two weeks. Come out and help Ed Walk his District! We will be meeting at a supporting business, Heine’s Roast Beef at 9:30am We had a record number [...]
Matt Hisrich, Libertarian Candidate for Richmond Common Council (D-1), received the endorsement of the Richmond Pal-Item. The local newspaper stated, “[He is a] challenger whom we think possesses the talent, know-how and commitment to help move this city forward.” Hisrich previously worked for the Pal-Item, but did not recieve their endorsement when he ran for a Wayne County office in 2010. [...]
Our Video of the Day returns this week with Are We Really Less Free Today? Sheldon Richman on the State of Liberty, courtesy of Reason.tv.
Authors: A. Capetti.<br />Astronomy & Astrophysics Vol. 535 , page A28<br />Published online: 27/10/2011<br />
Keywords:
galaxies: active ; galaxies: ISM.
One of the latest views of the geysers on Enceladus. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Yes Cassini is still out in the Saturn system doing great science, recently The Cassini spacecraft did a flyby of Enceladus getting within 765 miles of the surface and returned some really nice images even if they aren’t calibrated.
Check out the rest at the Cassini website.
A radar image of 2005 YU55 back in 2010 taken by the Arecibo Radar Telescope in Puerto Rico. Image credit: NASA/Cornell/Arecibo
2005 YU55 a 1,300-foot-wide (400 meters) asteroid is set to make a close pass by Earth. The November 8th pass will be no closer than 201,700 miles (324,600 km) will be as close as any of this size since 1976 and we didn’t even know about that one. The next time one will get as close will be in 2028.
Many agencies will no doubt be tracking 2005 YU55 including NASA scientists who will be using the Deep Space Network at Goldstone California and radar observations will done by the Arecibo Planetary Radar Facility in Puerto Rico.
If you have a telescope with an aperture of six inches or more it is possible you could get a glimpse of the asteroid too. Maybe. The asteroid has a surface darker than charcoal. I will be looking if clouds don’t get in the way.
Read the press release here for much more detail.
An avalanche is captured in progress by the the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Yes, this really is an avalanche in progress and not an artist concept. The HiRISE has captured avalanches before at least since 2008. Thanks to the great resolution possible with HiRISE, the imaging team can zoom in on these areas quite nicely.
The information given with the images pegs the reddish cloud at 600 feet (200 meters) across. You can get all of the details AND a huge assortment of images sizes to suit your desktop at the HiIRISE page for this image. Natually you can get the full res versions too.
Planets Under a Red Sun
This artist’s concept illustrates a young, red dwarf star surrounded by three planets. Such stars are dimmer and smaller than yellow stars like our sun, which makes them ideal targets for astronomers wishing to take images of planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets. NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer is helping to identify young, red dwarf stars that are close to us by detecting their ultraviolet light (stars give off a lot of ultraviolet light in their youth).
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
I wonder what it would be like living under a red sun? You know, each star has its “Goldilocks Zone”, so there could potentially be a planet there on which we could survive.
I wonder…
The mystery of the 185 A.D. "guest star" has been solved at last. Click for a slightly larger version with a large version linked below. Image credit: NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/CXC/SAO
Between new observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope and WISE and previous observations by the Chandra X-ray Telescope and ESA’s XMM-Newton Observatory the mystery of the “Guest star” as it was called by the Chinese in 185 A.D. appears to have been solved.
This “guest star” isn’t to be confused with the 1054 supernova that became the Crab Nebula, this one refers to what is regarded as the oldest recorded supernova known, also called Supernova RCW86. Interestingly enough, a paper published in Nature by Y.-N. Chin and Y.-L. Huang in 1994 suggested the interpretation of the the records is not consistent with a supernova and instead suggesting the guest star was a comet. You can’t get the full text online but you can read the abstract of “Identification of the guest star of AD 185 as a comet rater than a supernova’ by looking here.
Here’s the press release with a link to larger versions of the beautiful picture above:
PASADENA, Calif. — A mystery that began nearly 2,000 years ago, when Chinese astronomers witnessed what would turn out to be an exploding star in the sky, has been solved. New infrared observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, reveal how the first supernova ever recorded occurred and how its shattered remains ultimately spread out to great distances.
The findings show that the stellar explosion took place in a hollowed-out cavity, allowing material expelled by the star to travel much faster and farther than it would have otherwise.“This supernova remnant got really big, really fast,” said Brian J. Williams, an astronomer at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Williams is lead author of a new study detailing the findings online in the Astrophysical Journal. “It’s two to three times bigger than we would expect for a supernova that was witnessed exploding nearly 2,000 years ago. Now, we’ve been able to finally pinpoint the cause.”
A new image of the supernova, known as RCW 86, is online at http://go.nasa.gov/pnv6Oy. (edit: many different sizes including suitable sizes for a desktop background, be sure to check it out!!)
In 185 A.D., Chinese astronomers noted a “guest star” that mysteriously appeared in the sky and stayed for about 8 months. By the 1960s, scientists had determined that the mysterious object was the first documented supernova. Later, they pinpointed RCW 86 as a supernova remnant located about 8,000 light-years away. But a puzzle persisted. The star’s spherical remains are larger than expected. If they could be seen in the sky today in infrared light, they’d take up more space than our full moon.
The solution arrived through new infrared observations made with Spitzer and WISE, and previous data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton Observatory.
The findings reveal that the event is a “Type Ia” supernova, created by the relatively peaceful death of a star like our sun, which then shrank into a dense star called a white dwarf. The white dwarf is thought to have later blown up in a supernova after siphoning matter, or fuel, from a nearby star.
“A white dwarf is like a smoking cinder from a burnt-out fire,” Williams said. “If you pour gasoline on it, it will explode.”
The observations also show for the first time that a white dwarf can create a cavity around it before blowing up in a Type Ia event. A cavity would explain why the remains of RCW 86 are so big. When the explosion occurred, the ejected material would have traveled unimpeded by gas and dust and spread out quickly.
Spitzer and WISE allowed the team to measure the temperature of the dust making up the RCW 86 remnant at about minus 325 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 200 degrees Celsius. They then calculated how much gas must be present within the remnant to heat the dust to those temperatures. The results point to a low-density environment for much of the life of the remnant, essentially a cavity.
Scientists initially suspected that RCW 86 was the result of a core-collapse supernova, the most powerful type of stellar blast. They had seen hints of a cavity around the remnant, and, at that time, such cavities were only associated with core-collapse supernovae. In those events, massive stars blow material away from them before they blow up, carving out holes around them.
But other evidence argued against a core-collapse supernova. X-ray data from Chandra and XMM-Newton indicated that the object consisted of high amounts of iron, a telltale sign of a Type Ia blast. Together with the infrared observations, a picture of a Type Ia explosion into a cavity emerged.
“Modern astronomers unveiled one secret of a two-millennia-old cosmic mystery only to reveal another,” said Bill Danchi, Spitzer and WISE program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Now, with multiple observatories extending our senses in space, we can fully appreciate the remarkable physics behind this star’s death throes, yet still be as in awe of the cosmos as the ancient astronomers.”
Click here to view the embedded video.
I wonder what the real “useful” power generation time will be beyond the actual scheduled mission.
We all know what’s coming next; so without further ado – let the protests begin! 
Increased copulation duration before ejaculate transfer is associated with larger spermatophores, and male genital titillators, across bushcricket taxa.
“Copulation duration varies considerably across species, but few comparative studies have examined factors that might underlie such variation. We examined the relationship between copulation duration (prior to spermatophore transfer), the complexity of titillators (sclerotized male genital contact structures), spermatophore mass and male body mass across 54 species of bushcricket. Using phylogenetic comparative analyses, we found that copulation duration was much longer in species with titillators than those without, but it was not longer in species with complex compared with simple titillators. A positive relationship was found between spermatophore size and copulation duration prior to ejaculate transfer, which supports the hypothesis that this represents a period of mate assessment. The slope of this relationship was steeper in species with simple rather than complex titillators. Although the data suggest that the presence of titillators is necessary to maintain long copulation prior to ejaculate transfer, mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear.”
Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: On how to “milk” your ostrich.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: And the grossest study award goes to…
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Semen collection in rhinoceroses by electroejaculation with a uniquely designed probe.
WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!
All that golfin’ mojo is just oozing into that club…
Houses where Shakespeare stayed. Shirts saints wore. Shoes worn by famous athletes. It’s not very hard to convince people that something—beauty, saintliness, prowess—leaks from a famous person to the objects they used. But while magic is still not scientifically valid, you can apparently get something from such relics—if you believe.
A new study reports that people who are told that the golf club they’re using belonged to a pro athlete actually putt quite a bit better than people who are just told that the club is a nice one. The researchers split forty-one college students who had golf experience and had followed the PGA tour into two groups, and told one group that their putter had been used by pro golfer Ben Curtis. Out of 10 putts, those subjects sank 1.5 more putts than the control group, on average.
How exactly this happens is an interesting question, and the researchers lay out several possibilities. They knew that people who picture themselves doing well on a task and being in control tend to do better than people who haven’t, and it’s possible that thinking of Curtis’ achievements and perhaps putting themselves in his shoes before they putted did something similar. It could also be that talking about Curtis could have “primed” the subjects to do better—priming is a psychological effect by which experiencing one stimulus can make you respond a certain way to later stimuli. (If you haven’t heard of the hot coffee/cold coffee experiments, one of the canonical—and mind-bending—examples of priming, get thee here and here). “Priming students with the term “professor” activates the concept of intelligence, thereby enhancing performance on subsequent knowledge tests,” the researchers points out. “Hence, believing that a professional used one’s putter could have implicitly activated the concept of “skill” thereby improving putting performance.”
They point out that this looks similar to the placebo effect—fake drugs, procedures, surgeries, etc. can still provoke a response in people who don’t know that they’re fake. But the mind is a complicated thing, and what connection, if any, there might be between placebos and a golf club anointed with good vibes from a pro is not clear.
Ah, you say, but what about the possibility that something really did move from Ben Curtis to his clubs? That’s easily dispensed with: The researchers were fibbing.
Image courtesy of Keith Allison / flickr
The nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant this spring may have released twice as much radiation into the atmosphere as the Japanese government estimated, a new preliminary study says. While the government estimates relied mostly on data from monitoring stations in Japan, the European research team behind the new report looked at radioactivity data from stations scattered across the globe. This wider approach factored in the large amounts of radioactivity that were carried out over the Pacific Ocean, which the official tallies didn’t.
Overall, the team says, the disaster released about 36,000 terabecquerels of cesium-137, a radioactive byproduct of nuclear fission, more than twice the 15,000 terabecquerels Japanese authorities estimated—and approximately 42% as much radioactivity as Chernobyl.
The researchers also found that the release of cesium declined sharply when workers started spraying water into the pools holding spent fuel rods at the plant—suggesting that, contrary to the official account, the spent fuel rods had been emitting radiation, and spraying them earlier might have mitigated the fallout.
Image: iStockPhoto
On November 8, an asteroid 400 meters across will pass by the Earth, missing us by the very comfortable margin of about 320,000 kilometers (200,000 miles). Named 2005 YU55, it’s been known for some time that this pass will occur, and astronomers are jumping on the chance to observe it.
First off, it’s no danger to Earth right now. It’s what’s called a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid because its orbit intersects ours, but observations have shown it won’t be a danger to Earth for at least a century, and probably much more. There’s been some scare-mongering about it over the past few months, but as usual that’s all baloney. This rock will pass us safely, sailing on into the night.
But given that this is close in astronomical terms, astronomers will be observing it carefully. There are plans to use NASA’s Deep Space Network of radio telescopes, as well as the Arecibo ‘scope in Puerto Rico (which was used to make the image above back in April 2010). They’ll be able to see features on this rock as small as two meters across, which means we’ll actually get some interesting images of it, I hope. I’ll post those as soon as I see ‘em (which will be after November 8).
It’ll only get to a magnitude of about 11 — only 1/100th as bright as the faintest star you can see with your unaided eye — so you’ll need a decent-sized (12.5 cm at least) telescope to see it. 320,000 km is 3/4 of the way to the Moon, and this asteroid is small and very dark. Observing it will be tough, but you can get more info on how to do it at the Minor Planet site and on The Minor Planet Bulletin (PDF).
When I was a kid, asteroids were not much more than mysterious points of light, but now we have the technology to see them in detail from the ground, and even send space probes to get good, close looks at them! And, of course, the technology to spread those images and information as quickly as the speed of light around the globe. Sometimes that’s used to spread misinformation, but it also can be used to show people what a cool place we live in. I prefer the latter.
Related posts:
- Armageddon delayed by at least a century… this time
- No, 2005 YU55 won’t destroy the Earth
- Asteroid 2007 TU24: No Danger to Earth
- 2007 TU24: Told ya so
