I’m guest hosting Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour on Thursday! | Bad Astronomy

Posted on by

Hey, who has two thumbs and is hosting Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour on Thursday?

Well, usually the answer would be Kiki Sanford, the host. Assuming she has two thumbs. I’ve never really paid that close of attention, honestly. But Thursday the answer will be: me! Kiki hatched a youngling, and so she’s off on maternity leave. She asked a few people to sub for her, one of them being me.

Mwuhahaha!

Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour is a live streaming video science talk show, and my shot at stardom will be at 4:00 p.m. Pacific time (23:00 GMT) on Thursday (tomorrow) March 17.

I’ll also have a very special guest on the show! It’s a secret, but here’s a hint: his name is ZACH WEINER!

The show can be watched LIVE at TWIT TV. There’s also a chat room there, so you can log in and ask questions, or you can ask via Twitter, but to be honest it’ll be hard to check the tweets during the show itself.

If you want to see what the show is like, I was guest a while back and the video is embedded there.

This will be a ...


Engineers Can Now Wirelessly Hack Your Car | 80beats

Posted on by

It wasn’t too surprising when scientists first hacked into a car using its own onboard diagnostic port—sure, it’s easy to get into a car’s electronic brain if you’re already inside the car. Now the science of car-hacking has received a digital upgrade: Researchers have have gained access to modern, electronics-riddled cars from the outside. And in so doing, they’ve managed to take control of a car’s door locks, dashboard displays, and even its brakes.

The oddest part of these findings, which were presented this week to the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Electronic Vehicle Controls and Unintended Acceleration, is that they weren’t entirely intentional: It was all part of an investigation prompted by the Toyota acceleration problems, and was meant to probe the safety of electronic automotive systems. But testing those system’s safety also uncovered some flaws.

How It Works

The researchers took a 2009 sedan (they declined to identify the make and embarrass the manufacturer) and methodically tried to hack into it using every trick they could think of. They discovered a couple good ones.

By adding extra code to a digital music file, they were able to turn a ...


No, YouTube’s Fake-Boob-Biting Snake Didn’t Die of Silicone Poisoning | Discoblog

Posted on by

If the snake in YouTube’s latest viral video could talk (and were still alive), it’d probably take a line from Mark Twain: “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” After it bit Israeli model Orit Fox’s fake breast during a photoshoot in Tel Aviv, it apparently died of silicone poisoning—which is a ridiculous rumor at best, though you can be the judge of that:

The snake did die, but it doesn’t take a snake biologist to explain that it probably wasn’t from silicone poisoning. I went ahead and talked to a snake biologist—University of Sydney scientist Rick Shine—anyway, who wrote in an email: “I’m skeptical—it’s hard to believe that it could have ingested any significant amount of silicone from the bite shown in the video clip.” And even if the snake did get a mouthful of silicone, there isn’t any evidence that medical-grade silicone can poison a snake, he added. (Though he did point out—with a laugh—that some snakes do eat mammals, and this one went straight for mammaries…)

With no official snake autopsy (shucks), we don’t know the true cause of death, but Universidad Central de Venezuela snake biologist Jesus Rivas thinks that it’s probably what ...


World’s First Instant Universal Eyeglasses To Help Children in the Developing World | The Intersection

Posted on by

Over 100 million children in the developing world need–but lack access to–vision correction. Today Dow Corning and the Centre for Vision in the Developing World announced that they have teamed up to do something about it. Through the use of silicones, a new initiative called Child ViSion will provide 100 million self-adjustable eyeglasses to children by 2020, which reportedly correct nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, and age-related difficulty focusing:

The Child ViSion initiative will design, manufacture and distribute a child-specific version of self-adjustable eyeglasses to children in the developing world. The aim is to increase the effectiveness of classroom-based education by improving children’s ability to see the blackboard from which they are being taught.

Read more about this terrific program here.


Diluting nuclear homeopathy | Bad Astronomy

Posted on by

The disaster is still unfolding in Japan. The earthquake, the flood, the cyclical escalating and abating of the radioactive threat from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant… it seems that everyone wants to help, but many are unsure how (I have a list of charities to which you can donate if you want to help financially). But one thing I can be pretty sure of is that not all advice is as good as others, and some is downright dangerous.

My friend, the Australian skeptic Richard Saunders, sent me a note letting me know that if I am worried about radiation poisoning or radiation induced cancers, homeopathy has me covered. The group Homeopathy Plus in Australia has sent out a note telling people they can use homeopathic "remedies" to alleviate radiation sickness, including such things as strontium-carbonicum, phosphorus, and, bizarrely, X-rays.

X-rays? Seriously? Since X-rays are a form of light, it seems weird, even for homeopathy, to claim they can make a diluted solution based on them. If you expose water to X-rays, the molecules of H2O will shatter, but then recombine, leaving… water. Of course, that’s ...


Moral Realism | Cosmic Variance

Posted on by

Richard Carrier (author of Sense and Goodness Without God) has a longish blog post up about moral ontology, well worth reading if you’re into that sort of thing. (Via Russell Blackford.) Carrier is a secular materialist, but a moral realist: he thinks there are such things as “moral facts” that are “true independent of your opinion or culture.”

Carrier goes to great lengths to explain that these moral facts are not simply “out there” in the same sense that the laws of physics arguably are, but rather that they express relationships between the desires of particular humans and external reality. (The useful analogy is: “bears are scary” is a true fact if you are talking about you or me, but not if you are talking about Superman.)

I don’t buy it. Not to be tiresome, but I have to keep insisting that you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip. You can’t use logic to derive moral commandments solely from facts about the world, even if those facts include human desires. Of course, you can derive moral commandments if you sneak in some moral premise; all I’m trying to say here is that we should be upfront about what those moral premises are, and not try to hide them underneath a pile of unobjectionable-sounding statements.

As a warm-up, here is an example of logic in action:

  • All men are mortal.
  • Socrates is a man.
  • Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

The first two statements are the premises, the last one is the conclusion. (Obviously there are logical forms other than syllogisms, but this is a good paradigmatic example.) Notice the crucial feature: all of the important terms in the conclusion (“Socrates,” “mortal”) actually appeared somewhere in the premises. That’s why you can’t derive “ought” from “is” — you can’t reach a conclusion containing the word “ought” if that word (or something equivalent) doesn’t appear in your premises.

This doesn’t stop people from trying. Carrier uses the following example (slightly, but not unfairly, paraphrased):

  • Your car is running low on oil.
  • If your car runs out of oil, the engine will seize up.
  • You don’t want your car’s engine to seize up.
  • Therefore, you ought to change the oil in your car.

At the level of everyday practical reasoning, there’s nothing wrong with this. But if we’re trying to set up a careful foundation for moral philosophy, we should be honest and admit that the logic here is obviously incomplete. There is a missing premise, which should be spelled out explicitly:

  • We ought to do that which would bring about what we want.

Crucially, this is a different kind of premise than the other three in this argument; they are facts about the world that could in principle be tested experimentally, while this new one is not.

Someone might suggest that this is isn’t a premise at all, it’s simply the definition of “ought.” The problem there is that it isn’t true. You can’t claim that Wilt Chamberlain was the greatest basketball player of all time, and then defend your claim by defining “greatest basketball player of all time” to be Wilt Chamberlain. When it comes to changing your oil, you might get away with defining “ought” in this way, but when it comes to more contentious issues of moral obligation, you’re going to have to do better.

Alternatively, you’re free to say that this premise is just so obviously true that no reasonable person could possibly disagree. Perhaps so, and that’s an argument we could have. But it’s still a premise. And again, when we get to issues more contentious than keeping your engine going, it will be necessary to make those premises explicit if we want to have a productive conversation. Once our premises start distinguishing between the well-being of individuals and the well-being of groups, you will inevitably find that they begin to seem a bit less self-evident.

Observe the world all you like; you won’t get morality off the ground until you settle on some independent moral assumptions. (And don’t tell me that “science makes assumptions, too” — that’s obviously correct, but the point here is that morality requires assumptions in addition to the assumptions we need to get science off the ground.) We can have a productive conversation about what those assumptions should be once we all admit that they exist.


Astro Noms | Bad Astronomy

Posted on by

Steve DeGroof over at MadArtLabs (who brought us Felicia Day as a counterexample to homeopathy) has knocked another one out of the park: Astronom Os!

My love for geeky breakfast cereal is a matter of record, so it’s no surprise that I would totally eat Astronom Os. And I would do the connect-the-dots game on the back too; the Big Dipper would be helpful in pouring the milk.

I would also be happy to help market these. As for a slogan, that’s easy: "Astonom Os: breakfast of the stars!"

Or, "Contains elements forged in the fires of a supernova!"

Or, "Get your RDA of the most stable nuclide!"

Or, "Not Taurus, Torus!"

Or, "Retains low ductility for statistically significant durations even when submersed in lactic liquids!"

That last one will sell 106s of boxes.


Rethinking Engineering Culture :: Data, Openness, Social

Posted on by
This post is cross posted from jonverve.posterous.com. Leave a comment here or on the original post.

Much of the work we do at NASA is truly world-class and routinely we push the capabilities of science and engineering by leading the way. Lately, I’ve thought a lot about how we can push the envelope of our engineering work to improve how we build spacecraft at NASA Goddard, where I work.

But I find that often we are like the mad scientist who invents new technology that is going to change our lives, but can’t seem to find his wallet. It seems that we often cannot do some very practical, day-to-day activities to keep our “capability engine” well tuned, poised, and ready to strike at solving the next big problem.

I think there are tremendous opportunities for us at Goddard and more broadly across NASA to improve our process of the way we do engineering and to introduce some new tools that will substantially allow us to stop re-inventing the wheel and focus more on solving the titan challenges we face everyday.

There are three areas which I believe can tremendously help. They are the title of this article. I will dive into each of them below.

1) respect for data

42-18136065

I find that we are kings of silos. We have a separate, monolithic IT system for everything we do. This is not a unique approach — both industry and government weigh the options for tools to do our work, and often come to very different conclusions, depending on the schedule, manpower, and budget factors at play. But where I feel we fall short is that we do not think of our systems from a truely life-cycle perspective. What I mean is that we look at solving the engineering problem, but do not look at the larger implications of how we can keep our “capability engine” well tuned. We seem to see the data and information we work in on a daily basis no differently than a disposable ketchup wrapper — we feel it is simply for our pragmatic use to accomplish the engineering task for the day, but we forget that it has value in the knowledge in the larger organization. What if we were to actually treat the data and information more like an heirloom which we treated with care and made sure to give it a good home which others could benefit from down the road? I think this could have tremendous implications. I know this description is quite vague and is not any call for a particular way of doing things, but I do not believe I know enough to specify a call. I simply believe that that if we respected our data and information, and ultimately knowledge, that we would have a more long-term and wholistic view of the data and information we product as an effect of our day-to-day work as engineers, instead of treating it like dust under our feet.

2) culture of openness

“It’s very political” is a phrase I hear quite often at Goddard to describe when some process has slowed down to make its progress indiscernible. Unfortunately, I believe some get so caught up in the unavoidable politics, that they use that as an excuse to clamp down on advertising the good work they are doing. Perhaps they fear getting their funding taken away, or perhaps they feel they make be “discovered” by headquarters, or perhaps what they are doing may become institutionalized, potentially killing it. Whatever the reason, I believe some people have learned that the best way to operate is “under the radar.” What I believe this causes is a side-effect of paranoia, which gets in the way of our innocent nature of simply sharing by default. Certainly on a one or two person basis, most engineers at Goddard will give you a full run down of a situation. But in front of a group, their story slowly changes. I believe this politics is not unique to the government, but exists in any organization which comprises over 5 people. And I do not think we should try to eliminate it, its innate to the way any organization makes decisions when it has to weigh many factors.

But, I believe there is great potential to share information as I have laid out in the “Respect for Data” section previously. But if people have learned to fight their innate nature for openness, I believe that potential will never be realized. I think the solution is to short circuit the politics by incentivizing openness for our engineers at Goddard. How do we make openness so attractive that the alternative is outweighed 3-to-1? I do not have an answer, but I have a feeling that this process comes slowly with small wins.

3) social software

Humannetwork

The web has evolved tremendously in the last few years, more than anyone could have predicted — even those who followed the tremendous steps forward of the early web. What the web allows is a democratization of information, whether it be personal or business. Facebook, twitter, and other sites have raised the level at which we interact with each other on the web. I say “with each other” instead of “with a computer” because the fundamental shift in the last decade on the web is that it does not just enhance an old activity, it transforms the old mechanistic activity to a deeper personal connection with others. What this allows is a interaction with others that mirrors more the “in-person” interaction than previously possible. So instead of just sharing words over email, I can tie into imagery, and a fully threaded conversation with identity which now allows me to track the progress of a discussion or look back at pictures of friends from many years ago, as it is all now cataloged on the web. And of course these are very simple examples of very rich interactions that these technologies enable every day by thousands of organizations.

You may ask what this has to do with engineering process and work? Everything. I believe the social web has tremendous possibility to provide the incentive I mention above for openness. If you give people the mechanism to democratize an idea and level the playing field, I believe then a culture of openness can flourish, because our engineers will realize that as they give one piece of their valued engineering data, they get back many fold. Imagine for a moment, if every engineer at Goddard posted the top 5 equations, tools, or principles that guide the way they do their work. As unbelievable as this may be for ever happening, imagine if it did. Wouldn’t that be a huge resource for everyone else for insight into the way others did their work? I’m not trying to say that the complex engineering we do can be reduced down to a formula, but which I believe this type of thing would do is give everyone insight into each others’ work and jump start an openness revolution.

Now finally, imagine if we were to take the engineering processes that we perform to execute our design challenges and adapt them for the social web. Now imagine a system which at least partially self-documents in that the record of the WHY of our work and not just the WHAT is fully documented in threaded conversation. Now with some simple framework, we could start to categorize and organize this information and we would be able to start to grasp the emerging concepts of the next generation of engineering process, which does not exist in any textbook yet. (By WHY I mean, the reasoning behind a technical decision, and by WHAT I mean the technical decision itself. The WHY is often something that is very difficult to pick up from existing documentation, but is often the most important question, because that is what involves our engineering problem solving.)

what I looking for from you

I am writing these ideas down to try to get feedback from others who have one foot in engineering within the space community and the other within seeing the potential at the intersection of technology and culture. Please comment below. Forward this post to friends and colleagues you may think would be interested. My ultimate aim is to develop the “game changing” incentive for our engineers to open up about their innovative work and ideas and to consider adopting the use of a new tools which may transform the way we do our business of scientific discovery.

what am I up to?

I am an Information Architect and Software Engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. I work on engineering frameworks and am trying to develop new processes for our engineers to accomplish their work, innovate, and collaborate. You can read more information and see some of my talks here: http://opennasatools.pbworks.com/AETD-Wiki Much of the thought I have shared here is from my experience in this role.

related past openNASA posts

Shuttle Museum Bids Bloom

Posted on by

Sen. Chuck Schumer launches shuttle mission for Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, NY Daily News

"Sen. Chuck Schumer is cashing in his clout in hopes of winning a retiring space shuttle for the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum. Schumer invited NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to visit the proposed glass-enclosed site for a soon-to-be-retired shuttle at Pier 86 next to the Interpid."

Chicago museum in bid for space shuttles, UPI

"Chicago's Adler Planetarium has joined the bidding war to secure one of NASA's space shuttles for display when the fleet is retired, officials say. Planetarium officials announced plans for a dramatic lakefront glass pavilion they said would be built if the museum obtains one of the soon-to-be-retired space shuttles, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday."

Space City fears snub on shuttle, Houston Chronicle

"There's a general sense that NASA and the Smithsonian will distribute the orbiters geographically to maximize public access, with one at Kennedy Space Center, one in the middle of the country and one on the West Coast. The concern among Houston's boosters is that Ohio could take the middle-of-the-country slot from Texas. Other leading candidates are New York City and Seattle. The Greater Houston Partnership is significantly ramping up its lobbying efforts."

Will Seattle's Museum of Flight get a space shuttle?, Seattle Times

"The Seattle museum is one of more than two dozen across the country that have indicated an interest in hosting one of four retiring space shuttles after the program ends later this year. The framework for a glass wall of the museum's 15,500 Space Gallery was lifted into place Wednesday."

SRBs Put Out 144 million pounds of thrust? Don’t Think So.

Posted on by

NASA Releases First-Ever HD Footage Of SRB Recovery Ship Mission

"For the first time, NASA has released high-definition video taken during the retrieval of solid rocket booster segments from the Atlantic Ocean. The solid rocket boosters provided 144 million pounds of thrust for the final launch of space shuttle Discovery on its STS-133 mission."

Keith's 4:50 pm EST note: "144 million pounds of thrust"? I don't think so.

Keith's 10:00 pm EST update: They fixed it to read "horsepower".

Kepler Goes Into Safe Mode – Recovery Under Way

Posted on by

Kepler Mission Manager Update - Safe Mode Event March 15, 2011

"Shortly after the safe mode entry, the team analyzed the spacecraft data and determined all subsystems remained healthy. During recovery actions, the Deep Space Network was used to downlink telemetry and began recovery of files to assist in the anomaly analysis. The team has since successfully reinitiated power to the primary SIB, confirmed its health and status, and also verified the new version of the NIC firmware had loaded correctly, and passed a health and safety check. The star trackers have been powered on and the spacecraft has been commanded to standby orientation, with solar arrays aligned toward the sun and Kepler pointed to ecliptic north. Updates will be posted as the team makes progress in the recovery"

Stealth NASA CIO Hacker Event

Posted on by

NASA Forward Maker Camp

"NASA Forward Maker Camp is a participant-driven Maker Camp based on "code-a-thon" or "think tank" style events, with a heavy emphasis on tangible final products. It's our chance to do pursue projects of value to the NASA mission that would not normally be done and also to collaborate with others from around the agency who are doing interesting work in fields that we are trying to learn about. The NASA Forward Maker Camp is as good as participants make it, so be prepared to lead or participate in a project, ask interesting questions, show off what you've been working on, or generally leave your mark on the event. ... The NASA Forward Maker Camp is tentatively scheduled for April 28-29, 2011"

Keith's note: Apparently this official NASA event is happening agencywide - yet there is no mention whatsoever at NASA.gov - only on a non-NASA website at wikispaces.com. NASA's CIO/Open Government Initiative Office is behind this but no mention is made at their website.

One of the problems they are looking at sounds like something that Code L ought to be coordinating. It also sounds like lobbying material ...

"Task: Generate a "How NASA Affects Your State" Map: Background: One challenge the NASA workforce faces is communicating its impact on the country to the public and politicians. This team could research the economic drivers for each state (e.g. California and agriculture) and match them to NASA Spinoff technology (e.g. don't know, but I'll find out), eventually generating an infographic. This infographic could act as a springboard for NASA employees (and others) to start a conversation about why NASA matters to its stakeholders. The NASA Spinoff App has something similar to this idea, but it is more focused on individuals in each state."

A Non-Public NASA Technology Exhibit About Benefits To The Public

Posted on by

NASA Technology: Imagine. Innovate. Explore., NASA OCT

"On the same day that Robonaut 2, the first humanoid robot in space, emerged from his protective packaging onboard the International Space Station, its twin entertained a crowd back on Earth at the annual NASA Technology Day on Capitol Hill. Developed jointly by NASA and General Motors, Robonaut 2 (R2) is a robotic assistant that can work alongside humans--whether astronauts in space or workers in U.S. manufacturing plants. R2 also is a powerful example of the benefits of NASA partnerships and technology."

Reporters Invited to Meet Robonaut Tuesday with Members of Congress

"Journalists are invited to tour a NASA Technology exhibit on Tuesday, March 15, from 4 to 5 p.m. EDT in room HVC-201 of the Capitol Visitor Center. ... Journalists who do not have U.S. Capitol press credentials must contact the House Press Gallery at 202-225-3945. This event is not open to the public, and media access will conclude at 5 p.m."

Keith's note: An exhibit about NASA technology and its benefit to the public at the Capitol "Visitors Center" - but no one from the public can "visit" the exhibit? FAIL.

MESSENGER is Orbiting Mercury

Posted on by

MESSENGER Is In Orbit Around Mercury

"NASA's MESSENGER probe has become the first spacecraft to enter orbit about Mercury. At 9:10 p.m. EDT, engineers in the MESSENGER Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., received radiometric signals confirming nominal burn shutdown and successful insertion of the MESSENGER probe into orbit around the planet Mercury."

Keith's note: Updates on Twitter at MercuryToday

Opportunity Is Busy On Mars

Posted on by

NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Update: Study of 'Ruiz Garcia' Rock Completed (with images)

"Opportunity Status for sol 2527-2532: Opportunity completed the in-situ (contact) investigation on the surface target Ruiz Garcia at Santa Maria crater. On Sol 2520 (Feb. 25, 2011), the rover used the robotic arm (Instrument Deployment Device, or IDD) to collect a microscopic imager (MI) image mosaic of Ruiz Garcia. Then, it placed the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS) down on the target for multi-sol integration. On Sol 2531 (March 8, 2011), the rover backed away from the target and drove about 8.7 meters (29 feet) north to set up for the final wide-baseline stereo imaging, the last imaging before leaving Santa Maria crater."

Rain on Titan

Posted on by

Cassini Sees Seasonal Rains Transform Titan's Surface

"As spring continues to unfold at Saturn, April showers on the planet's largest moon, Titan, have brought methane rain to its equatorial deserts, as revealed in images captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Extensive rain from large cloud systems, spotted by Cassini's cameras in late 2010, has apparently darkened the surface of the moon. The best explanation is these areas remained wet after methane rainstorms."

Wings In Orbit – Great Book – If You Can Find It (but not online)

Posted on by

Wings In Orbit: An Inside Look at the Shuttle, Aviation Week

"Published by the Johnson Space Center and the Government Printing Office, Wings In Orbit is scheduled for an April 8 release through major book stores, including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, as well as at http://www.shopNASA.com."

The NASA Shuttle Book No One Will Ever See (Updated), December 2010, earlier post

Can you send me a PDF of the book? "It is in final editing and review. It is not copyright protected except for those parts where the authors got permissions to reproduce. It will be available on the NASA web site as a 508 compliant (html) and PDF at the same time as the book release, probably in March."

Can I get the original publication art such that I can republish this book? "We are asking and will let you know ASAP."

Keith's note: Well, it is March, 4 months later, and NASA never got back to me about the publication art. This government-developed book is (was) for sale on Amazon.com - which now says "Price: $70.00 - Temporarily out of stock." But you can buy copies from associated retailers via Amazon.com. GPO sells it too. Borders and Barnes and Noble do not seem to be offering it for sale - yet. Despite claims to me from NASA PAO that the book would be put online for download when it goes on sale (Amazon and GPO have it for sale) it is not online at NASA.gov. I have no doubt that Wayne Hale et al did a splendid job on the book. Indeed, I would like to read it online - just as NASA told me that I would be able to do - and not have to pay $70.

Orion: Trying To Get A Straight Answer

Posted on by

NASA commitment to Senate wishes questioned, Space.com/MSNBC

"Nelson had no luck getting NASA officials to pin down the date by which the agency could begin testing Orion atop the core elements of the congressionally mandated rocket. "I want to know how soon you can get testing the initial heavy-lift capability with the proposed funding levels," Nelson told Doug Cooke, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems. Cooke demurred, citing ongoing studies, but said the agency "is trying to get test flights as early as 2016," the year the law says the initial capability must be operational. Cooke also said the president's latest budget request, which increases spending for commercial crew transportation and space technology research, reflects the administration's agenda."