Recalls and litigation point to mounting problems with metal-on-metal hip implants. They tend to produce metallic ion debris from friction of the two metal-bearing surfaces, and the debris has been blamed for tissue inflammation surrounding the implant. What's the prognosis for ceramic-on-ceramic op
Doing What You Love
Many branches of engineering have traditionally proven to be solid career choices. But have you or an associate found yourself disliking a technical job enough to make the jump to a completely different profession? What put you over the edge, and what considerations did you make before leaping? Was
Plastic Chemical BPA Is Officially Toxic in Canada (Not Anywhere Else)
From Discover Magazine | rsslist:
The Canadian government today declared bisphenol A, a chemical in plastics also known as BPA, to be toxic. A scientific assessment of the impact of human and environmental exposure to bisphenol A has determined that this substance constitutes or
First Person: How I Trained to Fly in Space (Without Leaving Earth)
From SPACE.com:
This week, a private spaceship designed take passengers for joy rides in suborbital space made its first glide flight above California's Mojave Desert. The stage is set for space tourist flights as early as next year, but what will those intrepid space tourists feel
Cool Car: 1969 Chevrolet Camaro
It's been at least a decade since I've seen anybody build a car with a Lenco transmission. Those were usually relegated to race-only cars, and if somebody was daring enough to try one on the street, they'd inevitably pair it up with giant tubs and graphic-heavy pastel paints.
This 1969
Does the GLXP scorecard need a new grading curve?
The web site Evadot recently published a comprehensive “team scorecard” ranking all the current teams participating in the Google Lunar X PRIZE. The scorecard lists 22 teams and their cumulative scores based on the following metrics:
- Funding – 20 possible points – Measures how far along the teams are in their acquisition of funding based on their publicly stated estimated mission costs
- Innovation – 10 possible points – Measures how much innovation is being used across the entire project. This includes new inventions and clever reuses of existing resources and technology
- Social Savvy – 10 possible points – It’s 2010 and connecting with people will require the use of social networks and other avenues in order to gain mindshare of both influential thinkers and the “people on the street”
- Connections – 10 possible points – Measures how connected are the people involved in the team leadership to the outside help and expertise they will need to execute their mission.
- Progress – 10 possible points – Measures our perception of their progress to being able to launch.
- Feeling – 10 possible points – Measures just our gut feeling about the team. Things like that look in a leader’s eyes when they speak.
- Inspiration – 10 possible points – Measures the ability to inspire others.
- Rover/Lander Completion – 10 possible points – How complete is the actual build.
- Participatory Exploration – 10 possible points – Measures the teams involvement in involving others. People need to feel directly connected to the exploration of space in order to have a long term impact on their thinking.
It’s certainly a comprehensive examination of the teams, and Michael Doornbos deserves credit for putting it together. However, if the goal is to measure which teams are closest to winning the prize, the categories and their weighting should be reconsidered. Some comments:
1) While the scorecard weights funding more than any other category, it’s still not weighted heavily enough. Getting enough funding to carry out a mission is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the competition, given that none of the teams are independently wealthy or (with, perhaps, the exception of new team Rocket City Space Pioneers) have the backing of major corporations. You can have a great concept, an impressive social media strategy, and inspiration oozing out your virtual pores, but without money you’re never getting off the ground.
2) Similarly, hardware development should be weighted more: it’s a key differentiator between teams making serious progress towards going to the Moon versus those with flashy web sites and gorgeous illustrations, but nothing else.
3) Several of the other categories should be weighted less, or even combined or eliminated: social savvy, connections, feeling, and inspiration among them. Social media is nice to have, but beyond the requirements set forth by the competition it’s not essential. And some of the metrics are admittedly extremely subjective (see “feeling”).
4) Since progress is captured in other areas, such as funding and hardware development, having a separate progress category seems redundant.
A simplistic alternative would be to give one-third weight to funding, one-third to hardware development, and one-third distributed among the other categories. Even that, though, may underweight funding and hardware.
Commercial Spaceflight Federation is Proud Co-Sponsor of February 2011 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Florida
Washington, D.C. – Following on the success of the inaugural Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in February 2010, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation is proud to again co-sponsor the 2011 sequel conference, which will occur February 28 – March 2, 2011 in Orlando, Florida.
This second annual Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) will allow scientists, engineers, and educators to learn about the research and education capabilities of commercial suborbital spacecraft and to foster a two-way conversation between the research community and the commercial spaceflight industry. Panelists will also discuss NASA’s Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program, which will invest $75 million over the next five years to promote scientific and education uses of these new commercial suborbital vehicles. The conference website is http://nsrc.swri.org/ .
Bretton Alexander, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, added, “The commercial spaceflight sector is excited to work with government, academia, and industry to start putting payloads on next-generation suborbital vehicles. The commercial spaceflight industry shares the enthusiasm displayed by the scientific community for the great research potential of these new spacecraft. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation is proud to play a role in opening up this new frontier for scientific research and discovery.”
The Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) will include a strong leadership role by researchers and educators from the Suborbital Applications Researchers Group (SARG), a scientific advisory committee that was formed in 2009 under the aegis of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.
Dr. S. Alan Stern, Chairman of the Suborbital Applications Researchers Group and a former NASA associate administrator for science, stated, “2011 is the year when next-gen suborbital research missions will actually begin flying, NASA funding for CRuSR ramps up, and the first broad experiment proposal opportunities will appear. Come to NSRC in 2011 to learn about these and other exciting developments, to network, and to present your own ideas.”
Hosted in Orlando, Florida by Space Florida, the University of Central Florida, and the Southwest Research Institute, NSRC is the meeting for researchers and educators wanting to participate in, learn about, and contribute to the new era of commercial, reusable suborbital spaceflight.
For more information or to register for the conference, visit http://nsrc.swri.org/; abstracts for talks can also be submitted at this web site. The abstract deadline is Nov 23, 2010 and Student Contest deadline is Dec 3, 2010.
About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.
About the Suborbital Applications Researchers Group
The Suborbital Applications Researchers Group (SARG) is a coordination and advisory committee of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, composed of scientists and researchers dedicated to furthering the scientific potential of suborbital reusable launch vehicles under development by the commercial spaceflight sector. SARG seeks to increase awareness of commercial suborbital vehicles in the science, R&D, and education communities, work with policymakers to ensure that payloads can have easy access to these vehicles, and aim to generate new ideas for uses of these vehicles for science, engineering, and education missions. SARG is taking a leadership role in the February 2011 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC). For more information please contact Dr. Alan Stern at astern@boulder.swri.edu or at 303.324.5269.
NASA’s Hubble Captures First Images of Aftermath of Possible Asteroid Collision
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured the first snapshots of a suspected asteroid collision. The images show a bizarre X-shaped object at the head of a comet-like trail of material.
In January, astronomers began using Hubble to track the object for five months. They thought they had witnessed a fresh asteroid collision, but were surprised to learn the collision occurred in early 2009.
"We expected the debris field to expand dramatically, like shrapnel flying from a hand grenade," said astronomer David Jewitt of the University of California in Los Angeles, who is a leader of the Hubble observations. "But what happened was quite the opposite. We found that the object is expanding very, very slowly."
The peculiar object, dubbed P/2010 A2, was found cruising around the asteroid belt, a reservoir of millions of rocky bodies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is estimated modest-sized asteroids smash into each other about once a year. When the objects collide, they inject dust into interplanetary space. But until now, astronomers have relied on models to make predictions about the frequency of these collisions and the amount of dust produced.
Catching colliding asteroids is difficult because large impacts are rare while small ones, such as the one that produced P/2010 A2, are exceedingly faint. The two asteroids that make up P/2010 A2 were unknown before the collision because they were too faint to be noticed. The collision itself was unobservable because of the asteroids' position in relation to the sun. About 10 or 11 months later, in January 2010, the Lincoln Near-Earth Research (LINEAR) Program Sky Survey spotted the comet-like tail produced by the collision. But only Hubble discerned the X pattern, offering unequivocal evidence that something stranger than a comet outgassing had occurred.
Although the Hubble images give compelling evidence for an asteroid collision, Jewitt says he still does not have enough information to rule out other explanations for the peculiar object. In one such scenario, a small asteroid's rotation increases from solar radiation and loses mass, forming the comet-like tail.
"These observations are important because we need to know where the dust in the solar system comes from, and how much of it comes from colliding asteroids as opposed to 'outgassing' comets," Jewitt said. "We also can apply this knowledge to the dusty debris disks around other stars, because these are thought to be produced by collisions between unseen bodies in the disks. Knowing how the dust was produced will yield clues about those invisible bodies."
The Hubble images, taken from January to May 2010 with the telescope's Wide Field Camera 3, reveal a point-like object about 400 feet wide, with a long, flowing dust tail behind a never-before-seen X pattern. Particle sizes in the tail are estimated to vary from about 1/25th of an inch to an inch in diameter.
The 400-foot-wide object in the Hubble image is the remnant of a slightly larger precursor body. Astronomers think a smaller rock, perhaps 10 to 15 feet wide, slammed into the larger one. The pair probably collided at high speed, about 11,000 mph, which smashed and vaporized the small asteroid and stripped material from the larger one. Jewitt estimates that the violent encounter happened in February or March 2009 and was as powerful as the detonation of a small atomic bomb.
Sunlight radiation then swept the debris behind the remnant asteroid, forming a comet-like tail. The tail contains enough dust to make a ball 65 feet wide, most of it blown out of the bigger body by the impact-caused explosion. The science journal Nature will publish the findings in the Oct. 14 issue.
"Once again, Hubble has revealed unexpected phenomena occurring in our celestial 'back yard," said Eric Smith, Hubble Program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Though it's often Hubble's deep observations of the universe or beautiful images of glowing nebulae in our galaxy that make headlines, observations like this of objects in our own solar system remind us how much exploration we still have to do locally."
Astronomers do not have a good explanation for the X shape. The crisscrossed filaments at the head of the tail suggest that the colliding asteroids were not perfectly symmetrical. Material ejected from the impact, therefore, did not make a symmetrical pattern, a bit like the ragged splash made by throwing a rock into a lake. Larger particles in the X disperse very slowly and give this structure its longevity.
Astronomers plan to use Hubble again next year to view the object. Jewitt and his colleagues hope to see how far the dust has been swept back by the sun's radiation and how the mysterious X-shaped structure has evolved.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/news/asteroid-collision.html
Small Asteroid to Pass Within Earth-Moon System Tuesday
A small asteroid will fly past Earth early Tuesday within the Earth-moon system. The asteroid, 2010 TD54, will have its closest approach to Earth’s surface at an altitude of about 45,000 kilometers (27,960 miles) at 6:50 EDT a.m. (3:50 a.m. PDT). At that time, the asteroid will be over southeastern Asia in the vicinity of Singapore. During its flyby, Asteroid 2010 TD54 has zero probability of impacting Earth. A telescope of the NASA-sponsored Catalina Sky Survey north of Tucson, Arizona discovered 2010 TD54 on Oct. 9 at (12:55 a.m. PDT) during routine monitoring of the skies.
2010 TD54 is estimated to be about 5 to 10 meters (16 to 33 feet) wide. Due to its small size, the asteroid would require a telescope of moderate size to be viewed. A five-meter-sized near-Earth asteroid from the undiscovered population of about 30 million would be expected to pass daily within a lunar distance, and one might strike Earth's atmosphere about every 2 years on average. If an asteroid of the size of 2010 TD54 were to enter Earth’s atmosphere, it would be expected to burn up high in the atmosphere and cause no damage to Earth’s surface.
The distance used on the Near Earth Object page is always the calculated distance from the center of Earth. The distance stated for 2010 TD54 is 52,000 kilometers (32,000 miles). To get the distance it will pass from Earth’s surface you need to subtract the distance from the center to the surface (which varies over the planet), or about one Earth radii. That puts the pass distance at about 45,500 kilometers (28,000 miles) above the planet.
NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.
JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroid20101011.html
Giant Star Goes Supernova, Smothered by its Own Dust
Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered that a giant star in a remote galaxy ended its life with a dust-shrouded whimper instead of the more typical bang.
Researchers suspect that this odd event -- the first one of its kind ever viewed by astronomers – was more common early in the universe.
It also hints at what we would see if the brightest star system in our Milky Way galaxy exploded, or went supernova.
The discovery is reported in a paper published online in the Astrophysical Journal. The lead author is Christopher Kochanek, a professor of astronomy at Ohio State University, Columbus.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer20101012.html
Hubble Astronomers Uncover An Overheated Early Universe
During a period of universal warming 11 billion years ago, quasars -- the brilliant core of active galaxies -- produced fierce radiation blasts that stunted the growth of some dwarf galaxies for approximately 500 million years.
This important conclusion comes from a team of astronomers that used the new capabilities of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to probe the invisible, remote universe. The team's results will be published in the October 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
Using Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), the astronomers identified this era, from 11.7 to 11.3 billion years ago, when the ultraviolet light emitted by active galaxies stripped electrons off helium atoms. The process, known as ionization, heated the intergalactic helium from 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit to nearly 40,000 degrees. This inhibited the gas from gravitationally collapsing to form new generations of stars in some small galaxies.
Because of its greatly improved sensitivity and lower background "noise" compared to previous spectrographs in space, the COS observations were ground-breaking. The observations allowed scientists to produce more detailed measurements of the intergalactic helium than previously possible.
"These COS results yield new insight into an important phase in the history of our universe," said Hubble Program Scientist Eric Smith at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Michael Shull of the University of Colorado in Boulder and his team studied the spectrum of ultraviolet light produced by a quasar and found signs of ionized helium. This beacon, like a headlight shining through fog, travels through interspersed clouds of otherwise invisible gas and allows for a core sample of the gas clouds.
The universe went through an initial heat wave more than 13 billion years ago when energy from early massive stars ionized cold interstellar hydrogen from the big bang. This epoch is called reionization, because the hydrogen nuclei originally were in an ionized state shortly after the big bang.
The Hubble team found it would take another two billion years before the universe produced sources of ultraviolet radiation with enough energy to reionize the primordial helium that also was cooked up in the big bang. This radiation didn't come from stars, but rather from super massive black holes. The black holes furiously converted some of the gravitational energy of this mass to powerful ultraviolet radiation that blazed out of these active galaxies.
The helium's reionization occurred at a transitional time in the universe's history when galaxies collided to ignite quasars. After the helium was reionized, intergalactic gas again cooled down and dwarf galaxies could resume normal assembly.
"I imagine quite a few more dwarf galaxies may have formed if helium reionization had not taken place," Shull said.
So far, Shull and his team only have one perspective to measure the helium transition to its ionized state. However, the COS science team plans to use Hubble to look in other directions to determine if helium reionization uniformly took place across the universe.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/oct/HQ_10-243_HST_Early_Universe.html
The iPad – I’m Only Sort-Of Impressed – NetworkWorld.com
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How Writers Can Turn Their Archives into eBooks – The Atlantic
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Edit BlackBerry Images on the Go With imgLite – Appscout
Appscout | Edit BlackBerry Images on the Go With imgLite Appscout Instead of taking a picture with your BlackBerry and waiting until you get back to your computer to upload, crop, THEN share the new image, ... |
Not everything in science fiction is fiction – Pioneer Press Online
Not everything in science fiction is fiction Pioneer Press Online Therefore, uploading knowledge from the brain, as depicted in "The Matrix," or wiping out memories by tracking them with brain imaging, as was done in ... |
Kurzweil’s Transcendent Man screening and panel discussion at the ROM
I've been invited to participate in a panel discussion following the screening of Ray Kurzweil's Transcendent Man. The event will be held at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto on Friday October 15 at 9:30pm. The panel will be hosted by Madeline Ashby (science fiction writer) and I'll be joined by Greg Van Alstyne (design educator).
Hope to see you there.
You can register here.
Dean Kamen on Planet Green
Inventor Dean Kamen will soon have his own show on Planet Green called Dean of Invention. Check out the trailer for the first show in which he explores the potential for first generation "microbots" -- what looks to be a precursor to molecular-scale nanorobotics. The show is set to premiere on Friday, October 22 at 10 Eastern.
Eco Study, Science and Artwork
I’m planning to visit the rainforest and coral reefs of Central America next month 2010 for an environmental and artistic study. The plan is to investigate what is happening to one of Costa Rica’s biggest areas of coral reefs, rain forests, and talk with indigenous people about their efforts to preserve the rainforest.
Read about a similar journey discussed here. I am a self-employed artist and this trip is also for artistic reasons. Here’s your chance to support the arts too, for a good cause. It’s more important now than ever that the rainforest itself and everything in it is preserved in photos and video and artwork, because even in Costa Rica, the rainforest is succumbing to logging operations.
My artwork will be exhibited for the purpose of educating the public about the importance of the rainforests of central and South America. You can donate to this trip (or all expenses are mine) and all donations over $50 will receive a rainforest-inspired t-shirt (to be designed after the trip). Your donations will also help me purchase carbon credits to offset my travel. Please donate below. Donations help this website continue too. I have server costs and they are expensive, and the CO2 is offset by the server hosts, Greengeeks.com.
The area I’m planning to visit has changed based on cost involved. I’ll be going to the Cahuita National Park area, which is less expensive to get to, is still more in its original natural state, and you can read about it here.
What We Really Have to Do to Stop Climate Change
The way to seriously start mitigating climate change is to stop doing this:
Smoke fills the sky as residents watch burning fuel tankers along the GT road in Nowshera, located in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province early morning October 7, 2010. Gunmen in Pakistan set fire to up to 40 supply trucks for NATO troops in Afghanistan on Wednesday, police said.
We need to end the incredible environmental damage of war. Can any serious progress be made on climate change without ending our wars?
Soon there will be another UNFCCC climate conference, this year in Cancun. But despite events like Bill McKibben’s 10-10-10 “global work parties“, serious action on stopping greenhouse gas emissions remains elusive. And environmentalists have to contend not only with pushback from politicians and climate change deniers, but the U.S. military. Wars and militaries do so much environmental damage every year that an individual’s contributions to climate change pales in comparison. That makes events like 10-10-10 very anemic. It’s not individuals doing most of the greenhouse gas emissions and it’s not individuals who can stop climate change — it’s businesses and governments. Until the military’s pollution and contributions to climate change end, our efforts remain negated. Not entirely, but blaming the individual for climate change, as the video talked about here does, is nonsense. We can’t even keep up with the climate change and environmental damage the military does.
“The military is now using more and more of the high-powered and highly toxic JP-8 jet fuel for many of its vehicles. Along with emitting CO2, jet planes pump out a trail of nitrous oxide and sulfur and water particles, which, according to some toxicologists, may be three times more harmful to the atmosphere than CO2 alone.” — Barry Sanders
Remember the horrible video below? It’s based on the idea that individuals are to blame for climate change, and therefore should be the ones to solve the problem, which is exactly the wrong approach. As one writer put it in critiquing the message of the video:
The new promotional video for 10:10,. . . . has generated a fair amount of online reaction and discussion in the last day or two. It is perhaps the worst campaign video I’ve ever seen.
There is no indication that we may, in our millions, need to pressure the rich and powerful – and our elected representatives who tend to buckle to their interests – to deliver serious social and political action to avert environmental catastrophe. . . . . . It is deeply snobbish and reinforces the mistaken idea that the elite is already ‘on board’ with tackling climate change, but now ordinary people need to be similarly convinced.
Not only does it turn climate change into an individual responsibility issue, it reduces it to being simply about awareness. If only people understand the need to reduce their carbon footprint they will do so – and if they don’t then they are backward, irrational, selfish. . . . [...]