Readership survey soon (again) | Gene Expression

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Since I’ve moved to Discover Blogs I suspect my readership has changed a bit. I have the results of a previous survey from early in 2010, back when I was at ScienceBlogs, but haven’t posted on it in detail. I’ll try and do that in the next few days, but I also will put up a survey for this incarnation of the weblog to see if there are changes. I’ll ask the standard demographic questions (age, sex, race, income, education, etc.), but the comments are open if you are curious about something about the readership of this weblog and would like me to include a question regarding that issue. I can’t guarantee I’ll add it, but I might.


Additionally, I want to highlight that I have a personal delicious feed going. That’s where I usually get the stuff for “Daily Data Dumps.” If you want to subscribe, the RSS address for that is http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/gnxp?count=15. I also contribute to two other blogs, Gene Expression Classic and Secular Right. If you subscribe to my total feed you can get all the content of this weblog, as well all the posts for those two blogs, as well as my periodic contributions to Comment is Free at The Guardian.

Finally, some blogs which you might not know about, but perhaps should. A Replicated Typo, on the evolution of culture (with a focus on language). And I can’t recommend Genomes Unzipped enough. What blogs are you reading out of curiosity? I “circulate” my RSS feed subscriptions a fair amount outside of a core set.

Moon hoax comic | Bad Astronomy

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Darryl Cunningham, who took down homeopathy and Andrew Wakefield in comic form, has turned his attention to the Moon Hoax. His cartoon about it is very well done and worth checking out.

tallguy_moonhoax

At TAM8 I was accosted by an honest-to-Armstrong Moon Hoax believer. I was surprised, as this particular species is very close to extinction, even in the wilds of places like YouTube. Perhaps I’ll tell that tale in detail sometime, as it was interesting, but suffice to say that while I was happy to be interviewed by him at first, his persistent and accusatory sideswipes at me (and My Close Personal Friend Adam Savage™) at the meeting quickly grew tiresome, and I told him to go away. I would’ve talked to him, but it was obvious that he couldn’t take "no" for an answer — he clearly had an arsenal of things he wanted to confront me with, and I knew if I engaged him I’d never get away from him. It was a matter of return on investment; spend an hour or more debunking his claims, or go have skeptical fun with friends I only get to see once per year during the short time we’re together at TAM. Hmmmm… but too bad. It would’ve been interesting to talk to him about all this, but he made it impossible.


How Will We Spot Alien Signals if E.T. Is on a Tight Budget? | 80beats

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AlienCupcakesWe know that the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is often strapped for cash. But what if the aliens out there trying to reach us, rather than being far superior technologically and beaming signals in all directions, are actually starving scientists, too?

In a pair of papers in Astrobiology, three members of the Benford family—Gregory, an astrophysicist and sci-fi author; James, president of Microwave Sciences; and James’ son Dominic, of NASA—ponder the possibility of E.T. trying to reach us on a budget, and say that we might have to revise the way we hitherto have watched.

Aliens wishing to communicate would probably broadcast at frequencies between 1 and 10 gigahertz, where there is less astronomical background noise than in other wavebands. Most SETI projects tune in to the “cosmic water hole” waveband between 1.42 and 1.72 gigahertz. The reasoning goes that alien astronomers might expect earthly scientists to be looking there anyway as this is the frequency of radiation emitted by interstellar hydrogen and hydroxyl clouds [New Scientist].

But, the Benfords say, it would be more cost-effective from the aliens’ perspective to transmit closer to 10 GHz. Given the energy needed to continuously broadcast in all directions, the authors say that aliens probably wouldn’t do that either. Instead, it’s more likely they send short pulses, and that they do it across the plane of the galaxy toward as many stars as possible.

“This approach is more like Twitter and less like ‘War and Peace,’” said James Benford [Space.com].

The problem, then, becomes picking out a tweet from the noise in space. The best candidates, the Benfords say, would be brief flashes that shone for a few seconds and then vanished. Because those kinds of signals have been spotted before, they’re trying to get scientists to comb the records for possibilities. But, there are other possible explanations for this kind of phenomena, like flare stars and pulsars.

We don’t have to just sit and watch, either. The Benfords propose a way for humans to create the kind of signals they say aliens are likely to make, and might therefore expect. However, for astronomers focused on cost-cutting, they’re talking about an awful lot of money.

They calculated that a galactic-scale beacon, with an antenna roughly a half-mile (0.9 km) wide with a range of a little more than 1,000 light-years, could be built for $1.3 billion. It would cost $200 million annually to operate. To work economically, it would use only narrow, high-power microwave beams and 35-second bursts aimed at each target star. “Of course, if you want to send a message, first you have to find a billionaire for this,” Gregory Benford [says] [Space.com].

Related Content:
80beats: Vatican to E.T.: Hello, Brother
80beats: Upgrading from Analog TVs Is Making Earth Invisible to ETs
DISCOVER: Who’s Out There?
DISCOVER: 20 Things You Didn’t Know About… Aliens
DISCOVER: Is Anyone Out There?

Image: flickr / Tama Leaver


Look Out for Tropical Storm (?) Bonnie | The Intersection

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A depression near the Bahamas is now on the verge of being upgraded to tropical storm status, which would make it TS Bonnie. What is troubling about this one is the forecast track–possibly toward land across the slick. Fortunately, the system is not currently forecast to become a hurricane due to its surrounding conditions, but even a tropical storm is trouble for the ongoing disaster in the Gulf:

BonnieTrack

Jeff Masters has a lot more on the storm that may soon be Bonnie.

I’ve said many times already that I have a lot of fears about this hurricane season. Now, it seems the tropics are starting their firing. Let’s hope I’m not right in my concerns.


World’s Coolest Repairman: The Guy Who Services Antarctica’s ATMs | Discoblog

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atminsideResearchers at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station may face annual average temperatures of minus .4 degrees Fahrenheit and drifting snow of depths around five feet–but at least they have easy access to cash. Since around 1998, Antarctica has had an operating ATM.

The blog NeedCoffeeDotCom interviewed a Wells Fargo representative about the challenges of keeping an Antarctic ATM working. According to a vice president in the ATM banking division, David Parker, there are actually two of the machines in the remote McMurdo Station, but one serves exclusively as a back-up that can be “cannibalized” for parts in case the other fails. The machine recycles the station’s limited cash supply, since–beyond chucking dollar bills at penguins–there aren’t many things to do with cash outside the snug walls of McMurdo.

Parker says that the machines were a hard sell at first (the bank wondered “Why would we need an ATM in Antarctica?”), but researchers and workers employed by Raytheon Company have been putting the cash machine to good use for over a decade.

Station workers are trained to perform basic repairs, but Wells Fargo sends a technician every other year for complete machine tune-ups. Parker says that “mission: Antarctica ATM” requires a ten-month preparation process, and notes that the technician must wait in line to get a flight, since all flights are prioritized according to the station’s needs. Trash removal, for example, is ahead of ATM-repair.

The machines themselves are similar to Wells Fargo ATMs in more traditional locales except McMurdo researchers have one perk: no surcharge.

Related content:
Discoblog: How Antarctica’s Scientists Chill Out: With a Rugby Match on the Ice
Discoblog: To Track Penguins, Scientists Use High-Tech Satellite Images of…Droppings
DISCOVER: The Coolest Science Experiments in Antarctica (photo gallery)
DISCOVER: The Ground Zero of Climate Change

Image: flickr / TheTruthAbout…


How Japan’s Success Reinvigorated Solar Sailing—and What Comes Next | 80beats

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MoriWhen Ikaros unfurled, it unfurled like a spinning top blossoming into a pinwheel. Out in space earlier this month, the center piece of Japan’s solar sail was rotating quickly when it began to extend the arms that had been wrapped up inside. As they stretched out into a stiff X shape, like the stakes that hold a kite taut, the craft slowed to a gentler rotation (a consequence of conservation of angular momentum, like the way a figure skater’s spin slows down when she extends her arms). The JAXA scientists then could let Ikaros stretch the shining sail into a square that spanned 66 feet diagonally.

When Ikaros unfurled, it also breathed new life into a technology that has been dreamed for decades—using the the pressure of sunlight itself to cruise the solar system, and perhaps beyond.

In Brooklyn this week, solar sail enthusiasts gathered for an international symposium. Last night Osamu Mori of the Ikaros team (seen above with a mock-up) was the toast of the party, and a group of experts joined him to celebrate and look forward to a bevy of new explorations. The roster included Planetary Society current director Louis Friedman and director-to-be Bill Nye, NASA’s Les Johnson, Malcolm McDowell of the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, and Roman Kezerashvili of the host New York City College of Technology.

“I feel like they deserve a ticker-tape parade here in New York City,” Friedman said, “rather than just showing up for a scientific conference.”

So far, Mori said, Ikaros has succeeded in stretching out its sail, confirming that it is accelerating under pressure from the sun’s photons, and demonstrating its clever way of steering. Solar cells cover the surface of Ikaros’ sail, which is only microns thick, allowing the craft to create photovoltaic electricity. But the sail also carries small sets of LEDs. When the Ikaros team changes the color of particular lights, they change how much light that side of the sail absorbs, which can turn it. “It creates differential torque,” Friedman told me. “That’s very creative.”

While Ikaros prepares to cruise on a flyby of Venus in the months to come, the Planetary Society’s own project nears a launch. Friedman has long been an enthusiast of solar sailing, and the society previously built a craft that was lost during a launch accident—the price of not having hundreds of millions of dollars to launch your own rocket. But now its new LightSail-1 has passed its design review, and Friedman is angling to send the craft, which weighs just about 10 pounds, as a piggyback on a NASA launch next year.

NASA, too, is back in the game. Johnson, of the Marshall Spaceflight Center, said NASA investigated solar sails in the early 2000s, but the work mostly faded into the background. Now, with JAXA having shown that a solar sail can be achieved, NASA’s solar sail scientists are regrouping. In the hopper, Johnson said, are square sail ideas that look very much like Ikaros and LightSail-1. But NASA also has a much wilder design, a ribbon hundreds of meters long but less than one meter across. Surface area is what matters for solar sails, and different engineers will try any number of designs to find the most efficient.

Nye and the other panelists all praised this nascent solar sailing success as a open door to exploration. These missions, Johnson said, are by far the best way to make round-trips in space. “Most other missions run out of gas,” he says. But here, “as long as the sun is shining, you’ve got thrust.”

Dreamers like Friedman and Nye even imagine solar sails as the propulsion mechanism of choice to visit other stars. However, once you get too far from the sun you’d need a new way to push your vessel along: Like, maybe, ultra-powerful lasers in Earth orbit beaming a stream of photons across the expanse of space. As you might imagine, we don’t have ultra-powerful lasers in Earth orbit. Someday, though, we might. “You could be driven all over the universe by the momentum of photons,” Nye said.

We may all be long gone by the time that happens. But after so many years of yearning for this to work, Friedman finally has the chance to soak it in. “Of course,” he told DISCOVER, “I’m tremendously gratified to beat the naysayers.”

Related Content:
80beats: Today in Space: Japanese Craft Spreads a Solar Sail
80beats: Solar Sail Success: Japanese Craft Powered by the Sun’s Force
80beats: Spacecraft That Sails on Sunshine Aims for Liftoff in 2010
DISCOVER: Japan Stakes Its Claim in Space, on the Hayabusa mission


Online Shoppers Can Play Dress-Up With a Robotic Torso | Discoblog

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Add one more job to the list–along with vacuuming floors and assisting in surgeries, now robots can try on clothes for you. The company Fits.me is developing a robotic torso for online shoppers that can morph to match shoppers’ body dimensions, creating virtual fitting rooms on clothing websites.

Men can try a demo version of the product on the company’s site. After entering measurements such as neck and waste size, and selecting from three torso types, the site displays what you might look like in a particular shirt. The torso doesn’t morph in real time; instead, the site pulls from a database of pictures–2,000 body size combinations, the company reports, systematically showing users if pinstripes in small, medium, or large will make them look fat. Shirt sellers Hawes and Curtis is already testing a version of the system on their site.

As reported by the BBC, the company next hopes to develop a version of the torso for women. Maarja Kruusma a professor of biorobotics at the University of Tallinn who helped the company develop the system, told the BBC that it’s a difficult task. Women’s clothing comes in more intricate styles, and their torsos are more complicated to model, she says:

“You can’t just take a male mannequin and put breasts on it. That doesn’t work.”

Related content:
Discoblog: How to Make High Fashion From Bacterial Slime
Discoblog: Fashion Grows an Eco-Conscience: Waterless Dye Debuts at Fashion Week
Discoblog: For Guilt-Free Fur, Wear a Coat Made From an Invasive Water Rat
Discoblog: Robot Model Struts the Catwalk in Japan
Discoblog: Swine Flu Fashion? Japan Introduces Swine Flu-Proof Suit


Here We Go Again: Do More With Less

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Senate compromise may be setting up NASA for another failure, Orlando Sentinel

"The plan orders NASA to build a heavy-lift rocket and capsule capable of reaching the International Space Station by 2016. But it budgets less money for the new spacecraft - roughly $11 billion over three years, with $3 billion next year -- than what the troubled Constellation program would have received. That - plus the short deadline -- has set off alarms. Days before the compromise was announced, NASA chief Charlie Bolden and Deputy Lori Garver told its two champions -- U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Florida and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas -- that NASA could not finish the proposed new rocket before 2020, according to three sources present at the meetings. When asked about the conversation, Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin said the NASA officials were responding to lower dollar figures than what Congress ultimately approved. NASA spokesman Michael Cabbage said it "would not be appropriate to discuss private conversations between NASA and members of Congress."

Webb Team Has CR Worries

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Keith's note: Word has it that there are big worries at NASA and Northrop Grumman with regard to Webb Space Telescope. If NASA ends up operating under a Continuing Resolution - one that does not provide the increased funds that Webb requires - there is a fear that large layoffs may be in the near-term forecast. Stay tuned.

STS-135 Is Almost A Certainty

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Kosmas Successful in Fight for Additional Shuttle Mission

"Today, Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas (FL-24), during a meeting of the House Science & Technology Committee, successfully amended the House NASA Reauthorization Bill to add an additional Shuttle mission to the current manifest, minimizing the spaceflight gap by extending the life of the Shuttle program through at least June of 2011. Kosmas' action will help ease the transition for the Space Coast and slow the loss of jobs in order to protect the highly skilled workforce."

Which "Compromise" Will Prevail?

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House NASA Bill Puts Brakes on Commercial Crew Initiative, Space News

"According to the bill text, commercial crew programs would get just $50 million annually through 2015 and another $500 million over that same time period via direct government loans or loan guarantees. Although the bill fully funds the $4.2 billion sought for routine commercial cargo resupply runs to the space station starting in 2011, it reduces the president's $312 million request for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Service (COTS) program next year to just $14 million. The Senate version provided $300 million for the agency's COTS providers in 2011."

House, Senate have different ideas for NASA's future, Florida Today

"There is no additional shuttle flight, funding would be slashed for commercial rockets and NASA would be told to "restructure" the Constellation program that Obama wanted to kill. The bill diverges significantly from a measure approved by a Senate panel last week, which the White House supports. The differences threaten to delay consensus on the space agency's policy. "We are facing tough economic times that demand tough choices," said Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee."

NASA Legislation Embraced by Appropriations Committee Presents Unified Senate Position on Space

"Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Ranking Member on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, said the approval of the Commerce, Science, Justice Appropriations legislation by the Senate Appropriations Committee today presents a unified Senate position on NASA and the future of America's human spaceflight programs."

Keith's note: There may come a point where the White House says that they cannot support this "compromise". It all seems to hinge on whether the "compromise" that the White House got with the Senate prevails over the "compromise" that the House wants - one that the White House has been silent about thus far. Either way, Congress has thrown the original White House proposal back in OMB/OSTP's face in a form that more or less brings Constellation back to life (minus the name) albeit without Ares 1 or Altair. Ares V simply has a new name. And the commerical aspirations inherent in the White House plans? They are reduced (depending on which "compromise" you look at) to the point of being window dressing - if not outright irrelevant.

The fact that the White House has yielded to Congressional pressure can be seen a number of ways. You could just say that they are being pragmatic and realistic with regard to what can be realistically accomplished. But given the way in which they initially hurled the policy out with near zero pre-coordination, and then brought the President in for a quick fix when it flopped, you have to wonder if they even planned things in advance or considered the long term strategic issues that they'd need to address. And now they show little if any spine when Congress repudiates the entire package. This makes you wonder if the White House ever actually had serious interest in this policy in the first place. Indeed, this entire process has been composed of several sudden spikes of activity by the White House followed by long periods of disinterest and/or silence.

The fix is in for the time being, it would seem. But you all know that we'll all be revisiting this situation in 18-24 months when costs start to rise and an election amplifies the political rhetoric once again.

Is this any way to explore the solar system?

California Reps Support White House Space Plan

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Letter From California House Members to Rep. Bart Gordon Regarding NASA's FY 2011 Budget

"The President's NASA budget replaces an over-budget and behind-schedule Constellation Program with a sustainable architecture that will take the Agency in a new direction enabling NASA to explore more of our universe. It offers a serious plan to reduce the cost of access to the International Space Station, without exporting that responsibility to other nations. We believe this new direction is good for the country and that California's NASA centers and those across the country can help take NASA to new and exciting destinations. We hope to work with you as you move this important legislation forward."

A Missed Opportunity (Update)

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How Obama Let Down Mr. Spock

"Even some in Mr. Nelson's home state of Florida begin to doubt the senator's priorities, suspecting they have more to gain from a thriving private market in affordable space travel than from another NASA budgetary blowout that leaves nothing sustainable in its wake. NASA's tragedy is that it never recovered from the success of Apollo. But unless these dissenting voices start to be heard, two things are certain: Taxpayers will shell out a lot of money that will end up wasted when the next NASA funding crisis calls forth the next Augustine Commission. The other certainty is that the space entrepreneurs had better start scrambling for fresh capital and private customers if they want to keep their dreams alive."

Keith's note: I am sorry for linking to this article. When I orignally linked to it the entire text was available for free access. Alas, in keeping with an annoying habit, wherein the Wall Street Journal takes popular articles and denies full access after they have become popular, you can't read the whole thing at the original link. The portion that I quoted is from the part of the article that you (or I) can no longer read - unless we give them money. This is why I have stopped linking to WS Journal articles. It just annoys people when they do this. The only way to circumvent this is to use this Google search for the article by title and then click on the link that shows up - but that link only works once.

Showing NASA Some Love in the House

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Congress to NASA: "Help is on the way", Houston Chronicle

"And what's the message for Johnson Space Center? "The first message is we love you," [Rep.] Olson said. "We think about what these men and women are doing right now with all this uncertainty about their future. They're remaining focused on their mission. And my message to them is that help is on the way. The House and Senate are hard at work to ensure that we have a viable space program."

House Takes Steps to Preserve Ares Rocket and Manned Space Flight, Rep. Bishop

"It is extremely encouraging that both the House and Senate, in a bipartisan manner, have recognized the importance of maintaining solid rocket motor technologies, such as the Ares 1 rocket. The draft House version of this bill is a strong repudiation of the President's flawed proposal - stronger even than the good developments we saw last week out of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation."

Simple Positive Action from One Change

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Among all the sad environmental and climate news there is always some uplifting news of an organization or individuals that are working hard to make a difference.   People are taking action, and that matters, because everything people do for the environment helps.  You are probably aware of many groups in the U.S. and internationally, such as Friends of the Earth, World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, 350.org, and 1Sky, just to name a few.  They all have varying degrees of activity and things going on at any given time, but many of their actions involve raising awareness or civil disobedience, (which isn’t something many people are willing to do).  An organization based in Canada recently contacted us, with a different philosophy of action and empowerment. They are called One Change and they have a proven record of changing awareness into action. Below is an introduction to their organization. They are based in Canada but they do things in the United States as well.  A current campaign they are carrying out in New Jersey is  Project Porchlight.  The main website for One Change is here.  “Simple Actions Matter”.

There’s a common notion that awareness causes action, that doing what is good automatically follows from knowing what is good. But this logic doesn’t hold when people feel that their actions make no difference. Sadly, most people have come to see the critical economic and environmental challenges we face today as too big, too complex to do anything about.

But disempowerment often masks a deep longing for change. In fact, the desire to participate in solutions to global problems is nearly universal. The real issue for most people is “What can I do?” In other words, it’s not just about awareness – it’s about believing that simple actions matter.

One Change tips awareness into action by making simple first steps accessible to all people and by strengthening and connecting diverse communities – particularly those that have been ignored or excluded by mainstream environmentalism, politics and economics. Indeed, we need to empower citizens from every area of society and from across the political spectrum to tackle the twin challenges of climate change and economic disparity. One Change harnesses the power of social marketing and community-based outreach to do just that.

Through a complete social marketing initiative including door-to-door deliveries of an environmental tool, community events, retail partnerships, educational web sites, social media, media outreach activities, hands-on engagement pieces and celebrity endorsements, we’re able to spread the message of protecting the environment and saving money neighbor to neighbor. By using these creative tactics and engaging and mobilizing volunteers, community groups and leaders we’re able to create lasting positive behavior change.

To date, One Change has engaged and trained over 12,000 volunteers in over 900 communities across Canada and the United States to deliver over 3 million energy efficient light bulbs and tire gauges. You can join the network of thousands of volunteers all across North America by visiting our [...]

New Publication: Le futurisme entre l’Italie et la France

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Le futurisme entre l’Italie et la France
1909-1919

By Barbara Meazzi
Éditions de l’université de Savoie, 2010
ISBN 978-2-915797-62-6
p. 218, French

  • Introduction
  • Le futurisme italien: les manifestes et la production
  • Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
  • La fondation du futurisme
  • La caféine d’Europe
  • Le futurisme au-delà des frontières nationales
  • Marinetti et Zang Tumb Tumb
  • Milan-Florence
  • Les futuristes et la Grande Guerre?: de la guerre vécue héroïquement à la guerre poétique
  • Marinetti et la guerre
  • Avant la guerre: la parole comme arme
  • Le héros à la guerre
  • La guerre seule hygiène du monde
  • La victoire
  • Polémiques entre France et Italie
  • Le futurisme et Lacerba
  • Le cubisme et Lacerba
  • La polémique avec l’orphisme
  • Le futurisme italien et le refus de l’intertextualité
  • Labor-intus
  • Le plagiat et l’autoréférentialité
  • L’intertextualité et l’écriture romanesque futuriste
  • Vers l’ex-citation finale
  • Apollinaire et le futurisme
  • Le futurisme et la France
  • Le futurisme en son temps
  • De la manière d’accueillir le futurisme en France: Paul Dermée et le besoin d’être d’avant-garde
  • Dermée et la tentation futuriste
  • Sous le signe d’Apollinaire: L’Esprit nouveau
  • Les Documents Internationaux de l’Esprit nouveau: Dermée, Seuphor, Prampolini
  • Un détour par l’Allemagne: les souterrains du futurisme et de l’expressionnisme
  • Existe-t-il un futurisme français?
  • Bibliographie sélective

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