So what is tramping? It's a popular 1920s sport in which the player's testicles are launched back into his pelvis like water balloons, "just as nature intended." I think. [Modern Mechanix via Copyranter]
In our spice product there is market complaint about insects. Live insects found in packed product.
Please guide me to solve this problem.
Keith's note: President Obama will soon unveil a large, interesting educational event targeted for the summer of 2010. Titled "Summer of Innovation" this project is aimed at reaching 1 million students and working to raise their STEM skills through a variety of activities. The lead person at NASA on this effort is White House Fellow Nicole Campbell.
The cost of this project is still uncertain - numbers as high as $200 million were discussed internally at one point. Much of the work would apparently be channeled through/paid for by Americorps. The latest version of this project would entail NASA taking much of the lead along with the Department of Education. Each NASA center would be asked to dedicate one person to this activity. The most recent version of the plan would limit this activity to only 5 states. As to how the 5 states will be selected - that remains uncertain.
These uncertainties aside, it will be interesting to see how prominence for NASA in such a high visibilty event will affect the public's preception of NASA's value to the public. One would hope and expect that it would be overwhelmingly positive. Stay tuned.
2009 Highlights: NASA Finds Water on Moon, Launches Planet Search, NASA ARC
"New initiatives in 2010 will set the stage for a robust year in education and outreach. "Educate to Innovate," a federal challenge to improve education and NASA's Summer of Innovation aspire to reach one million students through enrichment programs to keep kids on track and inspire our next generation of explorers."
In 25 years, we've seen a lot of bastardizations of Tetris, from ice trays to watches, to furniture and Russian dorm Tetris. But a two-player Tetris table? That sounds tricky.
Basically, one of the players gets to choose the pieces to send down to the other player, making it exceedingly difficult to get the right pieces to fit. Suddenly Tetris got even more frustrating to play. [WalYou]
A pair of genetic sleuths from New York City’s Trinity high school discovered a bit of food foul play. Seniors Matt Cost and Brenda Tan collected DNA samples from items around their homes and school, sequenced the fragments and analyzed them with a publicly available database, and found there is little truth in advertising, according to Cosmic Log:
The real detective work came into play when [they] matched the DNA code against a couple of publicly available databases for animal species. They found out that an expensive brand of sheep’s-milk cheese was actually made from cow’s milk, that “sturgeon caviar” was actually Mississippi paddlefish, and that dog treats supposedly made from venison were actually made from beef.
The duo also analyzed DNA from a cockroach that looks like a typical American cockroach. However, Cost and Tan found that its genetic information was different from normal and they think their mystery bug may actually be a previously unidentified species.
For most people in New York City, this will not be a surprise.
Related Content:
80beats: DNA Scanner Proves That NYC Sushi Contains Endangered Bluefin Tuna
80beats: DNA Forensics Traces Sharks Killed for Their Fins
Discoblog: Small Comfort: Cockroaches, Too, Get Fat on an Unbalanced Diet
Image: Mark Stoeckle / Rockefeller Univ.
Innergie claims their new mCube Mini is the world's smallest travel charger for laptops. A very good thing, especially if you travel light. I refuse to pack more than one duffel bag no matter how long I'm away.
Specifically designed for cars and airplanes, the mCube Mini can be powered by either a 12V or a 15V outlet and can support netbooks and laptops that need up to 65W of power at 15-21V. It also has a USB port so you can charge other portable gadgets at the same time. Again, it's small—60 x 26 x 18mm to be exact, so it's fairly comparable in size to a typical cellphone. Available now for $70. [Innergie via Slashgear]
Obama set to launch vision for NASA, USA Today
"President Obama will chart a course for NASA within weeks, based on the advice of a handful of key advisers in the administration and Congress. Obama, who met Dec. 16 with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, hasn't said when or how he'll announce his new policy. The announcement likely will come by the time the president releases his fiscal 2011 budget in early February, because he must decide how much money the space agency should get."
Charles Bolden Speaks at AAS
NASA Town Hall at AAS
Keith's 23 Dec note: The audience at the AAS meeting will be composed of several thousand scientists with a large number of journalists and bloggers. The questions that the audience asks of Mr. Bolden (assuming that he takes questions) and other NASA officials should be interesting. Mars Science Lab overruns continue to drain funds from other things that SMD should be doing - with more to be announced. Webb Space Telescope overruns continue - leading to an additional drain. The inside scoop is that the NASA space science budget is flat lined in the FY 2011 budget. Also, SMD will likely be carved (back) into two entities - Earth Science and Space Science thus diminishing Ed Weiler's resources. ESMD will likely be downscoped into an exploration technology R&D group with launch vehicle development shifted to SOMD. Stay tuned.
What’s with all the tongue-eating parasites popping up these days?
At least this one is pretty. (As it should be, given that it’s the winner of the symbiosis-and-parasitism photo contest over at WetPixel.)
Somehow, I don't know how, but somehow I accidentally ended up installing the trial version of that worthless piece of shit SpyEraser. Now I can't shut it down. let alone delete it, without purchasing it first. Does anybody know how to get rid of it for good without having to threaten to bomb the pr
You may remember back in October that NASA scientists downgraded the threat of the asteroid Apophis slamming into the Earth from remote to even more remote. Thanks to refined computation of the object’s motion, astronomers changed their estimate of the chances for a 2036 collision from an already unlikely 1 in 45,000 chance to a further long shot of 1 in 250,000. Well, that wasn’t enough to ease the head of Russia’s space program, Anatoly Perminov, who today said his nation would plan an ambitious space program to spare the Earth from certain doom, and would eventually ask other world powers to join Russia on this quest.
Without mentioning NASA findings, Perminov said that he heard from a scientist that Apophis is getting closer and may hit the planet. “I don’t remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032,” Perminov said [AP]. Truly, Perminov didn’t remember exactly: Apophis makes a close but harmless pass of our planet in 2029, when it could come within 20,000 miles of Earth, and then swings by again in 2036 (the visit for which NASA downgraded the danger to the remote four-in-a-million).
Despite his chronological uncertainly, Perminov was certain something must be done. “We are talking about people’s lives,” Perminov was quoted by news agencies as telling the radio station. “Better to spend a few hundred million dollars to create a system for preventing a collision than to wait until it happens and hundreds of thousands of people are killed,” he said [AFP].
Apophis, discovered in 2004, is almost 900 feet long. NASA originally estimated the chance of a 2029 impact at 2.7 percent—that being before its scientists had the opportunity to refine their math through further observations. They also expect the minuscule probability of 2068 Apophis collision, already listed at just 1 in 330,000, to diminish as they continue to learn about the object’s trajectory.
Perminov offers no hint as to how Russia plans to deal with Apophis, except to say it would not destroy the asteriod [sic]. “No nuclear explosions (will be carried out), everything (will be done) on the basis of the laws of physics,” he says [USA Today]. Russia is beginning its project in secret, he says, but despite failing to mention NASA’s numbers on the actual threat, he expects space experts from the United States, China, and elsewhere to join in on an international operation to save the planet.
Related Content:
80beats: Will NASA’s Next Step Be an Astronaut Rendezvous with an Asteroid?
80beats: Scientists Pick Up the Pieces (Literally) of an Asteroid Spotted Last October
DISCOVER: What To Do Before the Asteroid Strikes
Bad Astronomy: Apophis Danger Downgraded
Bad Astronomy: We’re All Doomed… Oh Wait, No We’re Not
Image: UH/IA
This is a unique image of Saturn in natural color, exactly what you would have seen if you were riding the Cassini spacecraft—wearing your cowboy hat, knitted astronaut sweater, and Star Trek underpants—on November 4 2009.
The image—released last week—was created by combining three exposures using red, green, and blue spectral filters, which results in a natural view, showing the true color of saturn. Cassini was taken 808,000 miles away, and each pixel in the full resolution image represents 45 miles. [NASA—Full resolution image]
NASA Industry?Education Forum, online at Paragon Space Development Corp.
"On December 3, 2009, the NASA Office of Education hosted the NASA Industry?Education Forum at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. The purpose of the NASA Industry Education Forum was to obtain ideas on how NASA and industry can make a demonstrable impact on student achievements in STEM and their desire to pursue careers in the aerospace industry. Aerospace companies who had demonstrated success in STEM workforce development were invited. Participants presented innovative ideas to increase our collective impact on the future aerospace workforce. The forum accomplished its intent: provide a mechanism to start a dialog, identify areas for collaboration and explore next steps. ... A full report as well as well as a strategy for moving forward will be provided to participants and others upon request. ... Pictures of the opening general session can be found at the following website: "
Keith's 28 Dec note: This event was not publicly announced in advance and attendance was by invitation only. Nothing has been posted on NASA's Education website or anywhere else at NASA.gov as to what was presented, discussed, or decided at this meeting. Only this summary posted on the website of one of the participating companies has emerged. Why should anyone need to "request" this information? Shouldn't it just be posted as a normal way of doing business? Not exactly "open" or "transparent"...
Keith's 30 Dec update: I sent an email to NASA's AA for Education, Joyce Winterton asking "Why are events like this not publicly announced? Why isn't the outcome of this event posted on NASA.gov?". She replied today "Thank you for your interest in the discussions NASA recently held with industry representatives who are working in the area of STEM education. The outcome of the discussions will be on the NASA education section of the website early in January." I still do not understand why NASA does not tell the public what it is doing or why it takes a month to post such things on a website.
What to do when you "do not have friends, have no one to speak too, no one to consult, no support, and feel depressed and lonely"? Easy: First, put a bomb in your underpants. Then, board an airplane.
That's what Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab—the crotchbomber—did, and that's what he wrote about himself. He was just a sad lonely loser trying to find an online friend or a wife. Writing under the name Farouk1986, the fortunately-failed terrorist wrote 310 posts in Gawaher's Islamic Forum. His writings, adorned with sad emoticons exactly like the yellow one above, read like this:
First of all, i have no friend. Not because i do not socialise, etc but because either people do not want to get too close to me as they go partying and stuff while i dont, or they are bad people who befriend me and influence me to do bad things. Hence i am in a situation where i do not have a friend, i have no one to speak too, no one to consult, no one to support me and i feel depressed and lonely. i do not know what to do. And then i think this loneliness leads me to other problems. As i get lonely, the natural sexual drive awakens and i struggle to control it, sometimes leading to minor sinful activities like not lowering the gaze.
I'm sorry that you were such a bloody lonely loser, Faruk, but I feel no sympathy for someone who turns his sadness or loneliness into so much hate that he decides to take the live of hundreds of innocent people in an airplane. That's not a nice way to make friends. [Gawaher via Danger Room via Boing Boing]
Correction: I posted the wrong quote following Boing Boing. My apologies for not checking it first. The above is the correct quote. Needless to say, my opinion still stands: Zero sympathy for people who try to mass murder.
Cynthia Bourgeault on how mystical experiences can be spiritual traps whereas unitive seeing perceives by grasping the whole.
What does 6H IN Plug Gauge mean?
In a 32-page filing with the FCC last week, AT&T asked that the requirement that it support a landline network be repealed. It's an aggressive bid to get rid of the cumbersome wall jack and move entirely to VoIP.
An all-IP phone network may be inevitable someday, but AT&T is clearly hoping for that day to be as soon as possible. Landlines are less efficient and more expensive to maintain for the carrier, and don't add much consumer benefit either. Unfortunately, AT&T's filing doesn't account for the 20% of Americans who currently use only landline connections, and there's no way the FCC is going to leave one in five taxpayers twisting in the wind. The migration seems to be happening naturally anyway: according to GigaOM, total interstate and intrastate switched access minutes have fallen 42% from 2000 to 2008.
A National Broadband Plan has been a long time in the works, but we're almost there. It'll be interesting to see how much influence Ma Bell can peddle. [GigaOM]
After 20 years in one spot, anyone can get restless. That goes for the famous sea lions of San Francisco’s Pier 39. They swelled to their largest population ever just a couple months ago and then almost totally disappeared this month, baffling local marine experts.
The animals have been a fixture on Pier 39 since 1990, when a big herring run lured the sea lions into San Francisco Bay. The Marine Mammal Center gets so many questions about the 1,000-pound creatures that the nonprofit staffs a small kiosk on Pier 39; the pier’s insignia includes the silhouette of a sea lion [San Francisco Chronicle]. In October more than 1,700 sea lions laid about on Fisherman’s Wharf. But the exodus began the day after Thanksgiving, and by yesterday only 10 remained hanging out near the docks.
Jeff Boehm of the Marine Mammal Center said the sea lions probably left in pursuit of a food source, the same reason they would’ve come to Pier 39 in the first place. But Boehm said the fact that so many sea lions stayed for so long is even stranger than their disappearance [AP]. That is, sea lions tend to travel far and wide rather than sticking it out in one place for so long.
Boehm and other scientists can’t say for sure why the lions picked this particular moment to depart, either. It’s an El Niño year in the Pacific, but the effects have been moderate, San Francisco’s weather has been close to normal, and other animals don’t seem to be affected. The marine scientists aren’t too worried about the sea lions’ welfare, since they’re typically travelers, and Boehm and company say the marine mammals could very well return next year.
That would be a consolation prize for organizers of the 20th anniversary celebration for Pier 39’s sea lions planned for Jan. 15; they saw their guests of honor bolt at the last minute. “The party will go on nonetheless,” said Sue Muzzin, a spokeswoman for Pier 39. “Well, I think it will” [The New York Times]. There are some people, though, who wouldn’t necessarily complain if the droves of sea lions never return: fisherman. One recently told a local radio station, “They’re cute when they’re in here lying on the docks by Pier 39, but they’re not too cute out in the ocean when they’re stealing your livelihood” [Wired.com].
Related Content:
80beats: Who Would Win in a (Legal) Fight: A Whale or a Battleship?
Discoblog: Sixty Thousand Sturgeon Have a Group Hug in Oregon
The Intersection: Sea Lions and Dolphins and Polar Bears! Oh, My!
DISCOVER: Rio, the Logical Sea Lion
Image: Wiki Commons / Webaware
The Palm Pre is coming to Verizon early next year. We know this. But this morning, BGR gives us something new to be excited about: The Pixi's apparently coming to Verizon as well, and both models get a (titular?) upgrade.
Verizon's lineup, according to BGR's tipster, will consist of the Palm Pre Plus (codenam: Russell) and Palm Pixi (codename: Romo), which apparently look exactly like their non-plus predecessors, and will both run the currentl version of webOS, 1.3.5, at launch—a fact that jibes with the previously-announced "early next year" launch time, since Palm's been updating the OS at a steady clip.
So anyway, what's "Plus" about these phones? It could just be change in moniker, engineered by Palm and Verizon to inject a little energy into their existing lineup, but I'd expect something more more substantive: a faster processor, larger battery and in the case of the Pre, reengineered keyboard are all plausible guesses. Whatever it means, please, Palm, please don't tell me your CES keynote is just going to be a glorified carrier announcement. Palm needs new hardware. We need new hardware. Hardware! Ungghhhhhhhh. [BGR]
