Hi Guys,
I am looking for some "CR4 Recommended" manufacturers in China who would be able to make a part for me.
The part would be out of a 9" diameter piece of 1/8" think FDA approved buna-n (nitrile), with a 60 shore A duro. The piece would have various features cut into the inside diam
Damien Bouic, who graciously allowed me to use his very cool renderings of Earth with rings in my article about, um, the Earth with rings, has translated that post into French. I took French many years ago, and all I can still say is Je suis desole, Madam, mais nous n’avons pas du jambon aujord hui. So I hope he did a good job.
Alons-y!
Art Hobson, an Emeritus physicist at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, has reviewed our book for the American Physical Society’s educational forum, and it seems he liked it. A quote:
Summarizing its prescription, the book’s final chapter states “We must fundamentally change the way we think and talk about science education,” and this means rethinking the education of scientists as well as the public school and college education of non-scientists. “We don’t simply need a bigger scientific workforce: We need a more cultured one, capable of bridging the divides that have led to science’s declining influence. …We must invest in a sweeping project to make science relevant to the whole of America’s citizenry.” I couldn’t agree more.
You can read Hobson’s full review here.
Runs forward but stalls out when trying to go in reverse.
Anyone know why?
Let the Copenhagen fallout continue.
Friday night, after a two-week diplomacy fest that could be called “difficult” at best, leaders of some of the most powerful countries in the world announced that they reached an 11th hour agreement to conclude the United Nations Copenhagen climate summit. After speaking to the assembly, President Barack Obama spent the day going in and out of meetings with Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao. They met later with Mammoghan Singh of India, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, and South African President Jacob Zuma, before a White House official leaked that these big players had reached an agreement.
Obama had flown to Denmark for the meeting’s final day, hoping to snatch an agreement from the jaws of growing defeatism among those desiring a climate accord. Obama’s 15-hour, seat-of-the-pants dash through Copenhagen was marked by doggedness, confusion and semi-comedy. Constrained by partisan politics at home, and quarrels between rich and poor nations abroad, he was determined to come home with a victory, no matter how imperfect [AP].
And the result was far from perfect. First, the nations assembled failed to meet a binding agreement, as many feared would happen going into the meeting. In addition, the document that remained at the end was the work of those five nations, which has now ignited a storm of protest around the world. Despite the fact that South Africa’s leader was around for the 11th hour agreement, for instance, its climate representatives are now steaming mad. South Africa’s environment minister Buyelwa Sonjica and her two top climate change negotiators said Tuesday that part of the blame rested with the way the host guided the conference. In their first media briefing since returning from talks in the Danish capital that ended Saturday, the trio described an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion that Denmark was plotting to force its own position on other nations [AP].
Europeans, too, balked at Copenhagen’s conclusion. U.K. Climate Secretary Ed Milliband, in a Guardian editorial, also slammed the process, but pointed the finger at China in particular. We did not get an agreement on 50% reductions in global emissions by 2050 or on 80% reductions by developed countries. Both were vetoed by China, despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries [The Guardian]. European Union representatives reacted negatively to the loose agreement, both for not being part of the talks among the five nations and for the agreement’s failure to set binding goals. The markets reacted too. European and United Nations carbon prices fell the most since February after the Copenhagen climate accord didn’t set targets that would boost demand for permits [Bloomberg].
Copenhagen did result in one actual ruling: One hopeful sign is the accord’s pragmatic agreement to pay countries to prevent deforestation. Reversing one of the Kyoto Protocol’s failures, which perversely rewarded countries for planting trees but not for protecting them, this is precisely the kind of big picture cooperation between developed and developing economies that is needed to make a dent in global emissions [CNN]. The U.S. pledged $100 billion to aid poor nations in reducing emissions, and China promised greater transparency in how it cuts carbon, but neither of those are binding.
The parlor game this week is explaining why the Copenhagen talks went down in flames. Writing for CNN, Lisa Margonelli of the think tank New America Foundation says the meeting’s scope was a disadvantage, not an advantage, as gathering the world together to craft rules that would be agreeable and effective was “scientifically and practically naive.” The BBC blames 24 hour news, EU politics, and even the snowy weather for giving skeptics ammunition. (No, apparently we haven’t gotten past the weather/climate issue. Just ask Homer Simpson.)
The BBC hit it closest with their number one reason, however: “Key governments do not want a global deal.” As long as that’s the case, and major U.N. meeting occur in this format, no climate conference will produce anything but a document so wishy-washy that the effect on global emissions is negligible.
Related Content:
80beats: Copenhagen Roundup: Protests, Walkouts, and the Money Wars
80beats: Day One: U.N. Climate Summit Begins in Copenhagen
80beats: Climatologist Steps Down as “ClimateGate” Furor Continues
Discoblog: Another “Climate Trick” Controversy: Copenhagen Prostitutes Giving Freebies
The Intersection: I’m Going to Copenhagen
Image: White House / Pete Souza
House Democrat announces switch to GOP, MSNBC
"Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, who hails from a heavily conservative congressional district, announced Tuesday that he will join the GOP."
Solid future seen at NASA, Huntsville Times
"The future of America's space program is solid and safe, even as the White House ponders missions and rocket programs that could be led by Marshall Space Flight Center, U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith, D-Huntsville, said here Friday."
Please help me with your experience of which is the safest schemes for safe bus transfer among
residual voltage transfer, slow transfer, in- phase transfer, parallel transfer , fast transfer, etc...
For critical loads and in less cycles . Thanks for your help.
GAO Report: International Space Station: Significant Challenges May Limit Onboard Research
"The ISS has been continuously staffed since 2000 and now has a six-member crew. The primary objective for the ISS through 2010 is construction, so research utilization has not been the priority. Some research has been and is being conducted as time and resources permit while the crew on board performs assembly tasks, but research will is expected to begin in earnest in 2010. NASA projects that it will utilize approximately 50 percent of the U.S. ISS research facilities for its own research, including the Human Research Program, opening the remaining facilities to U.S. ISS National Laboratory researchers."
EXHIBIT
Dal Futurismo al Futuribile – Il Presente nel Futuro
December 12 – December 20, 2009
Concessionaria Fiat/Lancia Marelli & Pozzi - Varese
FILM
Dal Futurismo al Futuribile
by Silvia Costeloe, producer, BBC, London
see also Futurism and Cars at the Museo Nicolis
Futurism 1909-2009. Documents
December 21, 2009 – January 10, 2010
Gallery “Akademija” – Vilnius
Organized by the Italian Embassy in Lithuania and the Vilnius Academy Gallery “Academy”
Thanks Visit Lithuania Blog!
for what purpose thyristor duty transformer is used
I don't deal much with pumps. However, I recently came across a pd pump that had multiple set of seals. All the pumps I have come across b4 were centrifugal pumps with one set of seals. do all pd have multiple set of seals? What requires more than one set of seals?
I love The Onion. It is that simple. I hope someone was eating a banana when they wrote that piece.
Sam Harris put it pretty well: the timing of when young Earth creationists claim God created the Universe, "… is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue."
Thank goodness for Google Translate! Original here.
Forged Futurist Work
National Interpol Bratislava unit has recently adopted the Italian request for urgent legal aid prosecutors in Genoa, which is investigating the suspected forgery of works of Italian Futurism. It was well-known works by the Italian futurists, for example Giacomo Balla, Tullio Crali and Fortunato Depero, which were to be displayed in the gallery in Bratislava. The exhibition was due to 8.12.2009 and Slovakia should be transferred to Portugal.
The exhibition was installed in the gallery in Bratislava city center. The Gallery presented an exhibition entitled “Futurism”. According to information published on the Internet it was from private collections.
“The International Department of the General Prosecutor’s Office in cooperation with the Bratislava I District Directorate secure 78 paintings, which were exposed and not subjected to a few images, which also belonged to the exhibition,” hurried to notify the Police Presidium spokeswoman Andrea Pola?iková. Secured images are already in Italy.
In connection with the fake paintings by the Italian authorities investigating two Italians, who were giving false works into circulation, to offer them for shows and exhibitions as genuine. It should draw up a false declaration to circulate counterfeit professional expertise with their certificate of authenticity. Prompted a police investigation in Italy was an action brought by the Italian professor, art historian and also one of the most respected experts on the period of Futurism. Examined exhibited paintings and concluded that several of the exhibited works are forgeries. In Italy, suspects in the execution of such search, and different materials have been seized, including counterfeit stamps professionals.
I post a lot of pictures here from Hubble, Spitzer, and other massively-funded large observatories. But it doesn’t take a huge, multi-billion-dollar project to create amazing astronomical images. Proof in point: Emil Kraaikamp is one of the more gifted astrophotographers I’ve seen. He has a 25 cm (10″) telescope that he uses to create truly jaw-dropping views of the sky.
Want proof? Check this image out: it’s an animation he made of Mars, using observations he made in early December and showing the planet’s rotation over the course of more than two hours about 45 minutes (a day on Mars is a half hour longer than Earth’s). You can clearly see both the south and north polar ice caps together with several dark surface features on the planet, which in itself is lovely and very cool.
But what blew me away is something you may not notice immediately in the picture. Take a look on the left side of the animation. See those three aligned blue spots, with the one blue spot to the lower right? Those are called orographic clouds, formed when moist air is lifted up over an obstacle; the air cools and the moisture condenses, forming clouds. What kind of obstacle on the Martian surface could do that?
Volcanoes. Yes, volcanoes: in the animation, you can actually see clouds that have formed as the Martian atmosphere moves up the banks of the enormous volcanoes on the Tharsis shield, a massive uplift feature on Mars. The fourth cloud to the lower right is actually marking the spot of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system. The image inset here is from NASA, showing Olympus Mons up close; but you don’t need to go to Mars to see it.
After all, it can be captured with a ten inch telescope.
Holy — and for once I mean this literally, folks — Haleakala.
On his page, Emil Kraaikamp showed how he took three images using red, green, and blue filters to create the stills that were then used for the animation:
I love this, because it shows how using filters tells you a lot about what you’re seeing. Note that in the red Mars is fairly smooth, with some dark spots. The red dust covers the planet, so it smooths out features (though the ice caps are obvious). In the green you’re just starting to see a hint of clouds, and then in the blue the clouds pop right out.
Combine them, and you have Mars. Another world, seen through what most people would consider a small telescope here on Earth.
You absolutely must peruse his other planet images; the animations of Jupiter are fantastic, and the detail he was able to capture on Venus — normally a featureless white blur — is nothing short of spectacular!
I’ll add that his setup is quite sophisticated, and he spent many hours processing these images, so it’s not like you can buy an off-the-shelf ’scope and expect to do this on your first night. But it does show what someone dedicated to the art and science of astronomy can do when they set their mind and heart to it. Amazing.
Credits: Images from Emil Kraaikamp used with permission. Olympus Mons image: NASA.
Researchers from the Imperial College London have a new strategy to combat malaria. The species of mosquito responsible for the spread of malaria in Africa, Anopheles gambiae, only mates once during its life. Putting a stop to their one shot at reproduction should slow down malaria transmission. Anopheles males deploy a glob of proteins and fluids known as a “mating plug” that is essential for ensuring sperm is correctly retained in the female’s sperm storage organ, from where she can fertilise eggs over the course of her lifetime [BBC News]. Without a mating plug, the sperm is not stored and the mosquitoes can’t reproduce. Simply put, the researchers want to prevent male mosquitoes from plugging in the wild.
Anopheles gambiae is the only known species of mosquito to use a mating plug. (However, mating plugs are found in other animals where they prevent multiple males from reproducing with a female. Plug checking mice in research laboratories is a right of passage for many graduate students.) In their research, written up in the journal PLoS Biology, scientists were able to alter the mosquitoes’ genes so that they could no longer form a plug, and thus were unable to reproduce. If this process could be developed for use in the field, perhaps in a spray form like an insecticide, it could “effectively induce sterility in female mosquitoes in the wild,” [study author Flaminia] Catteruccia wrote, offering potential as “one more weapon in the arsenal against malaria” [Reuters]. The WHO is optimistic that their increased funding efforts will produce more technologies similar to this one and that, hopefully, one of them will prove effective.
Related Content:
80beats: Potential Mosquito Repellent Keeps Them From Smelling Victims’ Breath
80beats: DEET Is Harmful to Cells in Lab Settings. What’s the Significance?
80beats: The Ultimate Source of Malaria Is Found in Chimps
how to calculate the heat generated by the person sitting in the car i.e air conditioned? Based on this how to select a HVAC compressor if the temp inside cabin is to be maintained at 25 deg C and there are 4 persons inside? the car size is 1.6m width , 3.5 m length and 1.5m height. This is related
NASA’s Centennial Challenges prize program, FAA’s Spaceports Infrastructure Grants initiative, and the new NASA Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research program (CRuSR) gained momentum after receiving funding in the NASA and FAA appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2010, passed by Congress and signed by the President last week. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation conducted advocacy efforts for these NASA and FAA programs as part of the CSF’s legislative agenda for this year.
NASA Centennial Challenges: $4 million in funding is being appropriated for new NASA prizes to promote technology innovation, the first time in 5 years that Centennial Challenges has received new funding. This new funding, at the full level requested by NASA in Fiscal Year 2010, builds on the success of Centennial Challenges throughout this year, in which NASA awarded a total of $3.65 million for innovation successes, including $1.65 million for the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X PRIZE Challenge which was won by Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace. Prizes are an innovative mechanism for technology advancement that is supported by the commercial spaceflight sector, and the funds will allow NASA to develop and announce more new prizes in the coming year.
FAA Space Transportation Infrastructure Matching Grants (STIM-Grants): An initial amount of $500,000 in Fiscal Year 2010 will be competitively awarded to spaceports nationwide through FAA’s spaceport grant program, the first time the grant program has been funded since being created in 1993. The grants will be awarded by the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) under Dr. George Nield to allow spaceports to support operations and protect public safety. Existing and proposed spaceports in California, Florida, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Virginia / Maryland, Alaska, Wisconsin, Indiana, and other states, will be eligible for these competitively-awarded grants. In addition to promoting safety, the STIM-Grants program is expected to increase the competitiveness of U.S. launch facilities and create new jobs.
NASA Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research Program (CRuSR): The CRuSR program will fly science, technology, and education payloads aboard next-generation commercial suborbital spacecraft. In addition to funds for the CRuSR program that are expected to come from NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) and the Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD), NASA received $1 million of new funding in Fiscal Year 2010 for the Innovative Partnership Program’s “Innovation Incubator” account, which includes the FAST program for flights on zero-g parabolic aircraft and funding for the Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program. Funding for FAST, formally known as the Facilitated Access to the Space Environment for Technology Development and Training Program, had been zeroed out in the previous year.
The Apollo 11 Telemetry Data Recordings: A Final Report, NASA
"Perhaps there are no clear answers. All that can be said with any certainty is that NASA and the Goddard Space Flight Center followed all procedures in storing the Apollo telemetry tapes, the search team has concluded. After reviewing their content and determining that Apollo program managers no longer needed the data, Goddard personnel shipped the telemetry tapes to WNRC for storage. Over the ensuing years, Goddard recalled them and either reused the one-inch tapes to meet a network shortage in the early 1980s or disposed of them because of the high cost of storing them. At no time did anyone recognize the unique content on roughly 45 tapes containing the actual moonwalk video. At no time did anyone ever consider what could be possible nearly 40 years into the future with the advent of new technology."
So there’s a video of actress Jessica Simpson which is burning up (hahahahahahaha!) the internet right now. Her friend gave her an ear candle for Christmas, and she’s using it in the video:
I love this video, for a lot of reasons. First, as should be obvious to anyone who prefers not to set their head on fire, ear candling is dangerous and ineffective. Unless you’re trying to set your head on fire. Then it’s very effective.
Second, Ms. Simpson clearly thinks this is a bad idea as well. She titled the video "Who gives this kind of candle for a christmas gift?", and her reactions to it in the video is pretty clear. I love how one purported benefit of ear candling is relief of vertigo, but Ms. Simpson complains of nausea constantly in the video.
Third, and related to the second, the video shows how painful and awful this procedure is. It may set antiscience "alternative medicine" back a thousand years. Which is where alt-med is anyway. So I guess that’s a wash.
Fourth, it makes me wonder if anyone has sent Ms. Simpson to this website. I’ll refrain from commenting on any potential video of that.
Fifth and finally, it gives me a chance once again to use this drawing, which has been lonely lately:
