Ripxx is a Blackbox For Sports [Sports]

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Ripxx is a water and shock proof gadget that uses 3 accelerometers and 3 gyroscopes to record your path speed, vertical drops, spins and falls for playback on your computer later.

It also reports time of run, top acceleration, speed, jump data (time in air, distance, height), rolls (count and rate), top altitude and steepness of runs. The 3d playback of your data is done in third person, over 3d terrain.

You'd figure there would be an app for this already but there's no doubt in my mind that if its good enough for the US bobsled team, all those sensors and gyroscope must be good enough for me. [ripxx via Popsci]



10% of the 21st Century Has Been Used Up

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Keith's note: In a few short days we will have used up 10% of the 21st Century.

When I was growing up in the 1960s and 70s, this was supposed to be a magical time - one where all manner of incredible things would be possible - even routine. In some ways it has been - witness the extrasolar planet discoveries of late. Yet in other areas NASA still flies a space shuttle that was designed more than a generation ago - and NASA is now struggling to replace it.

With regard to space exploration and utilization, have we wasted this decade? What has been done right? What has been done wrong? While NASA is not (and should not) be the only game in town when it comes to space, what should the President direct NASA to do in the decade ahead? Moreover, what should he direct NASA not to do?

Skeptical about methane and Uranus | Bad Astronomy

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I hate to make the obvious jokes, so I’ll simply say I was on this week’s Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe talking about methane on Mars and the tilt of Uranus. I’m glad they invited me on; I hadn’t heard of either of these stories until Steve Novella alerted me to them before we did the interview.

Basically, a new hypothesis has come out that the large tilt of Uranus (98°) is not from a collision, but instead had its natural tilt reinforced by a large moon that has since been ejected. Also, scientists tested the idea that the methane seen to change on Mars with the seasons might be from meteorites, and find that they don’t supply nearly enough to explain the observations. We also talk JREF, solar power, the Norway lights, and the usual nonsense. I just finished listening to the whole episode, and thought it was pretty good despite me being on it, so go give it a listen!


system restore discs

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HI

I Have always thought restore discs are motherboard design (Sys. Architecture)

specific.Which requires an order from original manufacturer.

Or are their industry wide standard boot bios/system design models now?

Thanks for any info.

Plastisol Ink

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Dear Sir, Can Any one help me in manufacturing PVC based plastisol ink for T-shirt Printing??? I am also interested in manufacturing THERMOLINE GEL for glitter priniting

Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation

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Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation Public Meeting, FAA

"New COE for Commercial Space Transportation Public Meeting - February 9, 2010 The FAA Administrator has concurred with the request to establish a new Center of Excellence (COE) for Commercial Space Transportation (CST) in 2010. On February 9 a public meeting will be held in Washington DC to discuss the FAA COE Program and CST technical requirements. A COE Draft Solicitation will be available for public review prior to the meeting."

Whiplash | Cosmic Variance

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My favorite example of a recent Hollywood blockbuster that scientists should like is Iron Man. Yes, it’s implausible that a prisoner in a cave in Afghanistan could build a lethal flying suit out of scrap metal, etc. But plausibility should never be the criterion for judging a science-fiction/fantasy scenario; sometimes you just have to bend the rules of the real world to get the required dramatic effects. Consistency, on the other hand, is crucial; the non-real world you invent should follow some set of rules, even if they veer away from the actual world. (Nobody complains that the Enterprise travels faster than light, but there are plenty of complaints about the bizarre use of time travel in the Star Trek franchise.)

Even better is when a film does a decent job at reflecting the practice of science. And that’s why I loved Iron Man — the whole second act revolves around Tony Stark in his lab, engineering designs and using trial-and-error to determine experimentally what works and what doesn’t. It makes for compelling viewing, which should be a lesson to people.

So we’re all excited about Iron Man 2, right?

The Science and Entertainment Exchange had a small hand in this one — apparently they needed a particle physicist to help get some of the scenes right. I don’t think it was the scene with the whips.


Great Science, Great Scientists, and Funding | The Intersection

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Eric has an interesting post up on the age distribution for recipients of NIH grants since 1980:

NIH_grants_age

He writes that it’s difficult for young U.S. researchers to obtain funding and points to Darwin and Einstein as examples of scientists with revolutionary ideas in their 20s–even though we tend to remember them as old men in photos.

While it’s a thought-provoking point, to be fair we really need to consider that there is more to this discussion than the most obvious factors. Yes, older PIs receive the lion’s share of funding, but these trends also reflect the large hiring periods in the past as university faculty members age. I agree that in many instances, scientists may be doing their most creative, groundbreaking research early, however, success during this time is not necessarily measured by obtaining large grants given few can land the job to be eligible until their mid-30s. Rather, it’s a crucial period for obtaining a faculty position, so the most promising young scientists may go on to recruit a lab, and eventually apply for such grants from a stronger position.

The trend’s shift right over decades may also reflect that postdocs are no longer allowed to be PIs on grants at many universities that do not want to lose a portion of overhead when the person leaves. In addition, agencies such as NIH provide a vast amount of fellowships to fund legions of graduate students (especially in the biomedical sciences) so it’s important to acknowledge that support to young scientists comes in many forms. NIH provides an enormous number of postdoc fellowships as well.

I do like Eric’s point that perhaps we should consider young Darwin and Einstein as iconic figures before their hair whitened. Still, we must remember that many complex factors are at play influencing the initial graph. The real question to consider is whether such grants are adequately funding early tenure track professors.


Laurie Leshin Is The New ESMD Deputy AA

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NASA Names New Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration

"Laurie Leshin has been named the new deputy associate administrator of the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, effective in January. Leshin previously served as the deputy center director for science and technology at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. She has led the formulation of strategy and the start of new missions since 2008 as Goddard's senior scientist, while providing extensive scientific guidance to lunar architecture and other human spaceflight planning activities."

Pandora Could Exist

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Avatar's Moon Pandora Could Be Real, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

"In the new blockbuster Avatar, humans visit the habitable - and inhabited - alien moon called Pandora. Life-bearing moons like Pandora or the Star Wars forest moon of Endor are a staple of science fiction. With NASA's Kepler mission showing the potential to detect Earth-sized objects, habitable moons may soon become science fact."

Characterizing Habitable Exo-Moons, astro-ph

"We discuss the possibility of screening the atmosphere of exomoons for habitability. We concentrate on Earth-like satellites of extrasolar giant planets (EGP) which orbit in the Habitable Zone of their host stars."

Waterworld Found

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Waterworld Discovered Transiting a Nearby Star, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

"Astronomers have announced that they have discovered a "super-Earth" orbiting a red dwarf star only 40 light-years from Earth. They found this nearby planet with a small fleet of ground-based telescopes no larger than those many amateur astronomers have in their backyards. Although the super-Earth is too hot to sustain life, the discovery shows that current, ground-based technologies are capable of finding almost-Earth-sized planets in warm, life-friendly orbits."

Lakes and Fog on Titan

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Sun's Glint Reveals Lakes on Titan, JPL

"NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured the first flash of sunlight reflected off a lake on Saturn's moon Titan, confirming the presence of liquid on the part of the moon dotted with many large, lake-shaped basins."

Fog on Titan, Caltech

"Saturn's largest moon, Titan, looks to be the only place in the solar system--aside from our home planet, Earth--with copious quantities of liquid (largely, liquid methane and ethane) sitting on its surface. According to planetary astronomer Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Earth and Titan share yet another feature, which is inextricably linked with that surface liquid: common fog."

Titan’s shadow | Bad Astronomy

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Check this out! Cassini took a gorgeous shot of Titan casting its shadow on Saturn:

titan_shadow

[Click to embiggen]

Wow!

A couple of cool things to note in this image… one is that the shadow is fuzzy. That’s because Titan has a thick atmosphere, so there is no sharp edge to the moon to cast a sharp shadow.

[Update: A few folks have pointed out that I didn't consider the idea that the fuzziness may be due to the fact that the Sun is not a point source, and so it will cast a fuzzy shadow -- this same thing happens during solar and lunar eclipses on Earth. I did some quick trigonometry, and I get that the fuzzy outer part of the eclipse shadow (called the penumbra) should be about 1000 km across or so, while the deep shadow (the umbra) is a little bit bigger than the size of Titan itself, or about 5200 km (again, these are pretty rough numbers). That jibes well with what we see in this image (if you neglect the weird distortion of Titan's shadow being stretched since it's projected on Saturn's curved cloud tops), so I'm now thinking that the shadow is not fuzzy due to Titan's atmosphere at all -- it's just the penumbra of this Titanic solar eclipse! I stand corrected, and I thank my readers for pointing this out. Very cool.]

Another is that even though Titan’s orbit is almost exactly in the same plane as the rings, its shadow is really far south of the rings’ shadow. That’s because spring has started in Saturn’s northern hemisphere, so the Sun is shining down on the planet from just north of the equator. The rings are relatively close to the planet surface, so the shadow they cast is just south of the equator (and narrow since the Sun is still shining nearly straight down the ring plane).

Titan orbits Saturn much farther out (1.2 million km from Saturn, very roughly 10 times farther out than the main rings on the average). Over that distance, the angle of the moon’s shadow carries it farther south of the equator. It’s a like a tall tree’s shadow being longer than a short tree’s shadow.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: we will get a vast amount of science out of Cassini data, and learn more about Saturn in a few years than we have in all the centuries of observations before we launched the probe. But sometimes it’s just the pure beauty of the images that gets to me.

Tip o’ the tweet to Carolyn Porco.


Physicists Find Hints of Dark Matter But No Clear Discovery | 80beats

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CDMS425If you were following Cosmic Variance yesterday, you saw its live blogging of one of the most anticipated recent announcements in physics: the team from Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) telling the world whether a Minnesota detector spotted evidence of dark matter. The answer? Maybe (pdf).

CDMS scientists use super-cooled detectors made of germanium and silicon to search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), one of the leading suspects for what could make up dark matter. The detector is deep underground in the Soudan mine in Minnesota, which scientists also use to hunt for neutrinos. WIMPs streaming in from space would very rarely jostle the germanium nuclei, some 800 meters underground in the Soudan mine, generating a tiny amount of heat and slightly altering the charge on the detectors in a characteristic pattern [Science News].

In 2007-2008, CDMS researchers saw two events that could have been WIMP interactions. Because their calculations had suggested a likelihood of 0.8 jostling events for the two years just from radioactive decay of regular matter, that means there’s a decent chance—but far from a certainty—that they saw dark matter interactions. The team is not claiming discovery of dark matter, because the result is not statistically significant. There is a 1-in-4 chance that it is merely due to fluctuations in the background noise. Had the experiment seen five events above the expected background, the claim for having detected dark matter would have been a lot stronger [New Scientist].

Dark matter is the hypothetical stuff that physicists believe to be far more abundant than the matter that makes up you and me. It seems that ordinary matter – gas, stars, planets and galaxies – makes up less than 5% of the Universe. The remainder is unseen [BBC News]. Dark matter and dark energy—which is even more mysterious and plentiful than dark matter—constitute the rest, scientists think.

Next year the CDMS team will upgrade its detector for further experiments, and the bevy of scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider will be champing at the bit to use this new data when they resume their work in the new year, Dan Tovey of the LHC’s ATLAS project says. “The really exciting aspect of all this is that if you see a signal in a direct-detection dark matter experiment and a signal for supersymmetry at the LHC, you can compare those two observations and investigate whether they are compatible with each other,” says Tovey [New Scientist].

Related Content:
Cosmic Variance: Dark Matter Detected, or Not? Live Blogging the Seminar
Cosmic Variance: And the Eagerly Awaited Dark Matter Result Is…
80beats: More Circumstantial Evidence for Dark Matter, But the Debate Continues
80beats: Does a Shower of Subatomic Positrons Mean We’ve Found Dark Matter?
DISCOVER: 8 Ways Scientists Look At—But Don’t Yet See—Dark Matter

Image: CDMS


Sifting Through “ClimateGate,” Finding Very Little | The Intersection

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There is a really good piece up at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media that looks at the top five most prominent issues raised in “ClimateGate”, analyzes the relevant emails in context, and finds some concerns but not much wrong–with the notable exception of the suggestion that emails subject to a Freedom of Information request be deleted. The article’s author, Zeke Hausfather, concludes:

It is unfortunate, if perhaps not surprising, that the quotes from the e-mails that have gotten the most publicity from skeptics and in some media strongly distort the views and actions of the scientists in question, contributing to a perception of collusion to manipulate the climate data itself.

Nothing contained in the e-mails, however, suggests that global temperature records are particularly inaccurate or, worse, that they have been manipulated to show greater warming. The certainly troubling conduct exposed in some of the e-mails has little bearing on the fundamental science that strongly indicates that the world is warming and that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the primary cause.

You should read the whole piece, for it clearly and soberly shows just how much this has been blown out of proportion.