Overall, my opinion of New Yorkers just went down three notches.
At 3 minutes: Why we feel good hating Bush, but bad hating Obama.
Monthly Archives: November 2010
Religion + Teabagging + Irresponsible Reporting = ROFLMAO
Wow. Just wow. It just keeps going and going. And going.
Hat tip: wfr
Continue reading Religion + Teabagging + Irresponsible Reporting = ROFLMAO
Baby monkey riding backwards on a pig …
Hat tip: Linda Holmes
Saturn Emits Energy Unevenly
click image to make it gigantic
This false-color composite image, constructed from data obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, shows Saturn’s rings and southern hemisphere. The composite image was made from 65 individual observations by Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer in the near-infrared portion of the light spectrum on Nov. 1, 2008. The observations were each six minutes long.
In this image constructed from data collected in the near-infrared wavelengths of light, scientists designated blue to indicate sunlight reflected at a wavelength of 2 microns, green to indicate sunlight reflected at 3 microns and red to indicate thermal emission at 5 microns. Saturn’s rings reflect sunlight at 2 microns, but not at 3 and 5 microns, so they appear deep blue. Saturn’s high altitude haze reflects sunlight at both 2 and 3 microns, but not at 5 microns, and so it appears green to blue-green. The heat emission from the interior of Saturn is only seen at 5 microns wavelength in the spectrometer data, and thus appears red. The dark spots and banded features in the image are clouds and small storms that outline the deeper weather systems and circulation patterns of the planet. They are illuminated from underneath by Saturn’s thermal emission, and thus appear in silhouette.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
WISE eyes its first cool brown dwarf
“The brown dwarfs jump out at you like big, fat, green emeralds,” said Amy Mainzer, the deputy project scientist of WISE at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Mainzer, who makes jewelry in her spare time, explained that the brown dwarfs appear like green gems in WISE images because the methane in their atmospheres absorbs the infrared light that has been coded blue, and because they are too faint to give off the infrared light that is color-coded red. The only color left is green.
Like Jupiter, brown dwarfs are made up of gas — a lot of it in the form of methane, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia. These gases would be deadly to humans at the concentrations found around brown dwarfs. And they wouldn’t exactly smell pretty.
“If you could bottle up a gallon of this object’s atmosphere and bring it back to Earth, smelling it wouldn’t kill you, but it would stink pretty badly — like rotten eggs with a hint of ammonia,” said Mainzer.
That green dot in the middle of this image might look like an emerald amidst glittering diamonds, but it is actually a dim star belonging to a class called brown dwarfs. This particular object is the first ultra-cool brown dwarf discovered by WISE. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
The Wisdumb of Michele Bachmann
“I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or anti-America?”
The melting of the Arctic ice cap is a complex process
You’ve heard that the Arctic ice cap has shrunk, and that there are sea lanes open in the northern summer that had not been open previously, and on and so forth.
Since the start of the satellite record in 1979, scientists have observed the continued disappearance of older “multiyear” sea ice that survives more than one summer melt season. Some scientists suspected that this loss was due entirely to wind pushing the ice out of the Arctic Basin — a process that scientists refer to as “export.” In this study, Ron Kwok and Glenn Cunningham at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., used a suite of satellite data to clarify the relative role of export versus melt within the Arctic Ocean.*
A mosaic of satellite images shows the movement of fragmented ice away from ice edges, which scientists use to track the loss of multiyear ice due to melt. Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory. Click to hugify.
Continue reading The melting of the Arctic ice cap is a complex process
An ironic death
Two weeks ago Julia and I took the road from the cabin to Longville and back and noticed that they had put up a new sign at each end of the curvy, hilly treacherous part, where you drive dangerously high above bogs and wooded kettles with no guard rail and there is one blind curve after another. Of treacherous roads I’ve been on, I’d say this bit of rural highway ranks about … 10 thousandth, but I’ve driven thousands of kilometers in the Congo, so the comparison is not really fair. Anyway, the signs are large like the kind that might announce the entrance to a national forest or the boundary of a state … bigger than the signs at county or town boundaries and smaller than the sign for Yellowstone Park … and they read “Winding road ahead.”
Continue reading An ironic death
That rocket was probably a contrail of a regular air plane
The evidence is starting to add up. First, we have the absence of evidence, which is always tricky but sometimes relevant: Nobody picked up a rocket on radar, aircraft pilots did not see a vertical high speed accelerating object, etc. etc. Then we have the alternative explanations, including the shape and nature of the contrail, curves in the contrail unlikely from a ballistic missile, and so on.
I’m betting on routine aircraft contrail. This will be an interesting one to pick apart later when all the conjectures are in.
Democrats vs. Republicans: The difference gets real
Bottom line: If you make less than 250,000 a year (per person, not per family) you have no business even thinking about being a Republican.
He’s back
I know, I know, everybody else has already seen this, but since Comcast, ironically, cut MSNBC from our cable menu, I get my Olberman and Maddow off the net, and there is a delay.
Noah’s Ark seeker vanishes
Donald Mackenzie has been visiting Mount Ararat in Turkey for several years, searching for Noah’s Ark, which according to the Bible was deposited by god on this mountain after the Noachain Flood. Although it seems to not have made news, Mackenzie was reported missing on October 14th.
Mr Mackenzie became interested in searching for Noah’s Ark in his early 40s, and did a variety of jobs to fund his travels.
His mother said he is a Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland member because he believes it sticks closest to the Bible.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We can confirm that a British national has been reported missing in Turkey, and local authorities are investigating the reports.
“Staff are in touch with the family and are providing consular assistance.”
Was he getting too close?
‘Splain this:
How can there be a large mystery launch of a rocket?
What Happens to Habitats with Global Warming?
As global warming progresses, habitats change in their suitability for various life forms. It may be that moose will not be able to live in Minnesota in the future; Of the two resident moose populations, the one that lives in the area more affected by global warming has pretty much died out probably due indirectly to the effects of increased temperature. There are regions of the rockies where entire forests are dead because of temperature changes. And so on.
Continue reading What Happens to Habitats with Global Warming?
Happy Giant Panda Day
Today is indeed a momentous day in history. On this day, in 1927, the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) was discovered by Teh West. It, of course, had previously been known to all those people for tens of thousands of years who lived among, and eated them.
This is also Carl Sagan‘s birthday. He was born in 1934, which seems like billions of years ago.
Do you remember Cosmos, first broadcast in 1980? (I always think of it as a few years earlier, but it was not.)
Do you remember The Great Blackout of 1965? I do (barely). It was today, but back then. It looked like this:
It is not true that there was a Blackout Baby Boom nine months later. But I think a lot of people did buy generators and/or candles.
On this day in 1888, Jack the Ripper killed Jane Kelly. He would not kill again after that. Here is a copy of a letter that may have been sent by Jack, along with a bit of internal organ from one of the victims, to the authorities:
From hell
Mr Lusk,
Sir
I send you half the Kidne I took from one women prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer
signed
Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk
“Lusk” was George A. Lusk chair of a “vigilance committee” established at the time to keep an eye on things.
This is also the anniversary of the formation of the American Birth Control League by Margaret Sanger in 1921.
America was in a depression in the 1930s. It took 15 years to fully pull out of that economic crisis. Funny thing, though, when Roosevelt was elected in part to get us out of that crisis, and two years went by, the American People did not belly ache about how he had not fixed all of our problems already. Let that be a lesson to you people! Anyway, on this day in 1933, Roosevelt established the Civil Works Administration.
And, finally, on this day in 1967 the first issue of “Rolling Stone” was published.
John Lennon on the cover of the first Rolling Stone.
Yes, a very interesting day in history. Tomorrow is interesting too.