Category Archives: Uncategorized

Phobos-Grunt might be coming in now.

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Twitter is telling me that Phobos Grunt is going to do its mostly burning up in the Earth’s Atmosphere thing RIGHT NOW. Or it just did. Or really really soon.

#PhobosGrunt is the hashtag.

If you have an aluminum foil hat, now would be a good time to put it on.

That is all.

b0yle Alan Boyle
MT @PhG_Reentry: RT @timmermansr: STRATCOM claiming #PhobosGrunt reentered, crashed in Pacific in last few minutes. Unconfirmed by Russians

_VanillaBlues Alina Razzouk
#PhobosGrunt may have crashed in the Pacific Ocean according to the US Strategic Command. Awaiting Russian validation

AdirondackAstro Michael Rector
USStratcom saying #PhobosGrunt crashed down in South Pacific off of Southern South America, but unconfirmed by Roscosmos.

monzitrek Luigi Morielli
#PhobosGrunt pare che US STRATCOM abbia confermato il rientro della sonda sul Pacifico. Si attende conferma da Roscosmos.

gregladen Greg Laden
#PhobosGrunt re-entered? Pics or it didn’t happen!

It’s important to have unrestricted access to guns so you can do:

Uncategorized, ,

this:

…The argument continued after they left the restaurant and went to one of the women’s homes. It was then that the other man jumped into the argument, standing up for his girlfriend. This angered Lloyd and the two men began arguing.
Lloyd pulled out a gun, unintentionally discharging the firearm. The bullet grazed the other man’s head. ..

or this …

Police were called to Amy’s home on Thursday were they found she had been shot. According to reports, “D.C.I. determined that Hettinger had been shot by a 10-year-old inside the house who had been handling a loaded handgun. The gun belonged to another family member.”

or this …

…As he was standing on the porch his friends were inside “messing around” with handguns. One man decided to practice shooting

what he thought was an empty handgun. When he pulled the trigger the gun fired, sending a bullet through the front door and into the man standing on the porch. The bullet went through the victim’s left shoulder blade. …

Fall of Phobos-Grunt into the atmosphere imminent

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UPDATE: With the last orbital elements decay prediction is now january 15, 2012 at 18h27 UTC +/-4h

Thirteen tons of space ship once destine for the planet Mars is starting to lose altitude, and may drop into the thicker layer of the atmosphere and (mostly) burn up Sunday (story at bbc). The Russian space agency estimates that about 200 kilograms will make it to the ground. It is impossible to predict this far in advance where any of that might fall.

You can track Phobos-Grunt here, but that tracking tool does not give you the location of the object; It shows you where it should be based on calculations. Once Phobos-Grunt starts to interact with the thicker atmosphere and, perhaps, bits and chunks start to fall off, the trajectory will probably change and this tracking map will no longer be that useful, and probably won’t tell you if the space craft has crashed yet.

The original mission is described as follows:

Fobos-Grunt or Phobos-Grunt… was an attempted Russian sample return mission to Phobos, one of the moons of Mars. Fobos-Grunt also carried the Chinese Mars orbiter Yinghuo-1 and the tiny Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment funded by the Planetary Society.*

The space ship made it into earth orbit, but for unknown reasons, a booster designed to push the craft towards the Red Planet failed to fire. This of course makes this re-entry interesting in a novel way: Since the booster didn’t fire, there’s about 10 tons of rocket fuel in aluminum tanks on Phobos-Grunt. It is assumed the tanks will melt quickly and the fuel will burn or explode.

I wonder if this will make re-entry more visible than otherwise?

1%er CEO John K. Castle calls waiter schmuck, breaks finger?

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I also hate it when the waiter brings the bill, but I usually don’t break their fingers.

According to a report in Raw Story, the waiter at a fancy Palm Beach restaurant Club Colette was asked by Castle’s wife to bring the bill to Castle’s table, and did. However, Castle had the idea that the waiter would not bring the bill, but rather, just put it on the guy’s account or something. So, naturally, Castle had to break the waiter’s finger as punishment.

No charges have been filed and nothing is going to happen.

Now, imagine the reverse scenario: A member of the 99% becomes annoyed withe a member of the 1% and breaks his fingers. What do you think would happen then?

… and the envelope please …

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The Research Blogging Editor’s Selectionies are out! Hosted by Krystal D’Costa, this award is roughly similar to the Academy Awards, but for blog posts about peer reviewed research. And I won one!!!

My post “A word or two about tobacco, and some neat and new research.” It was said of this post “At Greg Laden’s blog, readers are treated to a bit of botany related to tobacco and we learn that physical evidence has been found linking the Maya to tobacco use.”

I am truly humbled.

Four other posts won the same award. From Krystal’s post:

  • Is there a relationship between language density and habitat diversity? Tim DeChant explores this question at Per Square Mile with respect to Italian dialects.
  • A post at EvoAnth reports that four genes for skin tones have been discovered, shedding further light on this variable physical trait.
  • Navajos don’t eat fish, according to teofilo at Gambler’s House–and the taboo may apparently be traced linguistically.
  • At Body Horrors, Rebecca Kreston discusses the dangers of unsanitary shaving practices linked to an important Hajj ritual that may be leaving devotees susceptible to a blood-borne disease.

Thank you, thank you very much, oh, I see the music is playing I must get off the stage now.

But seriously, if you don’t happen to be familiar with Research Blogging Dot Org you should check it out. It is a kind of central link clearing house for science bloggers (who are legit science bloggers, not fake ones) blogging about current (but sometimes I sneak in an older one) peer reviewed research papers. I always recommend it to teachers as a great way to get a quick handle on current research in your area.

OK, back in my seat now. They are announcing the next Selectionie.

Holy crap I won another one! Sarah Kendrew has selected three wonderful posts, one by me (thank you very much) for the January 10th awards. One appears to be on time travelling, and one on supermassive black holes.

Mine is on Russian Rivers and Arctic Salinity: Climate Variation Better Understood.

The Dana Show (Radio)

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On her radio show, CNN contributor and Big Journalism editor Dana Loesch cheered on an Internet video reportedly showing U.S. Marines urinating on what appear to be dead Afghans, saying she would “drop trou and do it too.” The video has been widely condemned by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, U.S. military commanders, foreign policy experts and others as depicting conduct that “does not reflect our values” and may endanger Afghanistan peace talks.

CNN Contributor On Marines Urinating On Dead Bodies: “Supposed To Be A Scandal”? “I’d Drop Trou And Do It Too” from Media Matters on Vimeo.

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