science

Manhattanhenge

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Twice a year the sun aligns directly with Manhattan’s east and west streets in a phenomenon known to those who live in the Big Apple as Manhattanhenge. Tonight happens to be one of those nights and gosh isn’t the weather just perfect.
One idea is to head as far east you can on any street with a clear view of the sun setting – 14th, 23rd, 34th, 42nd and 57th Streets are among the best viewing spots. Another idea is to just get outside around 8 pm or so as sunset is at 8:19 pm tonight. If you miss it, it will happen again on July 12th.
Sunset is in less than 5 hours – sorry for the short notice – but I’ve been meaning to post about this for the past 5 years and I’m glad I finally got around to it, even if its last minute.

science

Salt Water As Fuel?

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When John Kanzius of Erie, PA man announced he’d ignited salt water with the radio-frequency generator he’d invented, some thought it was a hoax. Not only is it not a hoax, scientists know why burns the way it does and he has been able to keep salt water in a test tube burning like a candle, as long as it is exposed to radio frequencies.
This leads me to think that the (to use the pun you know is coming) burning question is how can we use the world’s most abundant substance as clean fuel? Or, more importantly, as my friend and former WGTCTIP2 author Erik puts it, “Does it take more energy to run the necessary storage equipment than the process generates?”
To continue, Erik wants to know why the article does not mention the obvious:

“Hydrogen fuel cells are totally possible, but the one hang-up is the current effort and cost to generate pure hydrogen needed to fuel them. Right now you’d need to capture it from a fossil fuel burning reaction, which obviously isn’t ideal, and then store it at a gas station for people to fill up, making it a huge infrastructure challenge as well. With this machine, instead of burning the released hydrogen, capture it. We could all one day have these in our garages and use them to fuel our cars ourselves.”

Below is a clip from the local news about this cancer fighter who accidentally lit salt water on fire and maybe in the process has saved mankind:

Via Neu

tech

Holodeck v1.0

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This omni-directional treadmill represents a massive step forward in designing and developing virtual worlds. So far its just the floor of the holodeck, but still it’s something…

Via Neu

music

Brian "The Astrophysist" May

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I loved Brian May, the lead guitarist from “Queen” before but now I love him even more. It seems that being a rock god isn’t enough for him: he wants to finish the astrophysics degree which he put aside when “Queen” started to take off. While his thesis is titled “Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud,” I know I would enjoy it more if somehow he worked in “Under Pressure” or “Another One Bites The Dust” into the title.
Read more after the jump.
Brian May is completing his doctorate in astrophysics, more than 30 years after he abandoned his studies to form the rock group Queen.
The 60-year-old guitarist and songwriter said he plans to submit his thesis, “Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud,” to supervisors at Imperial College London within the next two weeks.
May was an astrophysics student at Imperial College when Queen, which included Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor, was formed in 1970. He dropped his doctorate as the glam rock band became successful.
Queen were one of Britain’s biggest music groups in the 1970s, with hits including “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Will Rock You.”
After Mercury’s death in 1991, May recorded several solo albums, including 1998’s “Another World.” But his interest in astronomy continued, and he co-wrote “Bang! The Complete History of the Universe,” which was published last year.
He was due to finish carrying out astronomical observations at an observatory on the island of La Palma, in Spain’s Canary Islands, on Tuesday, the observatory said.
May told the British Broadcasting Corp. that he had always wanted to complete his degree.
“It was unfinished business,” he said. “I didn’t want an honorary Ph.D. I wanted the real thing that I worked for.”

science

No More "Mind Your Beeswax?"

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Just what the world needs, another mysterious and potentially disastrous problem to deal with. The issue at hand is that tens of billions of bees are lost and can’t find their way home to their hives. Why should you care? Well, honeybees are arguably the insects that are most important to the human food chain as they are the principal pollinators of hundreds of fruits, vegetables, flowers and nuts. No bees, no food.
While the volume of theories as to why this is happening is “totally mind-boggling” according to Diana Cox-Foster, an entomologiest at Penn State, the one thing that scientists agree on is that this is serious and that they have a name for it: colony collapse disorder. The three most likely suspects are a virus, a fungus or a pesticide. What else is new?
If you are into science, read more about it from the NY Times after the jump. Even if you aren’t into science, its a pretty interesting read about how all sorts of things we knew about the world are just going haywire.
Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons by Alexei Barrionuevo, April 24, 2007
Beltsville, Md., April 23 — What is happening to the bees?
More than a quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost — tens of billions of bees, according to an estimate from the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping. So far, no one can say what is causing the bees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives.
As with any great mystery, a number of theories have been posed, and many seem to researchers to be more science fiction than science. People have blamed genetically modified crops, cellular phone towers and high-voltage transmission lines for the disappearances. Or was it a secret plot by Russia or Osama bin Laden to bring down American agriculture? Or, as some blogs have asserted, the rapture of the bees, in which God recalled them to heaven? Researchers have heard it all.
The volume of theories “is totally mind-boggling,” said Diana Cox-Foster, an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University. With Jeffrey S. Pettis, an entomologist from the United States Department of Agriculture, Dr. Cox-Foster is leading a team of researchers who are trying to find answers to explain “colony collapse disorder,” the name given for the disappearing bee syndrome.
“Clearly there is an urgency to solve this,” Dr. Cox-Foster said. “We are trying to move as quickly as we can.”
Dr. Cox-Foster and fellow scientists who are here at a two-day meeting to discuss early findings and future plans with government officials have been focusing on the most likely suspects: a virus, a fungus or a pesticide.
About 60 researchers from North America sifted the possibilities at the meeting today. Some expressed concern about the speed at which adult bees are disappearing from their hives; some colonies have collapsed in as little as two days. Others noted that countries in Europe, as well as Guatemala and parts of Brazil, are also struggling for answers.
“There are losses around the world that may or not be linked,” Dr. Pettis said.
The investigation is now entering a critical phase. The researchers have collected samples in several states and have begun doing bee autopsies and genetic analysis.
So far, known enemies of the bee world, like the varroa mite, on their own at least, do not appear to be responsible for the unusually high losses.
Genetic testing at Columbia University has revealed the presence of multiple micro-organisms in bees from hives or colonies that are in decline, suggesting that something is weakening their immune system. The researchers have found some fungi in the affected bees that are found in humans whose immune systems have been suppressed by the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or cancer.
“That is extremely unusual,” Dr. Cox-Foster said.
Meanwhile, samples were sent to an Agriculture Department laboratory in North Carolina this month to screen for 117 chemicals. Particular suspicion falls on a pesticide that France banned out of concern that it may have been decimating bee colonies. Concern has also mounted among public officials.
“There are so many of our crops that require pollinators,” said Representative Dennis Cardoza, a California Democrat whose district includes that state’s central agricultural valley, and who presided last month at a Congressional hearing on the bee issue. “We need an urgent call to arms to try to ascertain what is really going on here with the bees, and bring as much science as we possibly can to bear on the problem.”
So far, colony collapse disorder has been found in 27 states, according to Bee Alert Technology Inc., a company monitoring the problem. A recent survey of 13 states by the Apiary Inspectors of America showed that 26 percent of beekeepers had lost half of their bee colonies between September and March.
Honeybees are arguably the insects that are most important to the human food chain. They are the principal pollinators of hundreds of fruits, vegetables, flowers and nuts. The number of bee colonies has been declining since the 1940s, even as the crops that rely on them, such as California almonds, have grown. In October, at about the time that beekeepers were experiencing huge bee losses, a study by the National Academy of Sciences questioned whether American agriculture was relying too heavily on one type of pollinator, the honeybee.
Bee colonies have been under stress in recent years as more beekeepers have resorted to crisscrossing the country with 18-wheel trucks full of bees in search of pollination work. These bees may suffer from a diet that includes artificial supplements, concoctions akin to energy drinks and power bars. In several states, suburban sprawl has limited the bees’ natural forage areas.
So far, the researchers have discounted the possibility that poor diet alone could be responsible for the widespread losses. They have also set aside for now the possibility that the cause could be bees feeding from a commonly used genetically modified crop, Bt corn, because the symptoms typically associated with toxins, such as blood poisoning, are not showing up in the affected bees. But researchers emphasized today that feeding supplements produced from genetically modified crops, such as high-fructose corn syrup, need to be studied.
The scientists say that definitive answers for the colony collapses could be months away. But recent advances in biology and genetic sequencing are speeding the search.
Computers can decipher information from DNA and match pieces of genetic code with particular organisms. Luckily, a project to sequence some 11,000 genes of the honeybee was completed late last year at Baylor University, giving scientists a huge head start on identifying any unknown pathogens in the bee tissue.
“Otherwise, we would be looking for the needle in the haystack,” Dr. Cox-Foster said.
Large bee losses are not unheard of. They have been reported at several points in the past century. But researchers think they are dealing with something new — or at least with something previously unidentified.
“There could be a number of factors that are weakening the bees or speeding up things that shorten their lives,” said Dr. W. Steve Sheppard, a professor of entomology at Washington State University. “The answer may already be with us.”
Scientists first learned of the bee disappearances in November, when David Hackenberg, a Pennsylvania beekeeper, told Dr. Cox-Foster that more than 50 percent of his bee colonies had collapsed in Florida, where he had taken them for the winter.
Dr. Cox-Foster, a 20-year veteran of studying bees, soon teamed with Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the Pennsylvania apiary inspector, to look into the losses.
In December, she approached W. Ian Lipkin, director of the Greene Infectious Disease Laboratory at Columbia University, about doing genetic sequencing of tissue from bees in the colonies that experienced losses. The laboratory uses a recently developed technique for reading and amplifying short sequences of DNA that has revolutionized the science. Dr. Lipkin, who typically works on human diseases, agreed to do the analysis, despite not knowing who would ultimately pay for it. His laboratory is known for its work in finding the West Nile disease in the United States.
Dr. Cox-Foster ultimately sent samples of bee tissue to researchers at Columbia, to the Agriculture Department laboratory in Maryland, and to Gene Robinson, an entomologist at the University of Illinois. Fortuitously, she had frozen bee samples from healthy colonies dating to 2004 to use for comparison.
After receiving the first bee samples from Dr. Cox-Foster on March 6, Dr. Lipkin’s team amplified the genetic material and started sequencing to separate virus, fungus and parasite DNA from bee DNA.
“This is like C.S.I. for agriculture,” Dr. Lipkin said. “It is painstaking, gumshoe detective work.”
Dr. Lipkin sent his first set of results to Dr. Cox-Foster, showing that several unknown micro-organisms were present in the bees from collapsing colonies. Meanwhile, Mr. vanEngelsdorp and researchers at the Agriculture Department lab here began an autopsy of bees from collapsing colonies in California, Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania to search for any known bee pathogens.
At the University of Illinois, using knowledge gained from the sequencing of the bee genome, Dr. Robinson’s team will try to find which genes in the collapsing colonies are particularly active, perhaps indicating stress from exposure to a toxin or pathogen.
The national research team also quietly began a parallel study in January, financed in part by the National Honey Board, to further determine if something pathogenic could be causing colonies to collapse.
Mr. Hackenberg, the beekeeper, agreed to take his empty bee boxes and other equipment to Food Technology Service, a company in Mulberry, Fla., that uses gamma rays to kill bacteria on medical equipment and some fruits. In early results, the irradiated bee boxes seem to have shown a return to health for colonies repopulated with Australian bees.
“This supports the idea that there is a pathogen there,” Dr. Cox-Foster said. “It would be hard to explain the irradiation getting rid of a chemical.”
Still, some environmental substances remain suspicious.
Chris Mullin, a Pennsylvania State University professor and insect toxicologist, recently sent a set of samples to a federal laboratory in Raleigh, N.C., that will screen for 117 chemicals. Of greatest interest are the “systemic” chemicals that are able to pass through a plant’s circulatory system and move to the new leaves or the flowers, where they would come in contact with bees.
One such group of compounds is called neonicotinoids, commonly used pesticides that are used to treat corn and other seeds against pests. One of the neonicotinoids, imidacloprid, is commonly used in Europe and the United States to treat seeds, to protect residential foundations against termites and to help keep golf courses and home lawns green.
In the late 1990s, French beekeepers reported large losses of their bees and complained about the use of imidacloprid, sold under the brand name Gaucho. The chemical, while not killing the bees outright, was causing them to be disoriented and stay away from their hives, leading them to die of exposure to the cold, French researchers later found. The beekeepers labeled the syndrome “mad bee disease.”
The French government banned the pesticide in 1999 for use on sunflowers, and later for corn, despite protests by the German chemical giant Bayer, which has said its internal research showed the pesticide was not toxic to bees. Subsequent studies by independent French researchers have disagreed with Bayer. Alison Chalmers, an eco-toxicologist for Bayer CropScience, said at the meeting today that bee colonies had not recovered in France as beekeepers had expected. “These chemicals are not being used anymore,” she said of imidacloprid, “so they certainly were not the only cause.”
Among the pesticides being tested in the American bee investigation, the neonicotinoids group “is the number-one suspect,” Dr. Mullin said. He hoped results of the toxicology screening will be ready within a month.

space

China and Space

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Ever since I read the “2001” series by Arthur C. Clarke, I’ve been thinking about China and its relationship to space. For those unfamiliar with the first book and/or the movie, the Chinese launch a space shuttle at the beginning of the story which takes everyone by surprise. I’ve always been fascinated by other societies and people that can date their history back a couple thousand years (maybe because I’m Jewish). I’ve always thought that for China, being a civilization that has been around for 5,000 years (give or take a millennia) and one that has over a billion people, conquering space has been only a matter of time. If the US doesn’t work harder to keep our lead, we’ll lose it altogether. It’s bad enough that China is holding trillions of dollars in T-bills and holds our economic future in their banks. Soon, they might control our military future as well. My overall fear is that China is like the slow, plodding turtle in the “Tortoise and the Hare” fable. While it lumbers and takes forever, in the end it’ll win.
To that end, I read in today’s NY Times about a secret Chinese missile test from this past week – they blew up one of their own satellites and proved they can shoot anything out of the sky. Check it out:
China’s Muscle Flex in Space
China spread alarm and consternation among space powers when it destroyed one of its own satellites last week with a missile fired from the ground, thus becoming the first nation in more than two decades to successfully test an anti-satellite weapon. This aggressive show of force puts a wide range of United States military and intelligence satellites at risk and holds the danger of starting an arms race in space. Too bad the Bush administration’s own bellicose attitudes — and adamant refusal to consider an arms control treaty for space — give it scant standing to chastise the Chinese. The administration needs to reverse course promptly and join in talks aimed at banning further tests or use of anti-satellite weapons.
The Chinese test, which Beijing has not acknowledged but was tracked by intelligence agencies, destroyed an aging communications satellite some 500 miles above the Earth. The missile smashed the satellite into hundreds of pieces large enough to pose a danger for a decade or more to spacecraft or satellites that pass through the debris.
The Chinese have now demonstrated that — should they ever choose — they could destroy essential American satellites used to conduct military reconnaissance, spot nuclear tests and direct smart weapons. A top intelligence official told reporters last August that China had used a ground-based laser to illuminate an American satellite. That could signal a nascent effort to develop a way to blind satellites or to guide a missile to a target in space
The Bush administration has been flexing its own muscles in space. A national space policy issued in October declared that “freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power.” It asserted a need to deter others from interfering with America’s right to operate in space. The policy did not address whether Washington would place weapons in space — as some in the Pentagon have been urging — but the administration continues to oppose any restrictions.
Surely it would make military and diplomatic sense to pursue the opposite course and seek to ban all tests and any use of anti-satellite weapons.
The United States and the Soviet Union successfully tested such weapons decades ago and have no overriding need to develop better versions, although the United States is clearly trying. China’s success in matching the feat reportedly came after three earlier tests failed, so the Chinese could only benefit from additional testing. The United States, with many more satellites in orbit than any other power and a military that has become increasingly dependent on satellites, has the most to lose from an unbridled space arms race.
Some experts suggest that China’s latest test is intended to prod the United States to join serious negotiations. The way to counter China or any other potentially belligerent space power is through an arms control treaty, not a new arms race in space.

science

Stick a Fork In Pluto…

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…it’s done. No, this post is not a bad joke about how certain Asian countries eat dog but about Pluto, formerly known as the ninth planet in our solar system. Whether or not Pluto is a true planet has been a subject of much debate over the last decade. Finally, the debate is over. When the definition of planet was solidified today by the International Astronomical Union, Pluto got the boot.

According to the Union, a planet is “a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a … nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.” As Pluto’s orbit intersect’s Neptune’s orbit, it is automatically disqualified. A new category called “dwarf planets” has been created and that is where Pluto lives. I wonder if Disney will now change it to the 8 Dwarves and make Pluto an honorary member of the troop… plutotoy.jpg

After the jump, read all about it from the AP
Astronomers Decide Pluto Is Not a Planet
Filed at 12:20 p.m. ET, 8/24/06
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) — Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.
After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is — and isn’t — a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.
Although astronomers applauded after the vote, Jocelyn Bell Burnell — a specialist in neutron stars from Northern Ireland who oversaw the proceedings — urged those who might be ”quite disappointed” to look on the bright side.
”It could be argued that we are creating an umbrella called ‘planet’ under which the dwarf planets exist,” she said, drawing laughter by waving a stuffed Pluto of Walt Disney fame beneath a real umbrella.
”Many more Plutos wait to be discovered,” added Richard Binzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The decision by the prestigious international group spells out the basic tests that celestial objects will have to meet before they can be considered for admission to the elite cosmic club.
For now, membership will be restricted to the eight ”classical” planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Much-maligned Pluto doesn’t make the grade under the new rules for a planet: ”a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a … nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.”
Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune’s.
Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of ”dwarf planets,” similar to what long have been termed ”minor planets.” The definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun — ”small solar system bodies,” a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets and other natural satellites.
Experts said there could be dozens of dwarf planets catalogued across the solar system in the next few years.
NASA said Thursday that Pluto’s demotion would not affect its US$700 million New Horizons spacecraft mission, which earlier this year began a 9 1/2-year journey to the oddball object to unearth more of its secrets.
“We will continue pursuing exploration of the most scientifically interesting objects in the solar system, regardless of how they are categorized,” Paul Hertz, chief scientist for the science mission directorate, said in a statement.
The decision on Pluto at a conference of 2,500 astronomers from 75 countries was a dramatic shift from just a week ago, when the group’s leaders floated a proposal that would have reaffirmed Pluto’s planetary status and made planets of its largest moon and two other objects.
That plan proved highly unpopular, splitting astronomers into factions and triggering days of sometimes combative debate that led to Pluto’s undoing. In the end, only about 300 astronomers cast ballots.
Now, two of the objects that at one point were cruising toward possible full-fledged planethood will join Pluto as dwarfs: the asteroid Ceres, which was a planet in the 1800s before it got demoted, and 2003 UB313, an icy object slightly larger than Pluto whose discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, has nicknamed Xena.
Charon, the largest of Pluto’s three moons, is no longer under consideration for any special designation.
Brown, who watched the proceedings from Cal Tech, took Thursday’s vote in stride — even though his discovery won’t be christened a planet.
”UB313 is the largest dwarf planet. That’s kind of cool,” he said.
——
AP Science Writer Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this story

art

Why The Dutch Continue To Rock

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A young Dutch architect named Janjaap Ruijssenaars has created a floating bed which hovers above the ground through magnetic force. Sure it costs over 1.5 million dollars but still, its a friggin floating bed! The Dutch continue to amaze me, and not just because they have legalized soft drugs. Hup Holland!
floating_dutch_bed.jpg
After the jump, read the article
Via Phyl, a woman who loves the Dutch as much as I do…
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – originally published on 8/8/06
A young Dutch architect has created a floating bed which hovers above the ground through magnetic force and comes with a price tag of 1.2 million euros ($1.54 million).
Janjaap Ruijssenaars took inspiration for the bed — a sleek black platform, which took six years to develop and can double as a dining table or a plinth — from the mysterious monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 cult film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
“No matter where you live all architecture is dictated by gravity. I wondered whether you could make an object, a building or a piece of furniture where this is not the case — where another power actually dictates the image,” Ruijssenaars said.
Magnets built into the floor and into the bed itself repel each other, pushing the bed up into the air. Thin steel cables tether the bed in place.
“It is not comfortable at the moment,” admits Ruijssenaars, adding it needs cushions and bedclothes before use.
Although people with piercings should have no problem sleeping on the bed, Ruijssenaars advises them against entering the magnetic field between the bed and the floor. They could find their piercing suddenly tugged toward one of the magnets.