December 2006 - Posts
EIROforum / CERN |
A hardhat worker is dwarfed by the inner workings of the Large Hadron
Collider's ATLAS detector. The collider is due to begin operation in 2007.
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Even though it’s been judged Science’s “Breakthrough of the Year,” it’s a safe bet that people won’t be buzzing about the Poincare Conjecture in 2007. Instead, the coming year is bracketed by two paradigm shifts in science, having to do with politics and particle physics.
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The state of Ohio has followed up on its intentions to make a spaceport deal with an offer of incentives to Planetspace, a Canadian-American rocket venture that's thinking of putting its base of operations at Columbus' Rickenbacker International Aiport. Planetspace's chairman says the offer is roughly in line with his $20 million expectations. "We're very excited and very encouraged about it," Indian-American entrepreneur Chirinjeev Kathuria told me today. "We would definitely want to move forward in the state of Ohio."
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NASA: Cassini sends end-of-year greetings from Saturn •
Defense Tech: The 20 biggest posts of 2006 •
Bad Astronomy Blog: Top 10 astronomy images of 2006 •
Scientific American: Most important science stories of 2006
Five years from now, which technologies are going to be the breakout hits? It's not an easy game to play: Sure, some folks predicted at this time last year that 2006 would be the "Year of Video on the Internet." But try looking five years ahead.
IBM did just that, bringing together 150,000 people from 104 countries to pitch in their prognostications. Then the company narrowed that list down to the five innovations that were the "most impactful, and probably the most likely to be successful" by 2012, said George Pohle, IBM's vice president for business consulting services.
Here are the five that IBM came up with:
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BBC Magazine Monitor: 100 things we didn't know a year ago •
Universe Today: '365 Days of Skywatching' •
Popular Science: 10 sci-tech moments that mattered in 2006 •
Wired: Four lo-fi sci-fi flicks from 2006
The mystery over former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko's death by radiation poisoning is getting curiouser and curiouser, with Russian prosecutors pointing the finger at the managers of a now-bankrupt business empire. It's yet another bizarre twist in a tale that has already entangled the Russian government. But even though the murder investigation is getting murkier, it's no mystery that the murder weapon, radioactive polonium-210, could be produced in virtually any chemistry lab.
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Can you imagine the 10th dimension? (via
Digital Roam)
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Manufacturing.net: Can space plane deliver on two-hour promise? •
Scientific American: What is a planet? •
Slate: How can you tell if some kid is Buddha's reincarnation?
Science-fiction tales often fast-forward the pace of evolution to create the big-brained humans of the future - or, for that matter, the big-brained chimps of "The Planet of the Apes." Research published this week in the journal PLoS Biology, however, argues that the more complex your brain gets, the harder it is to evolve further. The subject could have implications for speculation into the future of intelligence.
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Science news of the year, from Science News •
N.Y. Times (reg. req.): Natural selection sometimes favors liars •
The Independent: Rising seas evict island's inhabitants •
Nat. Geographic: Two-headed fossil dates back to dinosaur age
Here at Cosmic Log, the holiday season is traditionally a time for focusing on the intersection of science and religion - or would that be the boundary between them? Over the past week, we've already explored that intersection quite a bit - ranging from the latest crop of speculations about the historical Jesus, to this week's memorials for one of the world's best-loved skeptics, the late astronomer Carl Sagan. But for this discussion, I'd like to look forward instead of back.
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• 'Nova' on PBS: 'Underwater Dream Machine'
• The Economist: The Argus eyes of stargazers
• New Scientist Tech Blog: The Mindball Challenge
• Sci Fi Tech: 9 military technologies we want (via Slashdot)
NASA / ESA |
Looking for that last-minute holiday gift? Fire up your photo printer, click on over to the European Space Agency's Hubble site and churn out a 2007 calendar featuring eye-popping images from the Hubble Space Telescope. While you're on the Web, take a look at some fresh views of the sun, and cast your vote for the best snapshot from Saturn and its moons.
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Russia's RIA/Novosti news service reports on Moscow's plans to rejuvenate its space program - starting out with a sun-observing probe in 2008 and a 2009 mission to bring back a sample from Phobos, one of Mars' two moons. But for followers of the commercial space race, the most interesting tidbits have to do with the blueprint for human spaceflight.
Russian space officials are quoted as saying that beginning next year, their Soyuz capsules will "as a rule" have one space tourist flying alongside two professional cosmonauts - and that a round-the-moon flight is planned for 2011, with two paying passengers accompanying two professionals. This implies that there'll be takers for the $100 million-per-seat ride. Eric Anderson, the president and chief executive officer of Virginia-based Space Adventures, has hinted that there are indeed deep-pocketed adventurers interested in taking the trip.
Stay tuned ... for the next four years.
• Univ. of Wash.: Robotic crawler checks power lines
• NSF: Researchers see rare light-emitting neutron decay
• CFHT: New class of gravitational lenses found
• NASA: Scientists predict big solar cycle ahead
• Northwestern U.: How your brain turns you into a wine expert
Cornell Univ. |
Ten years ago today, I was muddling through this new thing called online news at MSNBC - while just a few miles away, at a Seattle cancer center, one of science's most eloquent spokesmen was dying. At the time, astronomer Carl Sagan's death was another blip on the news screen. But since then, his influence has, if anything, grown for me and for others - as evidenced by the outpouring of reminiscences on this 10th anniversary.
Many commentators have touched upon Sagan's legacy for scientific skeptics - for example, the idea that in this "demon-haunted world," extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, whether those claims relate to the existence of extraterrestrials or the existence of God. Not so many have addressed his legacy for believers. And that's what I'd like to touch on here.
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• Slashdot: Revisiting the physics of Buckaroo Banzai
• Wired.com: You've got mail, and your period
• Nature: The mammal that can smell underwater
• Columbus Dispatch: The value of harebrained hypotheses
N49 from NASA / CXC / STScI / Caltech |
NASA's Great Observatories have combined to produce images that are as uplifting as holiday cards - and in some cases can easily be sent as holiday e-cards.
From the Hubble Space Telescope comes a sparkling view of the LH 95 star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our Milky Way's satellite galaxies. Hubble, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory team up to produce a flattering flame from N49, one of the brightest supernova remnants in that same Large Magellanic Cloud. And just for good measure, Chandra also offers a multicolored Christmas-light display from the Milky Way's W3 star-forming complex.
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Nick Sagan sends along notice of a blog-a-thon on Wednesday to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of his famous father, astronomer Carl Sagan. The memorial is being organized by Joel Schlosberg over at Joel's Humanistic Blog, with boosts from Boing Boing and other regions of the blogosphere. There's even a "Celebrating Sagan" blog that's been created as an online remembrance book.
Although I never met Carl himself, I've been fortunate enough to become acquainted with Nick as well as with Ann Druyan, Carl's widow and the keeper of the "Cosmos" flame. I'll try to gather my thoughts for an item on Wednesday, with a bonus for Cosmic Log correspondents.
Please feel free to leave your comments on Carl Sagan's legacy here - paying proper respects to the dead, of course. The author of the best comment, judged purely by my personal criteria (including depth of insight, pithiness, relevance, etc.), will be sent a copy of "The Varieties of Scientific Experience," a posthumously published collection of Sagan's lectures on life, the universe and everything.
Update for 8:20 p.m. ET Dec. 20: I've put together a meatier item to mark the actual anniversary - a salute to the scientist's legacy that you could call "Sagan for Non-skeptics." You'll also find out who won the copy of "The Varieties of Scientific Experience."
• Maps of War: The history of religion in 90 seconds
• NASA Watch: Google takes command of space fleet
• Improbable Research: The iffiness of Santa | December Mini-AIR
• The Onion: Al Gore caught warming the globe | Top 10 tales
As a metaphor for the process of seeking out the truth, the idea of "separating the wheat from the chaff" goes back at least as far as the Gospel of Matthew. Over the past couple of days, readers have stirred up their share of wheat and chaff in response to my report on the apocryphal tales surrounding the biblical accounts of Jesus' life.
Most of those tales - highlighted in the National Geographic documentary "Secret Lives of Jesus" - are definitely chaff, created in the first four centuries of the Christian era. As scriptural scholar Ben Witherington told me, they're the ancient equivalent of Harlequin romances, or you might compare them to the popular "Left Behind" series of novels: that is, riffs on Christian scripture that flesh out the basics with plenty of fiction.
So are such also-ran gospels a fit subject for religious study - or scientific study, for that matter? Read on for a sampling of opinions from believers and skeptics:
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• Science News: Think positive to ward off colds
• The New Yorker: Knowing the enemy
• Fortean Times (reg. req.): Angels and daimons (via Daily Grail)
• Popular Science: Semper Fly ... Marines in space
The results are in: This year's top gift for science geeks, decided by a decidedly unscientific survey, is the spinthariscope - one of the few toys out there that's truly nuclear-powered.
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• 'Nova' on PBS: 'Wave That Shook the World'
• The Economist: Time to cool it
• The New Yorker: The Good Book business
• Wired.com: Race to the moon for nuclear fuel
SpaceDev |
An artist's conception shows the SpaceDev Dream Chaser spaceship in flight.
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Space entrepreneur Jim Benson says he's well into the first stage of the development effort for his Dream Chaser suborbital spaceship, with seasoned shuttle commander Robert "Hoot" Gibson signing on as Benson Space Co.'s chief operating officer and chief test pilot.
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• USA Today: Space tourist's computer skills could prove handy
• Bigelow Aerospace: Thinking outside the bingo box
• SpaceRef: IPod sightings on the shuttle | and space station
• NASA Watch: Where did all those crashed Mars probes go?
Once again, high-tech types are joining the life-and-death search for snow-trapped travelers: Less than a week after the drama of the lost Kim family played out in southern Oregon, heat-seeking planes and phone-seeking gizmos are being employed to look for three mountain climbers missing on Mount Hood in the northern part of the state.
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• The Guardian: 'Solid gas' could be mined
• Defense Tech: Shark spies steered by 'squid juice'
• Technology Review: Return of the Porta-People
• Discovery.com: Dog personality linked to fur color
Sometimes it takes a geek to buy a gift for a geek. Well-meaning friends and family members may be thinking along more traditional lines for that special someone - say, a nice sweater or a diamond pendant - when what the science junkie really wants is a glow-in-the-dark planisphere watch or a Foucault pendulum. That's why we put out the call last week for science geeks to send in their favorite gift suggestions - with a geek goodie bag offered as an enticement. I've put together a selection of nine suggestions, and now it's your turn to pick the winner.
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• Popular Science: The 15 best Bond gadgets of all time
• Astrobiology Magazine: The Great Alien Debate, Part I
• Improbable.com: Inventor Ray Kurzweil announces new killer app
• The Onion: Egyptian conservationists protect mummy population
NASA |
When the space shuttle Discovery soared through the night sky on Saturday night, a camera mounted on the craft's external fuel tank beamed back a light show that had never been seen before - at least from this particular perspective. Arcs of multicolored lights shimmered around the orbiter itself, looking for all the world like an aurora. You can watch the display by clicking on this video link.
But what caused the spectacle? NBC News space analyst James Oberg went to some effort to explain the physics behind the show:
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• N.Y. Times (reg. req.): Study finds recent instance of human evolution
• Baltimore Sun / L.A. Times: Mojave was once a doodle pad
• U.S. News & World Report: The gospel truth (via Daily Grail)
• Science News: The predator's gaze
Touchstone Pictures |
Warriors advance through the jungle in Mel Gibson's Maya movie "Apocalypto."
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There’s plenty to argue about in Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" – and we’re not just talking about the actor/director’s bad behavior and controversial views. Anthropologists and modern-day Mayans are arguing about how much truth there is in Gibson’s gripping, violent tale of an ancient civilization on the brink.
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• Telegraph: Humanity's family tree might have to be redrawn
• National Geographic: Did sex-based roles give humans an edge?
• Wired Autopia: Yeast raises ethanol output
• The New Yorker: Hot and cold
During the California Gold Rush, the folks who reliably made money were not necessarily the miners – but the outfitters who sold shovels and other supplies to those miners. It could well be the same for the rush to private-sector spaceflight: At least that's the rationale behind Orbital Outfitters, a new venture that aims to lease spacesuits and other equipment to private rocketeers.
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• New Scientist: Table-top particle accelerator created
• Scientific American: DNA woven into circuits and robo-arms
• Nature: Rogue theory of smell gets a boost
• Brown U.: Fruit-fly study sheds light on sexual behavior
'Tis the season to shop ... for toy-crazy tots as well as gadget-crazy grownups and everyone in between. In fact, you'll find gift guides galore - but what do you get the science geek on your shopping list? Here's your chance to chime in with your suggestions, and win some geeky gifts yourself in the process.
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• Dept. of Energy: Solar cell sets world record (via Slashdot)
• PhysOrg: Particle physicists detect the tiny 'axion' at last
• Caltech: Geobiologists solve evolutionary 'Catch-22' problem
• Slate: How do you draw an extinct animal?
Now we have learned that James Kim, the CNet senior editor and occasional MSNBC cable-TV guest, did not survive his Oregon wilderness ordeal - and many of the messages coming in to MSNBC.com are in the nature of condolences for the family. CNet has set up its own "In Memoriam" Web page, but in light of the interest that you all have shown in the saga of the Kim family, we thought it appropriate to provide another opportunity, right here, to express your sympathy.
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The search for a missing family in Oregon got a high-tech assist from the cellular phone system - which helped searchers focus in on the snowy mountain road where the mother and her two children were found on Monday. But like other aspects of this survival story, the saga of cell-phone salvation appears to have depended as much on a stroke of luck as on the technology itself.
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• Wired: Say hello to goodbye weapon | Defense Tech: Pain in the butt
• N.Z. Herald: Babies speak universal language (via Improbable.com)
• Astrobiology Magazine: A hitchhiker's guide to astrobiology
• NASA Watch: Water on Mars? | Tune in Wednesday
World-famous physicist Stephen Hawking is considering an invitation to experience weightlessness - not yet aboard a spaceship, as he eventually hopes to do, but aboard a specially outfitted Boeing 727 jet that simulates the zero-gravity effect encountered in orbit. Will the quadriplegic genius do it? Stay tuned. ...
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• BBC: Climate science censorship? Put up or shut up (via Slashdot)
• Science News: Cosmic confusion over planethood
• N.Y. Times (reg. req.): Did pyramid-builders use concrete?
• Berkeley Lab: New clues to how sex evolved
The secretive rocket company backed by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos,
Blue Origin, was planning the second test launch at its sprawling West Texas facility sometime between Thursday and today,
as reported earlier this week. Air traffic controllers told me that the test didn't go off Thursday or Friday, perhaps due to unacceptable weather - and today they said there were two ignitions, but no liftoff. Because it's Blue Origin's policy not to comment on their tests, we don't yet know whether this was a disappointing fizzle or simply part of the expected testing routine. But stay tuned: Perhaps more information will trickle out.
Space advocates are banding together to urge Congress to revive funding for NASA’s Centennial Challenges, a program modeled after the $10 million X Prize and designed to encourage the development of technologies needed to go to the moon and beyond. The bad news is that the program is currently budgeted for no new spending, due to congressional inaction. The good news is that NASA has shifted around already-allocated funds to ensure that most of the existing prizes will be available at least until 2010.
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• Planetary Society: Fly your wishes to the moon with Selene
• Discovery.com: Meteorite may hold key to life's start
• Slate: Is Sonar Boy for real?
• The Economist: An appointment with chance
• Virginian-Pilot: Rocket will carry buzz to develop E. Coast hub
• USA Today: Rachael Ray upgrades astronaut meals
• Science @ NASA: Watch a meteor hit the moon
