Sciblogs Podcast Episode 2 Draft by kaiwhata. Design | The World by National Geographic is live. Aug 18, 2011 The World, Stamen's first iPad app and our first project with the National Geographic Society, is available for download from Apple's app store today. Yeah! The heart of the app is a globe of (you guessed it) the world, with overlays of National Geographic's unmistakable cartography available for the different parts of the earth. Each of these maps can be layered over a reference, terrain or ocean globe, and you can mix and match the different styles as you like. National Geographic has their act together in the map department, as you can imagine, and it was a great pleasure working with some of the best cartographers around (and classy too: I got a yellow border pin for my suit lapel as part of the deal).
The maps are up to date, and just before launch we were glad to be able pull in a map for the newly formed Republic of South Sudan (which Google doesn't show yet on their maps almost a month later, nyah nyah): You can download the app here. Space entrepreneurs may hold fate of ISS - space - 23 August 2011. FOLLOWING the retirement of the space shuttle on 21 July, Americans couldn't have relished the thought of being dependent on Russian Soyuz rockets to get into space. So when Russia's space agency Roskosmos said a week later that the 370-tonne International Space Station would be ditched in the Pacific Ocean in 2020, it must have seemed a hit below the belt. "So, I guess that's it then," Keith Cowing wrote, on the blog NASAwatch. "Russia gets to make the decision to scrap something we paid the lion's share to build and operate. " It is not quite that simple. Roskosmos was merely reiterating the policy agreed upon by the ISS's partner space agencies in Russia, Europe, Canada, Japan and the US.
If the station is still in good shape in 2020, there is an option to extend the station's life by a further eight years. NASA has already commissioned SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, to run cargo flights to the ISS with its Falcon 9 rocket and uncrewed Dragon capsule. More From New Scientist. Crop circles | Physics Stop. This post is syndicated from Physics Stop – Original Post There’s a great article in Physics World on crop circles. Not a discussion about man-made / weather-made / UFO-made – any sensible interpretation would be man-made – but just HOW do you make such intricate and vast patterns so quickly and leave almost no traces behind.
Some of the patterns that crop-up (sorry) in crop fields can be fractals, reproduced to an astonishing level of detail. There’s some evidence that the crop-circle makers are really very scientifically based and have moved beyond the rope, peg and stomping board and are armed with magnetrons and other secret techniques by which they carry out their art. Read the article and see what you think. I love the bit about a couple of the makers being motivated to produce ever more detailed patterns in an attempt to ridicule the scientists who clung to a natural (e.g. whirlwind) view of their formation.
And why are there so few crop circles in NZ? Physicsworld.com. Cavity magnetron. Magnetron with section removed to exhibit the cavities. The cathode in the center is not visible. The waveguide emitting microwaves is at the left. The magnet producing a field parallel to the long axis of the device is not shown. A similar magnetron with a different section removed. Central cathode is visible; antenna conducting microwaves at the top; magnet is not shown. Construction and operation[edit] A cross-sectional diagram of a resonant cavity magnetron.
The sizes of the cavities determine the resonant frequency, and thereby the frequency of emitted microwaves. The magnetron is a self-oscillating device requiring no external elements other than a power supply. Where there are an even number of cavities, two concentric rings can connect alternate cavity walls to prevent inefficient modes of oscillation. The magnetron is a fairly efficient device. Applications[edit] Magnetron from a microwave oven with magnet in its mounting box. Radar[edit] Heating[edit] Lighting[edit] History[edit] Steve Jobs stands down as CEO of Apple Computer. Breaking news is that Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple Computer, has resigned his post. Press reports are citing his resignation letter, To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know.
Unfortunately, that day has come.I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.Steve Readers are welcome to share there thoughts.
(Updated to add links below.) Simplicity, Flexibility, Beauty!, Kiwi PyCon 2011, August 27-28, 2011, Wellington, New Zealand. 1. Python: What can it do for us scientists? | MESA. The answer is A LOT! Let me clarify.. Though Python is a programming language, in the recent years it has emerged as an extremely powerful tool for a variety of scientific applications: from data analysis to simulation and complex visualisations to interfacing with instruments. Let’s take a cyber tour of various web pages that illustrate the capabilities of Python in science. A basic tour Interactive infographics Three dimensional visualisation using Mayavi A whole plethora of two dimensional plotting using the matplotlib package Interactive two dimensional plots using Chaco (including a cool visualisation of audio coming from your microphone at the bottom) Fitting data using scipy Interpolating data using splines Using python for bioinformatics PyVISA for interfacing with lab instruments using GPIB, RS-232 or USB More Python resources Software Carpentry: Beautifully simple video lectures on Unix and Python.
Dive into Python: Free e-book for those wanting to dive right into Python right now! NZPUG - New Zealand Python User Group. Ruby, Python, and Science. “Should I switch to Python?” | Programming for Scientists. November 17, 2009 – 6:34 pm Logo owned by the Python Software Foundation Rich has recently been considering switching to the Python programming language. Currently, Matlab is the language of choice in his department for rapid development and prototyping of code. It’s very good at this, but Mathworks (the company who produces Matlab) have been tinkering with the licencing terms, leading to hassles where none should exist. This is very frustrating and leads to the thought that it might be nice to use a free language where this will no longer be an issue. But of course things are not quite that straightforward.
Why Python? What do I need it for? Library support For scientific programming, having the right libraries is vital. Usability This is always tricky to assess without using the language, but the perceived wisdom on the Web, backed up by the opinions of some of our colleagues, is that Python is extremely user-friendly. What does everyone else use?
What about Octave? No related posts. Python for Scientists. In reaction to several colleagues asking about Python , I thought a webpage would be more useful than giving an exhaustive rundown on Python verbally. Python is a script based language that allows programmers/scientists to get their algorithms and functions working in little or no time. A large number of modules and wrappers are being built for Python, like RPy and Scipy , to allow advanced tools and faster processing speeds to be implemented. Plotting modules and programs are also in wide use among Python users. The wide array of tools that can be used for plotting provides great flexibility. To help users at all levels of Python familiarity, a list of handy links is given below in sections. Getting to Know Python If you're not too familiar with Python, the links below will help you learn the Python language.
How to Think Like a Computer Scientist Detailed tutorial on Python Instant Python Installers for Extras Fink MacPorts Easy Install Enstaller Programming Environments IPython TextMate Scipy RPy. PyBrain. Matplotlib: python plotting — Matplotlib v1.0.1 documentation. August 27, 1883: The island of Krakatoa blows up. Today, August 27th, marks the grim anniversary of one of the most devastating volcanic eruptions in recorded history: the final explosion of the island of Krakatoa in 1883. The eruption — and the tsunami that was generated by it — is estimated to have killed some one hundred thousand people, and it has even been speculated in Simon Winchester’s 2003 book Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded that the eruption led to the political downfall of the Dutch Indonesian colonies.
An 1888 lithograph representing the eruption of Krakatoa (source). On his Scientific American blog History of Geology, David Bressan has relayed some of the eyewitness accounts of the devastation. I thought it would be interesting to describe some of the first published scientific accounts of the event, and the struggle to understand it in its aftermath. The first article appeared in the September 6th issue of Nature, and was reprinted in the October 5th issue of Science*. The narrative continues: The emphasis is mine. Calendar. Brewing A Designer Beer. A new discovery has unlocked the secret story of lager beer’s South American origins, and is letting scientists piece together the genetic history of the domesticated microbe that keeps lager cool.
This final piece of the yeast’s genetic family tree could one day help brewers create custom-made designer brews with carefully selected characteristics. The modern-day lager yeast is a hybrid, born from an ancient hookup between a Saccharomyces cerevisiae--a popular ingredient for brewers and bakers--and another yeast that Diego Libkind and his company have identified and named Sacchyromyces eubyanus. They published their study in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers surmise that at some time after the 16th century, S. eubayanus hitched a ride from South America to Europe with the traveling tradesmen, and fused with S. cerevisiae to create the lager yeast. “We're trying to see if we can generate a local project,” Libkind tells Fast Company.
Room-temperature brown dwarf spied just 9 light-years off. 3 Big data security analytics techniques you can apply now to catch advanced persistent threats Scientists perusing data collected by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have spotted some really cool stars – brown dwarfs with an atmospheric temperature as low as an agreeable 25°C. Dubbed "Y dwarfs", these objects have hitherto eluded astronomers hunting them at visible wavelengths, although WISE has finally nailed six examples within a distance of around 40 light-years from our own Sun. Jon Morse, Astrophysics Division director at NASA's Washington headquarters, explained: "They are 5,000 times brighter at the longer infrared wavelengths WISE observed from space than those observable from the ground. " Brown dwarfs are stars whose lack of mass prevented a sustained nuclear reaction at their cores, condemning them to fade and cool instead of shining proudly in the heavens.
The NASA boffins are also excited about the Y dwarfs because of their relative proximity to Earth. Bootnote. Coolest brown dwarf discovered. Lisa Grossman, reporter (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA) The coolest stars in the galaxy have finally come out of hiding. Astronomers using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have found six chilly almost-stars called Y dwarfs, which had been hunted unsuccessfully for more than a decade. Y dwarfs are the coldest class of brown dwarfs, star-like bodies that are too low-mass to fuse hydrogen in their cores. These "failed stars" don't burn the way stars like our sun do, meaning they do not emit visible wavelengths that most telescopes can spot. But they still give off some heat, which WISE can detect. Six of those were Y dwarfs, hitherto-theoretical bodies cooler than 226 °Celsius.
"The brown dwarfs we were turning up before this discovery were more like the temperature of your oven," Davy Kirkpatrick of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, says in a press release. The Y dwarfs are between 9 and 40 light years from the sun. NASA's humanoid wakes up in space, starts Tweeting. Kass: Of moon men and red cucumbers - chicagotribune.com. August 25, 2011|John Kass Of all the hoaxes in American history, my favorite involves the first "scientific" proof of life on the moon: The winged humanoids called Vespertilio-homo, or man-bat, written 176 years ago this week in the New York Sun. The Vespertilio-homo had copper-colored hair.
They prayed in a sapphire temple. And when they weren't flying high above the lunar surface, they gorged on fruit that looked like red cucumbers. They shared the moon with other creatures, great white stags with ebony antlers, horned bears, blue unicorns and beavers without tails. It was all published as scientific fact in a six-part series that began in the Sun on Aug. 25, 1835. The amazing findings were possible because of the giant telescope built by the famous and distinguished (and all too real) astronomer Sir John Frederick William Herschel. There was just one thing wrong with the story. Did they keep records in their temples detailing the collapse of past bat-man civilizations?
Make no mistake.
Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? Case 1 (heard at 8:50 a.m.): An Arab Israeli serving a 30-month sentence for fraud. Case 2 (heard at 3:10 p.m.): A Jewish Israeli serving a 16-month sentence for assault. Case 3 (heard at 4:25 p.m.): An Arab Israeli serving a 30-month sentence for fraud. There was a pattern to the parole board’s decisions, but it wasn’t related to the men’s ethnic backgrounds, crimes or sentences.
It was all about timing, as researchers discovered by analyzing more than 1,100 decisions over the course of a year. The odds favored the prisoner who appeared at 8:50 a.m. — and he did in fact receive parole. There was nothing malicious or even unusual about the judges’ behavior, which was reported earlier this year by Jonathan Levav of Stanford and Shai Danziger of Ben-Gurion University. Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry at colleagues and families, splurge on clothes, buy junk food at the supermarket and can’t resist the dealer’s offer to rustproof their new car. 1. 2.
Scientists find weakness in deadly Ebola virus.