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| archive for July, 2005 |
Recent Astronomical News
29 Jul 2005 20:17 EST
[I]mages…taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, show a patch of water ice sitting on the floor of an unnamed crater near the Martian north pole.
…The unnamed impact crater is located on Vastitas Borealis, a broad plain that covers much of Mars’s far northern latitudes, at approximately 70.5° North and 103° East. The crater is 35 kilometres wide and has a maximum depth of approximately 2 kilometres beneath the crater rim. The circular patch of bright material located at the centre of the crater is residual water ice. This white patch is present all year round, as the temperature and pressure are not high enough to allow sublimation of water ice.
My comments are: more water on Mars? Very auspicious; both for the search for life (paleontological or present) on the Red Planet, as well as the prospects of future human exploration there. Additionally, I’m simply awestruck by the resolution and clarity of the pictures we are getting from Mars Express’s cameras. Full color images at 15 m per pixel! That’s almost google maps resolution we’re talking here, folks. Can Google Mars be far behind?
Large transneptunian object…as big as Pluto?
Lots of recent buzz about another potential large Kuiper Belt object!
Details of the object are still sketchy. It never comes closer to the Sun than Neptune and spends most of its time much further out than Pluto. It is one of the largest objects ever found in the outer Solar System and is almost certainly made of ice and rock.
Since the initial reports of being potentially bigger than Pluto, its size estimate has been downgraded.
The first data made public about the object suggested the object could be up to twice the size of Pluto, but newly revealed observations indicate the object is about 70% Pluto’s diameter.
But…it has a moon!
Newly disclosed observations of the giant world revealed on Friday to orbit
in the outer solar system show that it has a moon.
Kudos to the very many people contributing to this discovery. The way minor planet discovery seems to work is that many independent groups contribute important observations and data for many years, and over time the discovery emerges.
Limericks
28 Jul 2005 20:48 EST
This…
A young man named Cholmondeley Colquhoun
Kept as a pet a babolquhuon
His mother said: “Cholmondeley
Do you think it quite colmondeley
To feed your babolquhuon with a spolquhuon?
…unfortunately inspired my own variations…
There once was a dog at the lb.
Who could speak! Thus did problems comlb.
For the dogcatcher there,
Who was forced in despair
To listen to Fido exlb.
—
There once was a Cardinal Wojtyła
Who became Pope, the Church’s renyła.
As John Paul II
His fate thus was reckoned.
Now in heaven his worries are fyła.
—
There was an old hare with a ct.
And two sons who stood to inherit.
The first took an oz.
But the elder did poz.
For the bunny did not want to share it.
—
etc.
Recent autism updates
26 Jul 2005 18:26 EST
http://www.aboutweblogs.com/genetics/item/2005/7/19/prkcb1-gene-and-autism :
A new gene for autism has been identified on chromosome 16. The PRKCB1
gene is found in the brain and the protein it encodes appear to be involved in
the communication of granule cells in the brain cerebellum with Purkinje cells;
both granule and Purkinje cells transmit messages in and out of the brain.
Researchers are touting the potential of genetic tests for autism based on these
limited results.* Poster comments: “*Can you see me rolling my eyes? “
Money quote in my opinion:
The genes may be neither necessary nor sufficient to cause autism on their own.
That’s a fact, Jack. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Autism is like Cancer. It’s not just one disease, and it doesn’t have just one cause, and it won’t have just one cure.
More here on Autism genetics. Good stuff, including this quote which is spot-on, and which I really wish the media and many in the autism community would get through their heads:
Generally speaking, most experts agree that autism is likely due to
numerous and complex genetic factors, many of which may be acted upon by
environmental influences. Perhaps it will even be determined one day that some
of these genetic factors predispose some autistics to particular sensitivities,
maybe even to heavy metals, casein, gluten, loud noises, bright lights,
infectious diseases, or any of the countless other environmental influence that
have been associated with autism. And perhaps awareness of these sensitivities,
all of which should be researched, will be the basis for the alleviation of
symptoms. But the fact will remain that these factors are not causative in and
of themselves.
Tags:Autism
Crash!
26 Jul 2005 17:29 EST
A recent couple of posts at the Freakonomics blog related to auto safety got me reminiscing about my car crashes. Ah, sweet memory! Mistress of pain!
I have been in three significant crashes which could have led to serious injury or fatality. Luckily, no one was actually injured. In two of the cases my car was “totaled” and in one case it required thousands of bux in repairs. All happened in a couple year period in the early 90′s.
Crash! One: I was driving a Pontiac Grand Am in East Lansing, MI. I was broadsided, struck on the driver’s side at right angles while I was driving at about 40 mph. Hit my head on the drivers window but wasn’t injured. The poor kid who was driving the other car had just got his license, and pulled into the intersection without looking. The cop tried to give him an ‘out’, though: “So, son, was anything blocking your view as you entered the intersection? Hint, hint?” Answer: “Yes, officer, my passenger’s head”. He did not get out of that ticket. The crash coincidentally happened in front of a Pontiac dealership, so I just pulled my badly damaged car across the street, called my insurance co, and told them the car was already at the shop. 
Crash! Two: Same Pontiac! My wife and I were rear-ended by a semi at highway speeds (not fun). A yahoo ahead of us cut us off, we braked, and the rig behind us ran right over the top of us. In the process we ran into the yahoo in front of us when he pulled into our lane and we took off his bumper; but the yahoo took off down the exit and never looked back. Both the front seats broke right off their bases. The front passenger compartment was intact, but the back seat and trunk were mangled. A friend of ours had planned on riding with us that night, but presciently did not. He would have certainly been kaput. This was the end of the Pontiac. 
Crash! Three: Mazda 323 (bright red). I was sandwiched between two vehicles, one in front, one behind. A lady right in front of me stopped halfway through an intersection. When the police questioned her it was obvious that she had no idea why she stopped or that stopping in an intersection might be a bad idea. Mazda was totalled even though it was a low-speed crash.
I didn’t get any tickets from those. I haven’t had any crashes since then. Really, I’m safe. Really.
Kids Money Management
25 Jul 2005 19:59 EST
http://elym.blogspot.com/2005/03/teach-your-kids-to-be-smart-with-money.html
From the Carnival of Personal Finance (http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/index.php?page=archives/2005/06/19/carnival_of_personal_finance_host_schedule)
Dayton Air Show — July 2005
18 Jul 2005 14:48 EST
Went to the Dayton Air Show on Saturday … took a whole gang, 7 of us (4 adults, 3 young boys). Unfortunately the weather in Dayton on Saturday wasn’t the best for an air show…low clouds, intermittent rain. It was quite hot though, so the upside of the rain was it kept us cool. As we discovered, the cloud cover didn’t filter enough UV to prevent most of us from getting decent sunburns. The weather also prevented the Golden Knights parachute team from jumping, and also stopped the F/A-22 flyby.
As for what we did see…the USAF Thunderbirds were spectactular even in the low ceiling. The F-15s were a lot of fun too, especially for the boys. They had a couple very good aerobatics shows, too; the Oracle-sponsored Sean Tucker as well as Jim Leroy. We also had very nice visits with the static displays of the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter (they had guards and wouldn’t let you get too close); the Glacier Girl P-38 (the one recovered from the Greenland ice cap) ; and the boys got to “pilot” the static Canadian CH-146 Griffon helicopter.
I was very disappointed with the administration of the event. Parking was horrible; we paid $7 so that the teenage boys who were supposed to be guiding us to parking spaces could ignore us while they spent time throwing rocks at each other; and on the way out the parking attendants had already left so that leaving the parking area was chaos. Food was likewise abominable. The pretzel vendors actually did not know how to operate the pretzel oven, and the sno cone vendor was as far as I can tell running a con game. His “syrup” contained only food dye and water … no sugar! Saves money that way to be sure…my 6-year old declared the sno cone inedible and didn’t take more than 1 bite. Next year, Vectren Dayton Air Show really needs to get their act together with running the parking and concessions more professionally. In comparison to the military folks and serious hobbyists/civilian professionals running the airplanes, the concessions and parking were abysmal.
But overall, a very fun day nonetheless. Here’s what sums up the show…our 13-month old boy learned a new word on Saturday. “Airplane!”
Polish in Columbus
12 Jul 2005 19:20 EST
http://www.polishpotteryhouse.com/
http://www.retailforward.com/freecontent/poland/retailpoland.asp
Students of Polish ancestry ScholarshipStudents of Polish ancestry who are residents of Ohio are eligible to apply for Polonia Foundation of Ohio, Inc. Scholarships. Applications can be obtained in either B-043 Graves Hall or from Edward J. Jayjack, 2120 Pleasant Valley Rd., Parma, Ohio 44134. Deadline: June 15. http://medicine.osu.edu/futurestudents/nonuniveristy_aid.cfm
Krystyna’s Delicatessen http://www.google.com/local?q=polish&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&sa=N&near=columbus,+ohio&rl=1&sc=1&radius=0&latlng=39961111,-82998889,955616334356531203 http://www.digitalcity.com/columbus/dining/venue.adp?sbid=148891
Puzzle Room Games
04 Jul 2005 18:59 EST
Hey folks, here is a collection of Puzzle Room links! Addictive…
- The Doors -
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/thedoors.html - Crimson Room -
http://www.fasco-csc.com/works/crimson/crimson_e.php - Viridian Room -
http://www.fasco-csc.com/works/viridian/index_e.php - Blue Chamber -
http://www.fasco-csc.com/works/bluechamber/index_e.php - Pink Prison -
Announced in August 2004, not released - Tangerine Room -
Announced in August 2004, not released - The Yellow Chamber is not a full game, just a subroom off the Crimson Room game -
http://takagism.fasco-cs.com/yellow_chamber.html - Botanical Room – I just don’t get this one at all…
http://www.takagism.net/remote/botanical/index.html - Droom -
http://www.higopage.com/droom/en/main.html - Escape the dark room -
http://www.woolythinking.com/html/darkroomIE.html?o=0o - More, etc. -
http://www.albartus.com/motas/
about mark beadles
I write the things you read here. Polymath renaissance redneck. I build software, stories, and young men. More...on the desk
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