catdynamics | January 29, 2007If you haven't been reading you e-mails, the Hubble call for proposals that expired last friday has been retroactively extended until Feb 9th so people can try to revise their ACS proposals to use WFPC2, or to edit out use of ACS parallels, or to submit new science, including additional proposals to use NICMOS, WFPC2 or FGS. Or theory/archive proposals.
Out of the almost 750 proposals received, almost 500 were primary ACS proposals. Ouch.
In addition there are several multi-year large ACS surveys under way, like Julianne's - also the hunt for type Ia SNe at high redshift to detemine dark…
catdynamics | January 29, 2007Ok, it is really official Space Telescope news on ACS (dynamic web page)
Spare power electronics popped, not recoverable, may not be repairable.
They're looking to see if they can run the ACS SBC only off the A-side electronics (which failed last year, which is why the ACS is running on the spare).
also on NASAwatch
This is bad. Could really muck up the current jobs round, ACS must fund 1-200 postdocs.
If they can switch to A-side, it sounds like only the Solar Blind Channel (narrow field ultra-violet imaging) can be used, not the optical wide field or high resolution cameras.
Argh.
Full text…
catdynamics | January 29, 2007News item at NASA HQ website:
The B-side power supply on the ACS has crapped out
Not good, since they switched to it when the A-side went flakey.
May be fixable. Or not.
PS: there was a 3pm telecon on the status of HST today
if anyone was on it, let me know what they said. If there was anything new.
Because of the servicing gap, and general old age, there are only three cameras working on the Hubble Space Telescope right now, and no real spectrographs.
The primary instrument is the Advanced Camera for Surveys, a wide field (by Hubble standards) very high spatial resolution optical camera. It…
catdynamics | January 26, 2007Ok, so it is five proposals, not four...
Three are in, one should be heading off any minute now, eh?
And the last seemed to be in good shape. Could actually be done an hour or two early.
Must resist temptation to go back and "fix" any of the "done" proposals... it just causes trouble.
Hey, who got the highest GO number? We were at ~ 400 at about 3 pm, with five hours till the deadline!
For the uninitiate, today is the deadline for Hubble Space Telescope proposals.
These are primarily observing proposals, although there will also be a number of archival and legacy proposals which mine…
catdynamics | January 26, 2007Freezin' Friday, and we ask, most humbly, knowing that the answer is subject to the all too human vagaries of the Dreaded TAC: oh, Mighty iPod, what will the outcome of Cycle 16 HST call for proposals be?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: The Price I Pay - Billy Bragg
The Crossing: John Henry - Bruce Springsteen
The Crown: Carnival of the Animals: Fossils
The Root: Carnival of the Animals: Aviary
The Past: Jingle Bells
The Future: Emenius Sleepus - Greend Day
The Questioner: Is There Anybody Out There? - Pink Floyd
The House: Train Train - Billy Bragg
The Inside:…
catdynamics | January 26, 2007FireDogLake has been transcribing the "Scooter Libby trial" with lawyerly comments and snark.
Worth glancing through, if you didn't know of it.
And links are an intrinsic good, dontcha know.
catdynamics | January 26, 2007John Conway joins the CosmicVariance crowd and starts with a cliffhanger on The Hunting of the Higgs
That is a very nice little bump at 148GeV
Bit of a cliffhanger, but that is good, leave 'em begging for more.
So is the Higgs at 115GeV or 148GeV or is it all delusion and there is no Higgs?
Stay tuned.
PostScript: Ok, I read it and still didn't notice it was about the end runs at Fermilab rather than first runs at LHC at CERN.
Duh!
catdynamics | January 25, 2007
An astonishing Saturn composite image (warning: Very Large JPG)
See CICLOPS for more
catdynamics | January 25, 2007the 26th of January, 2007 at 8pm EST
is when Cycle 16(!) Hubble Space Telescope proposals are due
Hope you remembered to update your Astronomer Proposal Tools vs 16,
and you will want your new latex science justification templates
and remember to actually check what they say in the call for proposal itself
I think I'm on 4 this year, which is on the low side.
Mean success rate is around 1/8, which is not so good, eh?
More later, if I get time to chat.
catdynamics | January 25, 2007The USS Reagan Carrier Strike Group is surging - it will forward deploy to the western pacific next week.
That makes three.
Caveat...
...this is to backstop the Kitty Hawk which is going in for maintenance in harbour in Japan.
The Stennis was supposed to cover the Kitty Hawk, but was deployed early to the Persian Gulf, which puts two Carrier Strike Groups (Eisenhower and Stennis) and two Expeditionary Strike Groups (Boxer and Baatan) in or near the Persian Gulf starting early Feb or so.
Status of the Navy - dynamically updated web page
Now, you can't do anything silly with just two CSGs and…
catdynamics | January 24, 2007Jake still doesn't get it, I'll give Mike some credit and say he gets it, but he's been lucky.
Taking children on planes is a problem; young children have short attention spans, are impatient and throw tantrums. Having taken my pair transcontinental a few times I know the issues, I've had a couple of medium sized incidents but nothing really bad. I've seen serious tantrums and hours of crying from children of other travelers. Including the little brat who batted the top of our heads, hard, for a whole 4 hours, and spilled his juice on my wife (someone else's sitting in the row behind us).
But…
catdynamics | January 23, 2007Afarensis goes sappy
Avoiding the obvious counter, I go with Tender Comrade.
"My Youngest Son Came Home Today" seems to be lost in MyTubes for now, regrettably.
catdynamics | January 23, 2007Darren Barefoot wants people to Get a First Life.
First life has kid pirates, these may occasionally try to travel on planes, much to the horror of people who are rapidly incurring bad kharmic debt.
It is interesting in many other ways: good 3-D graphics; bad dungeonmasters; use of dangly bits; and kid pirates on planes.
In the process we discover the "Second Life" people have a sense of humour and proportion.
T/H Making Light
catdynamics | January 23, 2007To recap: There is a claim that penzim, an enzyme extracted from cod intestines, has strong antiviral properties, and in particular is effective in killing the H5N1 virus in vitro
The Times has a decent article on it
So, what is the big deal?
Well, probably nothing, there are no clinical trials or safety studies yet, but since the stakes are high, it is worth contemplating. Never know, this might be the silver bullet...
Penzim is a psychrophilic protease.
That is to say, it is an enzyme that breaks up protein, which works well at cold temperatures.
A good thing for arctic cod to have in…
catdynamics | January 23, 2007Afarensis strikes back in the YouTube lazyblog war, with Black Sabbath's War Pigs
Band Played Waltzing Matilda: starts at 13m40s to the end
sung by some drunk punk at a 1985 live gig.
But all 18m59s are worth sitting through!
catdynamics | January 19, 2007An Icelandic Company, Ensímatækni hf., is claiming that penzim - an enzyme isolated from cod intestines - has strong antiviral properties and kills H5N1 influenze viruses in vitro
Well, fancy that. It would, since it is a protease, but it is a start, I guess.
My amma would approve, she always said that cod liver oil was good for you, and we all dutifully ate spoonfuls of the stuff. Still do, when I can get the real stuff.
Ok - so there's step from cold pressed cod liver oil, to enzyme from cod guts, but it is all same-same, eh?
Of course modern trawlers gut and discard the innards at sea,…
catdynamics | January 19, 2007It is strange but true: when writing position papers for federal agencies, listening to a lot of old Icelandic punk is immensely useful for concentrating the mind...
Anyway, 06.06.06. is clearly the best album of 2006, by far.
Bubbi, if you must ask - think "the Iggy Pop of Iceland".
Memo to self: next time I do this in a room full of people, make sure external speakers are turned off!