catdynamics | January 18, 2007There is a curious phenomenon in our general subject of study, which I have anecdotally noted over the years.
Some sub-fields self-reinforce, people working in them are all very impressed with each other, they all think, or say, that what everyone else is doing is terribly clever and they're all doing very impressive research and we're all just so important and good.
Now, this is an over-generalization, but it is true, for example, that most cosmologists, or string theorists, will tell you how all the others in their field are really better than anyone else in other fields, and how even if…
catdynamics | January 18, 2007It is friday, already, in some time zones anyway, and I am entering my fourth day of being closely confined with rather too many of my dear colleagues for 10-12 contiguous hours at an undisclosed location...
...so, it must be time to go to the Mighty iPod One and ask a subtly mysteriously topical question: Oh, Mighty iPod One - is there in fact life on the conjectured water rich "Super-Earths"? And, while we are at it, does it include mighty tentacled cephalopod like beasties?
Click here for hi-res version
© Nahks
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Þrjú hjól undir bílnum…
catdynamics | January 17, 2007Ok, we did a press release at the AAS, it was basically rehash of the old Exotic Earth result from September, but with new improved simulations and a Real Paper (in press) to go with it this time. AAS press office picked it out, and you don't say no to Maran if he asks, dood knows what he is doing.
So, Astronomy picked it up. Front page on their web site right now (direct link here).
Cool.
Avi and Sean did all the hard work, of course.
Illustrations are from Nahks
catdynamics | January 17, 2007First Hubble Fellowships awards are out, haven't heard how many were made.
NSF Fellowships should be announced early/mid next week.
I hear that Chandra selection cmt met and they hope to make offers next week.
Rumour Wiki continues with news
catdynamics | January 17, 2007President Bush did do a signing statement on HR 5631 - the 2007 defence appropriations bill
Part of the President's Signing Statement:
"Sections 8007, 8084, and 9005 of the Act prohibit the use of funds to initiate a special access program or a new start program, unless the congressional defense committees receive advance notice. The Supreme Court of the United States has stated that the President's authority to classify and control access to information bearing on the national security flows from the Constitution and does not depend upon a legislative grant of authority. Although the…
catdynamics | January 16, 2007The Astrophysical Data System, sponsored by NASA, is hideously useful.
It is, essentially, a searchable database of all the astronomical literature, of all time, with links to current and past papers (some current papers are behind subscription walls for fixed or indefinite periods), and to the arXiv preprint archives, and to a lot of the online astronomical databases and catalogs, like searchable sky catalogs and object databases, at all wavelengths at that. Some articles are searchable, either in the abstract, or full text searching.
Everything imaginable, almost, is cross-linked and…
catdynamics | January 16, 2007GRBlog provides a handy live feed of the Gamma Ray Burst circulars - the GCN notices.
Same bunch has the Texas Supernova Search online. Using ROTSE-III(b) to find optical supernovae, piggybacking on the gammar ray burst optical transient searches.
catdynamics | January 16, 2007The Astro Rumour Wiki page has gone hyperactive as rumours flood in.
But, no word still of the Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra Fellowships?!
Getting late in the game.
If you heard, comment, rumourmonger on the wiki, or e-mail me.
We gots to know.
catdynamics | January 14, 2007Global Security has a Iran "strike time line", including countdown clock to earliest possible time for strike, they think (seen on Gilliard's News Blog)
So, er, what they say.
They identify early Feb as the first opportunity, if Stennis moves out soon.
They identify Nimitz as the third carrier available (or Kitty Hawk could move up and Nimitz rotate in behind her, but I think it is more likely Nimitz would go straight in, and Kitty Hawk kept between Japan and Korea, they know that region).
March is clearly the crisis time, new moon is mid March, USAF like to strike just after new moon to…
catdynamics | January 12, 2007I'm up anyway...
Magnitude 8.1 +/- 0.2 earthquake off the Kurile islands in the north pacific.
Tsunami warnings for east coast of Japan's northern island and for parts of Alaska.
Parts of Russia and various islands also under a tsunami watch
We'll hear in the morning if anything happened. Hm, residents somewhere (Japan?) ordered to flee to higher ground, I wonder if buoy data is in?
catdynamics | January 12, 2007Watching Countdown rerun...
I predict that the next budget passed by Congress affecting the armed forces, whether a continuing, supplemental or by agency, will have a very interesting, and possibly cryptic signing statement.
Bush will use his signing statement precedents (as yet untested in court) to claim plenary powers under the unitary executive and as commander in chief, to redirect resources to deploy forces where he, as CinC, deems necessary.
This will circumvent, at least for a while, any attempt by Congress to block escalation in Iraq or expansion of the war to adjacent countries. The…
catdynamics | January 12, 2007Friday again? Too much.
So, mighty iPod one, let us know is there bleached life on Mars?
Whoosh goes the randomiser.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Up the Junction - Squeeze
The Crossing: Come Back to Camden - Morrissey
The Crown: Run through the jungle - Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Root: Street Corner Ambassador - Michelle Shocked
The Past: Touch Me - Doors
The Future: She - Green Day
The Questioner: A New England - Billy Bragg
The House: Savez-Vouz Planter les Choux?- Sien Diels
The Inside: I've Been Working on the Railroad
The Outcome: Jón Pönkari - Utangarðsmenn
#11 is House of Fun -…
catdynamics | January 12, 2007I never knew Brian May wrote that...
Via NASAwatch we find the following
..."We will find what we believe are the lowest priority half-billion dollars in content, and we'll extract it, across the agency," he says, stressing that does not mean programs at the core of the redirected U.S. space program as defined by President Bush almost three years ago.
That is Griffin, talking about how NASA will keep the Crewed Exploration Vehicle development on track if Congress sticks with a continuing resolution for the 2007 budget - which would keep NASA's budget at the 2006 level, with earmarks deleted…
catdynamics | January 12, 2007Prof Don Osterbrock, of the University of California at Santa Cruz former director of the Lick Observatory had a heart attack and passed away yesterday, Jan 11th 2007.
There will be a shot remembrance at lunch today at UCSC, with a more formal celebration of his life to be scheduled at a later date.
A View of the Future As Seen From the Past
UC Bio
I just saw him in Santa Cruz three months ago, had a nice chat with him about spectroscopic variability of double AGNs and prospects for doing a broad search for close black hole binaries, he was really fired up about the new observing techniques…
catdynamics | January 11, 2007The Baatan Expeditionary Strike Group (marines and amphibious assault ships) just formed up and is heading in the general direction of the mid-east;
the Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group is already in the Persian Gulf, routine rotation in theatre.
The Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is in theater but pulled out of the Gulf to patrol the coast of Somalia. The Stennis Carrier Strike Group is supposed to be heading there, but they didn't leave first week of Jan as originally suggested, now scheduled to leave sometime this month. No other carriers are at sea, although there are 2-3 (Roosevelt,…
catdynamics | January 11, 2007Astroprof stuck it out till the bitter end at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle.
Apparently it did not end well. The Convention Center staff took down everbodies' posters at lunch and piled belongings in the lobby.
It was a fun, and exhausting meeting, but I have to say it was not run tightly - sessions were a bit more higgledy-piggledy in content than normal, and parallel schedules had clashing content overlap to a higher extent then normal.
And they put the NASA advisory meeting in a tiny room with no mikes for the panel, while the ballroom was being used by an AGN…
catdynamics | January 10, 2007
Jason Kalirai et al see stars within stars:
a globular cluster system around a distant elliptical galaxy is seen in a Hubble image through the nearby globular cluster NGC 6397
Very cool.
catdynamics | January 10, 2007Chandra data suggests Kepler's Supernova was actually a type Ia supernova
Type Ib, Ic and II supernovae occur during the gravitational collapse of a massive star, the core forms a neutron star or in some cases black hole and the associated energy release blows off the outer layers.
In contrast type Ia comes from older binary stars, when a white dwarf acquires additional mass and exceeds the critical Chandrasekhar mass limit and blows up completely in a nuclear detonation.
catdynamics | January 10, 2007
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Lord Tennyson
Spitzer data suggests a supernova shockwave is about to destroy the "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula...
catdynamics | January 9, 2007FASEB has put together a resource package to defend evolution and fight intelligent design.
Seen in Science, Support Evolution Education is here