catdynamics | April 27, 2011NASA's Kepler mission has now been looking for transiting exoplanets for almost two years, and while we wait for the release of the next set of data and identified candidate exoplanets, they produced a very striking summary of what they got so far.
These are all 1235 exoplanet candidates from the first set of data releases!
The image shows the planet candidates and their host stars to scale, with the relative stellar size also shown correctly to scale, and the stellar colour rendered accurately.
This is a really really nice illustration of what Kepler has found to date.
It should be noted…
catdynamics | April 24, 2011curious flap over leaked internal memo from LHC's ATLAS collaboration over at "Not Even Wrong"
hints of Higgs at 115 GeV in γγ decay
intriguing but too vague and unconfirmed for the physics to be interesting at this point.
Sociology of the comments is interesting.
catdynamics | April 22, 2011 ...and now we know where we have been
iSpy@home
as you know, Bob, there has been some flap in the intertoobz and old media that the iPhone keep GPS logs, automatically, by default, unencrypted, that are downloaded during backups...
Cool.
Er, well, maybe they should be turned off as default and be selectively turned on only by user, and maybe some prudent default encryption would also be good.
Or, you could just have told us, rather than let someone figure it out intuitively given that there is a GPS locator coupled to Apps.
Anyway, here is a selected snapshot from my life over about 3…
catdynamics | April 18, 2011
View from Shizugawa high school as the tsunami comes in.
Very powerful and disturbing footage.
catdynamics | April 18, 2011Dear Medical Doctors of America: the 1% does not include you.
You are the second percent and the top percent is about to dump you overboard.
Just be clear on that.
catdynamics | April 16, 2011We should do microbooks.
Electronic microbooks.
Like Apps, for $.99 each - sold as iPad/Kindle reads, with graphic.
Shorter than proper books, longer than blog entries or articles, designed to be of some lasting value. Something to read on a train, or a plain.
Yes, in the fiction limit this is the traditional short story, but there should be a potentially interesting niche here for educational material and general non-fictional commentary.
For impulse buys, viral reads, fast updates on interesting things.
catdynamics | April 14, 2011
Null result reported from XENON100 experiment on Cold Dark Matter detection attempt.
Xenon100 reports no CDM detection
Parameter space starts groaning as it is squeezed tighter...
Definitely not croquet...
paper on arXiv
catdynamics | April 13, 2011Official word on the IXO x-ray mission now, with rumours from Europe on what the European Space Agency has in mind.
LISA must be rebranded, quick!
IXO News
"This is an update on the discussions with the European Space Agency (ESA) at the recent ESA-NASA bilateral meeting.
...
ESA has ended consideration of IXO and the other concepts as partnerships at the scale proposed in the New Worlds New Horizons decadal survey (NWNH) and EJSM/Laplace in Visions and Voyages for Planetary Science.
Instead, ESA has begun a rapid definition effort that includes the formation of a new science team (to be…
catdynamics | April 8, 2011NASA has some official word on what is going on in astrophysics in general and with LISA in particular.
LISA and IXO ended.
Teams supported through Oct '11, if budget is not cut more.
New concept studies.
LISA and Changes in the Cosmic Vision Programme (pdf)
LISA and Changes in the Cosmic Vision Programme
"Based on discussions with the European Space Agency (ESA) at the recent ESA- NASA bilateral meeting, we provide the following information concerning LISA. Readers are advised to refer to any ESA postings - when available - for details and clarifications regarding the Cosmic Vision…
catdynamics | April 8, 2011It is friday, and we prepare to close down for the weekend.
So we splish over to the iPod and we ask...
Oh, mighty iPod: what writing will we see on the wall when the slate is clean?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: The Message - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
The Crossing: Skyttan (live) - MX-21
The Crown: Just the two of us - Bill Withers
The Root: One of These Days - Pink Floyd
The Past: Towers of London - XTC
The Future: The Boy Done Good - Billy Bragg
The Questioner: Woodstock - Joni Mitchell
The House: She's So High - Tal Bachman
The Inside: The Boy in the…
catdynamics | April 8, 2011NASA has discovered a new kind of unique mineral on a rare meteorite found in Antarctica in the '60s.
New Type of Mineral in Historic Meteorite
It turns scientists into slavering all devouring monsters
"The new mineral was discovered within the meteorite officially designated Yamato 691 enstatite chondrite. The meteorite was discovered the same year as other landmark meteorites Allende and Murchison and the return of the first Apollo lunar samples. The study of meteorites helps define our understanding of the formation and history of the solar system.
...
a mineral formed from only two…
catdynamics | April 8, 2011so, at these late night White House session, Reid offered a good old fashioned manly way to settle the issues: a round of poker, Texas hold'em...
Reid dealt.
Boehner drew 3-7 off-suit, and went all in.
Obama had ace-king suited.
He folded.
catdynamics | April 6, 2011I don't listen to my phone messages...
not at work, not most of the time.
seriously, and not just because of my constant attending of meetings of the ad hoc subcommittee of the standing committee on WTF do we do now
this is because almost anyone who actually needs to get hold of me knows to either e-mail, or call my cell, if they are cleared to have my cell number.
The university at some point switched to a VOIP phone for cost savings, this had several effects:
if the internet goes out, so does our phone service, no redundancy;
the VOIP voicemail (apparently) randomly expires the…
catdynamics | April 6, 2011IXO and LISA are dead and disbanded as NASA missions.
We are looking at a very thin pipeline and few new missions for a while, unless there is drastic new direction from above and strong guidance on funding.
NASA is a mission oriented agency.
This is especially true of Astrophysics.
At any given time, there are operating missions, missions in development, and planned future missions, each at various stages of effort.
Each mission successfully launched has a nominal operating lifetime, after which it may be considered for an "extended mission", if possible.
NASA tends to have catastrophic…
catdynamics | April 6, 2011Martin Rees wins 2011 Templeton Prize
£1,000,000 - nothing to sneeze at.
Hope he doesn't spend it all at once...
Sean's take at CV
PZ has his knickers in a twist over this - kinda grabbed the wrong end of the stick on this one...
In contrast, Andy at eAstronomer goes all sensible and stuff on Martin
catdynamics | April 1, 2011Friday. Prospies. Argh.
Another week over, and another dozen prospies run ragged.
So, Oh Mighty iPod One: what are they all going to do?
Woosh goes the randmozier.
Woosh.
The Covering: Now and Then - Arlo Guthrie
The Crossing: Hey Tonight - Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Crown: Must I Paint You A Picture - Billy Bragg
The Root: Islands - The XX
The Past: 40 - U2
The Future: Gekk Ég Upp Á Hólinn - Þula
The Questioner: We Built This Village On A Trad. Arr. Tune - HMHB
The House: Blake's Jerusalem - Billy Bragg
The Inside: I Cover the Waterfront - Billie Holliday
The Outcome: Death of a…
catdynamics | April 1, 2011Word is that President Obama will be announcing a bold new initiative in the physical sciences later today, providing major sustained funding boost and significant increases in funding across the board, including new major research faciltiies, accelerated funding of ongoing projects and more money for pure "blue sky" research, as part of a coherent plan to boost the economy and provide a long term path for sustainable growth.
Confidential sources at NaSA tell me the President will make space science the cornerstone of the new policy:
"Obama is sick of hundreds of billions of dollars being…
catdynamics | March 30, 2011A university is a self-perpetuating oligarchy.
A university chooses its own members, restricts membership, and governs from self-selected internal member promotion.
QED
Ok, so this a somewhat platonic abstraction of a private university, and the selection is from the meta-pool of members of the ensemble of universities, that are suitably like the particular university.
But, a self-perpetuating oligarchy it is.
Public universities, well, it gets complicated - they may be totally under external control or under nominal external control or have some open feedback loops to the external world…
catdynamics | March 29, 2011Are Economic Maxwell's Daemons allowed by the laws of econophysics?
If so, who would have one?
Presumably following the flow of hot money would reveal it.
catdynamics | March 29, 2011There ought to be some.
Google Fellowships that is.
Or better still, sabbaticals.
Preferably for totally useless academics, like computational astrophysicists with random erratic interests.
Just saying.
'cause I can.
And you know they could...
Please.