catdynamics | January 5, 2011Been a long time since I linked to a Billy Bragg video.
And, look, he's got a new tune:
catdynamics | January 5, 2011don´t mind me, just gearing up for the AAS
hey: who is going to the AAS?
if you do go, first read Julianne's advice on how to give a 5 minute talk
- the correct answer, generally, is "don't" - I'm definitely in the "provide asynchronous communication paths and put up a poster" group
I completely ignored l'affaire Gaskell, mostly because I don't want to get dragged into some issues right now
At scienceblogs Dean's Corner is trying to start a dialog
while the redoubtable PZ's take is predictable and strident
Mike Brotherton also ponders the issue (do trace back to the entire series of…
catdynamics | January 3, 2011Happy New Year!
Been kinda slow 'round here recently, need to catch up now.
So, er, who is going to AAS?
Seriously: what would it take to get Amazon, or Apple, say, to give me unlimited access to all current and future eBooks?
I like books.
We have a few thousand at home, including a healthy hundred or so eBooks by now, and the piles beside the bed now reach above the mattress - and it is a good thick mattress on a boxspring and tall frame - and I mean piles, at least one per household resident, excepting the cat.
But, much as I like buying books, browsing books, getting books for pressies…
catdynamics | January 2, 2011Icelandic media are reporting audible rumbles from Eyjafjallajökull sunday evening.
Earthquake activity is not up, though over the last few weeks there have been some small tremors under the glacier.
No sign of an actual eruption, and no sign of activity under her big sister, Katla.
Yet.
There is a spike in earthquake activity at the northern edge of Vatnajökull by Kistufell.
There are frequently surges of activity up there, it is right along the major line of the North Atlantic Ridge as it goes across the island, and there are at least three major active volcanoes right along there,…
catdynamics | December 8, 2010The Zooniverse folks, hosts of the Galaxy Zoo project and other great astronomical crowd sourcing projects, has a new toy for folks to play with:
The Milky Way Project
The Milky Way project take Spitzer data and asks you to draw circles on it - using the rather superb pattern finding power of your brain to find structures not obvious in the data.
Then there is science done.
The Galaxy Zoo has lead to some interesting new discoveries, like the Green Peas, and the Milky Way project ought to lead to more and different interesting stuff.
Have at it!
catdynamics | December 7, 2010A lot of people have asked me to link to and comment on the SUNY Albany cuts and some of the reactions to it by some online academics...
To cut a long story short, the SUNY system took another round of cuts, and the President of SUNY Albany decided to cut whole programs rather than keep trimming around the edges.
Classics, French, Italian, Russian, and Theatre
cut by directive, at short notice and with little open consultation.
Gregory Petsko wrote a high profile defence of the humanities, from a science perspective, and the Dangeral Professor hisself pitches his penny's worth in, while…
catdynamics | December 7, 2010From Earth to the Universe was a brilliant outreach project for the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, displaying online, and in real life, some of the best astronomical images around.
Now we have the Year of the Solar System coming up, who knew, and more and better images are needed!
From Earth to the Solar System
FETTSS will be an online collection of images that can be freely downloaded and exhibited by organizations worldwide in whatever manner they choose.
In celebration of NASA's Year of the Solar System, the images will showcase the excitement and discoveries of planetary…
catdynamics | November 18, 2010The discovery of a jovian mass planet around a metal poor horizontal branch star in a kinematic stream of stars, possibly originating from a merger with a dwarf galaxy, is an interesting conundrum.
With bonus updates and links.
HIP 13044 - 10' field generated from SIMBAD using Aladin
HIP 13044 is a 10th magnitude, F2 horizontal branch star.
It is about 600 700 pc away, has high proper motion and is associated with a tidal stream, and may therefore have originated in a dwarf galaxy that merged with the Milky Way a long time ago.
stellar tidal stream in Milky Way model
tidal stream…
catdynamics | November 11, 2010Do you know how many theoretical astrophysics tenure track positions there are each year?
About 5.
I am also interested in string theory...
catdynamics | November 11, 2010
Something went wrong with the GRE test in october.
Again.
Here is the official word from ETS
The GRE test administered in China, on Oct 23rd, was an old test.
GRE is offering free retakes next week or reimbursment.
This will seriously mess up grad school applicants from China, and not at a good time, with a lot of universities worried about funding and overcommittment on grad students recruitment (although I should note that some universities are taking opportunity and ramping up recruitment, for now, or deciding to gamble and plan on the funding situation improving).
So... is this a minor…
catdynamics | November 11, 2010No, I don't think that is a good idea...
Xtra Normal: make your own, use carefully...
One Professor's Fantasy
So you Want to Get a PhD in the Humanities
Ok, Eng Lit is just weird, but I get it.
catdynamics | November 9, 2010A missile was, allegedly, fired off the California coast, near Los Angeles monday night, to some consternation.
It was most likely a US Navy launch of a realistic target missile for an Anti-Ballistic Missile test underway over the last few days with the Japanese Navy.
It was, most certainly, despite any denials and claims from the Navy, a US Navy missile, probably being fired as part of an interesting ongoing exercise.
NBC video with video from CBS traffic helicopter.
Notice to Mariners, 45/2010 has a clear warning:
434/10(18). EASTERN NORTH PACIFIC. CALIFORNIA. MISSILES. 1.…
catdynamics | November 1, 2010
Wee Beasties
Wee Hairy Beasties?
We, Beasties!
Wee Hairy Beasties!
All Around the Town!
catdynamics | October 29, 2010Stayin' Alive in The Wall!
Final Teen Spirit!
Best mashup ever!
From Wax Audio (AU)
Also:
Final Teen Spirit!
catdynamics | October 28, 2010Same old thing as yesterday...
Seriously, wtf is going on with the Sun?
click to embiggen
phew.
ok, so there are some, finally, like 4
upturn into the new cycle has started, bit late and slow
click to embiggen
definitely reminiscent of the late 19th C
click to embiggen
new prediction for the cycle amplitude is low and interesting
Belgians are still the definitive authority on the subject
need to figure this magnetic cycling thing out, getting to be annoying
catdynamics | October 27, 2010There is a beautiful pulsar paper coming out in Nature tomorrow, 28th of October issue (Demorest et al 467, 1081, 2010)
Green Bank Telescope measurements of PSR J1614-2230 show it to be a 3ms binary pulsar with a white dwarf companion in an orbit aligned near perfectly edge on to our line of sight.
Measurements of the Shapiro Delay provide a measurement of the mass of the white dwarf, allowing the mass of the neutron star to be calculated from the known orbit of the white dwarf.
The resultant inferred mass is 1.97 +/- 0.04 solar masses.
click to embiggen
This is a very nice result.
There…
catdynamics | October 15, 2010More reports from the IAU meeting at Torino, this time on surprises with the putative planet around Fomalhaut.
The IAU Symposium 276 comes to a close in Torino with a late surprise.
Ray Jay reports again, using the fanciest of modern technology, that something may be awry with the planet around Fomalhaut.
Fomalhaut b is the direct imagined planet with the dust ring: two epoch imaging showed a small dot which moved in a manner consistent with an orbit out at that radius.
The dot was a bit too bright, which led to speculation that it might be a ringed planet, like Saturn.
Well, Ray Jay reports…
catdynamics | October 13, 2010ok, I give, I'm ready to join the tween decade
signed up to twitter username is steinly0
we'll see how it goes
catdynamics | October 12, 2010Canadian-French Hawaii Telescope transit observations show super-earth is probably a mini-neptune
Ray Jay reports from Torino that his group has CFHT observations on GJ 1214b transits, suggesting it has a H/He atmosphere, and is therefore probably not a "super-earth", but more likely an ice giant with neptune like atmosphere.
This is interesting, suggesting indirectly the planet migrated from beyond the ice line and did some gas accretion onto its core before reaching the inner system.
Looking forward to seeing the paper.