catdynamics | May 11, 2009Space Shuttle Atlantis is launching STS-125, the last servicing mission to Hubble
launch is scheduled in 13 minutes,
I am watching on NASA TV
they just cleared all launch constraints, at T-14,
this is a nominal hold scheduled to T-9,
some clouds I hear.
nominal hold released, final countdown resumed
they're retracting the arm
man, I wish they'd skip some of the prescripted inspirational comments they insert into the countdown sequence
AUP started at T-5
main engines steering check T-3
20
10, sparking
main engine ignition
liftoff
looks ok so far
max Q
throttle up
30 km up
SRB burnout and drop…
catdynamics | May 10, 2009we've been kinda low on sunspots for a while as we hit the inter-cycle low;
however, I heard rumours from Iceland that Aurora Borealis had been seen, so I scooted over to Soho to look see
UPDATE: nope, still no sunspots
Couple of nice spot complexes in the upper left.
Haven't checked the polarity to see if they are actually part of the new cycle, but it is likely they are.
Now we'll see if they're one off, or start of a trend...
Silly me, should have checked the other images,
I saw the emission line images and jumped on the magnetogram
Duh...
Here is the visible light image - no spots where…
catdynamics | May 10, 2009As the Hubble servicing mission is going up, hopefully, we contemplate what on Earth is going on with NASA.
Like, why the cuts?
Well, I have no inside info on this, have not talked to anyone back east, so I'm guessing:
first, NASA is just not that much of a priority - too small, and the science stimulus is fairly well covered with NSF and DoE, not to mention NIH and NOAA;
secondly, the Obama transition team did not get what it needed from top levels of NASA, and this did not help expedite things;
thirdly, Obama did well initially getting senior appointees confirmed, but then hit a rash of…
catdynamics | May 10, 2009it turns out that hot tubs and light ashfall are a bad mix
so we had a fairly major fire here in the mountains;
one of my colleagues here pretty much saw it start - the site is clearly visible outside the "fishbowl tower room" where we were having a research group meeting.
He pointed it out to me a few minutes before 2, and the fire is thought to have started at 1:45 or so.
Fire wasn't much tuesday, but threatened some homes and had the potential to be very serious.
Wednesday we had a KITP picnic at the beach, with clear view of the fire.
The winds picked up and the fire got bad, but was…
catdynamics | May 10, 2009confirmed case count by CDC and WHO respectively
we can learn some interesting things
First thing we conclude is that some of WHO's correspondents don't like to work weekends.
Second thing we conclude is that the CDC got the test kits out to the states this week:
what we don't know is whether the turnover in the US cases is the 'flu petering out; or the State labs saturating throughput; or doctors not bothering to send samples in.
Could be any of the above.
Worldwide cases are till growing.
Of course we still don't know how many undiagnosed cases per unconfirmed case; it looked like about 30…
catdynamics | May 8, 2009ole! ole!
I like the original, but this version is more suited to my current mood
catdynamics | May 7, 2009The Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara has broken out and spread far west and south, situation is looking very serious, there will be a lot of loss tonight, evacuation orders extend to Goleta, refugees are moving to UCSB, and it may not be done yet.
It could be worse than the Tea Fire.
Well, I was right earlier this afternoon, when saw the fire's edge move west and the other side come south.
I had another social event this afternoon, and came out at UCSB campus shortly before sunset, the wind had shifted and we could see the western and southern edges of the flames.
It was a truly awesome sight…
catdynamics | May 7, 2009it is thursday afternoon, temperature is almost 100F
and the winds are picking up, right on schedule
looking through the window on the other side from my office I can see the fire flaring up
looks bad
It looks almost like there are 3-5 separate fires burning now, from my vantage.
Two are moving up the mountain, one on the north side in fresh bush, the other at the top of the canyons, and looks to have almost crested the mountain ridge - if it gets over into the backcountry we're in for a very long weekend... I gather a lot of the firefighter resources are up there on the ridge crest roads…
catdynamics | May 7, 2009NASA 2010 budget request is out.
Not very stimulating, especially for Astrophysics.
NASA still does not have a nominated Administrator, and really does not have a direction, even though key and somewhat irrevocable decisions are imminent, in particular on the retirement of the Shuttle and development of the "Constellation" expendable launch system that has been under development.
Maybe Obama is bit distracted, or something.
Anyway, there is a 2010 NASA requested budget
and it sucks.
Apart from Earth Science, the Science directorate outlook is nicely summarized by the headline in the…
catdynamics | May 7, 2009Honest as the day is long...
Absolutely.
...at least we think so...
in Iceland, on winter's solstice.
catdynamics | May 7, 2009 evolutionary dynamics of influenza!
and how flu immunity is defined by you Hamming distance in protein bit space
The Kavli Institute has a very interesting biophysics program series...
Last semester there was another interesting biophysics colloquium:
The Puzzle of the Evolutionary Dynamics of Influenza
Luca Peliti, Univ. Federico II (podcast, video, slides)
Very timely talk that.
Worth browsing through.
catdynamics | May 7, 2009Clone Wars: how are stockbrokers like colorectal cancer cells?
The Kavli Institute has a very interesting biophysics program series...
This weeks colloquium:
"Physics and Mathematics of Cancer Metastasis" - Robijn Bruinsma, UCLA, explains (NOT ONLINE YET podcast, video, slides)
excellent colloquium on "cancer for theorists"
including discussion of the basics of cancer and metastasis,
mathematics of cancer epidemiology,
including the Master Equation for microevolution of cancer cells,
and open questions
soon likely to be a KITP program...
bottom line: everyone will get cancer, eventually,…
catdynamics | May 6, 2009yesterday, as we were headed into an informal research group discussion,
one of the locals grabbed me and pointed out the window at a small plume of smoke on the mountain above Santa Barbara
it was a small brush fire in San Roque canyon, the Jesusita Fire, high on the mountain, it was warm and windy, but the fire was moving diagonally uphill and looked like it would be contained;
firecrews and helicopters were on it immediately
by night the fire looked to have died down, but with the heavy brush in the canyons, the firecrews couldn't form a line around the fire, and in the morning it flared…
catdynamics | May 6, 2009if you won the lottery would you stay in grad school?
and more links, of random interest to me
Debt - now and then - from Seeking α
Krugman: no comment - classy
An old friend of mine from a small university town in the UK had dinner with Obama some weeks ago: said Obama was unusually up on a number of issues, in a good, smart way, and asked very good questions, iteratively; also said he was unusual in being polite and considerate of everyone, even the less important people.
He also said Hillary had become a total Obama fanboy...
I am paraphrasing, obviously. Heavily.
Graduate advisors…
catdynamics | May 5, 2009by folding down the Ideal to embrace the Earth and sealing it with our kiss, we symbolize how we dedicate our ideals to overcoming our animal nature, even as we enclose it, for without the complement of our animalism, the yin to our yang, our ideals would be dysfunctional and empty
from Prof Schombert via The Beast
catdynamics | May 4, 2009Obama announced members of the Presidential Council of Advisor's on Science and Technology (PCAST)
via ScienceDebate team
It is an august group.
Physical scientists you might know:
Christopher Chyba - Princeton - astrobiology and arms control
S. James Gates - Maryland - particle theorist
Shirley Ann Jackson - RPI - oh yes!
William Press - Texas - astrophysics and computing
Ahmed Zewail - Caltech - femtosecond laser
Plus a bunch of industry, chem, bio, enviro etc types.
Including someone from Microsoft and someone from Google/Apple... Hmm.
catdynamics | May 4, 2009General introduction to optimal control theory and how to control matter at the quantum level
David Tannor gave the Director's Blackboard Talk at KITP today:
Quantum Control: From Chemistry to Cooling to Computing
Very nice talk, goes on a bit in the middle talking about the time dependent quantum mechanical picture vs use of phase control.
Very nice finish on mathematics of optimal control theory and the physical picture of how to use variational schemes to implement practical control.
Things I took away from this:
optimal control theory is underway but has a lot of open interesting…
catdynamics | May 2, 2009just for laugh, here is the US H1N1 confirmed case count by date as provided by the CDC
now with added bonus WHO worldwide case count.
from CDC: past daily updates
click to embiggen
looks pretty linear now, I think the dip at day 7 is a CDC error and the case number was 109 then, not 91.
Doubling time is roughly 2 days, or e-folding of about 3 days.
The early rise is catching up on existing cases.
There is some sign of flattening, could be rate slowing, could be CDC lab falling behind.
If the doubling time is really about 2 days, and the confirmed case count is not dominated by the…
catdynamics | May 2, 2009CDC images the new H1N1 virus
A/H1N1/2009 (click to embiggen)
click to embiggen
from CDC