catdynamics | February 20, 2008possible meteor impact in northwest US
this is all over the news, but there was a prominent fireball in the northwest US tuesday morning with a possible ground strike, likely in eastern Washington State, possibly Adams County
prelim query on bablog
lots of video from local TV stations - expect someone will have triangulated it this morning and locals should have gone out by now to look for crater and debris fields
KLEW in Idaho has surveillance video footage above
More from Ritzville Journal Adams County including a PNNL video
KXLY has additional footage
either a low airburst or a ground…
catdynamics | February 18, 2008I give
I lose
I was wrong
and I will pay
I concede The Bet
There is a great, if sporadic, tradition of "bets" in astrophysics.
It is a particular tradition at Caltech, where Kip Thorne has made a series of famous public bets on science issues.
One of my great "bad moves" as a graduate student was to decline a bet with a Caltech faculty member - I had made a rash (but as it turned out intuitively correct!) scientific statement and he immediately offered to bet me on it, I felt the stakes were too high and didn't have the sense to ask for odds... so I chickened out. Silly me. Been…
catdynamics | February 16, 2008Valerie Wilson, née Plame, Penn State alumnae and outed CIA undercover agent just visited
she was on my flight (sorry about the kids singing so loudly) and was met by a very very high ranking university official for a dinner and, I gather, a quick basketball game from the box (wot PSU beat Illinois, in basketball?)
I guess the political landscape really is tilting
I hope Penn State will now go and do the decent thing
least we can do
catdynamics | February 16, 2008meeting is over, what did we learn
first: don't wear "city socks" in ski boots - first day out I forgot to switch to high wool socks and I have the most amazing line of blisters on my left calf...
totally awesome skiing though
good meeting also, I gather all the talks will be online soon, will post pointer when it does
two further things that interest me, and my apologies to all the talks and topics I didn't mention...
first, there is the issue of reionization - did it come early, starting at redshift 10-15, as some of us think it must, or did it come late with rapid reionization between…
catdynamics | February 15, 2008Crisp clear snowy friday. It is still friday in my current time zone. Just.
So, we approach the mighty iPod, and we ask: did reionization come early?
Woosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Grái Fiðringurinn - Stuðmenn
The Crossing: C.A.M.R.A. Man - Half Man Half Biscuit
The Crown: Don't Worry Baby - Beach Boys
The Root: Winter Wonderland - Cranberry Singers
The Past: Mo - Alpha Blondy
The Future: Lullaby
The Questioner: Stórir Strákar Fá Raflost - Ego
The House:27 Yards of Dental Floss - Andy Kershaw live Half Man Half Biscuit
The Inside: Mr Apollo - Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
The…
catdynamics | February 15, 2008Will Harvard junior faculty publish first author Nature papers now?
I have to confess that with the experience of arXiv.org I am continually bemused by the fervour over open access in the rest of academia.
Now, I gather, Harvard has passed a faculty resolution mandating open access for all faculty scholarly publications - with faculty being asked to deposit PDF files with the library which will provide open access (I hope they are sensible and buy the arXiv archiving tools).
So what?
In astronomy, physics and math this is a non-issue, since essentially all journals that matter grant arxiv.org…
catdynamics | February 15, 2008a black hole conspiracy
it has been known for a number of years that there is a curious set of correlations between the central supermassive black holes in galaxies and the global properties of the galaxies
in particular, the inferred mass of the central black hole correlates quite well with the mass of the spheroidal component of the host galaxy (but not the disk mass, so the correlation with the galaxy mass as a whole is not there), and, there is an even better correlation with the "characteristic velocity" of the stars in the galaxy at some fairly large radius (how to define that…
catdynamics | February 14, 2008extremely high redshift galaxies found
Garth Illingworth gave a talk this morning, the first of two, on new extremely high redshift galaxies found in the Ultra Deep Field using combined ACS, NICMOS and Spitzer data.
Second talk tomorrow by Rychard Bouwens on unpublished candidates.
So... the press release claim of the week is that A1689-zD1 a lensed galaxy by the cluster Abel 1689 is at redshift greater than 7.
Estimated redshift is 7.6, which has the galaxy formed within 700 million years of the Big Bang. Galaxy was lensed by a factor of about 10 by the foreground cluster.
click for high…
catdynamics | February 13, 2008The US government is shutting down EconomicIndicators.gov effective March 1st
Due to "budget constraints". Natch.
The data comes from the Economics and Statistics Administration at the Department of Commerce. It will still be collected, bundled and analysed, just not made available in a trim, compact and readily accessibly web format for anyone who is interested.
It is a nice little web site, the marginal cost of posting the data must be in the tens of thousands of dollars per year...
h/t Calculated Risk
catdynamics | February 13, 2008The first two billion years of galaxy formation: the reionization epoch and beyond.
The Aspen Center for Physics is a physics hostel of sorts, and a very nice one it is too.
The Aspen Center, which is located adjacent to the Aspen Institute on the edge of town, runs a series of (currently five) weekly workshop in january and february of each year, bringing in typically 50-100 physicists for intense workshops on a rotating series of "hot topics" in research.
In the summer there are four months of overlapping series of longer 3 week workshops where an effort is made to mingle the participants…
catdynamics | February 8, 2008snow, we didn't order snow on a friday, did we?
Ok, friday, in a rush... we ask the iPod - anything else interesting going to break this week?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Betri Tíð - Stuðmenn
The Crossing: Fantaisie de Concert: II - Perlman
The Crown: King of the Wild Frontier - Adam and the Ants
The Root: Lullaby of London - Pogues
The Past: Blindfullur - Stuðmenn
The Future: Ontario Quebec and Me - Billy Bragg
The Questioner: Firebird: Four Studied
The House: First of the Gang to Die - Morrissey
The Inside: Lark Descending - Half Man Half Biscuit
The Outcome:…
catdynamics | February 6, 2008film at 11
PS: Gulf cable cut was due to ship anchor, no need to stress.
Med cut maybe due to common geologic incident like subsea slide
see link for details
not wanting to get weird, but another Mid East undersea fiber optic cable break appears to have happened
Daily Tech reports a second break in the Falcon cable in the Persian Gulf
That would make five breaks or interruptions in total. Two in the Med and three in the Gulf, one of which was some sort of power interruption.
also discussion on slashdot
The cables are being repaired by ships, the first break in the Falcon cable has already…
catdynamics | February 6, 2008just the other week me and the Better Half were chatting about the weather, as one does
"I wish" said I "that we had some proper snow"
"oh"
"yeah, I hate this frozen slushy rainy stuff, it either ought to snow properly or not. Big fluffy flakes"
"why didn't you say"
"huh? well, got to go"
...20 minutes pass...
Ring. Ring.
"Hi. That was quick"
"Huh?"
"Look out the window. It is snowing. Big fluffy flakes"
"You're welcome"
We're expecting thunder this afternoon.
Heavy rains.
Flood warning.
I think a sacrifice is in order. Maybe some precious objects.
Or a student. A small one to start with.…
catdynamics | February 5, 2008Don't Try This at Home
Billy's podcast #11 - yay.
With free bonus video co-starring Kirsty MacColl - "sexuality" - guaranteed to 'cause apoplexy in 25% of the US population
Oh, and he's liveblogging the Oz tour. Too much.
catdynamics | February 4, 2008regurgitating yur data
Seawolf class nuclear attack submarine, USS Jimmy Carter
- optimised for surveillance with an "innovative ocean interface module" - ie there is presumably a pressurised chamber outside the hull where they can do dry work on wet things.
Presumably combined with the Remotely Operated Vehicle interface.
And, yes, it will have a robot arm, with a claw!
Personally I like the Star Trek style command center lounge.
Cable tapping pod - Soviet era
From ladlass
referring to the four consecutive coincidental underwater cable breaks over the last week, in the Mid East
I note…
catdynamics | February 4, 2008Fame! At last!
World of Physics is mine, all mine.
Hey, look at this interesting thing I just came across...
Is that really the impression I give? 'cause it is only true for things I come across between morning coffee and lunch, honest.
Anything lengthy is usually written between midnight and 2 am, movable type has a "scheduling" function for delayed publishing for those who like to play audience fishing with the sciblog front page.
Physics World actually gave me heads up about the article some weeks ago.
I knew the skate would get them.
Bonus, is that now I will no exactly how many of me…
catdynamics | February 4, 2008Do you want to be an Astrobiologist?
Are you an undergrad in the US and you think you might want to, but you have no idea what you would be in for?
Then come to Penn State for our REU summer school on astrobiology
Do research, go on field trips and stuff, hang out and chat about life in the universe.
Work with extraordinary and helpful faculty! Mostly.
Living expenses and stipend incluced.
Application deadline is Feb 15th - it is competitive application - current undergraduates, US citizen or permanent residents only I am afraid.
We've done several of these already, they are now back after a…
catdynamics | February 1, 2008threefour major undersea cables cut in two separate incidents
internet traffic to Middle East affected
UPDATE: Apparently it is now four cables cut, another one in the Persian Gulf just went snap... that is an amazing coincidence
story at phys.org and discussion on slashdot - some strident insistence that putting a tap on the mid-cable is non-optimal. That of course is assuming you have access to the ends...
The Egyptians are now explicitly claiming to have checked and the two Med cables were not cut by ships' anchors - hm.
PPS: there is an Aegis cruiser (USS San Jacinto) in harbour in…
catdynamics | February 1, 2008Ice storm! Who ordered a f&2#&ing ice storm for friday...
So, we stagger through the crunchy pellets to the bode of the Mighty iPod, and ask: how 'bout the voids, should we keep looking in the voids?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: I Fought the Law (live) - Clash
The Crossing: Voiles - Arrau
The Crown: Sofa Urtubörn Á Útskerum
The Root: Torture Me - Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Past: Bewahret euch vor Weibertück - Mozart
The Future: Wednesday Week - Undertones
The Questioner: Frosty the Snowman
The House: Alouette - Sien Diels
The Inside: I Left My Heart in Papworth…