catdynamics | May 2, 2007I was watching Olbermann's Countdown tuesday night, and a minor point has been irritating me all day.
He was discussing the infamous "Mission Accomplished" stunt four years ago, and his guest, who I think was a radio show person, made some sarcastic comment about the receiving line for Bush being colour co-ordinated for show - she was quite scathing about it (Bush walking through a line of ~ dozen brightly clad crew, paired in bright primary colour shirts - blue, yellow, red etc - to be welcomed aboard by the ship's officers).
This instantly hit my "you gotta be kidding" button.
It seemed…
catdynamics | May 2, 2007The "pet food poison' has clearly entered the human food chain.
Definitely through animal feed for chickens and pigs raised for human consumption, and quite likely through direct contamination of food additives - gluten and grain/vegetable protein additives
The acute symptoms in cats and dogs are fairly well known, and seem to end in kidney failure and a painful death.
Question is whether melamine, and whatever additional toxins or toxic breakdown products and metabolites may be involved, are causing either acute or chronic illness in humans.
Suspected effects are kidney problems, possible…
catdynamics | May 2, 2007New Scientist has a teaser article(sub) about Corot...
Sounds like Corot is exceeding specs and will exceed specifications - if I translate it correctly they will get to under 100 ppm, compared to specs of 700 ppm for photometry of their brighter sources.
That is pushing close to Kepler sensitivity and will make them sensitive to smaller, and lower mass, planets.
They will still be limited to shorter orbital periods, but they may push into the habitable planets in the habitable zone for K dwarfs, and definitely for M dwarfs.
Soooon.
Nature is also dropping hints(sub)
This is fun.
catdynamics | May 2, 2007The question is: who gets to choose my null hypothesis?
Chad asks whether there are "reasons" for being an atheist.
This is an axiomatically incorrect question: the bigger question is what is the null hypothesis?
Do we assume that there is a God and that she has some attributes, until evidence to the contrary is presented?
Or, do we assume that there is no such thing as a God, until some evidence to the effect is presented?
It would certainly seem simpler, ab initio, to start with the premise of No God, until and unless there is positive evidence to the contrary.
A counter-argument would be…
catdynamics | May 2, 2007Pay more to unknowingly feed congealed urine to your loved ones.
So large corporations can make fractionally more money.
It is one of these framing issues, see.
More problems with pet food.
Recall expanded and clear that contaminated "protein" made it into the human food chain.
To cut a long story short, since this is all over the media; chinese producers figured they could inflate the nitrogen assay of vegetable protein by adding cheap nitrogenous compounds.
A favourite seems to be Melamine - a polymer of cyanamide, very high nitrogen content by mass. For extra layman yuck factor, it is…
catdynamics | May 2, 2007One One Zero Two
Instant cult classic
9D 74 E3 5B D8
41 56 C5 63 56
It is almost as if Information Itself wants To Be Free
Eight Eight Cee One
Take away One
and then you are Done
Someone quick and smart already got the t-shirt
catdynamics | May 2, 2007There is a new head of Research and Analysis in NASA's science directorate
Dr Yvonne Pendleton out of NASA Ames astrobio takes over SARA at HQ
She wants to hear from people about R&A issues, general concerns, the specific issues still go to program officers. Non-responsive program officers are a general concern, apparently (mine are all very nice and responsive, really).
She is also going to meetings: AAS, Bioastro, DPS and AGU to actually tell people what is going on.
Er, wow. That is good.
I hope that is good, if not, then it is very brave...
catdynamics | May 2, 2007The Astrophysical Journal is on the move!
Word.
The Astrophysical Journal, a primary reasearch publication outlet of the American Astronomical Society is moving. Publication will apparently be done by the Institute of Physics, UK!
And the Editor's office is moving to Canada, we hear (anyone care to confirm that...?)
Third hand reports suggest the University of Chicago Press is doing things differently, and not in an entirely good way, at least from the academic publishing perspective.
One too many MBAs methinks.
catdynamics | May 2, 2007ACS or STIS asks the Astro Dyke
You vote.
Good question, says the Space Telescope Users Committee, in an e-mail.
Which would you rather have back?
The Advanced Camera for Surveys or Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph
The former produced some of the most fantastic pictures ever taken, the latter is a broad band high resolution spectrograph that is very scientifically productive.
The new instruments going up are Cosmic Origins Spectrograph - a medium resolution fixed aperture UV spectroscope, and Wide Field Camera 3 - a broad band moderately wide field camera.
COS is definitely not a STIS…
catdynamics | May 2, 2007I see Mathematica has announced a new release
I went through a period, pre release 1.0, when I used Mathematica's precursor rather heavily, in conjuntion with Maple (basically if the two produced the same results I used it, after sanity checks, if they didn't I sent in a bug report to Mathematica...)
I was also taken by their early graphics capabilities, which for the time were rather good.
Then I stopped using symbolic manipulators on a regular basis - and I never really used Mathematica's numerical capabilities except for occasional need for arbitary precision arithmetic.
So... what is the…
catdynamics | May 1, 2007Wired has a slightly breathless short about the Terrestrial Planet Finder... to be launched in 2016!
I guess they didn't get the memo
TPF is off the table.
Downgraded to small scale lab feasibility demos, the engineering team disbanded.
Even if they change their minds, again, there is no possibility of TPF(c) or anything like it to fly by 2016.
Back to the drawing board. Literally.
There will be a planet imager, eventually, it may be a radically different concept mission, there are a couple of very interesting concepts being thrown around, but their feasibility is not demonstrated.
If NASA…
catdynamics | May 1, 2007Corot is a very nifty little satellite.
It is a french space agency small satellite, designed to measure convection, rotation and to find planets.
It started off as an astroseismology mission, in the Proteus class of standardised mini-satellite buses (hey! now there's a concept, standardized satellite buses for different class missions to reduce long term cost and enhance mission development... now if only someone else would do that, and stick with it for more than one funding cycle!).
It is tiny little thing, 300 kg, launched on a Russian Soyuz into a polar orbit, looking out orthogonally…
catdynamics | April 30, 2007Neil de Grasse Tyson on the Colbert Report tonight. Third time.
Talking Gliese 581 and "Night at the Planetarium" - the sequel.
Excellent.
catdynamics | April 29, 2007What is a fair non-science criterion for changing proposal funding priorities?
Below I ranted on possible political reprioritization of NASA funding
but I decided I wasn't clear in what I was worried about.
Consider a hypothetical (NASA) proposal I send in.
It is of course a very good proposal, ranked somewhere in the top 10%.
Here are some possible outcomes.
a) Top ranked proposal, it is funded.
b) Not funded: because funding was shifted within NASA to Exploration to expedite completion of Aries launcher
c) Not funded: slightly lower ranked proposal by underrepresented proposer in…
catdynamics | April 29, 2007is it just me, or is it becoming genuinely hard to find a finite priced trans-atlantic flight this summer?
to anywhere over the pond. I've done a fair bit of travel on these routes over the years and I don't ever remember prices this high or schedules this constrained
catdynamics | April 29, 2007IAU sighs in relief as everyone finally stops talking about that Pluto thing last year...
Clerical error catastrophe at the ISR
And remember to wear your Margaret block.
catdynamics | April 27, 2007Russia has suspended its compliance with the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe over the issue of US forward based missile defence systems
This is brilliant!
US foreign policy is an incoherent mess.
But, now it has been reduced to a "previously known problem"!
I expect an analytic solution will be derived any year know, probably in a small old house on an isolated island in the Atlantic.
catdynamics | April 26, 2007Finanicial Times story on Wolfowitz aide trying to take out references to climate change in World Bank report
via Brad deLong
Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the Iraq war, got passed up to be World Bank President
I wonder why family planning and climate change got "edited" by his deputy...
Read the whole thing, it is pretty disgusting.
"One of Paul Wolfowitz's two handpicked deputies, Juan José Daboub, tried to water down references to climate change in one of the World Bank's main environmental strategy papers..."
and
"He is already under fire for allegedly trying to remove…
catdynamics | April 26, 2007Early stormy friday, and we ask the Omniscient iPod to prognosticate
What will we hear from the early COROT discovery announcement due any day now?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Aids - Yellowman
The Crossing: Louie, Louie - Toots & The Maytals
The Crown: Peaches - Stranglers
The Root: Fiskurinn Hennar Stínu Haukar
The Past: Sárt er að missa - Utangarðsmenn
The Future: The Saturday Boy - Billy Bragg
The Questioner: Di Provenza il mar - La Traviata
The House: Tangó - Utangarðsmenn
The Inside: Ready to Run (live) - Dixie Chicks
The Outcome: Metropolis - the Pogues
The…
catdynamics | April 26, 2007Philosophia Naturalis #9 is up at Science and Reason
Lots of good stuff.