What I Learned Today (so far)

Countdown to the End of the Long Count Mayan Calendar

2011-11-22T10:14:00.000-08:00

...whatever that means.

Nobody really knows what, if anything, this date implies; very likely nothing. While the Mayans displayed an almost magical knowledge of future astronomical events, and had the only fully developed written language in the Americas, they never had the wheel, so I won't pretend to know if this means the end of existence or just the end of a calendar....

So this is a countdown to the day when we'll see what it meant. Personally, I expect some sociological phenomena, since many Chicken Little types are spending fortunes on underground shelters.

Uh -oh...

St. Lawrence's Tears, aka Perseid Meteor Shower

2011-09-23T16:51:00.000-07:00

The Perseids occur when the Earth's orbit crosses the path of debris thrown off by Comet Swift-Tuttle. The annual Perseid meteor shower usually peaks around August 12th. As the cosmic debris, many pieces as small as a grain of sand, enters the atmosphere, it burns up in a flash, appearing as "shooting stars" across the sky. (That much I already knew.)

The Perseids are named after the constellation from which they appear to originate, Perseus. (I knew that, too)

(This next part I learned only a few years ago...) The Perseids are also known as the “Tears of Saint Lawrence”, after the third-century archdeacon of Rome and defender of the poor and disabled, on whose behalf he was martyred.

Ever since his execution, meteors have been seen streaking through the night sky every year around Saint Lawrence’s feast day (August 10th); believers interpreted the meteor showers as his fiery tears, raining from the heavens on the anniversary of his death.

Even as these horrific killings go, Saint Lawrence's martyrdom was particularly gruesome; he was grilled alive!

St. Lawrence, depicted holding a small "gridiron", a hinged metal grate used for grilling meat or fish. The actual gridiron upon which Saint Lawrence was supposedly cooked on is shown below, although it's hard to see, behind the decorative grate.

The shrine in Rome containing the gridiron said to have been used to grill Lawrence to death.

A Star with a GIANT Tail that Spreads Star Seeds

2011-09-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

This is so cool. Not only was it news to me, but it was news to NASA, big news, literally and scientifically.

Mira! (click to enlarge)

NASA got a new view of a (supposedly) well-known star, "Mira", and found that it has a tail - and I mean a mindblowingly massive tail with almost magical properties about which someone will surely write a children's book.

"Mira appears as a small white dot in the bulb-shaped structure at right, and is moving from left to right in this view. The shed material can be seen in light blue. The dots in the picture are stars and distant galaxies. The large blue dot at left is a star that is closer to us than Mira.

I'm going to let NASA explain it, as it would only lose in translation through me...
From NASA Science News for August 15, 2007:

A Star with a Comet's Tail
"Astronomers have discovered something they've never seen before: a star with a tail like a comet. Even more amazing is the fact that the new-found tail is attached to one of the most popular stars in the sky, a red giant named Mira. Amateur and professional astronomers have been watching Mira for 400 years and only recently has a NASA space telescope spotted its massive tail."

FULL STORY: August 15, 2007:
"Astronomers using a NASA space telescope, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, have spotted an amazingly long comet-like tail behind a star streaking through space. The star, named Mira after the Latin word for "wonderful," has been a favorite of astronomers for about 400 years, yet this is the first time the tail has been seen.

"Galaxy Evolution Explorer--"GALEX" for short--scanned the popular star during its ongoing survey of the entire sky in ultraviolet light. Astronomers then noticed what looked like a comet with a gargantuan tail. In fact, material blowing off Mira is forming a wake 13 light-years long, or about 20,000 times the average distance of Pluto from the sun. Nothing like this has ever been seen before around a star.

Click to see NASA's animated version

"'I was shocked when I first saw this completely unexpected, humongous tail trailing behind a well-known star,' says Christopher Martin of the California Institute of Technology. 'It was amazing how Mira's tail echoed on vast, interstellar scales the familiar phenomena of a jet's contrail or a speedboat's turbulent wake.' Martin is the principal investigator for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, and lead author of a Nature paper appearing today to announce the discovery.

"Astronomers say Mira's tail offers a unique opportunity to study how stars like our sun die and ultimately seed new solar systems. Mira is an older star called a red giant that is losing massive amounts of surface material. As Mira hurtles along, its tail sheds carbon, oxygen and other important elements needed for new stars, planets, and possibly even life to form. This tail material, visible now for the first time, has been released over the past 30,000 years.

"'This is an utterly new phenomenon to us, and we are still in the process of understanding the physics involved,' says co-author Mark Seibert of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Pasadena. 'We hope to be able to read Mira's tail like a ticker tape to learn about the star's life.'

"Billions of years ago, Mira was similar to our sun. Over time, it began to swell into what's called a variable red giant - a pulsating, puffed-up star that periodically grows bright enough to see with the naked eye. Mira will eventually eject all of its remaining gas into space, forming a colorful shell called a planetary nebula. The nebula will fade with time, leaving only the burnt-out core of the original star, which will then be called a white dwarf.

"Compared to other red giants, Mira is traveling unusually fast, possibly due to gravitational boosts from other passing stars over time. It now plows along at 130 kilometers per second, or 291,000 miles per hour. Racing along with Mira is a small, distant companion thought to be a white dwarf. The pair, also known as Mira A (the red giant) and Mira B (the white dwarf), orbit slowly around each other as they travel together through the constellation Cetus, 350 light-years from Earth.

"In addition to Mira's tail, GALEX also discovered a bow shock, a type of buildup of hot gas, in front of the star, and two sinuous streams of material coming out of the star's front and back.

Astronomers think hot gas in the bow shock is heating up the gas blowing off the star, causing it to fluoresce with ultraviolet light. This glowing material then swirls around behind the star, creating a turbulent, tail-like wake. The process is similar to a speeding boat leaving a choppy wake, or a steam train producing a trail of smoke.

"The fact that Mira's tail only glows with ultraviolet light might explain why other telescopes have missed it. GALEX is very sensitive to ultraviolet light and also has an extremely wide field of view, allowing it to scan the sky for unusual ultraviolet activity.

"'It's amazing to discover such a startlingly large and important feature of an object that has been known and studied for over 400 years,' says James D. Neill of Caltech. 'This is exactly the kind of surprise that comes from a survey mission like the Galaxy Evolution Explorer.'

More on Mira:

"A new ultraviolet mosaic* from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows a speeding star that is leaving an enormous trail of "seeds" for new solar systems. The star, "Mira" (pronounced "my-rah"), after the Latin word for "wonderful," is shedding material that will be recycled into new stars, planets and possibly even life as it hurls through our galaxy.

"The Galaxy Evolution Explorer discovered Mira's strange comet-like tail during part of its routine survey of the entire sky at ultraviolet wavelengths.

"When astronomers first saw the picture, they were shocked because Mira has been studied for over 400 years yet nothing like this has ever been documented before.

"Mira's comet-like tail stretches a startling 13 light-years across the sky. For comparison, the nearest star to our sun, Proxima Centauri, is only about 4 light-years away.

"Mira's tail also tells a tale of its history – the material making it up has been slowly blown off over time, with the oldest material at the end of the tail having been released about 30,000 years ago.

"Mira is a highly evolved, "red giant" star near the end of its life. Technically, it is called an "asymptotic giant branch star". It is red in color and bloated; for example, if a red giant were to replace our sun, it would engulf everything out to the orbit of Mars.

"Our sun will mature into a red giant in about 5 billion years.

"Like other red giants, Mira will lose a large fraction of its mass in the form of gas and dust. In fact, Mira ejects the equivalent of the Earth's mass every 10 years. It has released enough material over the past 30,000 years to seed at least 3,000 Earth-sized planets or 9 Jupiter-sized ones.

"While most stars travel along together around the disk of our Milky Way, Mira is charging through it. Because Mira is not moving with the "pack," it is moving much faster relative to the ambient gas in our section of the Milky Way.

"Mira's breakneck speed together with its outflow of material are responsible for its unique glowing tail.

"Images from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer show a large build-up of gas, or bow shock, in front of the star, similar to water piling up in front of a speeding boat. Scientists now know that hot gas in this bow shock mixes with the cooler, hydrogen gas being shed from Mira, causing it to heat up as it swirls back into a turbulent wake. As the hydrogen gas loses energy, it fluoresces with ultraviolet light, which the Galaxy Evolution Explorer can detect.

"Mira, also known as Mira A, is not alone in its travels through space. It has a distant companion star called Mira B that is thought to be the burnt-out, dead core of a star, called a white dwarf. Mira A and B circle around each other slowly, making one orbit about every 500 years. Astronomers believe that Mira B has no effect on Mira's tail.

"Mira is also what's called a pulsating variable star; it dims and brightens by a factor of 1,500 every 332 days, and will become bright enough to see with the naked eye in mid-November 2007. Because it was the first variable star with a regular period ever discovered, other stars of this type are often referred to as "Miras."

"Mira is located 350 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cetus, otherwise known as the whale. Coincidentally, Mira and its "whale of a tail" can be found in the tail of the whale constellation.

"*This mosaic is made up of individual images taken by the far-ultraviolet detector on the Galaxy Evolution Explorer between November 18 and December 15, 2006."

Production Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips Credit: Science@NASA

Sources:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/galex/20070815/v.html

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/15aug_mira.htm?list1031480

Ethel Barrymore's Last Words

2011-09-23T16:35:00.000-07:00

"Is everybody happy?

I want everybody

to be happy!

I know I'm happy."

Lightning Bugs are NOT Strictly Nocturnal

2011-09-23T16:30:00.001-07:00

No kidding. Turns out in terms of circadian categories, there's more than just "nocturnal" and "diurnal"; there's also "crepuscular", which refers to animals that are most active at twilight. Most of the world's 200 species of lightning bugs are actually crepuscular, not nocturnal.

The more you learn about lightning bugs, the more magical they seem.

First of all, their bio-luminescence is among the most efficient light production on the planet; 96% of the energy goes to making light.
Plus they don't bite, sting, or pinch, don't carry disease, are in no way toxic, and are actually useful to science and medicine, bless their little blinking bottoms.

Another cool thing- lightning bugs sometimes flash in unison, which must be a sight to behold.

Occasionally a clap of thunder will set them all off. And some South American species always flash in unison. (Maybe they could get work at raves!)

Generally, lightning bugs flash about every 5.5 seconds, but more frequently in warmer weather.

There are about 50 male beetles for every one female. And the much sought-after females are flightless; they just climb up to the tips of blades of grass and blink seductively, waiting for a mate and/or a meal*. (*Often after mating, the femme fatale beetle insists on having him for dinner, literally...)

But it's not easy getting to be a lightning bug in the first place, even for the females; they must all spend years as larvae (in this case, glow worms), living just under the top layer of soil (or sometimes under loose tree bark). These larvae are especially voracious eaters, sucking the insides out of snails and efficiently devouring other larvae dwelling in the subsoil as well as pollen and whatever. They crawl in the mud and feast like this for years, until it's time to make a round mudball for the pupate stage, which is relatively brief, about 2 weeks.

And after all that (after the larval and pupate stages are completed), the newly emerged adult flying beetles we recognize as lightning bugs only live from a few days to a few weeks at the most.

So basically those tiny lights you see strobing gently on summer evenings each had to endure years in the mud for the brief privilege of flying around, blinking, and making baby lightning bugs. So please let's not be encouraging our kids to catch them in jars; they're on a strict schedule, so let 'em be.

Admire them from afar, not in a jar....

The Mother of Mother's Day Renounced Mother's Day!

2011-09-23T16:25:00.000-07:00

I have a distinct cynicism regarding uber-merchandised "Hallmark occasions" like Mother's Day...all I see is the commercial exploitation of the easily-led.

Well, it turns out that Anna Jarvis, the woman who invented Mother's Day in the United States (back in 1908) felt the same way! All she had in mind was a heartfelt, hand-written letter and a white carnation for Mom, and never intended that people spend money, much less MAKE a bunch of money, on the occasion. Naturally, as it evolved into a mostly a reason for businesses to expect a rise in sales that day, she lived to regret the whole idea. Jarvis Mother's Day had turned into...even got arrested once for protesting what

Mother's Day Celebration Reaches 100th Anniversary By APRIL VITELLO AP Writer

GRAFTON, W.Va. — On this 100th anniversary of Mother's Day, the woman credited with creating one of the world's most celebrated holidays probably wouldn't be pleased with all the flowers, candy or gift$.

Anna Jarvis would want us to give mothers a white carnation — she felt it signified the purity of a mother's love.

Anna Jarvis in 1907

Jarvis, who never married and never had children, got the Mother's Day idea after her mother said it would be nice if someone created a memorial to mothers.

Three years after her mother died in 1905, she organized the first official mother's day service at a church where her mother had spent more than 20 years teaching Sunday school.

Today, the former Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church is the official shrine to mothers around the world. On Sunday, the shrine will celebrate the 100th anniversary, giving each mother attending a special service a white carnation.

The shrine also serves as a "reminder to the accomplishments of these women and to the issues mothers still deal with today, trying to do the balancing act of being everything to everyone," said Cindi Mason, the shrine's director.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 83 million mothers in the United States. More mothers now work out of the home and the number of single-mother households has tripled to more than 10 million since 1970.

What has allowed Mother's Day to become celebrated on the second Sunday in May in 52 countries is "everyone has a mother," said Sally Thayer, a trustee of the International Mother's Day Shrine in Grafton. "It's a wonderful thing to celebrate."

Jarvis' devotion to and her fierce defense of Mother's Day could be tied to the feeling that "a certain era was passing and mothers like her mother were becoming fewer," said Laura Prieto, an associate professor of history and women's studies at Simmons College in Boston.

By all accounts, Jarvis' mother Ann was a community activist who worked to heal the divisions in north-central West Virginia following the Civil War, and to promote improved sanitation by creating Mothers Friendship Clubs.

"I would love to be like Mrs. Jarvis," said Olive Dadisman, who operates the Anna Jarvis Birthplace Museum in nearby Webster. "She was a soft-spoken, gentle woman, but she could convince the devil to give up his pitch fork."

West Virginia became the first state to recognize Mother's Day in 1910. President Woodrow Wilson approved a resolution in 1914 marking the second Sunday in May a nationwide observance.

"Mother's Day was meant to be — and still is — a celebration of a nineteenth-century ideal of motherhood, when mothers were supposed to dedicate themselves completely to nurturing their children and making a cozy, safe home," Prieto said.

Yet, Jarvis became increasingly disturbed as the celebration turned into an excuse to sell greeting cards, candy, flowers and other items.

Jarvis became known for scathing letters in which she would berate people who purchased greeting cards, saying they were too lazy to write personal letters "to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world."

Before she died in 1948, she protested at a Mother's Day celebration in New York, and was arrested for disturbing the peace.

The National Retail Federation estimates that Americans will spend $15 billion this year honoring their mothers. Dining out is expected to be the No. 1 expense.

In the end, Mason said Jarvis was bitter about what the observance had become and "wished she would have never started the day because it became so out of control ..."

"But when you look at Mother's Day as being her baby of sorts, you can understand her protectiveness of it."

On the Net: International Mother's Day Shrine: http://www.mothersdayshrine.com
Anna Jarvis Museum: http://www.annajarvishouse.com
Copyright 2008, The Associated Press. This information wasn't supposed to be published, broadcast or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Too bad.

Naming Storms and Remembering Hurricane Carla

2010-09-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me recently when the tradition of naming tropical storms began, the kind of Cliff Clavenesque trivia at which I usually excel, but I didn't know.

Turns out that the current naming format began in 1953, but more about that later.

All I knew for sure before I looked it up was that they didn't have names in 1900 when the killer Galveston Hurricane hit, and they did have official names by 1961 because I remember Hurricane Carla, vividly.

Carla made landfall on September 11th, 1961, the second most powerful storm ever to strike the Texas coast, and even 150 miles inland in San Antonio, it was a big deal. I was in 6th grade at Cambridge Elementary School there where school had just started for the year a week before.
But late the morning of the 11th, the weather became such a big deal that our teacher led us all to the school library, where we were to wait for our parents to pick us up. This was mildly exciting because we were going home already and we hadn't even had lunch! I remember it was so dark that the street lights were on. We'd never seen it so dark in the daytime.

Until that morning, all I knew about weather I'd overheard from grownups, mostly talking about drought, especially throughout the 50's....weather sometimes kept us from being able to play outside, but like most city kids, that was about the extent of my interest in weather. After Carla, I caught the weather bug and tried to set up a little weather station in the front yard.

Anyway, I looked up the subject of "hurricane names" because this month seems to be all about hurricanes; Hurricane Earl was just last week, and today Tropical Storm Hermine may become a Category 1 Hurricane before it comes ashore, probably near Brownsville, Texas, probably tonight. We do need the rain, but the businesses on the coast have enough challenges.

So here's the straight dope on hurricane names...

To help in their identification, the practice of systematically naming tropical storms and hurricanes was initiated in 1953 by the United States National Hurricane Center. Naming is now maintained by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Thanks to Wikipedia for the info; as always, I hope it's correct!

Richard Dreyfuss for President in 2012?

2008-01-17T09:02:00.000-08:00

I watched and was very impressed by the thoughtful patriotism of actor Richard Dreyfuss, sitting on the panel-du-jour of "Real Time with Bill Maher". It's from November 17th of 2006, but Dreyfuss's words are timeless. Please listen to it when you have a few minutes-it's so much better in his words. Here's a link to part of it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=JodajZV0itM.

Dreyfuss sat quietly for a long time during the program listening to the other panelists, but when he spoke it was more than worth waiting for. He was interesting, even inspiring, but also dead serious about the need to resume teaching and stressing "Civics", both in schools and in life.

Civics? Yeah, civics, as in how government works, and how citizens and representatives should participate. "Civics is the learning of the tools of maintaining a republican democracy. Republican democracy as opposed to democracy. Representational democracy, which was what was created in the Constitution.."

He feels so strongly about all this that he cut WAY back on movie-making in order to study at Oxford no less, and has also been teaching civics, so of course he was very well-informed, with an inspiring manner that was downright "presidential".

This is not a new or temporary enthusiasm; Dreyfuss has been politically active and working for peace and justice for a LONG time, going back to when he was a C.O. during the Vietnam War.

He's been described as "outspoken on the issue of media informing policy, legislation, and public opinion" and is basically very concerned about privacy, freedom of speech, participatory democracy, and individual accountability, all obviously endangered of late. IMO we need many many more citizens like him. He has shown solid commitment to educating Americans about potential and actual erosion of individual rights. He spoke about it eloquently at The National Press Club in D.C., hoping to stimulate a serious national discussion of impeachment against Bush. (Note that this was in November of 2006-right now I doubt there'd be time or interest in impeachment...)

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=%5CPolitics%5Carchive%5C200602%5CPOL20060217a.html
"There are causes worth fighting for even if you know that you will lose," Dreyfuss said during his speech. "Unless you are willing to accept torture as part of a normal American political lexicon, unless you are willing to accept that leaving the Geneva Convention is fine and dandy, if you accept the expansion of wiretapping as business as usual, the only way to express this now is to embrace the difficult and perhaps embarrassing process of impeachment." (YES!)

OK, you could call Richard Dreyfuss a "Peacenik" and not be far wrong, but he's so much more than that: he describes his pro-civics position as not primarily liberal or conservative, but "pre-partisan", focusing his efforts on bringing reason, logic, clarity, civil debate and dissent to the American political dialogue. (He's a lot better at articulating it than I am...)

"I am speaking as an American who wants to hand to his kids the country he learned about," he said. Amen!

“Who will show me any Constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life, itself, whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it?”

- Daniel Webster in an address to the House of Representatives December 9, 1814

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2007/02/07/the_education_of_richard_dreyfuss?mode=PF

When you come to the edge

2007-12-23T17:32:00.000-08:00

Ethel Barrymore's Last Words

2007-12-14T10:38:00.000-08:00

"Is everybody happy? I want everybody to be happy. I know I'm happy."

Unexpected Health Findings in Today's News

2007-11-16T08:50:00.000-08:00

Several times a week, I review, condense and print up what I judge to be the most relevant medical news for my friend and former employer, a busy family doc. And most days, the process is at least mildly interesting to me, some days more interesting than others.

Today is one of those more interesting days, medical-newswise, as there were several unexpected findings to report, and among the most unexpected is an enormous study funded by the National Institute on Aging, revealing a strong racial disparity in the lifespan of Alzheimer's patients. And the results are not what you'd presume...

Latinos & African Americans With Alzheimer's Disease Live Longer Than Whites & Other Minorities: In this study, which included data on 30,916 patients from 30 National Institute on Aging–funded A.D. centers (ADCs) in the United States, Latinos with A.D. lived 40% longer than whites with the disease, while African Americans live an average of 15% longer. That's huge! However, Asian & American Indian participants with A.D. have approximately the same life span as white study subjects. (Note: there has been very little research estimating survival for Asian or Native American A.D. patients.)

The study was just published online on November 14th, 2007 in Neurology.

Of the total study population, 81% of participants were white, 12% were African American, 4% Latino, 1.5% Asian, and 0.5% Native American. Overall survival since their initial ADC visit was a median of 4.8 years.

"If our results hold, & minority older adults have a survival advantage, identifying the reasons behind this survival advantage may lead to improved survival for all persons with A.D.

"If A.D. patients who are nonwhite live longer with dementia and their autopsy data suggest similar brain pathology, this may suggest that nonwhite A.D. patients have a buffer against dying with the disease," the authors write.

Possible explanations for survival differences among races could include differing underlying genetic or cultural factors, including greater social support from extended family among ethnic minorities.

See link: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/566007?sssdmh=dm1.318677&src=nlpatient

The next unexpected story in today's medical news follows:

The Link Between Statins and Cognition Gets Curiouser and Curiouser: OK, first, the drug makers and medical journals were pushing the idea that statins primarily used to lower cholesterol, also happen to reduce the instance and severity of Alzheimer's dementia. I remember being at two different pharmaceutical company dinners a few years back hosted by manufacturers of (1)Lipitor and (2)Crestor, at which they strongly pitched the idea that statins definitely have a beneficial effect on cognition in dementia patients, and may actually prevent it. Great news for everyone, especially for the drugmakers...

I think just about everybody, even doctors, has a healthy fear of Alzheimer's and would very much like to avoid getting it, and this side effect of statins sounded like such a great bonus that everybody should be on them, regardless of cholesterol levels....

But today we learn that while research links statin use to reduced cognitive decline, there's a "curious phenomenon"- African American patients who stopped taking statins appeared to reap an even greater cognitive benefit than those who continued taking it!

Weird, huh?

The findings, published in the November 6 issue of the journal Neurology, underline the "complex nature" of the relationship between statins & dementia prevention.

In 2001 and again in 2004, researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine and Regenstrief Institute, also in Indianapolis, evaluated the cognitive status of 1146 African Americans aged 70 years and older living in Indianapolis, Indiana as part of the Indianapolis-Ibadan Dementia Project. Cognitive assessment included tests of language, attention, calculation, memory, and orientation. Participants provided blood samples for ApoE genotyping and were also assessed for a number of risk factors, including smoking, alcohol use, and social involvement. The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging.

Adjusting for age at baseline, sex, education, and ApoE status, researchers found less cognitive decline among statin users than among non–statin users.

If statin use reduces cognitive decline, then it is reasonable to assume that continued use of statins would produce a greater reduction. However, that was not the case in this study: researchers found that those who continued to take statins from 2001 to 2004 had greater cognitive decline than those who were taking statins in 2001 but were no longer taking them in 2004.

All this was surprising to researchers.

To read the whole article, click the link http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/565920?sssdmh=dm1.318370&src=nldne

Oral Contraceptives Increase Risk of Plaque; Raises CRT Threefold: The last interesting article today is about oral contraceptives- turns out that women, healthy young women, who have used oral contraceptives (O.C.s) for some time are at 20% to 30% increased risk for carotid or femoral atherosclerosis*, vs. women who have never used O.C.s. They also found that those taking the pill had three times higher C-reactive protein (CRP) levels than those not using it. C-reactive protein is a marker for inflammation. For more info, follow the link....http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/565874?sssdmh=dm1.318370&src=nldne

*They're talking about plaque, the hardened fatty stuff that clogs your arteries.

Noshavemeber?

2007-11-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

Never heard of this...it's common for males in Australia (especially in Melbourne) and New Zealand to sport a moustache during the month of November, the custom known as "Movember", a portmanteau of "Moustache" and "November". There are actual rules, serious rules, as the whole thing is now organized to raise awareness and funding for men's health problems. And it saves shaving cream and blades...

In the United States it's called Noshavember, and involves a full beard as opposed to just a mustache; no shave at all, hence, "Noshavember".

November is also...

Adoption Month, Natl I adopt dogs. And attitudes
AIDS Awareness Month, Natl As a former volunteer at AIDS Services of Austin, I'm certainly aware of AIDS, and that hardly anyone's talking about it anymore...

Alzheimer's Disease Month, Natl It's called Floraheimers Disease at my house...
American Diabetes Month Grateful not to have diabetes
American Indian Heritage Month, Natl The Austin Powwow was last weekend

Aviation History Month Aviation is when what goes up can go up and come down on a schedule, for a fee...
Celebrate Empty Nester Month I'm guessing this is a smaller and smaller celebration as the years go on...
C.O.P.D. Awareness Month, Natl I once got into an argument with a coworker (who was also a heavy smoker) -she'd been posing as an E.M.T. , and insisted that C.O.P.D. (Chronic Obstructrive Pulmonary Disease) was a "cardiac" problem. When I said it was a lung problem, more or less emphysema, she insisted that I didn't know what I was talking about because the "C" supposedly stood for "cardiac". I set her straight and she never forgave me for outting her as a fake. but I still had to work with her for years more before she was finally fired...
Diabetic Eye Disease Month They should insert "awareness"-otherwise it sounds like we're supposed to celebrate it...

Epilepsy Awareness Month My dog actually had it as a result of a head injury
Family Caregivers Month, Natl Family Caregivers? I had to look it up. "America's family caregivers are family, friends, partners, and neighbors."
Family Stories Month I got one. My father's father had a tattoo of a penis on his leg that went all the way down to his ankle...

Georgia Pecan Month, Natl Boo! Georgia has peaches and Vidalia onions, but Texas has the pecans.Real Texas Pecan Pie from Stubbs in Austin
Gluten-Free Diet Awareness Month I am aware that I'm lucky not to need a gluten-free diet...
Hospice Month, Natl Sad but important; support you local hospice; you may need their help someday...

I Am So Thankful Month For for cooler weather, for family & friends, for the cooler weather, for any and every moment without pain, for the cooler weather, for not being homeless, for the cooler weather, for the fact that no one's shooting at me, for the cooler weather, for the light at the end of the tunnel, and the cooler weather...
Inspirational Role Models Month, Natl I'm certainly not a good one...how about the Dalai Lama? or Kitty Carlisle?

Learn Chinese Month-Learn Chinese in a month? Good luck with that one...
Lifewriting Month, Natl -Lifewriting? I hate when they have a month for something I've never heard of. I looked it up; turns out that "lifewriting" means "journals, diaries, letters, autobiographies, and memoirs". Blogging too?
Lung Cancer Awareness Month Just don't smoke, don't hang around smokers, and demand clean air!
Marrow Awareness Month, Natl - Marrow is kinda hard to be aware of, unless you need a biopsy or transplant

Microfinance Month, Intl - Micro is all the finance I got!
Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month Donna Reed and Luciano Pavarotti died from it, among many others...
Peanut Butter Lovers' Month - I love that first spoonful (Jif, creamy) from a freshly opened jar.. the only thing that compares is the smell of a freshly opened can of tennis balls...
Pet Cancer Awareness Month -But let's not talk about it, OK?
Pomegranate Month, Natl -I remember picking one from horseback when I was a kid; leaning back in the saddle & spitting seeds
Prematurity Awareness Month - too late for me to be premature; I started out late, and I'm still late...
Roasting Month, Natl Wrong- this is chilling out month; roasting month was August...
Scholarship Month, Natl My son the genius got a full academic scholarship to a private elementary school when he was 8!
Vegan Month I admire vegans, but I don't like to try to feed them...

Carl Jung and My Favorite Picture

2007-11-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

This is one of my very favorite images, an updated version of “The Spiritual Pilgrim Discovering Another World”, which was a very old woodcut (either from the 17th or 19th century, artist unknown). The much more colorful version above is from a postcard published in the 1970s, colored beautifully by artist Roberta Weir.

I've loved the picture since I first saw back it in the early '70's, but didn't know the proper title until today, and never knew that Carl Jung had used an earlier version in one of his books, below. Once you know, it's easy to recognize the Jungian aspects of the picture...

Above, The original as it was described in C. G. Jung's “Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth” in Civilization in Transition.

In an attempt to help mankind find its way back to a more comprehensive view of the totality of his soul, Jung and physicist and Nobel laureate Wolfgang Pauli postulated a world behind or beyond, split into inner and outer world, into psyche and matter.

Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony , and cautioned that modern humans rely too heavily on science and logic, and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of the unconscious realm.

Drug Companies Help Set Med Schools' Curricula

2007-10-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

First of all, let me say up front that I take and am helped by drugs every day; I'm talking about genuine pharmaceuticals, as well as supplements...so I'm not knocking pharmaceuticals in general. I depend upon them and am grateful to have them...I just have a problem with the ethically challenged companies from which some drugs emerge...

The pharmaceutical industry as a whole is not only wildly successful financially (with $643 billion in global sales in 2006), but has power and influence in places one might not suspect...

In fact, some of their activities strike me as downright wrong- like pre-influencing your future doctor in favor of their product(s) while he's/she's still in med school. And by getting the med school department heads, who usually have vested financial interests in the pharmaceutical companies, to teach and/or research what the drug company wants taught.

Speaking as someone who has been harmed significantly by under-researched drugs starting before birth with D.E.S. exposure, I find this wrong on many levels.

How many med students even realize that almost 2/3 of department heads at U.S. medical schools have some type of financial relationship with drug and device industries? I'm guessing not many...

I cannot imagine that the average super-busy med student has the time or inclination between A&P and Patho-physiology classes and clinicals to research her/his med school's hidden financial ties to drug and DME companies.

Would they even want to consider that there might be corporate agendas driving what they're being taught and/or what research they're doing?

I wouldn't think so, but a lot of med students do read or at least skim JAMA, so I hope they read this month's article "Institutional Academic–Industry Relationships". Cutting to the chase, it concludes that "...overall, institutional academic–industry relationships are highly prevalent and underscore the need for their active disclosure and management."

The details make better reading...about 60% of department heads at U.S. medical schools have some type of personal financial relationship with drug and medical device companies, and 72% admit that the vested interests can damage an institution's ability to do unbiased teaching and research.

This is according to a recent IMS Health Market Research survey, the first to clearly show ties between drugmakers and the leaders of institutions that research diseases and new drugs; medical department chiefs influence medical school curricula, budgets, and the future careers of faculty and students, according to researchers.

"Drug companies have influence in every single aspect of medical education in the United States, and the question is how much is too much?'' said Eric Campbell, a health policy researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and the study's lead author.

The survey was conducted among department heads at all 125 U.S. medical schools and the 15 largest independent teaching hospitals in the U.S. The chairmen were polled anonymously to encourage response, the study's authors said. The authors received answers from 459 of 688 of those contacted.

About Paid Attendance and Travel ~ 21% of department heads said they got money for their own research from companies, 28% said they were personally paid to participate in a conference or meeting, & 16% received free or reduced travel, meals or lodging. for some reason this survey did not ask how much actual money they received.

Ironically, about two-thirds of those surveyed insisted that their relationship with a company had no effect on how their department operates, but when asked their opinion about other departments getting money from a company, most responders said that the relationship does have a negative effect on independent research and teaching!

Many medical schools are considering new rules to limit the influence of drugmakers on research and teaching, such as refusing to accept free meals.

They kinda hate to cut those purse strings, though, since "the money can also have a positive effect on education". About two-thirds of department heads opine that grants of $10,000 or less with no strings attached help a department offer independent, unbiased education.

One in four surveyed said that restricted grants of more than $100,000 help produce unbiased research! Yeah, right...

One idea for a follow-up study is to ask medical schools about their curricula, said Campbell, the study's lead author. "It's possible, for example, that psychiatry departments who receive money from drugmakers may emphasize medication over alternative treatments," Campbell said.

Like clinically paranoid patients needed something else real to worry about, bless their troubled hearts...

He said he hopes that independent committees at medical schools will consider ways to curb industry influence. ``Anything that compromises the mission of medical schools, which is unbiased and independent research and education, shouldn't be allowed,'' Campbell said.

If Instant Karma Strikes (#1) Bush and (#2) Cheney TOMORROW...

2007-10-04T09:22:00.000-07:00

...who'd be in charge?

OK, even I knew that the Presidency would pass to #3. The Speaker of the House (currently Nancy Pelosi).

But if the Speaker is also unable to serve, what's the succession to the throne after that? While it may never be relevant beyond the VP spot, in these uncertain times maybe we should dust off the list, if only for perspective...

...so after the VP & the Speaker of the House comes:

4. President Pro Tempore of the Senate (Senator Robert Byrd)
5. Secretary of State (Condie Rice strikes a blow for gap-toothed women)
6. Secretary of the Treasury (Henry Paulson)
7. Secretary of Defense (Robert Gates, like his hands aren't full already)
8. Attorney General (since Gonzo split, & until Michael Mukasey is confirmed, we have an Acting AG, Peter Keisler)
9. Secretary of Interior (Dirk Kempthorne)
10. Secretary of Agriculture (Mike Johanns)
- Secretary of Commerce (Carlos Gutierrez, excluded because he is a naturalized citizen, born in Havana, the son of a pineapple plantation owner)
- Secretary of Labor (Elaine Cho, the first Asian American woman appointed to a President's cabinet, but also excluded as a naturalized citizen)
11. Secretary of Health and Human Services (Mike Leavitt)
12. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (Aphonso Jackson)
13. Secretary of Transportation (Mary Peters)
14. Secretary of Energy (Samuel Bodman)
15. Secretary of Education (Margaret Spellings)
16. Secretary of Veterans Affairs (Jim Nicholson)
17. Secretary of Homeland Security (Michael Chertoff)

(Note that the Postmaster General is no longer on the list; that position used to be in the President's Cabinet, but isn't anymore therefore the P.G. is off the list. Can't imagine why he was ever on it, but whatever...)

All this could be important to know if you believe that you are about to move up a step, as the excited, breathless Secretary of State Alexander Haig insisted publicly after the assassination attempt on President Reagan.
( Al Haig, not in charge!)
Remember when he "reassured" a nervous nation (while Reagan was in surgery and VP Bush was in an airplane and weirdly unreachable) that "as of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending return of the Vice President" ? Only he wasn't, really, so his reassurances didn't help much, did they? (Didn't help his street cred either...)

October is...

2007-09-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog Month I don't have to anymore- the dogs just find me!
People actually threw these dogs away...

Antidepressant Death Awareness Month Seriously. Cymbalta can effing kill you if you get off it too fast.
Bake and Decorate Month, Natl I'll put out pumpkins as soon as it gets cooler..
Book Month, Natl Working on "Dead Certain". Making excuses for not tackling Greenspan's memoir just yet...
Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Natl One of my best friends had it.
Canine Good Health Month, Natl As my dog Claude scratches in the background...
Celebrate Sun Dried Tomatoes Month I can't; they remind me of stuff stuck to the inside of a trashcan
Celebrating the Bilingual Child Month Viva los ninos... uh...bilinguales?
Celiac Disease Awareness Month Another one I'm grateful NOT to have....
Children's Magazine Month I like the "find pictures within pictures" page...

Chili Month, Natl Too hot in Texas; do it in January
Chiropractic Month, Natl Oh yeah, that's the spot...
Church Safety and Security Month Give it to God...
Class Reunion Month Nope. Alamo Heights HS & Southwestern U can carry on without me, & vice versa...
Communicate with Your Kid Month, Natl I promise you, he'd appreciate a little less communication from me!
Construction Toy Month, Natl Oh boy. I wanna play!

Crime Prevention Month, Natl OK, OK, I won't commit any crimes this month. Happy?
Dental Hygiene Month, Natl Just this month? Gross!
Depression Education & Awareness Month, Natl Again, just don't take Cymbalta.
Disability Employment Awareness Month, Natl I'm aware that I'm disabled & unemployed; knew it last month also.
Diversity Awareness Month Just drive around Austin and dig it:)
Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Natl I'm against it. (Not awareness, violence.)
Down Syndrome Month, Natl (Hello, Ian:)
Eat Better, Eat Together Month Actually, I find it best that the dogs and I dine separately...
Emotional Wellness Month Happy thoughts, happy thoughts..
Family Sexuality Education Month, Natl Family sexuality? I don't think my family had that...but it was the '50's.
"Gain the Inside Advantage" Month, Natl What?! OK, is this for stockbrokers, salemen, lawyers, or oddsmakers?
Gay and Lesbian History Month All the way back to Adam and Steve

German-American Heritage Month Sauerkraut....found out just yesterday that it's the only food my (adult) son hates.
Go Hog Wild--Eat Country Ham Month We spotted Domino the neighborhood pig recently, & he looked mahvelous!
Go on a Field Trip Month, Natl Does trick or treating count?
Halloween Safety Month Well that's a little on-the-nose, don't you think?
Health Literacy Month Go to the Medical Library.
Liver Awareness Month, Natl I ignore my own liver and I don't eat anybody else's (liver); I'm just not into liver.
Long Term Care Planning Month Groan~ back to National Depression Month
Medical Librarians Month, Natl Celebrate Health Literacy Month!
Organize Your Medical Information Month My old job! Or part of it...
Orthodontic Health Month, Natl I flunk this one; my own upper teeth are almost horizontal, with a half inch gap...

Photographer Appreciation Month I appreciate & miss photographer/Renaissance Man Gordon Parks.

(left, one of Parks' most famous photos )
Physical Therapy Month, Natl Yeah, I do need to get to the gym...
Polish American Heritage Month I'd like to dance the polka with Oskar Homolka. (Except I think he was Austrian... )
Popcorn Poppin' Month, Natl A bad year for popcorn manufacturers; popcorn worker's lung now found in consumers...
Positive Attitude Month It's gonna be great!
Reading Group Month, Natl I read alone, thank you.
Rett Syndrome Awareness Month Just heard from the mother of a little girl who has this horrific disease (Hi Sarah!)- Check her site: http://www.girlpower2cure.org/)
Right-Brainers Rule Month Sez who?
Roller Skating Month, Natl Aw, that's nice...
RSV Awareness Month, Natl I'm aware of it at least. Bad virus, attacks mostly little kids I think...
Sarcastics Awareness Month, Natl Yeah, like they really deserve a month, they contribute so much...
Seafood Month, Natl Had some yesterday, as a matter of fact, at Quality Seafood on Airport Blvd in Austin.
Self-Promotion Month I am so smart, I am so smart, I am so wonderful, I am so smart... Ta-DA!
Spina Bifida Awareness Month, Natl Aware of it, grateful not to have it.
Spinach Lovers Month I've literally dreamed about spinach. Seriously, I dreamed about a mountain of spinach souffle. Yum!
Starman Month, Intl Starman month? As in the movie with Jeff Bridges? Or is it about real starmen? And what, no starwomen?
Strategic Planning Month, Intl Exactly when? Precisely where? I need specifics.
Talk about Prescriptions Month No, how about let's not talk about prescriptions?

Vegetarian Month Vegetarians taste better, according to PETA, People for Eating Tasty Animals.
Women's Small Business Month Been there, done that, lost the t-shirt...
Work and Family Month, Natl OK, I pick family. No, work. Wait a minute...does it have to be the whole family?
Workplace Politics Awareness Month Oh, this is going to be fun...makes me kinda glad I'm unemployed...

A Little Ditty about Glass Houses

2007-09-27T10:38:00.000-07:00

"There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us
that it's rather hard to discern which of us ought to reform the rest of us".
~Alain Fournier

Political Leanings May Show Up in the Brain

2007-09-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

Scientists See Differences in Brain Scans of Liberals and Conservatives During Conflict Test
By Miranda Hitti WebMD Medical News Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD Sept. 10, 2007

Liberals and conservatives may handle mental conflict differently, according to new research on the brain.

The finding comes from researchers including David Amodio, PhD, a research scientist in New York University's psychology department. They scanned the brains of 43 adults during a conflict test.

As part of a confidential personality survey, participants rated their political orientation on a scale ranging from -5 (for extremely liberal) to +5 (for extremely conservative).
After finishing the survey, they donned stretchy caps studded with electrodes to scan their brains during the conflict test.

The test had nothing to do with candidates, votes, or prickly political issues.
Participants watched a computer screen that displayed the letter "M" or "W" for a split second in rapid succession.

The researchers asked half of the group to press a computer key whenever they saw "M" but not "W." The other half of the group got the opposite assignment -- press the button for "W" but not "M."

Most of the time, participants saw the letter that was supposed to prompt them to press the computer key. But 20% of the time, they saw the other letter and were supposed to refrain from pushing the computer key.

Compared with conservatives, liberals were more likely to refrain from pressing the computer key when the wrong letter appeared. Liberals also showed more activity in a brain area called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is involved in monitoring conflicting information, note Amodio and colleagues.

"Although a liberal orientation was associated with better performance on the response-inhibition task examined here, conservatives would presumably perform better on tasks in which a more fixed response style is optimal," write the researchers.
The study appears in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience.

September is...

2007-09-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month, Natl
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Month (What?) (Actually, I plan to use this as an excuse all month)
Backpack Safety America Month
Be Kind To Editors and Writers* Month *(and bloggers?)
Biscuit Month, Natl
Chicken Month, Natl
Civics Awareness Month, Natl (Did you know that actor Richard Dreyfuss is an expert on civics? He's passionate on the subject. Wants it taught more effectively, in more depth, and to everyone)
College Savings Month (too late)
Coupon Month, Natl
Fall Hat Month
5-A-Day Month, Natl (5-what? I think they mean 5 servings, of fruits and veggies.)
Go Wild During California Wild Rice Month (another dandy excuse for going wild this month...)
Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Month (no thank you)
Honey Month, Natl
Library Card Sign-Up Month (Which reminds me; I need a library card for Greenspan's memoir...)
Menopause Awareness Month (I'm aware already, I'm aware!)
Mold Awareness Month (Aware of that, too)
Mushroom Month, Natl
Organic Harvest Month, Natl
Osteopathic Medicine Month, Natl
Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, Natl (no thank you)
Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month
Pediculosis* Prevention Month, Natl (yuck) *A Head Louse (prevent these in September)
Piano Month, Natl (I forgot how to play so I gave mine away....)
Pleasure Your Mate Month (I don't have a mate, don't need a mate, & don't want a mate; I prefer the company of my dogs.)
Potato Month, Natl (boring)
Preparedness Month, Natl (Prepared for what, exactly?)
Reunion Planning Month (no thank you)
Rice Month, Natl (boring)
Sea Cadet Month
Self-Awareness Month, Intl (Who, me?)
September Is Healthy Aging Month (I think that ship has sailed...)
Shameless Promotion Month (Isn't it always "shameless promotion month"?)
Skin Care Awareness Month, Natl
Southern Gospel Music Month (Oh Lordy)
Sports and Home Eye Health and Safety Month (ouch)
Strategic Thinking Month, Intl (duh)
Subliminal Communications Month ( !)
United Planet Month (Greetings, Earthlings!)
Update Your Resume Month (too late for that too)

Melting Pop Tart Britney Acting More Schizo than Drugged

2007-09-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

I know it's indefensibly shallow to join in gossiping about Hollywood and it's recent bimbo explosions (at least for anyone not legitimately in the business) ...but I gotta say this... (so I can say "I told you so" when this particular shit hits the fan, any day now)... the unavoidable "entertainment" news this week, especially today's, has me thinking that Britney Spears' behavior may not be primarily due to drugs and/or alcohol; I may be wrong, but it's sounding more like she's schizoid, WAY out of it, much more so and differently than just being drunk and/or drugged.

But while I myself have been pretty doggone buzzed in the past, I don't know anything first-hand about the world of serious drugs or drunkeness, so maybe it's just a matter of style; whereas Lindsay Lohan parties until she passes out in a car with her mouth hanging open, Britney has now been banned for smearing food all over her face in an uber-classy restaurant, and at home she insists on presenting herself au naturale. Toujours! Answering the door, dealing with her staff and servants, hanging out with the kids, Britney's always naked.

Anyhoo...as I understand it, her attorney and entire management team (...she had a management team?...) have now thrown up their hands and quit, so she's more on her own than ever, except for those sleazy Cling-ons she had with her at that infamous OK! Magazine photo-shoot, the ones who helped her walk off with $14,000 of borrowed apparel. The same photo shoot where she famously
1. wiped her fried-chicken-greasy hands on a pink silk Alisha Levine dress, ruining it,
2. "took frequent trips to the bathroom, always leaving the door open"
3. just sat there as her Yorkshire terrier puppy crapped on a $6,700 Zac Posen gown

In other words, just one, big, sad train wreck that was meant ironically to herald her "comeback".

It looks like her kids will very soon be taken away from her altogether for their own safety, finally, which is reasonable but will obviously be very rough for all involved.

Anyway, here's today's latest, from the Sydney Herald:

Smears get Spears Banned

September 18, 2007 - 9:56AM Britney Spears has been banned from an exclusive Los Angeles hotel after shocking guests by "smearing food all over her face".

Troubled mother-of-two Britney can never check into the Chateau Marmont again after diners in the hotel restaurant were appalled by her animalistic table manners.

A "source" told Britain's The Sun newspaper: "The diners were disgusted. You wouldn't expect that from a teenager in a fast food joint. Royalty have dined in this restaurant. Her behaviour was totally unacceptable."

However, it wasn't just Britney's eating habits that led to the ban being enforced by the hotel - which is a favourite haunt of Lindsay Lohan, Sienna Miller and Britney's ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake.

According to an insider, the Gimme More singer has been "acting weird" for months, and bosses decided to impose the severe punishment before things got out of control.

The source added: "Staff at the Chateau have been told she is not welcome.

"She constantly looked out of it when she came in, and guests began to make noises. The hotel acted before she made a huge scene."

The ban is the latest in a string of setbacks to Britney's highly-anticipated career comeback, which began with her widely panned performance at the MTV Video Music Awards earlier this month.

Now a former bodyguard has offered to testify against her in court.

The pop star and her ex-husband Kevin Federline are battling over custody of their sons.
Tony Barretto, 28, said in a court filing that he worked for Spears from the time she left a rehabilitation clinic in March until May 17, 2007, and that he watched her behaviour in and out of the house (see story right).

Federline's attorney, Mark V Kaplan, said it was not unusual for lawyers to decline questioning a surprise witness.

Kaplan did not discuss what went on inside the hearing, but told reporters his client was not seeking more money from Spears. Kaplan said a new custody hearing would likely come in mid-November. An exact date was not yet available....

The Zen of Looking for Steve Fossett

2007-09-14T07:35:00.001-07:00

Steve, dude, where did you go? What's it like there?

First of all, I'm afraid this is sort of a non-update update, in that as of this moment, there is no news at all about Mr. Fossett's whereabouts. We know about a lot of places where he's not literally more every second, but that's it so far in terms of progress. Unfortunately.

It's starting to look to some like he's just not there, dead or alive, which is obviously bad news because the search area is huge enough, and some are now afraid he may have strayed even further....they say his plane could have taken him deep into California, even into Oregon, or Arizona (groan!).

But as daunting as a further-expanded search would be, it's better than the more likely explanation; that (perhaps after a sudden massive stroke or heart attack, or perhaps due to the weird winds out there), he crashed hard into a lake or deep ravine, and may be forever unfindable.

As for other explanations, I've been reading a bit about Fossett, and I disagree with the frustrated people who speculate that he might have "disappeared himself on purpose". Yes, of course he had the means to do whatever he wanted, including disappear from the face of Google Earth , but if you know anything about Fossett you know he's one person who simply wouldn't have done this on purpose.

Why not?

Because for one thing, if he went "underground", Fossett could never again do any of the grand and heroic things he loves in life. A world land speed record attempt under an assumed identity? I don't think so.

And anyone who's seen his record-breaking attempts on the news knows this guy does not give up easily. He has set 116 land & air records, and was the first person to circle the globe in a balloon. But even though many of his pursuits ended in expensive failure, he was always undaunted, and he had this new land speed record project he was super-excited about.

No, I'm afraid he's gone for good, passed into something more amazing than anything he's seen so far... very likely dead before the actual crash or he would have radioed for help. He was (and the onsite searchers are) dealing with dangerous, wildly uneven, high desert terrain with very unpredictable wind conditions, challenging for flying on the best days.

The only "updates" are that ~

1. "suitable turbine helicopters with experienced pilots (are) still required" and
2. they finally posted a picture of his actual plane (below),

...the one we're looking for on Google Earth via Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Below, an example of a search site or "HIT"

For practice you can copy and paste the following address, 38.430862,-118.486862 , into the "Fly to" search window of Google Earth, hit "Enter" and it will open up that little assigned rocky patch of land shown in the picture above left. In Google Earth, you can zoom in to whatever the optimum height is for that area, sometimes about 1,500 feet, sometimes less, and search for Fossett in more detail. Although by now that particular site has already been searched online by someone else...

The picture below is an example of what his airplane might look like from about 1,500 feet, assuming it landed more-or-less intact and upright. Or maybe upside-down?

Again, here's the link and info if you'd like to sign up and help search. http://www.mturk.com/mturk/preview?groupId=9TSZK4G35XEZJZG21T60&kw=Flash

I signed up to help search online (what the heck) and so far have completed 50 HITS (Human Intelligence Tasks) for them, which means that I looked carefully via Google Earth at each of 50 different tiny square bits of land in the grid of the search area, one at a time, and reported each of my findings back to the computer program that assigns the tasks as I went along.

At first it wasn't particularly interesting because the topography in my first several assignments was pretty dull from above- flat and empty except for small trees. I didn't mind, though, but I guess I wanted at least a slight challenge, and at first it was like peering down at the land around Lubbock; easy to search but not much to look at, compared to the stuff I usually like to look at on Google Earth...
Not real exciting to search, is it? This is HIT # 38.518753,-118.536301.

But I was occasionally assigned more interesting and challenging areas to search; land with mountainous areas, deep canyons, creeks lined with (probably) tall trees, and little agricultural areas with interesting stuff to sort out and identify.

And after awhile I really got in the zone; there was a sort of Zen to the task. And the less challenging assignments were suddenly just as welcome, because they were quick to move through. I searched each little assigned piece of the Earth with real care and attention, moving unnecessarily slowly at first but becoming more efficient with practice.

Like I said, sometimes the terrain looked uninteresting, but other times the beauty and diversity was evident and this task gives the searcher plenty of time to explore and appreciate it. I always search well beyond each assigned square, mostly out of curiosity, before sending it back to the computer from whence it came, "Amazon Mechanical Turk".

Whether I found anything that might be an airplane or not (I haven't as yet), I click to report back about that HIT and the next assignment pops up; I accept it if I want to (I always have, even the "boring" ones), and start by pasting the site's geographic address in the "Fly to" search window of Google Earth and hit "Go" and we're off!

As Google Earth quickly takes me to the site of my new assignment, I feel like I'm flying over Nevada but without my usual petrifying aviatophobia , often to a far-flung, opposite part of the state, and I'm thinking "Wow! Now where am I going?" To me, it's a combination of a small adventure and opening a present, to see what that next piece of the Earth holds.

Patiently performing each surreal and yet very real task or HIT, I found myself centered and pleasantly balanced between openness to hope and yet utter detachment; I care about Mr. Fossett and his family, but all those "no luck" hits have yielded me no frustration or disappointment at all. None. Because for one thing, even those negative HITS helped the effort, confirming the elimination of another site within the search area where they need look no further. Plus there was always another fresh HIT offered, full of promise and sites to behold..

I guess for me this is a little like those Buddhist Monks who patiently make those intricately beautiful mandalas out of colored sand, knowing all the while that it won't last. You focus and just do your best, living utterly in the moment, no attachment to anything but the work itself and really not even that, just do the work. Breathe, and just

Be Here Now.

Not that I'd have one iota of the talent or patience to do what the Buddhist Monks do...but this search for Steve Fossett is an exercise that for me has a bit of that in it...

Anyway, a link follows to Steve Fossett's official website, which explains what led up to all this. http://www.stevefossett.com/ . There's a nice, hopeful letter from his wife didn't even know he had one, bless her heart, thanking everybody for helping.

"Beforehand Thankful"

2007-09-11T07:25:00.000-07:00

I like that phrase, "beforehand thankful". It was the first thing that made me smile today (so far). But the day is early.

I happened upon this charming mistranslation of the English phrase "Thanks in advance", made so much nicer by one "Sergey Bondarenko", a very gracious fellow apparently from the Ukraine. He'd just asked for help from anyone on a Wikipedia discussion page re: a technical matter about flight data recorders. (Long story..)

Here's the whole message, and I haven't changed a thing except the font colors:

"Hello! My name is Sergey Bondarenko. I am very interesting in air safety control especially flight data recorders! Actually I cannot find discription of any one! I am especially interesting in harware, main principal of operation. It would be very kind of you if you help me with it. Beforehand thankful. Oh by the way my e- mail is bondarenkoss@ukr.net , if you have some information, please receive it there!"

I really like this guy. I may write to him. He has a lovely way with English. "Beforehand thankful." I love it.

You Can Use "Google Earth" to Help Search for Missing Gazillionaire Steve Fossett

2007-09-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

There's a kinda neat development in the ongoing search for aviator, sailor, and adventurer extraordinaire Steve Fossett, whose plane (and self) have been missing for over a week now. Unfortunately, intensive searches on air and land have turned up no sign of Fossett or his plane.(On the + side, at least 6 other previously undiscovered crashed planes have been found during this search, so obviously they're really, really looking hard...)

The neat thing is that Google Earth has gotten together with "Amazon Mechanical Turk"(?), aka "Artificial Artificial Intelligence", and they've got a state-of-the-art, help-search-for-Steve-Fossett high-tech global effort going, with newly updated satellite images of the entire Fossett search area mapoped into grids, so everyone who can get online can join in the aerial search for Fossett's plane. And of course there's a website to report whatever you find to.

Well, it beats playing video games, doesn't it? I mean, this is real... the challenge of a real hunt for a real missing person, and with zero cost, risk, or travel. And you could literally save someone's life, without risking heat stroke, snakebite, or getting lost yourself. And if that's not enough incentive to pitch in and look, consider that whoever finds this very tough, resourceful gazillionaire is bound to get a lovely "thank you" gift, like an island or something...

The best way to get into this search (or to just read about it) is to first follow this link~ http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/09/help_find_steve_fosset_with_google.html
...which will also send you to this next one, which has examples of exactly what to look for http://www.mturk.com/mturk/preview?groupId=9TSZK4G35XEZJZG21T60&kw=Flash

I'd also suggest reading some of the brief comments at the bottom of that first web page, both for information and inspiration, since several people seem to have spotted things on the images already that might be planes and might be worth checking out. Their posts give the longitude and latitude of whatever-it-is they've spotted, so we can see what they've found too.

Unfortunately, because Mr. Fossett was scouting dry lake beds as a possible location for a future attempt to break the world's land speed record of 766.6 mph, he didn't file a flight plan. But we do know that he'd only planned a quick flight, and more importantly, we know his point of origin for the flight, an airstrip at billionaire hotel magnate Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch, some 70 miles SE of Reno, in a single-engine plane. So he should be somewhere around there... BTW, this particular "Barron Hilton" is Paris Hilton's grandfather. Big woop.

Fossett's plane, a Bellanca Citabria Super Decathlon similar to the one below, was equipped with a locator that sends an automatic satellite signal after a rough landing.

In what seemed at first like a possibly good sign, officials said they had picked up no such locator signals from the plane, indicating that there may have been no rough landing to trigger it...but there have been no radio communication either, which is less hopeful. And even if the plane locator failed, Fossett usually wears a $5K Breitling Emergency watch that allows pilots to easily signal their location. And so far, there had been no word of such a signal from Fossett, which is even more worrying. But maybe he's in a really deep ravine that's out of range of any signal...

Google Earth is one of my favorite places to hang out anyway, and this morning I've been looking over the search area, mostly western Nevada along the California border, and I must say that the area looks a lot more interesting than I would have thought, topographically. (Never having been there myself.)

Next I'll sign up to search an assigned grid square.

Good News about President Bush for a Change

2007-09-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

...he won't be returning to Austin after his term is up. (Hooray, hooray!...a joyous cheer arises from the town...). Not that I ever really thought he'd want to come back to a blue* island (*even bluer recently, largely thanks to him..) in a sea of red, but it's good to know he has solid plans to retire to "a nice place in Dallas." That's far enough away for me. Sympathies to my friends in Big D, though.

This little factoid and more came from a book debuting tomorrow (9/4/7), called "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush" by Robert Draper. Draper's unusual access to Bush and others around him tells more about the President's personality, values, and thinking processes than the public has ever seen up to now. Judging from excerpts published in yesterday's New York Times, I don't think Bush will be altogether pleased....

Anyway, other than getting a "nice place" in Dallas, what's his great ambition as revealed in the book?

Wealthy boredom.

Seriously. Well, it is all he's really qualified for...

But absolutely zero mention whatsoever of anything remotely like the selfless volunteer activities of other, older ex-Presidents, like his father GHW Bush and Bill Clinton, who've traveled the globe tirelessly in support of victims of natural disasters like the Indian Ocean Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina (despite their own significant health problems), Former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton (left) George H.W. Bush (right, in USAID cap) surveying the shattered village of Lampuuk, Indonesia. Only 700 of its 6,500 inhabitants survived the tsunami. Bush and Clinton visited Aceh province, asking if the relief effort could help resolve a decades-long insurgency and calling on the government to ensure that American funds are well spent.

or Jimmy Carter (bless him), who's not only literally built houses for Habitat for Humanity,

but has dedicated his life to peace via conflict resolution around the world.

No, George Jr.'s, post-Washington plans are basically to slack off and collect huge $um$ of money..he expects to take it easy and add to his estimated $20 million as needed with occasional high-paying speaking gigs. Speaking? Bush... speaking? (!)

"I'll give some speeches, to replenish the ol' coffers," says Mr Bush. "I don't know what my dad gets - it's more than 50 to 75 (thousand dollars a speech), and "Clinton's making a lot of money". Holy Ironic Retirement, Batman!

Maybe he's automatically in their league as a highly-paid speaker because he knows the secret Presidential handshake... but G.W. Bush has got to be one of the worst public speakers on the planet...he's just so bad at it! Although I guess it might be interesting if he'd agree to take questions from his audiences, but you know he won't. He can't.... he's still not that swift on his feet, y'know. Come to think of it, he's not that good at speaking, period, much less answering questions. ...or abstract thinking, or, well, any thinking. Or riding his bike..or eating pretzels...wow. How has this idiot managed to live as long as he has?

So.. with almost unlimited resources, what does President Bush Jr. hope to do with his free time between the occasional speaking gigs? Well, again, not a whole heckuva lot.

Mr Bush pointed out that when his time in office is up, he will be only 62 and "really young". Uh-huh, sooo you're going to back to the old 'party-hearty-Marty'?.... Apart from the joy of getting bored, he is looking forward to setting up a "fantastic freedom institute in Dallas" for young democratic leaders around the world. After all, he's proven so adept at spreading democracy...(Sing it with me.. "H-i-t-l-e-r, Y-o-u-t-h...") ,

Any plans other than that? Well, no, not really. "I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.”

You go George; we can't wait. Really. Go!

Chupacabra? Cryptozoology is Big This Summer in Cuero

2007-09-01T08:08:00.000-07:00

I love this kinda stuff... a Cuero, Texas rancher and big game hunter, Phylis Canion (below right, with "friend"), says she's got herself real live dead chupcabra, the mythical goat-sucker of Mexican and Puerto Rican folklore.

(Won't this look nice mounted next to the zebra?)
Phylis keeps the head of the beast wrapped up in her freezer with plans to mount it on her trophy wall. (After losing dozens of chickens and pets to the creature, I'm sure she's entitled, but is it really Kosher to mount road kill?)

I've read the stories and seen the pictures, and it looks a lot like pictures of "the Elmendorf Beast", found near Elmendorf, Texas in '04, which a UT professor declared was merely a very unhealthy coyote with really bad mange.

But supposedly officials at the San Antonio Zoo said the remains were definitely NOT coyote, they just didn't know exactly what it was....

Anyway, if chupacabras do exist, and if the Cuero beastie is is one, the DNA results, which are due any day now, should settle it. The nasty-looking, hairless, fox-like fanged critter, and others like it, were sighted many times in the area before one was recently found dead on the highway.

Pictures and of course t-shirts (below) of this latest alleged chupcabra are floating around, but until DNA results return, no one will be satisfied with guesses.

Personally, I'm most intrigued by the story that the creature exsanguinates it's prey without eating it. No way that's a coyote or a fox! I lived in the country for a long time, and I promise you, coyotes and foxes eat their prey; sometimes they eat it on the spot of the kill, sometimes they take it "to go", but they don't suck all the blood out and just leave...even if they're getting shot at, they try to take the remains if they can.

A coyote just sucking blood and leaving all the meat? That dog won't hunt. No pun intended.

Here's the story from AP:

Has a Mythical Beast Turned Up in Texas?
By ELIZABETH WHITE
CUERO, Texas (AP) — Phylis Canion lived in Africa for four years. She's been a hunter all her life and has the mounted heads of a zebra and other exotic animals in her house to prove it. But the roadkill she found last month outside her ranch was a new one even for her, worth putting in a freezer hidden from curious onlookers: Canion believes she may have the head of the mythical, bloodsucking chupacabra.

"It is one ugly creature," Canion said, holding the head of the mammal, which has big ears, large fanged teeth and grayish-blue, mostly hairless skin.

Canion and some of her neighbors discovered the 40-pound bodies of three of the animals over four days in July outside her ranch in Cuero, 80 miles southeast of San Antonio. Canion said she saved the head of the one she found so she can get to get to the bottom of its ancestry through DNA testing and then mount it for posterity.

She suspects, as have many rural denizens over the years, that a chupacabra may have killed as many as 26 of her chickens in the past couple of years.

"I've seen a lot of nasty stuff. I've never seen anything like this," she said.

What tipped Canion to the possibility that this was no ugly coyote, but perhaps the vampire-like beast, is that the chickens weren't eaten or carried off — all the blood was drained from them, she said.

Chupacabra means "goat sucker" in Spanish, and it is said to have originated in Latin America, specifically Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Canion thinks recent heavy rains ran them right out of their dens.

"I think it could have wolf in it," Canion said. "It has to be a cross between two or three different things."

She said the finding has captured the imagination of locals, just like purported sightings of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster have elsewhere.

But what folks are calling a chupacabra is probably just a strange breed of dog, said veterinarian Travis Schaar of the Main Street Animal Hospital in nearby Victoria. "I'm not going to tell you that's not a chupacabra. I just think in my opinion a chupacabra is a dog," said Schaar, who has seen Canion's find. The "chupacabras" could have all been part of a mutated litter of dogs, or they may be a new kind of mutt, he said.

As for the bloodsucking, Schaar said that this particular canine may simply have a preference for blood, letting its prey bleed out and licking it up.

Chupacabra or not, the discovery has spawned a local and international craze. Canion has started selling T-shirts that read: "2007, The Summer of the Chupacabra, Cuero, Texas," accompanied by a caricature of the creature. The $5 shirts have gone all over the world, including Japan, Australia and Brunei. Schaar also said he has one.

"If everyone has a fun time with it, we'll keep doing it," she said. "It's good for Cuero."

http://www.unexplainedresearch.com/in_the_news/texas_mystery_creature.html

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jgIXOzgj5X8SCBnCesj3lr62Yczw

http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/632/story/94241.html

http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/428/story/106363.html

Meteors from The Sun to Impact Our Moon during Lunar Eclipse

2007-08-27T09:05:00.001-07:00

Up until today, the only non-obvious scientific fact I've been able to reliably recall regarding our Sun is that it's about 93 million miles away*. *From Earth that is; forgive my "planetocentricity", but I stupidly assume that blog readers are all local, that is, "Earthlings". And the artist's rendering from NASA (below) gave me the impression that the Sun resembles a giant jaw breaker on the inside:

But today's NASA newsletter brought real news an upcoming study of meteoroids from the direction of the Sun as they impact our Moon during a lunar eclipse.

Got that?

1. Meteoroids from near our Sun
2. Smashing into our Moon
3. During a lunar eclipse

Obviously this isn't the kind of thing they can schedule just any day of the week!

And it's an important thing to study (as well as a unique opportunity to do so), because our Moon gets hit a lot, acting kind of like a meteor-filter, stopping some of the rocks that might otherwise impact Earth. And if we're ever to have any sort of (wo)manned base on the moon or colonization or whatever, the residents ("Moonies"? or "Mooner"s?) would benefit from accurate warning about conditions there. You know, so they'll know how deep to dig the meteor shelter...

So this study should give an idea of exactly what happens to the surrounding neighborhood when a solid object slams into the surface of the Moon. (I know, big "BOOM", dust and moon rocks explode, and property values plummet as another crater is formed...but NASA needs the specifics). Their news release precedes their article below:

On Tuesday morning, Aug. 28th, (that's tomorrow), a team of astronomers and engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center will attempt something never done before--to observe meteoroids hitting the Moon and exploding during a lunar eclipse. This will allow them to explore an elusive and mysterious population of "Helion" meteoroids coming from the direction of the sun.

Exploding Lunar Eclipse
August 27, 2007: Most people appreciate lunar eclipses for their silent midnight beauty. NASA astronomer Bill Cooke is different: he loves the explosions.

On Tuesday morning, Aug. 28th, Earth's shadow will settle across the Moon for a 90-minute total eclipse: full story. In the midst of the lunar darkness, Cooke hopes to record some flashes of light - explosions caused by meteoroids crashing into the Moon and blasting themselves to smithereens.

"The eclipse is a great time to look," says Cooke, who heads up NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) at the Marshall Space Flight Center. The entire face of the Moon will be in shadow for more than two hours, offering more than 7 million sq. miles of dark terrain as target for incoming meteoroids.

Lunar explosions are nothing new. Cooke's team has been monitoring the Moon since late 2005 and they've recorded 62 impacts so far. "Meteoroids that hit Earth disintegrate in the atmosphere, producing a harmless streak of light. But the Moon has no atmosphere, so 'lunar meteors' plunge into the ground," he says. Typical strikes release as much energy as 100 kg of TNT, gouging craters several meters wide and producing bursts of light bright enough to be seen 240,000 miles away on Earth through ordinary backyard telescopes.

"About half of the impacts we see come from regular meteor showers like the Perseids and Leonids," says MEO team-member Danielle Moser. "The other half are 'sporadic' meteors associated with no particular asteroid or comet."

The MEO observatory is located on the grounds of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and consists of two 14-inch telescopes equipped with sensitive low-light video cameras. Moser and colleague Victoria Coffey will be on duty Tuesday morning.

During the eclipse, they hope to catch an elusive variety of meteor called Helions.

"Helion meteoroids come from the direction of the sun," Cooke says, "and that makes them very difficult to observe." They streak across the sky most often around local noon when the sun's glare is too intense for meteor watching.

Wait a minute. Meteors from the sun? "The sun itself is not the source," he explains. "We believe Helion meteoroids come from ancient sungrazing comets that laid down trails of dusty debris in the vicinity of the sun."

No one can be certain, however, because Helion meteoroids are so devilishly difficult to study. Astronomers see them only in small numbers briefly before dawn or after sunset. Attempts to study Helions via radar during the day have been foiled, to a degree, by terrestrial radio interference and natural radio bursts from the sun—both of which can drown out meteoroid "pings."

Enter the eclipse.

During the eclipse, the Man in the Moon (the face we see from Earth) will be turned squarely toward the sun—"perfect geometry for intercepting Helion meteoroids," says Moser. "And with Earth's shadow providing some darkness, we should be able to see any explosions quite clearly."

"Watching Helion meteoroids hit the Moon and studying the flashes will tell us more about their size, velocity and penetration," she adds. That, in turn, will further the MEO's goal of estimating meteoroid hazards to spacecraft and future Moon-walking astronauts.

No one has ever seen a lunar impact during an eclipse, "but there's a first time for everything," Cooke says. Stay tuned to http://Science@NASA for results.

ALERT: Bill Cooke encourages amateur astronomers to monitor the Moon during the eclipse and report any flashes they record to the Meteoroid Environment Office. Typical flashes are 6th to 7th magnitude, easy targets for mid-sized backyard telescopes equipped with digital video cameras. Click here for instructions.

The Pungent Power of Pigeon Poop

2007-08-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

(Straight from London's Daily Mail; all I added was color.)

Pigeon Poo Blamed for Deadly Minnesota Bridge Collapse

Last updated at 17:13pm on 24th August 2007

Experts have put forward the theory that steel beams rusted faster because of the ammonia and acids in the bird droppings. But there are many theories.

Inspectors began documenting the buildup of pigeon dung on the span near downtown Minneapolis two decades ago. "There is a coating of pigeon dung on steel with nest and heavy buildup on the inside hollow box sections," inspectors wrote in a 1987-1989 report.

In 1996, screens were installed over openings in the bridge's beams to keep pigeons from nesting there, but that did not prevent the building up of droppings elsewhere.

Pigeon droppings contain ammonia and acids, said chemist Neal Langerman, an officer with the health and safety division of the American Chemical Society.

If the dung is not washed away, it dries out and turns into a concentrated salt.

"Over a long term, it might in fact cause structural weaknesses," said Langerman. When water gets in and combines with the salt and ammonia, it creates small electrochemical reactions that rust the steel underneath.

However, the exact cause of the collapse has not yet been confirmed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=477533&in_page_id=1770

Flash from NASA...

2007-08-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

Earthlings take notice! By the time you finish reading this sentence, you'll be 25 miles closer to the planet Mars.

Official Mars Mission patch

Seriously. The distance between Earth and Mars is shrinking at a rate of 22,000 mph, or about 25 miles per sentence.

NASA explains it better below...

"Earth and Mars are converging...and ultimately this will lead to a close approach in late December 2007, when Mars will outshine every star in the night sky.

"Of a similar encounter in the 19th century, astronomer Percival Lowell wrote the following: "Mars blazes forth against the dark background of space with a splendor that outshines Sirius and rivals the giant Jupiter himself."

"It is true that Earth and Mars are converging (you're now 300 miles closer), but even at closest approach the two planets are separated by a gulf of tens of millions of miles. From such a distance, Mars looks like a star, an intense yet tiny pinprick of light, never a full Moon.

"To appreciate the situation, think of Earth and Mars as runners on a track, with speedy Earth on the inside lane and slower Mars on the outside. See the diagram below (of orbits, not boobs!)

"Now, in August 2007, Earth is catching up to Mars from behind. Relative speed: 22,000 mph. In December, Earth overtakes Mars, still moving rapidly but never approaching the Red Planet any nearer than the gap between lanes: about 55 million miles.

"Mindful that the two planets are converging, NASA chose this time to send its Phoenix Lander to Mars. Launched in June 2007 from Cape Canaveral, Phoenix is slated to land in late May 2008 on a Martian arctic plain where Phoenix's robotic arm will dig in the dirt hunting for, among other things, habitats for microbial life. Only to Phoenix, when it gets very close to Mars next year, will the red planet actually rival the Moon in apparent size.

"So … you should forget about Mars on August 27th, right?

"Not so fast. While there won't be Two Moons on August 27th, there will be Two Eyes. At 3 o'clock in the morning on that date, Mars will rise in the eastern sky alongside the red giant star Aldebaran. The two red lights side-by-side will resemble two eerie, unblinking eyes. This is worth waking up for!

If you've been following the adventures of Spirit and Opportunity, you know that Mars is currently experiencing a planet-wide dust storm. Rust-colored dust is choking the air and dimming sunlight, causing problems for the two solar-powered rovers. During the past month, they've had to "stand-down"—no roving or digging or even communicating with Earth at times—in order to conserve power.

A backyard telescope pointed at Mars on August 27th may reveal vast clouds of dust partially eclipsing some of the planet's familiar surface markings. Or it may reveal a totally orange ball—that's what Mars looks like when the dust storm kicks into high gear. Take a look; every night the view improves.

(And you're now 1000 miles closer to Mars!)

More from NASA about the Mars Hoax:

The Mars Hoax email first appeared in 2003. On August 27th of that year, Mars really did come historically close to Earth. But the email's claim that Mars "would rival the Moon" was grossly exaggerated. Every August since 2003, the email has staged a revival; it is as wrong now as it was then.

One version of the 2003 email stated that Mars would resemble a full Moon when viewed at 60x power through a backyard telescope. Even that is wrong. While it is true that Mars can be magnified enough to illuminate a Moon-sized patch of retina, the human brain doesn't register a Moon-sized object. The brain takes into account context and surroundings when it estimates the size of an object, hence the Moon illusion.

Nothing seen through the narrow corridor of a telescope's eyepiece feels or looks as large as a full Moon.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/21aug_hurtlingtomars

A Star with a GIANT Tail that Spreads Star Seeds!

2007-08-15T19:09:00.001-07:00

This is so cool. And not only was it news to me, but it was news to NASA, big news, literally and scientifically. NASA got a new view of a (supposedly) well-known star, "Mira", and found that it has a tail - and I mean a mindblowingly massive tail with almost magical properties about which someone will surely write a children's book.

I'm going to let NASA explain it, as it would only lose in translation through me...

From NASA Science News for August 15, 2007:
(click picture for larger view)
"Astronomers have discovered something they've never seen before: a star with a tail like a comet. Even more amazing is the fact that the newfound tail is attached to one of the most popular stars in the sky, a red giant named Mira. Amateur and professional astronomers have been watching Mira for 400 years and only recently has a NASA space telescope spotted its massive tail."

FULL STORY: August 15, 2007:
"Astronomers using a NASA space telescope, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, have spotted an amazingly long comet-like tail behind a star streaking through space. The star, named Mira after the Latin word for "wonderful," has been a favorite of astronomers for about 400 years, yet this is the first time the tail has been seen.

"Galaxy Evolution Explorer--"GALEX" for short--scanned the popular star during its ongoing survey of the entire sky in ultraviolet light. Astronomers then noticed what looked like a comet with a gargantuan tail. In fact, material blowing off Mira is forming a wake 13 light-years long, or about 20,000 times the average distance of Pluto from the sun. Nothing like this has ever been seen before around a star.

"Mira appears as a small white dot in the bulb-shaped structure at right, and is moving from left to right in this view. The shed material can be seen in light blue. The dots in the picture are stars and distant galaxies. The large blue dot at left is a star that is closer to us than Mira.

"The Galaxy Evolution Explorer discovered Mira's strange comet-like tail during part of its routine survey of the entire sky at ultraviolet wavelengths.

"When astronomers first saw the picture, they were shocked because Mira has been studied for over 400 years yet nothing like this has ever been documented before.

"Mira's comet-like tail stretches a startling 13 light-years across the sky. For comparison, the nearest star to our sun, Proxima Centauri, is only about 4 light-years away.

"Mira's tail also tells a tale of its history – the material making it up has been slowly blown off over time, with the oldest material at the end of the tail having been released about 30,000 years ago.

"Mira is a highly evolved, "red giant" star near the end of its life. Technically, it is called an "asymptotic giant branch star". It is red in color and bloated; for example, if a red giant were to replace our sun, it would engulf everything out to the orbit of Mars.

"Our sun will mature into a red giant in about 5 billion years.

"Like other red giants, Mira will lose a large fraction of its mass in the form of gas and dust. In fact, Mira ejects the equivalent of the Earth's mass every 10 years. It has released enough material over the past 30,000 years to seed at least 3,000 Earth-sized planets or 9 Jupiter-sized ones.

"While most stars travel along together around the disk of our Milky Way, Mira is charging through it. Because Mira is not moving with the "pack," it is moving much faster relative to the ambient gas in our section of the Milky Way.

"Mira's breakneck speed together with its outflow of material are responsible for its unique glowing tail.

"Images from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer show a large build-up of gas, or bow shock, in front of the star, similar to water piling up in front of a speeding boat. Scientists now know that hot gas in this bow shock mixes with the cooler, hydrogen gas being shed from Mira, causing it to heat up as it swirls back into a turbulent wake. As the hydrogen gas loses energy, it fluoresces with ultraviolet light, which the Galaxy Evolution Explorer can detect.

"Mira, also known as Mira A, is not alone in its travels through space. It has a distant companion star called Mira B that is thought to be the burnt-out, dead core of a star, called a white dwarf. Mira A and B circle around each other slowly, making one orbit about every 500 years. Astronomers believe that Mira B has no effect on Mira's tail.

"Mira is also what's called a pulsating variable star; it dims and brightens by a factor of 1,500 every 332 days, and will become bright enough to see with the naked eye in mid-November 2007. Because it was the first variable star with a regular period ever discovered, other stars of this type are often referred to as "Miras."

"Mira is located 350 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cetus, otherwise known as the whale. Coincidentally, Mira and its "whale of a tail" can be found in the tail of the whale constellation.

"*This mosaic is made up of individual images taken by the far-ultraviolet detector on the Galaxy Evolution Explorer between November 18 and December 15, 2006."

Production Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips Credit: Science@NASA

Sources:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/galex/20070815/v.html

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/15aug_mira.htm?list1031480

Why The Perseid Meteor Shower is called "Saint Lawrence's Tears"

2007-08-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

The annual Perseid meteor shower peaks this weekend~ it occurs when the Earth's orbit crosses the path of debris thrown off by Comet Swift-Tuttle. As the cosmic debris, many pieces the size of a grain of sand, enters the atmosphere, it burns up in a flash, appearing as "shooting stars" across the sky. (I knew that.)

The Perseids are named after the constellation from which they appear to originate, Perseus. (I knew that, too)

(This next part I learned today...) The Perseids are also known as the “Tears of Saint Lawrence”, after the third-century archdeacon of Rome and defender of the poor and disabled, on whose behalf he was martyred.

Ever since his execution, meteors have been seen streaking through the night sky every year around Saint Lawrence’s feast day (August 10th); believers interpreted the meteor showers as his fiery tears, raining from the heavens on the anniversary of his death.

Even as these horrific killings go, Saint Lawrence's martyrdom was particularly gruesome; he was grilled alive!

St. Lawrence, depicted above holding a small "gridiron", a hinged metal grate used for grilling meat or fish. The actual gridiron upon which Saint Lawrence was supposedly cooked on is shown below, although it's hard to see, behind the decorative grate.

This year's sky show comes with an added bonus: Mars will be visible as a bright red dot in the northeastern sky.

Barry Bonds and the Arrogant August Aster*sk

2007-08-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

Barry Bonds of the Steroid-Induced-Aster*sk ...

We'll never know what he could have accomplished legitimately if he hadn't taken steroids...and neither will he, although so far his cheating and growing unpopularity doesn't seem to bother him a bit.

And then there's

Hank Aaron, True Home Run Champion, no aster*sk

Now this is CLASS....

Billy Graham is a DEMOCRAT

2007-08-07T17:37:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't have guessed that.

2007-08-06T17:27:00.000-07:00

Black Boxes Are Orange

The black box they're always looking for after a plane crash (the one with the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder), is not black.

It's bright ORANGE, with reflective white strips, to make it easier to find.

I've wondered for years why that data can't be transmitted in real time to a land-based computer somewhere, so there's no wait for answers (or total lack of answers) if the black box is hard to find or totally destroyed in a crash, as it was in United Flight 93 on 9-11-01.

I'm going to ask my pilot friend Bill McKay about that the next time I see him.

Why the USA has More and Stronger Tornadoes than Anybody Else

2007-07-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

Above, the oldest (and IMO, most awesome) photograph of a tornado, taken on August 28th, 1884, about 22 miles southwest of Howard, South Dakota. Photographer unknown. (BTW, this picture was taken less than two months before my grandmother was born.)
Classic "hook echo"; if you see this colorful paisley pattern on your local radar, seek shelter!

Recently, while my son and I were discussing tornado damage in the wake of a deadly tornado in the news, he asked why we almost never hear about tornadoes occurring anywhere but here in the USA.

Good question, I thought. For some reason, most tornadoes on the planet do occur in the continental United States, even though the lower 48 states occupy only about 5% of the world's land area.

But why? How did we luck into all this meteorological melodrama? Is it a Karmic debt for our ancestor's genocide of Native Americans? Nope, they had tornadoes before we got here; we just brought diseases, firearms, alcohol, and a world of hurt, but tornadoes weren't our fault.

It's our unique geography that gives us the edge on damaging tornadoes- the central part of our country hosts a collision of polar air from Canada, tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico, and dry air from the Southwest, which can produce thunderstorms and tornadoes. That's why we have more tornadoes, and stronger ones.

Tornadoes have been reported in every state of the United States, and on every continent except Antarctica, which lacks the necessary contrast between warm and cold air necessary for even thunderstorms to form, much less tornadoes. ...but obviously they have their own challenges there, weatherwise, even without twisters...

TORNADO ZONES.
Simulation indicates the average time between tornadoes rated F-2 or higher ranges from 4,000 years or so (lightest blue) at spots in southeastern Oklahoma—the southern part of Tornado Alley—to more than 2 million years in parts of Nevada (black). Legend indicates intervals in thousands of years.

Lightning Bugs are NOT Nocturnal!

2007-07-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

No kidding. Turns out in terms of circadian categories, there's more than just "nocturnal" and "diurnal"; there's also "crepuscular", which refers to animals that are most active at twilight. Most of the world's 200 species of lightning bugs are actually crepuscular, not nocturnal.

The more you learn about lightning bugs, the more magical they seem.

First of all, their bio-luminescence is among the most efficient light production on the planet; 96% of the energy goes to making light.

Plus they don't bite, sting, or pinch, don't carry disease, are in no way toxic, and are actually useful to science and medicine, bless their little blinking bottoms.

Another cool thing- lightning bugs sometimes flash in unison, which must be a sight to behold. Occsionally a clap of thunder will set them all off. And some South American species always flash in unison. (Hey, they could probably get work at raves!)

Generally, lightning bugs flash about every 5.5 seconds, but more frequently in warmer weather.

There are about 50 male beetles for every one female. And the much sought-after females are flightless; they just climb up to the tips of blades of grass and blink seductively, waiting for a mate and/or a meal*. (*Often after mating, the femme fatale beetle insists on having him for dinner, literally...)

But it's not easy getting to be a lightning bug in the first place, even for the females; they must all spend years as larvae (in this case, glow worms), living just under the top layer of soil (or sometimes under loose tree bark). These larvae are especially voracious eaters, sucking the insides out of snails and efficiently devouring other larvae dwelling in the subsoil as well as pollen and whatever. They crawl in the mud and feast like this for years, until it's time to make a round mudball for the pupate stage, which is relatively brief, about 2 weeks.

And after all that (after the larval and pupate stages are completed), the newly emerged adult flying beetles we recognize as lightning bugs only live from a few days to a few weeks at the most.

So basically those tiny lights you see strobing gently on summer evenings each had to endure years in the mud for the brief privilege of flying around, blinking, and making baby lightning bugs. So please let's not be encouraging our kids to catch them in jars; they're on a strict schedule, so let 'em be.

Admire them from afar, not in a jar....

Label Rocks too

2007-07-18T09:51:00.000-07:00

Well, this morning I learned that if a rock, fossil, or shell is worth picking up and keeping, it's worth labeling as to place and time of discovery. After all, one cannot be expected to remember the source of every single rock, fossil, or shell one picks up over a lifetime...anyway, I can't. Unfortunately.

I just got back from a visit with Dr. Ann Molineux, a very gracious scientist with a lovely British accent, who serves as Collections Manager for the Texas Natural Science Center's "Non-vertebrate Paleontology Lab". I had an appointment to show her an unusual little rock I'd picked up a few years ago. I wish I could remember where I found it, other than on the ground.

Close-up of the rock.

I travel very little, so I can narrow it down to about 4 possibilities; my old place out at Driftwood, my yard here in North Central Austin, the Nueces riverbed north of Uvalde near Montel, or (a very long shot) the beach at Port Aransas. Dr. Molineux thinks Uvalde is most likely, because of the string of old volcanoes that run through that area.

Wherever it was, undoubtedly I stuck the rock in my pocket and eventually chucked it into my half-assed collection of rocks, shells, fossils, and other interesting things I'd found.

Obviously I'm not a real rock collector or I would have known to label the thing. I should have known anyway...I'm the daughter, granddaughter, niece, and sister of Texas oilmen and geologists, and I remember my Dad's collection of jars of crude oil on a shelf in his office, with all the different kinds of oil carefully labeled. Some were really old, from his father's office from the 1920's and '30's.

Anyway, I'd first heard from my brother Phil's friend Laura, a geology major at San Antonio College, that her professor said it was peroditite impregnated with olivine, and possibly a host rock for a diamond! There was interest expressed in actually making a bid on the rock for their collection because they don't have one.

Wow!

So when I finally got the rock back (after it rode around for weeks in the drink holder in Phil's Acura), I emailed UT's Geology Department and described it, related what we'd been told about it, and asked if I could bring it in for their opinion.

Dr. Molineux responded to my request by inviting me to bring the rock in, so I was off to the J.J. Pickle Research Center in north Austin, an amazing place in itself. They should have filmed some of the X-Files episodes there!

Once I found the right building, I went in and was syurrounded by the most amazing collection of rocks and crystals, like being backstage at a museum; actually, I guess I was. And of course everything was perfectly labeled and bagged or boxed, some even in vaults and drawers. (I got a partial tour at the end.)

Dr. Molineux greeted me and asked me to sign her little guest book as I handed her the rock. She studied it closely for a long time, used a special magnifier, and tested it with a strong magnet as well; my refrigerator magnet at home hadn't reacted, but she said that because this rock seems to contain only a little iron, it's only slightly magnetic, so a strong magnet was needed to ascertain that.

She said it might be a meteorite but is much more likely just what the professor at S.A.C. said; peroditite impregnated with olivine; something that erupted from the Earth's mantle.

Wow!

Then she said I should really take it to a "hard rock specialist".

Being an old hippie-type, and living in Austin, naturally I pictured a musician, but of course she meant a specialized geologist, not Jimmy Page. So I'm emailing the head rock guy she referred me to, and we'll see what happens.

So...besides learning to label things, I learned that sometimes the least memorable-looking finds wind up being very special and important after all, just not memorable.

So if you've let whatever-it-is sit around on the window seat for years, collecting dust along with hundreds of other rocks, shells, etc., by the time an expert comes along to tell you whatever-you've-got is so important that a geology department wants it for it's collection, I can tell you first hand that it's a bummer not to know for sure where you got it!

Geologists, museum curators, and scientists in general just naturally need to know where things come from.

More Details About Why NASA Spell's "Endeavour " with a "u"

2007-07-15T10:57:00.001-07:00

NASA's Endeavour

NASA got slightly spanked last week for misspelling "Endeavor" on a banner celebrating the upcoming launch of their orbiter of the same name.

They left out the "u".

A new banner with the proper spelling was installed within an hour or so.

Usually, there's nothing wrong with spelling "endeavor" it the "American" way as they did, without the "u", but there's a specific context for the name of the NASA orbiter; it was named after another specific, very historic ship, "The HM Bark Endeavour", commanded by 18th century explorer Captain James Cook. And NASA ought to know, since the same name was previously used by NASA for the Command Module of Apollo 15.

Well, it's not faulty rocket science, it's just faulty spelling. Hope it's not an omen!

OK, I know what bark is on trees, and my dogs certainly bark a lot, but in this context, in terms of ships, I had to look up what "bark" means. After hours of research on all this I can report that the meaning of "bark" is not the simplest thing to pin down.

For one thing, the meaning started out pretty doggone vague in the first place ("any sailing ship that didn't fit into the usual catagories"; they might as well have called it a "whatchamacallit ship" or a "thingamajig boat".) Regardless, by the end of the 18th century, the meaning of a "bark" had evolved to the more specific "any type of sailing boat with a certain configuration of sails; three (or more) masts, fore-and-aft sails on the aftermost mast and square sails on all other masts".

Ah, that's better.

The HM Bark Endeavor, after it had been re-fitted for exploration and commisioned by the Royal Navy, was a flat-bottomed boat with a plain bluff bow and a full stern with windows. It had originally been a "collier" (a merchant coal-carrier) and as such was named "Earl of Pembroke", before it was re-fitted as a bark. This newly innovated ship was thought to be ideal for exploration because it could maneuver through shallow waters, was designed to be beached, and needed a smaller crew.

This is a replica of the HM Bark Endeavour

The HM Bark Endeavour's first journey was supposedly to meticulously chart the planet Venus' 1769 transit across the sun. And they were expected to do that, but the trip was really a cover for exploration and possible colonization; the true mission was to search for "Terra Australis Incognita" (a.k.a. "unknown southern land") and to buy or claim it for England if possible.

Here's a link to the secret orders to Captain Cook: http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/resources/transcripts/nsw1_doc_1768.pdf

As for NASA's "Endeavour", the upcoming STS-118 mission will be the 22nd flight to the International Space Station and first flight for Endeavour since 2002.

Launch is targeted for the evening of Aug. 7. Happy Landings!