Time lapse video of Earth from the ISS

A must see video put together from images taken from the ISS (International Space Station. The video provides stunning images of aurora, storms, and night-time lights.

Visit: grindtv.com

Brightest Supernova North Earthlings Have Seen in 40 Years

Visible using ordinary binoculars or amateur telescopes, this supernova experiences peak brightness tonight and tomorrow. Look for it in the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) off the handle of the "Big Dipper" aka Ursa Major in the northwest sky in a clear evening just after sunset from the Northern Hemisphere of Earth. This exploding star is a Type 1a, the type used a "standard candle" for measuring galactic distances and the size and age of the Universe, and is only 21 million light-years away and was first captured on August 22. The last time a supernova of its kind was seen this close to Earth was 1972. It's a terrific opportunity for both scientists and the public to see one of the biggest booms in nature.

Numerous reports have been made including those by The Bad Astronomer, the PBS NewsHour, the International Business Times, the BBC, and Global Rent a Scope. Although it's expected to peak at 10th magnitude in the next couple days, SN 2011fe might be bright enough to see with small telescopes on Earth for a couple weeks.

Painting the Infinity of Time

One thing we know about time in the universe is that it continues, far longer than any human can experience directly, into a great length, if not infinity. But how would you draw this concept and see an experience of the infinity of time, both in its size and detail?

Roman Opalka drew the concept of time's infinity by painting numbers, starting at 1, for the remainder of his life. He started in 1965. His obituary in the Economist describes this project well, defining the series of "Chronomes" as he completed them over the years. One might "see" time stretched out in detail before the viewer. In 1972 he passed one million. Before he died he passed five and a half million.

Growing Need for Parallel Programming in the Mainstream

The Economist article "Parallel bars" points out the need for parallel computing and how the computer industry as a whole is failing to fulfill its potential. They also discuss it in their Babbage podcast. An excerpt of their podcast discusses it beautifully.

• "There has been so little progress in parallel programming, even though multicore chips have been widespread for five years."


• "What used to be quite an obscure programming problem for supercomputers and academics, which is 'how to you reliably and efficiently take advantage of massively parallel computers', is starting to become a real problem on the desktop."


• "If software doesn't take advantage of these cores, then chip makers can go on pushing out chips that have more and more processing cores inside them but the software won't be getting any faster, and we'll have this growing gap between what my computer is theoretically capable of and what it actually does."

Welcome to the Anthropocene!

We are in an age where humanity, whether by accident or by (human) design, has the power to change the world, particularly the flow of Earth's chemistry, according to this cover article by the Economist. It is significant because, formerly, it took tectonic action or major biological developments to achieve a comparable effect. Now we can create effects just as large, perhaps larger.

Sun burps, big!

Sometimes the Sun is quiet, sometimes it's belchs. Yesterday it was caught on video letting out a big burp!

Call your interstellar friends using Neutrinos!

John Learned of the University of Hawaii and Anthony Zee of the University of California, Santa Barbara, propose that we should look for signals from space in the neutrino and other astrophysical data already acquired in this Economist article.

HMC Livestream about Japan Earthquake, Tsunami

Harvey Mudd College Professors Greg Lyzenga '75 and Peter N. Saeta discuss the Japan earthquake and tsunami in a live stream today at 5 pm PST.

Lyzenga will describe the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami and will explain why earthquakes of magnitude nine cannot happen in Southern California. Saeta will discuss the basics of nuclear power and the challenges facing the Japanese as they seek to regain control of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. They will also take questions from the audience.

To view the lecture online, please go to www.hmc.edu/japan-tsunami.

Should be very interesting. Professor Lyzenga was my advisor and is an excellent professor and a great guy.

Last 50 years of Space Missions on 1 Map

I came across a great picture on digg.com that originally appeared on the National Geographic site. It is a map of the solar system with individual lines representing a past space mission.

View the photo at either:

http://books.nationalgeographic.com/map/map-day/index

or

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamcrowe/4002050596/sizes/o/

Body Worlds

We had the opportunity this past weekend to visit the California ScienCenter Body Worlds exhibit. It is hard to put into words our thoughts and emotions about the exhibit. All we can is that it was:

fascinating
creepy
surreal
detailed

We wonder if medical doctors see their patients this way?

If you can stomach it, this is an amazing and enlightening exhibit. Visit Body Worlds for more information.

Junk Raft

To bring awareness to the staggering amount of plastic in our oceans, members of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation spent the last few months making a sailboat out of plastic bottles and other "junk". Today they set sail from Long Beach, CA harbor with the goal to sail to Hawaii in about 6 weeks. We were fortunate enough to watch them get under way today at their launch party. It was quite exciting!

Visit the junk raft blog to see updates on the voyage, learn more about the junk raft, and find out how plastics are hurting our oceans.

2008 World Science Festival

As I write, the festival is over this year but, it still interesting to see what events transpired over the past week. The World Science Festival is held in New York City. This year it was from May 28- June 1, 2o08.

From what I gather about the World Science Festival, the sessions and talks contain a unique blend of scientists and celebrities discussing a wide range of science topics. The NY Times TierneyLab Blog offers some interesting commentary and discussion about the festival. Of course you can still visit the World Science Festival website to see the past weeks activities as well as sign up for info on the 2009 festival.

If anyone actually attended any of the events I would be curious to hear your thoughts!

Human Footprint

The National Geographic Channel is airing the Human Footprint. It focuses on human consumption - finding out what we consume, what goes into it, and then finally what happens to it. What makes this show unique is the visual representation of what we consume. It originally aired on April 13th but check your local tv listings for repeat showings.

Avalanches on Mars

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took the first ever image of an active avalanche near the north pole of Mars. The image is quite spectacular and worth a look.

Read more at Science@NASA - Avalanches on Mars.

Track Santa

A fun thing to do with kids and adults. On Christmas Eve head over to Norad Santa Tracker and track Santa live on Christmas Eve. They even have a tie into Google Earth so you can track Santa in 3d. A very clever site that is definitely work a visit.

Dolphin mothers carrying their young

Do you get tired carrying your child? Imagine carrying one underwater. Results of a two-year study by Shawn Noren of UC Santa Cruz show how mothers "carry" their newborn young by assisting their swimming in an "eschelon" formation. Much like how bicycle racers can draft off pack leaders, the young calf benefits from staying in their mother's slipstream. They can move faster than the could alone, say to stay with the dolphin pod, and even take a break to save energy for growing up. The study analyzed underwater video measured the speeds of mother and calf alone and together. The paper is published in Functional Ecology but has also been highlighted in The Economist and on the Quirks & Quarks CBC Podcast.

Comet 17P/Holmes

Another interesting and exciting comet has appeared in our night skies. On October 24, 2007, Comet Holmes had a spectacular eruption. It is now a 3rd magnitude object and can be seen by the naked sky in the constellation of Perseus after sunset.

Visit a great collection of photos at the SpaceWeather.com photo gallery.

Watch out for the sun!

Science@NASA had a great article yesterday about a comet's tail being ripped off by a solar eruption. NASA's STEREO-A probe was at the right place at the right time and caught footage of Comet Encke's demise.

To see the video visit The Sun Rips Off a Comet's Tail.

Girls into Math

A recent NPR Science Friday podcast interviews mathematician/actress Danica McKellar, Harvey Mudd College President Maria Klawe, and the US Girls Math Team to share the latest developments, like McKellar's new book "Math Doesn't Suck", and speak on overcoming outdated stereotypes.

Lunar Eclipse

If you missed the beautiful lunar eclipse last night, head over to Wired Science Blog . They have a great round up of images from Flickr.