NASA creates dramatic artistic renderings of upcoming launches, in full color animation, often scaled for the IMAX screen.  They're great eye candy, but they are also informative, and have genuine science at their core.

For example, the STEREO solar panel deployment is fascinating to watch, even as a simulation.  It uses a highly accurate 3D model of the actual spacecraft, and attempts to balance physical realism with artistic license.  Noteworthy is the robotic nature of the deployment and the oscillation of the solar panels as they deploy.

This is an English translation of a potpourri of a number of recent papers and reports by one of the most interesting modern Russian journalists, Julia Latynina. I have just added a number of related thoughts.

 Can one make plastic from glucose?

Why Anchors Don't Work


From earliest times to today, from boat safety pamphlet to engineering treatise on marine architecture: all are agreed that the anchor does the work of keeping a boat or ship from moving.

It doesn't.  It can't.

Machines can do work, but an anchor is not a machine.


A vessel on any body of water is subjected to wind and water forces tending to move it.  In order for it to remain in a well defined geographical area the vessel must in some way oppose those forces.  The notion that any anchor, however designed, can somehow cancel those forces is false according to the laws of thermodynamics.

A new report released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project suggests that news has evolved from a consumable product to a participatory experience. Technology has not only changed how, where and when people get their news, but now allows the consumer to tag, share, comment on and even create news.

Richard Dawkins should write a paper entitled "How not to run a Web 2.0 website." Perhaps apt that he is now the former Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, as he has shown little understanding of his public, which has also damaged his efforts at science communication. How can I make such bold statements?

It may seem safe to assume that happy people are trusting people, but a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that, in some instances, people may actually be less trusting of others when they are in a pleasant mood. According to the research, people in a pleasant mood only tend to be trusting if they have a good reason to be.

If you are predisposed to trust a stranger because he belongs to the same club as you, for example, a happy mood makes you even more likely to trust him. But if you are predisposed to not trust him, a positive mood will make you even less trusting than normal.

New policies that eliminate sugary beverages and junk foods from schools may help slow childhood obesity, but the effects of such policies are unclear, according to a study in Health Affairs that compared BMI trends in California in the years preceding the enactment of such legislation with the years following enactment.

Between 2003 and 2005, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 677, SB 965 and SB 12 into law, a set of statewide policies to eliminate sodas and other highly sweetened beverages and restrict the sale of junk foods in all of California's public schools. Although many other states subsequently enacted similar standards, potential effects on childhood obesity were uncertain.

Frequent secondhand smoke exposure among 13-year-olds is associated with an increased risk of future blood vessel hardening and greater risks of other heart disease factors, according to new research published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. The authors of the study say the findings indicate that children must be provided a completely smoke-free environment.  

The study of 494 children showed that those with higher levels of exposure to secondhand smoke from ages 8 to 13 had, by age 13, significantly increased blood vessel wall thickness and functioning problems, both of which are precursors to arterial structural changes and hardening.

Researchers have successfully reconstructed 3-D hand motions from brain signals recorded in a non-invasive way, according to a study in The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings could help improve existing EEG-based systems designed to allow movement-impaired people to control a computer cursor with just their thoughts.

Previously researchers have used non-portable and invasive methods that place sensors inside the brain to reconstruct hand motions. In this study, neuroscientists placed an array of sensors on the scalps of five participants to record their brains' electrical activity, using a process called electroencephalography, or EEG.