One small step for mankind, one giant leap for ... averting natural and man-made disasters?

A new Tel Aviv University technology combines sensors in orbit with sensors on the ground and in the air to create what they call a "Hyperspectral Remote Sensor" (HRS) which will provide advance warnings about water contamination after a forest fire, alert authorities of a pollution spill long before a red flag is raised on earth - or even tell people in China where a monsoon will strike. 

The HRS simultaneously acquires hundreds of optical images, each from a different frequency, that enable a "spectral assessment" from distances high in the air via airplanes and in orbit using satellites. This raw data is then processed to yield sophisticated thematic maps.

I have known Marco Cardin for a couple of years because besides being an accomplished amateur astro-imager he is also an avid visual observer. His encyclopedic knowledge of the night sky wonders is a great help on the field during the monthly night-long observations in dark, moonless nights we spend on the eastern Alps, trying to squeeze the most out of the 16" Dobson telescopes we carry with us. These instruments have no fancy "go-to" features, but with Marco's help and organization we can frame close to 100 rarely seen objects per night.

There is nothing to stop biodiesel making an immediate impact in reducing the world's dependence on fossil fuels that contribute to global warming. Using biodiesel requires no major changes to either existing diesel engines or to the current distribution infrastructure of storage tanks and petrol stations that delivers diesel fuel to consumers.



Petroleum diesel produces high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to global warming. But burning biodiesel produces only a marginal increase in CO2 emissions, because the crops from which it is produced capture CO2 as they grow.

If the question were asked, what is the primary purpose of business, the most likely response would be "to make money".  However, this is an unsatisfactory answer since it clearly doesn't provide sufficient justification for businesses to exist.  There is no question that we all need and use money in our daily lives, but similarly this would be an unsatisfactory answer to justify why we work.

If we considered economics from the barter perspective, the answer of "making money" would seem peculiar because we could only loosely translate it as "wanting stuff".  Clearly if we were bartering for goods and services there would be more specific items that we want and need, but also what is our personal motivation in such a scenario?

Antidepressants are ineffective in fully 50% of the people who take them.   It is clearly early 20th century medicine, where you keep trying things and hope something happens while pharmaceutical companies who impress doctors the most make the most money.

With so much research and money spent on depression studies, how is it possible that it is only as effective as doing nothing at all?  

1)  The cause of depression has been oversimplified.  A study from the laboratory of  depression researcher Eva Redei presented at the Neuroscience 2009 conference in Chicago this week addresses some strongly held beliefs about depression.

Prenatal sex-based biological differences extend to genetic expression in cerebral cortices and the differences in question are probably associated with later divergences in how our brains develop, according to a new study by Uppsala University researchers Elena Jazin and Björn Reinius in Molecular Psychiatry.

Professor Elena Jazin and doctoral student Björn Reinius at the Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology previously say they have demonstrated that genetic expression in the cerebral cortices of human beings and other primates exhibits certain sex-based differences. It is presumed that these differences are very old and have survived the evolutionary process.

Ready for another turn into National-Enquirer mode of particle physics reporting ? I have a figure to discuss. It is a result now a few months old, but one which received little attention -less than it should have, perhaps. I myself got to see it only a few weeks ago in a presentation given by Jacobo Konigsberg, CDF spokesperson, at a workshop in Bologna.

The scandalistic cut of this article is manifest in the title: facing a dearth of exciting reports of new physics discoveries, we are bound to now and then swerve off the path of our usual responsible handling of two-sigma effects, odd deviations, and assorted zoology. It is, I believe, a necessary resource to rely on, if we are to keep the interest of Science readers on particle physics.

Today, while thrift-shopping, I found an important component for our satellite building.



Yes, it's a rolling trunk, and I'll admit it's not the most exciting science prop.  But there are four important details that make this an important detail in DIY satellite building.

1) Pragmatics.  I need a place to store the satellite and components when I'm not working on it.

2) Conveyance.  I need something to lug the kit around when I take it over to my friend's workshop, when we eventually get to final assembly.

Science and art aren't mutually exclusive. You can demonstrate scientific concepts artistically, and sometimes even physics can be phun. Take, for example, Sir Isaac's Loft, a feature in the Franklin Institute that "blends art and science into a 3,600 square feet display of aesthetic innovation." And with awesome exhibit names like the "Bowling Ball of Doom," how can you go wrong?