NGC 300 Gets A Striking New Image

Sep 08 2010 | comment(s)

NGC 300 is one of the closest and most prominent spiral galaxies in the southern skies, about six million light-years away and bright enough it can be seen with binoculars. NGC 300 lies in the constellation of Sculptor with only a few bright stars, but is home to a collection of nearby galaxies that form the Sculptor Group, though recent distance measurements show that NGC 300 lies significantly closer to us than many of the other galaxies in the group and may be only loosely associated with them.

Compared to other galaxies, NGC 300 is remarkably normal, making it an ideal specimen for astronomers studying the structure and content of spiral galaxies such as our own.

Next Generation 'Intelligent' Batteries Get Some Optimization

Sep 08 2010 | comment(s)

Current battery design and implementation is not optimal, but it's cheap. A new effort seeks to make conventional battery systems more standardized and increase interoperability of battery and charger parts, which creates energy waste, extra costs and operational inefficiencies. But it's not for the casual user.

It's called the Intelligent Battery system and it also isn't cheap - the charger is about 20 percent more expensive than alternatives but the developers say the extra initial investment is recuperated in the medium and long term through prolonged battery life and better performance and the system provides real time information on the health and charge level of their batteries.

MEC-17 - Traffic Cop Of The Nervous System

Sep 08 2010 | comment(s)

An important enzyme that acts in the nervous system may lead to new treatments for conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

Our cells contain a network of tubes known as microtubules that are made of protein and serve as tracks for the shuttling of materials from one part of the cell to another. Microtubules in parts of neurons in the brain that send signals, for example, are loaded with chemical additions called acetylation marks. Microtubules in parts of neurons that receive signals, on the other hand, have few.

In Defense Of Gossip?

Sep 08 2010 | comment(s)

Gossiping has benefits, according to research conducted by Dr. Jennifer Cole and Hannah Scrivener from Staffordshire University, who presented preliminary results at the British Psychological Society Social Psychology Section annual conference at the University of Winchester.

And praising someone in gossip may even lead to a short-term boost in gossipers' self-esteem.

There's Science To Dancing Also

Sep 08 2010 | comment(s)

Science can make you a better dancer - or at least improve your chances of not looking stupid to the opposite sex, say a group of evolutionary psychologists who used 3D motion-capture technology to create uniform avatar figures and identified the key movement areas of the male dancer’s body that influence female perceptions of whether their dance skills are “good” or “bad”.

Apparently it all comes down to neck, trunk, left shoulder and wrist, the variability of movement size of the neck, trunk and left wrist, and the speed of movement of the right knee.

Sounds simple, right? Read on.

Digg V4: "Chill out," says Kevin Rose, but shows VP of engineering the door

Sep 07 2010 | comment(s)

Digg founder Kevin Rose cheerfully responds to the mountains of criticism around the newly launched Digg 4. His overall theme is that users need to deal with it.

Mathematics Tackles Chaotic Big Bang Question

Sep 07 2010 | comment(s)

We want to know some things in science are absolute yet we accept that a lot is relative. The speed of light is absolute and so the same with respect to any observer in empty space but sound is relative, like when a train whistle goes from high to low as it passes the observer. A longstanding quest in physics has been to determine whether chaos, in which tiny events lead to very large changes in the time evolution of a system, such as the universe, is absolute or relative in systems governed by general relativity, where the time itself is relative.

Like right after the Big Bang.

Photo Upload Sep 7 2010 17:17

Sep 07 2010 | comment(s)

Quality: Because it Matters (critical thinking skills make a difference)

Sep 07 2010 | comment(s)

” The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your decisions, and the quality of your decisions is determined by the quality of your thinking.” Schick and Vaughn, How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age That quote is the essence of what I try to convey to my students, to my children, and to those who choose to come by and sit a spell and visit with me at my blogs. It’s something you ought to take a minute to say out loud a couple of times like we’re at one of those awful cheesy self-help workshops. Seriously. You should. It’s something that really matters.

No Quirks, Says DZERO

Sep 07 2010 | comment(s)

No, it is not a typo. I do mean "quirks": these are hidden-valley brothers of quarks predicted to exist in some fancy new physics scenarios. These particles have been sought by the DZERO experiment in a large dataset of proton-antiproton collisions, making use of a neat technique which I thought could be interesting to briefly explain today.

InterOrbital Rocket Sneak Peeks

Sep 07 2010 | comment(s)

I like rocket photos and was getting a little jealous looking at all the Copenhagen folk's photos. Where were my rocket's photos? I'm launching the Project Calliope music satellite with Interorbital Systems (IOS) and even I don't know what my rocket looks like!

Classic UFO Battle Waged Online - Livescience

Sep 07 2010 | comment(s)

Are airplane pilots more reliable witnesses than others, lending more credibility to UFO sightings?

Rob Britt at Livescience: An interesting argument is playing out in the Space section of MSNBC. It began when veteran space reporter James Oberg questioned the foundation of a new book about UFOs called "UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record."

'Newt', the Pixar/Disney film you'll never see - except for this artwork

Sep 07 2010 | comment(s)

You've probably never heard of "Newt" unless you are an animated film aficionado. Not to worry, Disney/Pixar has cancelled it anyway. Nothing new, studios cancel things all of the time if they don't pan out as being quality stuff.

But on their Facebook page they at least posted some cool art from the cartoon-you-will-never see. Smart move. They will get a ton of free attention for a picture that people likely would have hated and so didn't want to finish.

Retro Science Fiction: Harrison Ford Discusses Star Wars In 1977

Sep 07 2010 | comment(s)

In 1977, Harrison Ford had a sporadic career and was mostly a carpenter but he had done another film with George Lucas and sat down with KXAS-TV reporter Bobbie Wygant to discuss it. The new project? "Star Wars". Next stop: mega stardom.

Christchurch Earthquake Vs L'Aquila Earthquake

Sep 07 2010 | comment(s)

With all the fuss surrounding whether the l'Aquila earthquake should have been predicted, the point is often missed that it didn't need to be. As the recent Christchurch earthquake has shown, a city can survive relatively unscathed without an accurate prediction. All it takes is proper preparation.