Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day belongs on a metal album cover
February 10th, 2010
Yeah, that's lightning. On an exploding volcano. It's enough to make me want to bring back the original umlaut in "Körth".
Where's the lightning coming from? APoD says:
Why lightning occurs even in common thunderstorms remains a topic of research, and the cause of volcanic lightning is even less clear. Surely, lightning bolts help quench areas of opposite but separated electric charges. One hypothesis holds that catapulting magma bubbles or volcanic ash are themselves electrically charged, and by their motion create these separated areas. Other volcanic lightning episodes may be facilitated by charge-inducing collisions in volcanic dust.
Shared by JonThe way that books used to be printed, the reader would have to cut open each page with a paper knife before it could be read, every page a tiny gift from the writer. The printing happened on large sheets of paper which were then folded into rectangles the size of the finished pages and bound. ... Found via...
Did not know that! I love the concept though.
Shared by JonHigh speed rail has been undeniably successful for China. So successful, in fact, that it’s putting a massive dent in the airline industry. BusinessWeek reports: China Southern Airlines Co., the nation’s largest carrier, and Air China Ltd. are slashing prices to compete with the country’s new h... Found via...
Someday... we'll have awesome trains too!
Shared by JonA new experimental setup using algae photosynthesis proteins shows that, when they are stimulated with light, they exchange energy via quantum interactions. Found via...
I love this research because of this thought: If plants everywhere are using quantum interactions and we are only able to do them in laboratory settings, then we're doing it wrong. The future is bright indeed!
Shared by JonThe Democrats should be scared of Ryan, Gerson writes: Not only is he one of their greatest long-term threats, his plan represents the best alternative to their vision of government spending. The Democrats favor the security of a large welfare state while Ryan's plan helps the poor and does far more to foster enterprise and independence. Both sides make good arguments, Gerson writes, but the advocates of security over personal responsibility have a problem: "They are on a path to economic ruin" Found via...
I have a problem with the focus on the politics here. From what i've heard, Ryan has some good policy ideas and these articles are telling me jack squat about them. Just that "dems should be scared", which is pretty useless to me.
Shared by JonChavez warned that the worst drought in decades has hit hydroelectric production hard and could threaten the country's economy, CNN reports. "All of this is the result of the destructive system of capitalism, which is unleashing horrific phenomena that are lashing the world," Found via...
Guys guys! Capitalism is causing a drought AND it's also kept Chavez from spending Venezuela's oil wealth on more power plants that could have prevented this situation! Let's all be commies and see how that turns out!
On the drive back from Madison yesterday, I listened to a lecture by MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle on the very personal relationships we have with objects, particularly the objects that help us think. Turkle talked about her 2008 book, Falling for Science, a collection of interviews with MIT students, and established scientists, about the objects that first drew their minds to math, computers, science and technology. Some were what you'd expect: Broken radios, Legos, a computer. But one story, about a My Little Pony, really caught my attention.
I had several small plastic Ponies that I used to play make-believe with my friends. But I had one larger, plush My Little Pony, a bright-green stuffed horse with a vivid pink mane and tail that I played with all by myself. I would sit for hours on my own, braiding and rebraiding its tail. I developed a system for braiding the tail of my Pony that taught me about mathematical concepts-- from division to recursion.
Read more of computer scientist Christine Alvarado's story after the cut.
When I started, I took the hair on the Pony's tail and divided it into three pieces for braiding. Soon I became bored with a single braid. I then divided the tail into nine pieces and made three groups. I braided each group of three until I had three braids, then took these three braids and braided them together.
Soon I was up to starting with twenty-seven pieces (nested down to nine braids, then to three and then one) and then on to eighty-one. All the while I was learning about math: I saw that division is the process of taking a large number of things and grouping them into a smaller number of groups. In order to end up with one even braid at the end, I had to be able to divide the initial number evenly by three, then by three,and then by three again, until I ended up with just one braid.
I learned that I had to start with specific numbers of pieces in order for the braid to come out evenly. These specific numbers, of course, turned out to be powers of three. Overall, though, what I liked most about braiding was recursion. The large braid was made up of smaller braids that in turn were also made up of smaller braids, and I pushed this structure as far as I could take it. I once attempted to begin the braiding process with 243 pieces, but because each of these sections consisted of only about five strands of hair, I was forced to give it up.
With braiding on my mind, I began to see recursion everywhere. One night at the dinner table, I was eating cauliflower and I noticed that it had the same recursive structure of my braids. Moreover, the cauliflower seemed to continue to recurse forever. I began to divide the piece of cauliflower on my plate, determined to find the base level, but it split further and further until the pieces were too tiny to hold. My parents gave me a strange glance, and I continued to eat, still fascinated by the underlying structure of my vegetables.
Excerpted from Falling for Science, edited by Sherry Turkle.
Shared by JonA new nonprofit shows that well-designed games can also do the world some good. "Good works are links that form a chain of love." —Mother Theresa At a conference of the country's top advertising agencies in 1941, legendary salesman James Webb Young took the stage in Hot Springs, Arizona, to ask a v... Found via...
This game is both good and good for you!
Shared by JonAudi’s Polo/Ibiza/Fabia-based attempt to take a bite out of the small/sporty/luxury market that Mini is defending so fiercely. Found via...
I'm curious what it looks like in person. So far I'm not loving the way the C pillar ends before the back-end. It looks like its got some junk in the trunk, if you get my drift... I do love the Audi running lamps though!
Shared by JonDo you know about ScriptShadow? It’s one of my favorite blogs lately: a smart, snarky, insidery screenplay review. It focuses (as best I can discern) on screenplays that have been bought by a studio but not produced yet. There are some exceptions, but that seems to be the core of it—and as such, i...
this sounds like a wonderful way to spend the time...