up your architecture.

Following up on last week's Science Friday we're in ur space peepin' ur planets! For the next several years over 100,000 planets are going to be surveyed through a space initiative to find other planets similar to earth

*click* : http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/03/06/nasa.kepler.launch.planets/index.html

Spacecraft blasts off in search of 'Earths'
(CNN) -- NASA launched its Kepler spacecraft just before 11 p.m. Friday in a mission that the agency says may fundamentally change humanity's view of itself.
This image shows part of the Milky Way region of the sky where the Kepler spacecraft will be pointing.

The Kepler spacecraft blasted into space on top of a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The telescope will search our corner of the Milky Way galaxy for Earth-like planets.

"This is a historical mission. It's not just a science mission," NASA Associate Administrator Ed Weiler said during a prelaunch news conference.

"It really attacks some very basic human questions that have been part of our genetic code since that first man or woman looked up in the sky and asked the question: Are we alone?" Watch iReport video of launch

Kepler contains a special telescope that will stare at 100,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way for more than three years as it trails Earth's orbit around the Sun.

The spacecraft will look for tiny dips in a star's brightness, which can mean an orbiting planet is passing in front of it -- an event called a transit. Video Watch how astronomers will try to find 'Earths' »

The instrument is so precise that it can register changes in brightness of 20 parts per million in stars that are thousands of light years away.

"Being able to make that kind of a sensitive measurement over a very large number of stars was extremely challenging," Kepler project manager James Fanson said.

"So we're very proud of the vehicle we have built. This is a crowning achievement for NASA and a monumental step in our search for other worlds around other stars." See what the telescope looks like and which part of the galaxy it will monitor »

Are we alone?

The $600 million mission is named after Johannes Kepler, a 17th-century German astronomer who was the first to correctly explain planetary motion. His discoveries combined with modern technology may soon help to answer whether we are alone in the universe or whether Earth-like worlds inhabited by some type of life are common.

"We won't find E.T., but we might find E.T.'s home," said William Borucki, science principal investigator for the Kepler mission.

About 330 "exoplanets" -- those circling sun-like stars outside the solar system -- have been discovered since the first was confirmed in 1995.

Most are gas giants like Jupiter, but some have been classified as "super earths," or worlds several times the mass of our planet, said Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution who serves on the Kepler Science Council. They are too hot to support life, he added, calling them "steam worlds."

Europe's COROT space telescope caused a stir last month when it spotted the smallest terrestrial exoplanet ever found. With a diameter less than twice that of Earth, the planet orbits very close to its star and has temperatures up to 1,500° Celsius (more than 2,700° Fahrenheit), according to the European Space Agency. It may be rocky and covered in lava.

Scientists have marveled how strange some of the alien worlds are.

"The density of these planets has been astounding," Borucki said. "We're finding planets that float like a piece of foam on water, [with] very, very low densities. We're finding some planets where the densities are heavier than that of lead."

The Kepler telescope, however, is seeking something much more familiar: Earth-like planets with rocky surfaces, orbiting in their stars' habitable, or "Goldilocks," zones -- not too hot or too cold, but just right for liquid water to exist. Video Watch a NASA scientist explain where life could exist »

Quest for a 'pale blue dot'

Once Kepler spots a planet, scientists will be able to calculate its size, mass, orbital period, distance from star and surface temperature, Boss said. He called the mission a "step one" that will tell astronomers how hard it is to find nearby habitable worlds.

"Once we know how many there really are ... then NASA will be able to build space telescopes that can actually go out and take a picture of that nearby 'Earth' and measure the elements and compounds in its atmosphere of the planet and give us some hint as to whether or not it's got life," Boss said.

Boss believes that there may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, or one for every sun-type star in the galaxy. He said scientists should know by 2013 -- the end of Kepler's mission -- whether life in the universe could be widespread.

The 20-year goal is to someday take a picture of a pale blue dot orbiting a nearby star, said Debra Fischer, an astronomy professor at San Francisco State University, during a NASA news conference.
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Boss called it a potentially unprecedented time of discovery for scientists.

"Sometimes, people call this the golden age of astronomy. I think it's more like the platinum age of astronomy. It's beyond gold," Boss said.

Posted by James Wheeler at 6:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FRIDAY: Science!

So we've finally made it to Friday and here we are kicking back off in grand style with a mega-block of Science pertaining to the Earth and it's resources. Check it out!

GALAXY MAY BE FULL OF 'EARTHS', ALIEN LIFE
by A. Pawlowski
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/02/25/galaxy.planets.kepler/index.html

(CNN) -- As NASA prepares to hunt for Earth-like planets in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy, there's new buzz that "Star Trek's" vision of a universe full of life may not be that far-fetched.

Pointy-eared aliens traveling at light speed are staying firmly in science fiction, but scientists are offering fresh insights into the possible existence of inhabited worlds and intelligent civilizations in space.

There may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, or one for every sun-type star in the galaxy, said Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution and author of the new book "The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets."

He made the prediction based on the number of "super-Earths" -- planets several times the mass of the Earth, but smaller than gas giants like Jupiter -- discovered so far circling stars outside the solar system.

Boss said that if any of the billions of Earth-like worlds he believes exist in the Milky Way have liquid water, they are likely to be home to some type of life.

"Now that's not saying that they're all going to be crawling with intelligent human beings or even dinosaurs," he said.

"But I would suspect that the great majority of them at least will have some sort of primitive life, like bacteria or some of the multicellular creatures that populated our Earth for the first 3 billion years of its existence."

Putting a number on alien worlds

Other scientists are taking another approach: an analysis that suggests there could be hundreds, even thousands, of intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland constructed a computer model to create a synthetic galaxy with billions of stars and planets. They then studied how life evolved under various conditions in this virtual world, using a supercomputer to crunch the results.

Galaxy Quest
• The Milky Way is believed to be more than 13 billion years old.

• It is just one of billions of galaxies in the universe.

• The Milky Way has a circumference of about 250,000-300,000 light years.

• It is about 100,000 light years in diameter.

• There are three types of galaxies: ellipticals, spirals and irregulars.

• The Milky Way is a large disk-shaped barred spiral galaxy. (A barred galaxy has a bar-shaped structure in its middle.)

Source: Space.com

In a paper published recently in the International Journal of Astrobiology, the researchers concluded that based on what they saw, at least 361 intelligent civilizations have emerged in the Milky Way since its creation, and as many as 38,000 may have formed.

Duncan Forgan, a doctoral candidate at the university who led the study, said he was surprised by the hardiness of life on these other worlds.

"The computer model takes into account what we refer to as resetting or extinction events. The classic example is the asteroid impact that may have wiped out the dinosaurs," Forgan said.

"I half-expected these events to disallow the rise of intelligence, and yet civilizations seemed to flourish."

Forgan readily admits the results are an educated guess at best, since there are still many unanswered questions about how life formed on Earth and only limited information about the 330 "exoplanets" -- those circling sun-like stars outside the solar system -- discovered so far.

The first was confirmed in 1995 and the latest just this month when Europe's COROT space telescope spotted the smallest terrestrial exoplanet ever found. With a diameter less than twice the size of Earth, the planet orbits very close to its star and has temperatures up to 1,500° Celsius (more than 2,700° Fahrenheit), according to the European Space Agency. It may be rocky and covered in lava.

Hunt for habitable planets

NASA is hoping to find much more habitable worlds with the help of the upcoming Kepler mission. The spacecraft, set to be launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida next week, will search for Earth-size planets in our part of the galaxy.

Kepler contains a special telescope that will study 100,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way for more than three years. It will look for small dips in a star's brightness, which can mean an orbiting planet is passing in front of it -- an event called a transit.

"It's akin to measuring a flea as it creeps across the headlight of an automobile at night," said Kepler project manager James Fanson during a during a NASA news conference.

The focus of the mission is finding planets in a star's habitable zone, an orbit that would ensure temperatures in which life could exist. Video Watch a NASA scientist explain the search for habitable planets »

Boss, who serves on the Kepler Science Council, said scientists should know by 2013 -- the end of Kepler's mission -- whether life in the universe could be widespread.

Finding intelligent life is a very different matter. For all the speculation about the possibility of other civilizations in the universe, the question remains: If the rise of life on Earth isn't unique and aliens are common, why haven't they shown up or contacted us? The contradiction was famously summed up by the physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950 in what became known as the Fermi paradox: "Where is everybody?"

The answer may be the vastness of time and space, scientists explained.

"Civilizations come and go," Boss said. "Chances are, if you do happen to find a planet which is going to have intelligent life, it's not going to be in [the same] phase of us. It may have formed a billion years ago, or maybe it's not going to form for another billion years."

Even if intelligent civilizations did exist at the same time, they probably would be be separated by tens of thousands of light years, Forgan said. If aliens have just switched on their transmitter to communicate, it could take us hundreds of centuries to receive their message, he added.

As for interstellar travel, the huge distances virtually rule out any extraterrestrial visitors. iReport.com: Share your view of the universe
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To illustrate, Boss said the fastest rockets available to us right now are those being used in NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. Even going at that rate of speed, it would take 100,000 years to get from Earth to the closest star outside the solar system, he added.

"So when you think about that, maybe we shouldn't be worried about having interstellar air raids any time soon," Boss said.

Acting as a segue we'll use that video to transfer into green technologies and this great (anti) Clean Coal spot put together by the Coen Brothers:

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Now on to other interesting links scattered across the world wide web I like to call QUICK CLICKS!

Armchair Exploration
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1881770,00.html
A quick slide show of 10 extremely cool phenomenon, curiosities, and downright cool shit. I recommend the plane graveyard for some cool zooming possibilities.

The SunCat Batteries - DIY prototypes- Rechargeable Batteries with Solar Cells
Project by Knut Karlsen
http://blog.bareknut.no/2009/02/rechargeable-batteries-with-solar-cells.html
A little DIY exploration of the ability to toss those batteries out on the window sill to charge up while you're at work. Really simple solutions to really simple problems

Is Genius Born or Can It Be Learned?
By John Cloud
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1879593,00.html
A brief but stimulating text laying out a number of theories and theorists that have engaged in the debate and a humorous anecdotal finish.

That's it for the scavenger hunt. Expect posts on a regular basis and then a site relaunch with regular features in late March. Crawfish and Karaoke tonight. I'll bring my camera.

Oh, and I totally forgot about Multiplex when going through webcomics I love. Here's a LINK and a comic:

Posted by James Wheeler at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

via National Geographic: Odd, Identical Species Found at Both Poles

February 15, 2009--Spinning a "mucus net" off its paddle-like foot-wings to trap algae and other foods, the swimming snail species Limacina helicinia is no bigger than a bean. But the discovery that it and at least 234 other species inhabit both Arctic and Antarctic waters is big news to biologists.

Finding so many species inhabiting both Poles "startled" scientists, according to a statement today from the Census of Marine Life, an international project to assess all marine life--past, present, and future--by 2010. Among the other dual-Pole species: whales, worms, and crustaceans.

Exactly where these species came from and how they ended up a world apart--with comparatively warm oceans in between--remains a mystery, the scientists said.

Up to 1.6 inches (4 centimeters) long, Clione limacina,--a shell-less pteropod, or swimming snail--preys exclusively on its "cousins": shelled pteropods such as Limacina helicinia (see previous photo).

A series of "often perilous" sea voyages in 2007 and 2008 found that this species and 234 others live on both the Arctic and Antarctica, scientists announced.

Though found worldwide, the tiny crustacean Gaetanus brevispinus is most commonly collected in polar waters, where its preferred cold-water habitat extends farther toward the surface. This copepod ("oar foot") is among 235 found to live in both Arctic and Antarctic waters

The icebreaker Polarstern cuts a path through the Antarctic waters in an undated photo. The research ship was one of several employed by Census of Marine Life expeditions during International Polar Year 2007-08.

During the "often perilous" journeys, some biologists endured 48-foot (16-meter) waves, while others collected specimens and data under armed guard in polar bear territory.

The scientists' efforts are helping to dispel the Poles' lifeless reputations.

"One hundred years ago Antarctic explorers like [Robert Falcon] Scott ... saw mostly ice," said Victoria Wadley, of the Australian Antarctic Division, in a statement. "In 2009 we see life everywhere."

Posted by James Wheeler at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Material Turns Sound Waves Into Electricity
Written by Yoni Levinson

Just when you thought that engineers have run out of ideas for harvesting power from mundane human activity, a scientist from Texas A&M invents a piezoelectric material that can turn sound waves into electricity. His idea? Stick it in a cell phone.

Piezoelectric materials generate an electric voltage when subjected to some sort of mechanical stress. When you read about harvesting energy from footsteps or dancing, for example, piezoelectrics are involved. What’s novel about this application is that it exploits nanoscale piezoelectric properties. When such a material is precisely between 20 and 23 nanometers thick, it can capture 100% more energy.

Such a size makes this material perfect to stick into a cell phone. The sound waves emitted by the phone (as well as, presumably, those emitted by its owner) exert stress on the material, which in turn generates electricity. Obviously, energy can’t be generated from nowhere. But if it can simply be absorbed from the environment, you could have – for all intents and purposes – a self-charging device.

Via EcoGeek via Science Daily

Posted by James Wheeler at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is just a quick one. For those who don't know, my father dedicated three decades of his life to the Dow Chemical Company and is now retired. Anyhow, when I was rolling through the interwebs this week I found a great article outlining Dow CEO Andrew Liveris' plan to impliment strategies to help green the energy policies at Dow... http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/11/18/dow-ceo-green-energy-policies-will-save-green-as-in/

There are many valid reasons to criticize the Dow Chemical Company — Napalm, Agent Orange, its massive contribution to the U.S.’s population of Superfund sites — but Dow CEO Andrew Liveris earned the Midland, Michigan-based company some kudos this week by pushing for a new nationwide energy policy.

“I will guarantee you that I am not going to drop my voice one iota until we get an energy policy in this country that makes sense,� Liveris told Reuters in an interview last week.

Liveris bases his stance not on hard-green values of the eco-friendly kind, but on the value of cold hard cash. Volatile gas and oil prices hurt businesses and employees, he says. Ups and downs in the cost of natural gas, for example, have led to a loss of 120,000 jobs in the chemical industry alone over the past 20 years, he says.

Record-breaking oil prices earlier this year also hurt the industry, Liveris says, and the current respite from those levels doesn’t mean our problems are solved.

“No one’s head-faked by $2 gasoline,� he told Reuters. “Everyone realizes that $2 gasoline is here for the wrong reasons.�

Liveris’ answer? “Dow’s Energy Plan for America,� a 22-page document released last week. The plan sets out eight goals for a comprehensive U.S. energy policy:

1. Encourage aggressive energy efficiency and conservation
2. Speed more renewable energy to market
3. Make commercial-scale alternatives a priority
4. Encourage more domestic oil and gas production
5. Optimize the carbon efficiency of coal
6. Prove the viability of carbon capture and storage
7. Accelerate the deployment of nuclear technology
8. Recognize from the outset the interrelationship between energy policy and climate solutions

While many enviros might not like some of those recommendations, at least Liveris isn’t pulling an Exxon (Exxon Mobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson was recently quoted in the New York Times as saying, “For the foreseeable future — and in my horizon that is to the middle of the century — the world will continue to rely dominantly on hydrocarbons to fuel its economy.�)

Read more at Reuters or check out the full Dow energy plan here (pdf).

Posted by James Wheeler at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I didn't get a chance to use this for last week's Science Friday due to the great tip on the diesel mushrooms from Sam. Anyhow, I wanted to share this if you didn't have a chance to check it out on CNN's election coverage.

Here's the article explaining it a bit...

Beam me up, Wolf! CNN debuts election-night 'hologram'
By Chris Welch

(CNN) -- It was an election night like none other, in every sense of the phrase. In addition to the obvious -- the selection of the nation's first black president -- Tuesday night's coverage on CNN showcased groundbreaking technology.

"I want you to watch what we're about to do," CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer told viewers early in the evening's coverage, "because you've never seen anything like this on television."

And he was right. Cue CNN political correspondent Jessica Yellin.

"Hi Wolf!" said Yellin, waving to Blitzer as she stood a few feet in front of him in the network's New York City studios. Or at least, that's the way it appeared at first glance.

In reality, Yellin -- a correspondent who had been covering Sen. Barack Obama's campaign -- was at the now president-elect's mega-rally along the lakefront in Chicago, Illinois, more than 700 miles away from CNN's Election Center in New York.

It looked like a scene straight out of "Star Wars." Here was Yellin, partially translucent with a glowing blue haze around her, appearing to materialize in thin air. She even referenced the classic movie on her own, saying, "It's like I follow in the tradition of Princess Leia. It's something else." Video Watch a behind-the-scenes look at CNN's hologram project »

Jay Leno has poked fun at the hologram, and mash-up spoofs that replace Yellin's voice with Carrie Fisher's lines from the movie already are making their way around the Internet. But the million-dollar question on everyone's mind now: How'd they do it?

CNN dubbed it a "hologram" -- a three-dimensional image that's been reproduced. And it's the brainchild of a few people. A hologram creates an image using coherent light, such as lasers; CNN's technique used conventional cameras to capture multiple images from different angles.

"About a dozen years, I've been trying to do it," David Bohrman, CNN's senior vice president and Washington bureau chief, said to Blitzer on "The Situation Room" on Wednesday. "I've basically been a crazy mad scientist trying to get it done."

The technology involved placing a subject -- in this case Yellin, and later in the evening, musical artist Will.i.am -- in the middle of a bright-green circular room inside a large tent at Obama's Grant Park victory celebration.

The subject was then filmed with 35 high-definition video cameras, barely larger than average point-and-shoot cameras, which ringed the wall of the circular room. The video cameras were 6 inches apart and at eye level, 220 degrees around the subject.

Chuck Hurley, the Washington bureau's senior producer of video and the staffer tapped by Bohrman to manage the execution of the "hologram," called it simple chroma-key technology that's been taken "to the Nth degree." Video Watch the hologram on air »

"Weathermen have been standing in front of green screens for years now, but that's [with] one camera," Hurley said. "Now we can do that times 35, so you can send all the way around the subject."

Hurley said the tiny cameras "talk" to the New York studio's cameras, meaning that when a New York camera moves, it "tells" the cameras in the tent which direction it's moving and keeps the subject in the correct proportions.

On Tuesday night, Blitzer could only see Yellin on a TV monitor across the studio. Technicians placed a round piece of red laminate on the studio floor where she was "beamed in" so that Blitzer would know where to look.

The technology in play was originally developed by Israeli-based company SportVU (pronounced "sport view") as a new way of filming soccer games.

Gal Oz, a SportVU designer who came to the United States to work with CNN on the endeavor, said it was originally designed "to create a matrix effect in sports" -- in other words, to provide 360 degrees of perspective for instant replays.

But it hasn't been used for its intended purpose yet. Instead, for the past three months, the company has been perfecting it for CNN's election coverage, Oz said. Tuesday night's live interview of Yellin was essentially the technology's world debut as well.

Hurley and Oz agree that as good as the image looked on television Tuesday, it can look even more realistic. Hurley said the blue glow around Yellin and Will.i.am was added intentionally to avoid confusion.

"We could have had a much crisper, more realistic shot, almost to the extent where the viewer at home would have had no idea even that the person wasn't really there," Hurley said.

"You don't want to have the effect where it looks so good that for every future live shot, you have people on the blogs saying, 'Oh they're not really there--they're in a studio, faking the moon landing.' "

Hurley said considering it was CNN's first real "test launch" with the high-end gadgetry, they were "beyond thrilled." That's not to say there weren't setbacks.

For all the preparation that went into the tent and green room in Chicago -- a location CNN staffers dubbed "Casper" after the friendly cartoon ghost -- there was an equally elaborate setup in Phoenix, Arizona, site of John McCain's election night rally. CNN correspondent Dana Bash was ready there for her turn in the portal as well.

But because the Arizona site didn't go through as much testing in the final hours, and because the election was called in Obama's favor earlier in the evening than many expected, Chicago's "Casper" was the only "hologram' venue put to use.

Hurley and Oz both said they couldn't put a price tag on the total cost of such technology. But could this become a staple of future TV news?

"We'll see. It was a little ornament on the tree," Bohrman said. "But television evolves, and how we do things evolves, and at some point -- maybe it's five years or 10 years or 20 years down the road -- I think there's going to be a way that television does interviews like this because it allows for a much more intimate possibility for a remote interview."

The day after her virtual appearance in New York, Yellin said this kind of new technology is what keeps television news entertaining, even when it's presenting important political stories.

"We do serious journalism, but we also have fun. This is fun. This is about what we can do, about pushing the envelope and pushing the boundaries," she said. "Someday when this is even more advanced, having a fuller visual field for interview subjects could give viewers even more of a sense of people."
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Now, in hindsight, Yellin only wishes she could have come up with a better "Star Wars" joke.

"I was thinking of making an Obi-Wan Kenobi joke -- Obi-Wolf Kenobi," she said, laughing, "but I couldn't figure out the pun."

Posted by James Wheeler at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So this is another one direct from Sam. Apparently there is a fungus in that secretes a form of diesel fuel as a defense mechanism. Gives new meaning to "tripping on mushrooms".

From NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96574076

Scientist Discovers Fungus That Could Fuel A Car
by Alex Chadwick

A researcher at Montana State University has found a micro-organism in a plant in South America that could fuel vehicles one day. The unusual fungus contains the essence of diesel, which one could use to run a bus, for example, without processing it at all.

Professor Gary Strobel discusses his findings on "myco-diesel," which are being published Wednesday in The Journal of Microbiology in London.

Dr. Strobel made the discovery by chance, while collecting fungus from the stem of a tree in an old forest in southern Chile. When he finally got around to sending it off for sophisticated analysis — years later — he discovered that this version of Gliocladium wasn't like others he'd encountered before.

"I've scoured the earth for not only organisms like Gliocladium, but many other endophytes [a plant that lives in the tissue of another plant]. I've been to almost every rainforest on the planet," he tells Alex Chadwick. But, "in over 50 years, I've never seen anything like that."

Why would a fungus create diesel? Essentially to protect from plant invaders, he says.

He also discusses a brief scandal in his past that involved chainsawing trees and trashing an EPA document.

And some other links:
AFP: Fill her up please, and make it myco-diesel
ETA: Biofuel that Grows on Trees
TreeHugger: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/11/mycodiesel-made-by-patagonian-tree-fungus.php

Posted by James Wheeler at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This ad from the Obama campaign is brilliant:

Posted by James Wheeler at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As preposterous as it may sound (especially since I still don't have my jet pack, nor my flying car) there is a movement to create a "space elevator" which could eliminate short term rocket travel and facilitate a constant gateway into earth's orbit. Here's the basics at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator . It would essentially be a cable connected to a counter-weight in geosynchronous orbit creating a sort of dumb-waiter system. Hopefully this video from www.spaceelevator.com will help explain further...

From CNN.com: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/10/02/space.elevator/index.html

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A new space race is officially under way, and this one should have the sci-fi geeks salivating.

The project is a "space elevator," and some experts now believe that the concept is well within the bounds of possibility -- maybe even within our lifetimes.

A conference discussing developments in space elevator concepts is being held in Japan in November, and hundreds of engineers and scientists from Asia, Europe and the Americas are working to design the only lift that will take you directly to the one hundred-thousandth floor.

Despite these developments, you could be excused for thinking it all sounds a little far-fetched.

Indeed, if successfully built, the space elevator would be an unprecedented feat of human engineering.

A cable anchored to the Earth's surface, reaching tens of thousands of kilometers into space, balanced with a counterweight attached at the other end is the basic design for the elevator.

It is thought that inertia -- the physics theory stating that matter retains its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted upon by an external force -- will cause the cable to stay stretched taut, allowing the elevator to sit in geostationary orbit.

The cable would extend into the sky, eventually reaching a satellite docking station orbiting in space.

Engineers hope the elevator will transport people and objects into space, and there have even been suggestions that it could be used to dispose of nuclear waste. Another proposed idea is to use the elevator to place solar panels in space to provide power for homes on Earth.

If it sounds like the stuff of fiction, maybe that's because it once was.

In 1979, Arthur C. Clarke's novel "The Fountains of Paradise" brought the idea of a space elevator to a mass audience. Charles Sheffield's "The Web Between the Worlds" also featured the building of a space elevator.

But, jump out of the storybooks and fast-forward nearly three decades, and Japanese scientists at the Japan Space Elevator Association are working seriously on the space-elevator project.

Association spokesman Akira Tsuchida said his organization was working with U.S.-based Spaceward Foundation and a European organization based in Luxembourg to develop an elevator design.

The Liftport Group in the U.S. is also working on developing a design, and in total it's believed that more than 300 scientists and engineers are engaged in such work around the globe.

NASA is holding a $4 million Space Elevator Challenge to encourage designs for a successful space elevator.

Tsuchida said the technology driving the race to build the first space elevator is the quickly developing material carbon nanotube. It is lightweight and has a tensile strength 180 times stronger than that of a steel cable. Currently, it is the only material with the potential to be strong enough to use to manufacture elevator cable, according to Tsuchida.

"At present we have a tether which is made of carbon nanotube, and has one-third or one-quarter of the strength required to make a space elevator. We expect that we will have strong enough cable in the 2020s or 2030s," Tsuchida said.

He said the most likely method of powering the elevator would be through the carbon nanotube cable.

So, what are the major logistical issues keeping the space elevator from being anything more than a dream at present?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology aeronautics and astronautics Professor Jeff Hoffman said that designing the carbon nanotube appeared to be the biggest obstacle.

"We are now on the verge of having material that has the strength to span the 30,000 km ... but we don't have the ability to make long cable out of the carbon nanotubes at the moment." he said. "Although I'm confident that within a reasonable amount of time we will be able to do this."

Tsuchida said that one of the biggest challenges will be acquiring funding to move the projects forward. At present, there is no financial backing for the space elevator project, and all of the Japanese group's 100-plus members maintain other jobs to earn a living.

"Because we don't have a material which has enough strength to construct space elevator yet, it is difficult to change people's mind so they believe that it can be real," he said.

Hoffman feels that international dialogue needs to be encouaraged on the issue. He said a number of legal considerations also would have to be taken into account.

"This is not something one nation or one company can do. There needs to be a worldwide approach," he said.

Other difficulties for space-elevator projects include how to build the base for the elevator, how to design it and where to set up the operation.

Tsuchida said some possible locations for an elevator include the South China Sea, western Australia and the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean. He said all of those locations usually avoided typhoons, which could pose a threat to the safety of an elevator.

"As the base of space elevator will be located on geosynchronous orbit, [the] space elevator ground station should be located near the equator," he said.

Although the Japanese association has set a time frame of the 2030s to get a space elevator under construction -- and developments are moving quickly -- Hoffman acknowledges that it could be a little further away than that.

"I don't know if it's going to be in our lifetime or if it's 100 or 200 years away, but it's near enough that we can contemplate how it will work."

Building a space elevator is a matter of when, not if, said Hoffman, who believes that it will herald a major new period in human history.

"It will be revolutionary for human technology, and not just for space travel. That's why so many people are pursuing it," he said. "This is what it will take to turn humans into a space-bearing species."

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Other Space Elevator Reference Material:
The Space Elevator Blog

Videos from http://www.spaceelevator.com/Open_Wiki/Video_Galleries/Introduction_to_the_Space_Elevator

The Vision-

The Technology-

The Technology Continued-

Posted by James Wheeler at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Introduction to Complexity Machine 1 from Aaron Westre on Vimeo.

Complexity Machine 1 is a software application Aaron Westre developed using Processing as a thesis project for the Master of Architecture program at the University of Minnesota. The software simulates the behavior of groups of agents and renders a variety three dimensional form with the resultant geometry. This video explains the concepts behind the project, some of its results, and some possible future directions. It was recently presented by Aaron at the ACADIA conference at the University of Minnesota's College of Design.

Posted by James Wheeler at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday NASA launched the IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) probe into earth orbit to start mapping the edge of our solar system. It's a bit of a scary mission all things considered as it will basically catalog the boundary between our planetary system and the radiation of deep space which is held in check by our own solar radiation.

From Softpedia.com: http://news.softpedia.com/news/IBEX-Probe-Successfully-Launched-96108.shtml

The probe was carried by the Pegasus for about 130 miles onto its orbit above Earth. Its goal is to reach the boundaries of the heliosphere, the protective bubble that the Sun envelops its planetary system in, and which is formed of particles carried by the solar wind. In the target region, the particles emitted by the Sun meet the ones from the outer space, and interact with them.

During its 2-year long mission, the octagonal IBEX probe will help scientists gain more insight on the events that take place at the “termination shock� zone, as well as on the reasons and consequences of the recent record low for solar wind in 50 years. In this regard, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) craft will make use of its two cameras to capture images of the surroundings, and to map the occurring collision events. It will provide additional intel both on the solar particles and the galactic ones, as well as on the way they interact.

According to David J. McComas, principal investigator for IBEX and senior executive director of the Space Science and Engineering Division at the San Antonio-based Southwest Research Institute, “The interstellar boundary regions are critical because they shield us from the vast majority of dangerous galactic cosmic rays, which otherwise would penetrate into Earth's orbit and make human spaceflight much more dangerous.�

The small, 50 centimeter-wide probe will follow the 2 Voyager missions launched more than 30 years ago on their way to the margins of the heliosphere, but will be the first of such a reduced size and scope from a series of cheap small-scale probes in NASA's Small Explorers project.

And from Gizmodo by Jack Loftus: http://gizmodo.com/5065677/ibex-launches-today-on-mans-most-depressing-space-mission-ever

"Now, just to summarize, the IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) was conceived to study the farthest reaches of our solar system. At the very edge is the termination shock, where the system ends, and deep space begins. Studying the unknown will always be cool, but it turns out the IBEX mission could also lead to a better understanding of our future doom.

The termination shock is also the point at which the sun's solar wind begins to taper off, and eventually end. Much like our atmosphere here on Earth, the solar wind protects the solar system from the deadly radiation that saturates deep space. It does this by hurling ions in every direction, at 1 million miles per hour, all the time. Scientists believe the solar wind stops about 90% of the radiation from reaching the planets housed within the termination shock.

The trouble is these winds have fallen to their weakest levels in 50 years. In the past 10 years, the wind's intensity weakened by about 25%. Why? Who knows. Hence, IBEX.

Said David McComas, IBEX chief scientist, "We don't believe we're in imminent danger, but we've only measured the solar wind for about 50 years." Reassuring, thy name be NASA."

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More Links:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a8TRMBj1sHaU&refer=us

Posted by James Wheeler at 5:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Space Bubbles in Zero Gravity: Like water? Sam guarantees you'll like it even more... in SPACE!

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Invisibility Update: http://io9.com/5042313/highly+advanced-cloaking-device-unveiled-in-french-forest

Check out this great link to a sculpture made of stones, glue and mirrors by Michel De Broin creating a reflection effect of invisibility or cloaking as well as checking out the link below to De Broin's website.

http://www.micheldebroin.org/projects/super/2.html

Posted by James Wheeler at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week Swiss airline pilot Yves Rossyflew across the English Channel wearing a homemade jet-propelled wing in under 15 minutes. Can I get a hell yes?

The carbon composite-wing weighs about 121 pounds (55 kilograms) when loaded with fuel, and carried four kerosene-burning jet turbines that kept him aloft. The wing had no steering devices -- Rossy moved his body to control its movements.

He wore a heat-resistant suit similar to that worn by firefighters and racing drivers to protect him from the heat of the turbines. The cooling effect of the wind and high altitude also prevented him from getting too hot.

More via CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/09/26/rocket.man.english.channel.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch

Posted by James Wheeler at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The most powerful physics experiment ever built, the Large Hadron Collider will re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang in an attempt to answer fundamental questions of science and the universe itself. This search for the "God Particle" as you can imagine has many people up in arms from other scientists who believe it could create a black hole that would swallow the earth to the religious fundamentalists that believe that we should not be playing with that far above the human station. Either way, here's an introduction and I'll update as we get new information.

An Introduction to the Collider:
BBC Intro/Overview: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7543089.stm

NYTimes Interactive: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/science/20070514_CERN_GRAPHIC.html

Other Articles:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/09/10/lhc.collider/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7604293.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/science/15cern.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

UPDATE 1: Hadron Experiment considered a success::
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080910-collider-success.html

UPDATE 2:Hadron Collider out of commission for repairs after some damage occurs in initial experiment:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200809261

Posted by James Wheeler at 9:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey kids, it's not just for Harry Potter anymore. Whether using camera re-projection or microbead fibers the implications of invisibility are something to be carefully monitored due to its obvious military and thieving capabilities but also for the simple fact that we are altering human perception which happens to be cool as hell on a variety of levels.

Here's a compilation from the University of Tokyo's students original videos using the camera reprojection. Despite the fact that you have to be present at certain points to be able to see this "invisibility" it is incredibly engaging...

Scientists Set Sights on Invisibility Cloaks: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/07/01/invisible.cloak/index.html

Invisibility Cloak "A Step Further": http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7553061.stm

Invisibility Cloak By Bending Light: http://maduraiveeran.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/invisibility-cloak-by-bending-light/

How Stuff Works: Invisibility Cloaks: http://www.howstuffworks.com/invisibility-cloak.htm

Awesome article from the Superhero Power issue of Wired (make sure to check out the links to other superpowers which are pretty awesome reads as well): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.08/pwr_invisible.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=

Posted by James Wheeler at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I actually read this article last week but with a hurricane fast approaching I thought it more appropriate to highlight that. Also I’ve been listening to a lot of speeches from various presidential libraries lately and especially after watching the Kennedy mini-series from the early-1980’s I’ve been enjoying some Jack Kennedy. So I’m pairing both up and saying damn it all NASA!

Remarks at Dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center, San Antonio, Texas , November 21, 1963

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- NASA has delayed the launch of an unmanned spacecraft to the moon to scout for potential landing sites for astronauts.

NASA plans to land astronauts on the moon in 2020.

The moon craft is the first step in NASA's program to send astronauts back to the moon and beyond.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was supposed to blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in early December aboard an Atlas V rocket. But the launch was pushed back after NASA agreed to swap with the Air Force, which will fly a prototype space drone.

NASA spokesman Grey Hautaluoma said the new launch window, which opens February 27, 2009, relieves schedule pressure and provides more launch opportunities.

"When we looked at the trade-offs ... it seemed like a wise thing to do," he said this week.

NASA officials insist they could have met the original target. The delay will cost the space agency up to $7 million a month. Hautaluoma said the extra costs were built into the program's reserves.

The swap means NASA will miss the Bush administration's stated goal of exploring the moon with a robotic spacecraft by 2008. NASA plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2020.

According to NASA, the rocket's maker, United Launch Alliance, approached the space agency about switching launch dates with the Air Force, which was prepared to fly its X-37B reusable unmanned satellite.

"It was tested and proven ready to go," said Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Brown. "We were able to jump ahead."

NASA's $491 million lunar craft is designed to circle the moon's poles for at least a year, using its instruments to map the craggy surface and search for safe landing sites to send a manned crew.

Piggybacking on the mission is a $79 million impactor probe managed by NASA's Ames Research Center that will deliberately crash into one of the poles to look for signs of water ice.

The lunar probe's project manager, Craig Tooley of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said his team welcomed "a little more breathing room, but there was also a fair amount of disappointment" about the delay.

Posted by James Wheeler at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In light of the video above and with Gustav heading towards the Coast, I thought it would be good to get some information up about hurricanes in general as well as some text from articles that can give a better idea of how this phenomena changes throughout its life cycle.

Hurricanes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricanes

Here's a great explanation and some links from Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer

Gustav headed for current that fuels big storms
WASHINGTON - The difference between a monster and a wimp for Gulf of Mexico hurricanes often comes down to a small patch of warm deep water that's easy to miss. It's called the Loop Current, and hurricane trackers say Gustav is headed right for it, reminiscent of Katrina.

Gustav is likely to reach this current late Saturday, experts say. What happens next will be crucial, maybe deadly.

If Gustav hits the Loop Current and lingers in that hot spot, watch out. If the storm misses it or zips through the current, then Gustav probably won't be much of a name to remember.

The meandering Loop Current, located in the southeastern gulf, provides loads of hurricane fuel. It was a key stopover for nearly all the Gulf Coast killers of the past, including Katrina and Camille, said Florida International University professor Hugh Willoughby, former director of the government's hurricane research division.

Lynn "Nick" Shay, University of Miami meteorology and oceanography professor, flew over the gulf Thursday in a federal hurricane research plane to measure the Loop Current. He saw Gustav's forecast track going "right down the throat" of it.

"That's kind of the scary part here," Shay said. "You look at this and say, 'Boy I hope this thing doesn't really explode,' but it probably will."

It happened in 2005. "Katrina went over the Loop Current and intensified rapidly," said Mark DeMaria, a Colorado-based expert on hurricane strength with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Then less than a month later a weak tropical storm named Rita followed Katrina into the Loop Current. Thirty hours later it was a Category 5 monster.

Both Katrina and Rita later weakened — which often happens_ to Category 3 storms by landfall.

In the last several years, meteorologists have focused more attention on the Loop Current, which is only a couple of hundred miles long and not even 100 miles wide. The evidence linking it to the worst storms is beyond circumstantial, Shay said.

What's crucial is the depth of warm water in the current — several hundred feet — because it provides continuous high-octane fuel for a storm. Hurricanes use the heat from the water to grow stronger and in the process they churn up cooler water from below, which then slows or stops the feeding process. But in the Loop Current, the deeper water is also warm and it further feeds the storm.

The Loop Current constantly shifts, growing and shrinking and sending out smaller eddies. It's now starting to contract, but not soon enough.

On Friday, the National Hurricane Center warned: "Gustav is expected to be a large powerful hurricane as it approaches the northern gulf coast."

The one hopeful sign is that on his hurricane flight Thursday, Shay saw a pool of extra cool water north and west of the Loop Current. That could help counteract what he fears will be rapid strengthening.

___

On the Net:

An image of the current loop current by the University of Miami:

http://isotherm.rsmas.miami.edu/heat/data/h26_latest.zoom.gif

NASA on how in 2005 the Loop Current strengthened Hurricane Katrina:

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/katrina_seaheight.html

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The Cleanse: Reintegration Day 2

Today I could have juice for breakfast and anything vegetable so I decided to go to the Mockingbird in downtown Bay St. Louis and have a delicious Spinach salad with walnuts and a raspberry vinaigrette. Delcious!

Posted by James Wheeler at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lately, I feel there hasn't been enough architecture on here so I'm going to bundle all my Science/Tech links on a new feature based on NPR's Science Friday w/Ira Flatow. So here is the first ever Science Friday with Sam! As you can see from the picture above, Sam loves him some science and will be your meta-host for my links each and every Friday.

This week's science spotlight will be on the conversion of gasoline powered cars into electric powered vehicles commonly known as EV's. While we wait for the Chevy Volt and other euromobiles coming in the next couple of years, we're going to take a gander at current pushes to go green. There are arguments that address what is more economical or environmental, but the idea of plugging in the car like you would your phone or any appliance is quite attractive. In addition, you don't smell like a french fry like you do with biofuel conversions.

Photo credit: George Lange/Popular Mechanics

That said, it's also important to look at what this conversion means for your current vehicle or the vehicle you choose to convert. If you auto guzzles gas like a frat boy during homecoming week, it will do the same for electricity. EV is not the silver bullet of sustainability. It operates on the same premise as biofuels and hybrids which is to say that a smaller car with an engine that is appropriate will be able to operate more efficiently. When you are utilizing sustainable fuels this becomes a viable option for green transportation.

Anyhow, here are some interesting facts and links that you can use to find out more about conversion.

CNN- Fueling America: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/08/14/electric.cars/index.html

Build Your Own Electric Car out of a Gas-Guzzler: http://www.electric-cars-are-for-girls.com/build-your-own.html

TreeHugger- Convert Your Car Into An Electric Vehicle: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/09/converting_your.php

Electric Auto Association- Why EV?: http://eaaev.org/Flyers/index.html#WhyEV

The EV Photo Album: http://www.evalbum.com/

Home Power Magazine: http://www.homepower.com/files/featured/UsedElectricVehicles.pdf

Posted by James Wheeler at 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)