Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
December 31, 2009
On New Year's Eve, 2009, the Moon will be full, for the second time in december.
A Blue Moon?
Well, not really...
although colloquially, it is, now.
A full Moon looks full because it's directly opposite the Sun in the
sky, from our viewpoint on Earth, so its whole sunlit side faces us.
Photo by…
December 24, 2009
King's College Choir
I miss the live version.
Good singing that.
King's College Choir - get the live CDs online.
December 24, 2009
Not as intense as the original, but at least you can finally hear the lyrics...
bonus: original version (live)
December 22, 2009
Set the focus on infinity!
A new one from the photomixers...
"I need a space telescope,
ain't got time to wait"
...
"My mind is busting,
and I got a PhD!"
December 21, 2009
There are, of course, two types of thesis advisors: which should you want to have; and which are you, or will you become?
There is type I and type II.
There are "cat advisors" and "dog advisors".
Cats are independent, and only, grudgingly, need the occasional superior technical skills (eg can…
December 17, 2009
JoAnne and Risa are liveblogging the CDMS seminar at Stanford
bottom line, they see two events when they unblind, compared to expected 0.5
net confidence is a bit over 2σ (nailed it, yeah!).
interesting bounds on cross-section for WIMPs with mass under 70 GeV/c2
good stuff
December 14, 2009
"The controversy over "Climategate" continues to heighten as some Pennsylvania legislators question the continuation of Penn State's current research grants -- and possibly even the appropriations the university has been waiting on since July."
There were two interesting articles late last week in…
December 14, 2009
WISE launched successfully this morning, spacecraft is in orbit and responsive.
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer launched successfully from Vandenburg this morning.
click to embiggen
Spacecraft is separated, oriented, and started cooling. Oh, and, obviously, communicating...
Dratt. Wish I…
December 13, 2009
Magnificent Seven Theme
pipe and drum version
To the Coffee Skate Club - nice routine.
Just one thing - real Scots cowboys don't wear boxers under the kilt!
Even not, nay, especially not on ice!
December 10, 2009
The Case for Pluto is not settled yet, whatever the IAU may wish.
Now, just in time for the holidays, there is a very nice little book summarizing what happened in Prague that fateful summer.
I am decidedly "pro-Pluto".
Now Alan Boyle of the cosmic log blog, has taken up the baton, and written a…
December 9, 2009
Vote for John Grunsfeld in the National Geographic "Choice Adventurer of the Year" Competition
He is number 3 on the list.
Vote.
December 9, 2009
There has been a lot of chatter about the e-mail cracked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (not to be confused with the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at the UK Met Office in Exeter).
I would like to post abou it, but, I really can't comment.
Since…
December 9, 2009
Quick!
Its the Santa Signal!
Get the Sled, and Rudolph, fast!
Or, a spontaneous study of how many people have cell phones with video capability and fast reflexes!
Nice pictures and videos!
From altaposten.no - click to embiggen
altaposten.no story - in Norwegian, natch
From NRK.no - with video…
December 8, 2009
there is an amusing rumour on the resonaances blog about cold dark matter
The CDMS experiment is a Cold Dark Matter Search experiment, looking for nuclear recoil in lab detectors, due to scattering of weakly interacting massive particles with normal matter.
[hmm, link is to UC site for CDMS - the…
December 6, 2009
so here I am, catching up on stuff on the laptop, and being mildly distracted by the television
and I notice my duty cycle of glancing at the television is very low, and I ponder why
the bandwidth of the ears is only about 10 kbaud, and auditory input is rarely near maximum throughput
in contrast…
December 3, 2009
A Hubble Advent Calendar?
Cool.
So Boston.com has a Hubble Advent Calendar.
Damn, I wish I had thought of that.
STSCI, as before, has Hubble Seasonal Greeting Cards, free, for you to print out old style, or to send electronically.
and, for the classically minded, there is the BBC's A Bach…
November 30, 2009
history is but a recapitulation of ancient themes
after flipper
came skippy!
Much more better.
still no flying car though...
Done travelling for a bit.
Now to catch up.
November 23, 2009
more assorted linky goodness
Astronomy Portraits (UK) - these are very good, take a look.
From e-Astronomer
XKCD - Pure Genius
Wait, Chad wrote a book? Who knew...
I now have this insane desire to explain lightcones in term of pet post-surgery collars...
I know how to push peoples' buttons…
November 22, 2009
It appears to be a MOND autumn in the science glossies, as Science publishes a review on our favourite alternative physics theory and the status of MOND like extensions to general relativity
Earlier we we had a nice little discussion about a paper bu Gentile et al in Nature on galaxy surface…
November 19, 2009
There is a radical proposal in Iceland to restore the economy and rescue the nation from bankruptcy: expand the tax base to recover revenue from the extensive underground economy.
Tax the fucking elves!
Translation by Alda at the Iceland Weather Report
Yeah! The Free Ride Is Over.
Party is over…
November 18, 2009
Ethan at Starts With A Bang did a nice post the other day on an old chestnut - why you can't touch your toes if you're backed against a wall.
It is a simple physical argument: when you bend to touch your toes, your center of gravity moves forward, so to stay balanced your butt must move backwards…
November 18, 2009
Hubble multicycle large proposals were due today...
Julianne tests the conjecture of proposal number invariance under simple scaling.
Looks to be annoyingly close to correct with about 40 proposals in by the deadline.
I still think we need to check the proposal success probability as a function of…
November 17, 2009
deCode, the genetics startup that genotyped the entire population of Iceland and reconstructed the Book of Icelanders is going down
deCode files for US bankruptcy
assets are to be sold off and company may be liquidated.
This could get complicated - the database of icelandic genetic sequences is…
November 16, 2009
NASA's planet hunter mission ought to be announcing something at the American Astronomical Society in january, 2010.
But what?
Ah, well, I don't know, and if I knew I wouldn't be telling.
We have some idea of what Kepler could do, based on the cleanliness of the early release result photometry.…
November 13, 2009
Yup, the LCROSS crash did kick up some water.
NASA shows proof.
Splash
UV-spectroscopy shows H2O vapour.
About 0.1 m3 from a ~ 10m radius crater.
Not much, but definitely there.
I must day, the LCROSS "bombing" of the Moon is one of the worst handled NASA events in a long time, from a press…
November 12, 2009
A couple of years ago, a group of California theorists came up with a whacky theory for a new kind of thermonuclear supernova.
It would be just like regular type Ia supernovae, but fainter and faster, and a bit more mixed up, as evidenced by its new label: the 0.Ia supernova, a perfect mallogos…
November 11, 2009
Cash for Grades?
In Middle School?
I am speechless.
Raleigh News & Observer:
"The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Wednesday that Rosewood Middle School in Goldsboro has come up with a novel fundraising plan after last year's chocolate sale flopped.
The school will sell 20 test points…