Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
May 11, 2009
Space Shuttle Atlantis is launching STS-125, the last servicing mission to Hubble
launch is scheduled in 13 minutes,
I am watching on NASA TV
they just cleared all launch constraints, at T-14,
this is a nominal hold scheduled to T-9,
some clouds I hear.
nominal hold released, final countdown…
May 10, 2009
we've been kinda low on sunspots for a while as we hit the inter-cycle low;
however, I heard rumours from Iceland that Aurora Borealis had been seen, so I scooted over to Soho to look see
UPDATE: nope, still no sunspots
Couple of nice spot complexes in the upper left.
Haven't checked the polarity…
May 10, 2009
As the Hubble servicing mission is going up, hopefully, we contemplate what on Earth is going on with NASA.
Like, why the cuts?
Well, I have no inside info on this, have not talked to anyone back east, so I'm guessing:
first, NASA is just not that much of a priority - too small, and the science…
May 10, 2009
it turns out that hot tubs and light ashfall are a bad mix
so we had a fairly major fire here in the mountains;
one of my colleagues here pretty much saw it start - the site is clearly visible outside the "fishbowl tower room" where we were having a research group meeting.
He pointed it out to me…
May 10, 2009
confirmed case count by CDC and WHO respectively
we can learn some interesting things
First thing we conclude is that some of WHO's correspondents don't like to work weekends.
Second thing we conclude is that the CDC got the test kits out to the states this week:
what we don't know is whether the…
May 8, 2009
ole! ole!
I like the original, but this version is more suited to my current mood
May 7, 2009
The Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara has broken out and spread far west and south, situation is looking very serious, there will be a lot of loss tonight, evacuation orders extend to Goleta, refugees are moving to UCSB, and it may not be done yet.
It could be worse than the Tea Fire.
Well, I was…
May 7, 2009
it is thursday afternoon, temperature is almost 100F
and the winds are picking up, right on schedule
looking through the window on the other side from my office I can see the fire flaring up
looks bad
It looks almost like there are 3-5 separate fires burning now, from my vantage.
Two are moving up…
May 7, 2009
NASA 2010 budget request is out.
Not very stimulating, especially for Astrophysics.
NASA still does not have a nominated Administrator, and really does not have a direction, even though key and somewhat irrevocable decisions are imminent, in particular on the retirement of the Shuttle and…
May 7, 2009
Honest as the day is long...
Absolutely.
...at least we think so...
in Iceland, on winter's solstice.
May 7, 2009
evolutionary dynamics of influenza!
and how flu immunity is defined by you Hamming distance in protein bit space
The Kavli Institute has a very interesting biophysics program series...
Last semester there was another interesting biophysics colloquium:
The Puzzle of the Evolutionary Dynamics of…
May 7, 2009
Clone Wars: how are stockbrokers like colorectal cancer cells?
The Kavli Institute has a very interesting biophysics program series...
This weeks colloquium:
"Physics and Mathematics of Cancer Metastasis" - Robijn Bruinsma, UCLA, explains (NOT ONLINE YET podcast, video, slides)
excellent…
May 6, 2009
yesterday, as we were headed into an informal research group discussion,
one of the locals grabbed me and pointed out the window at a small plume of smoke on the mountain above Santa Barbara
it was a small brush fire in San Roque canyon, the Jesusita Fire, high on the mountain, it was warm and…
May 6, 2009
if you won the lottery would you stay in grad school?
and more links, of random interest to me
Debt - now and then - from Seeking α
Krugman: no comment - classy
An old friend of mine from a small university town in the UK had dinner with Obama some weeks ago: said Obama was unusually up on a…
May 5, 2009
by folding down the Ideal to embrace the Earth and sealing it with our kiss, we symbolize how we dedicate our ideals to overcoming our animal nature, even as we enclose it, for without the complement of our animalism, the yin to our yang, our ideals would be dysfunctional and empty
from Prof…
May 4, 2009
Obama announced members of the Presidential Council of Advisor's on Science and Technology (PCAST)
via ScienceDebate team
It is an august group.
Physical scientists you might know:
Christopher Chyba - Princeton - astrobiology and arms control
S. James Gates - Maryland - particle theorist
Shirley…
May 4, 2009
General introduction to optimal control theory and how to control matter at the quantum level
David Tannor gave the Director's Blackboard Talk at KITP today:
Quantum Control: From Chemistry to Cooling to Computing
Very nice talk, goes on a bit in the middle talking about the time dependent…
May 2, 2009
just for laugh, here is the US H1N1 confirmed case count by date as provided by the CDC
now with added bonus WHO worldwide case count.
from CDC: past daily updates
click to embiggen
looks pretty linear now, I think the dip at day 7 is a CDC error and the case number was 109 then, not 91.…
May 2, 2009
CDC images the new H1N1 virus
A/H1N1/2009 (click to embiggen)
click to embiggen
from CDC
May 1, 2009
Effect measure has another good swine flu entry
one thing I haven't seen laid out explicitly is why the school closures etc?
I mean, this is a new variant flu and we are all going to get it.
Statistically that means a few percent of us will have mystery immunity and maybe 1/3-2/3 of the population…
April 30, 2009
so, three swine flu cases in Oxnard, and half-dozen in a kids' camp near San Lois Obispo, it will be here by the weekend
but it is ok, according ot the LA Times it is going to be mild...
so, what do the numbers tell us so far
well, it would be nice to know wtf is going on in Mexico...
but, the…
April 30, 2009
Daily Show does the LHC
and the path integrals of our lives
Daily Show does the LHC!
Not bad, Ellis is pretty good. Link when they have it.
Do you know what at Kelvin is?
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
M - Th 11p / 10c
Large Hadron Collider
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes…
April 29, 2009
yet more flu
university politics
and whatever else I tripped over on the net
Revere beats a dead horse wot needs beatin'
Revere: not just a statistic
LOLpigs
Tara: swine 'flu deja vu
Digital Biologist: what goes around comes around
very cool viral sequence alignments and family trees
Digital…
April 29, 2009
it is not just about lots of people dying
see medical doctors have a different perspective on severity
this was brought home to me by a relative who came off watch and described the shape of someone who had been injured earlier that day, described as "moderate" in the news
You: healthy
MD:…
April 29, 2009
World Health Organization raised the influenza pandemic alert to level 5.
Phase 5 Pandemic (Click to embiggen)
Phase 5 is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of…
April 29, 2009
so what would a mild swine flu pandemic cost?
we get out the envelope...
best case is about 1% hit to GDP this year
so far on the swine 'flu we know:
it is a new type A influenze variant
probably essentially no one has immunity to it
it seems to spread rapidly and easily and be past where it can…
April 28, 2009
lanow blog reporting two deaths over the weekend from pneumonia or 'flu like illness.
possibly from swine flu
or not.
33 yr male from Long Beach died monday - pneumonia over pre-existing lymphoma
45 yr male from La Mirada - died monda from pneumonia - County refused death certificate
Coroner's…