Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
April 23, 2007
AGILE - Italian gamma ray observatory, like a faster, lighter GLAST - launched successfully
April 20, 2007
The toxic pet food problem is not going away
There have been more recalls, possibly with new contaminants.
Also appears rice gluten as well as wheat gluten was affected.
There is also buzz that the FDA is concerned the poisoning was deliberate.
It is also clear that some of the contaminated feed…
April 20, 2007
The Astrophysics division at the Science Mission Directorate has been renamed and has a new director.
It is now Universe.
They haven't updated their organization chart yet, but I hear Jon Morse is the new director.
I also hear there is someone new being brought in to take over R&A.
Should be…
April 20, 2007
Oh, mighty iPod, it is a sunny, scary friday, and we ask hubmly:
is dark energy really bad for astronomy?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The SDM riff
The Covering: Lullaby of London - Pogues
The Crossing: Pearly Dewdrops' Drops - Cocteau Twins
The Crown: There's No One Like Me
The Root: Í…
April 18, 2007
The humble 35mm film is rapidly vanishing, vanquished by ever improving digital cameras.
But, in the process we're losing an invaluable resource:
the humble film canister!
These used to flood the world by the hundreds of millions each year, taken for granted, ever present.
Now, they are a…
April 15, 2007
Well, I got out of DC ahead of the latest Weather Channel paroxysm.
Since I am now apparently a minor agent of chaos with deistic powers, I confidently predict snow in Happy Valley tonight.
Pasadena is as lovely as ever; the traffic through downtown still sucks, and they still haven't done anything…
April 14, 2007
Gravity Probe B reports its first results at the APS meeting...
...and the winner is: Albert Einstein.
General Relativity is consistent at the 1% level, at least for geodetic precession...
Phew, that was worth the wait.
Frame dragging measurements are still not confirmed due to unexpected…
April 13, 2007
USS Reagan is headed home
Pulled into Pearl Harbour this week.
The Y Ranter calls non-war this new moon
Alex at FoE tells us what you need to bomb Iran
Counting is a very powerful approach to reality.
New moon is April 17th, the US Air Force's main advantage against a foe like Iran is stealth.…
April 12, 2007
In view of the weather, we ask the iPod: wazzup iPod? Anything exciting coming our way?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
Traveling lite edition...
The Covering: Mars Ultras, You'll Never Make the Station (liv) - Half Man, Half Biscuit
The Crossing: Science Friction - XTC
The Crown: Bright…
April 12, 2007
I confidently predict when the next galactic supernova will take place...
Late 2008 or early 2009.
Supernovae occur on average once or twice per century in the Milky Way.
But we have not seen one for over 300 years now.
Not counting SN1987a - that was in the Large Magellanic Clouds.
It is…
April 11, 2007
So far, in the 100 days of 2007, there have been 118 papers submitted to arXiv with the words dark, energy, model in the abstract.
This is across all of physics, most are in or cross-posted to astro-ph.
There are 154 papers with dark, matter, model in the abstract
We are only on day 100 of the year…
April 10, 2007
In the autumn of 1859, the Earth was hit by a massive coronal ejection from the Sun.
Aurora flared worldwide, compasses went wild and the telegraph system crashed.
This is the pivoting event in Stuart Clark's book "The Sun Kings" - Princeton University Press, ISBN-13:978-0-691-12660-9
The book is…
April 10, 2007
Björk held an outdoor concert monday night to introduce her new album, Volta
I wasn't there, of course, but word is that it was good. Very good.
Sounds like some of the songs are as good as her best work, and (not having heard it yet) the album may be excellent, and different, again.
That'd be…
April 9, 2007
An ode to Princeton Professors:
Don't try this at home...
Rumour of War
There are soldiers marching on the common today
They were there again this evening
They paced up and down like sea birds on the ground
Before the storm clouds gathering
I must buy whatever tinned food is left on the shelves…
April 9, 2007
Uwe Reinhardt, the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton makes a bold suggestion in the Daily Princetonian:
Bomb Iceland!
In lieu of bombing Iran.
It is true that it'd be easier (easier still if the US had not broken its bilateral treaty with Iceland and abandoned its air base…
April 9, 2007
The aircraft carrier USS Reagan and its Carrier Strike Group have concluded 7th fleet operations
Question is: which way did they head when they left; east, back home to San Diego; or, west to the 5th fleet area of operations?
It has been a short tour if they go back home. I hope they have a good…
April 8, 2007
'cause it is not art?
The WaPo did something interesting:
they convinced a top violinist to take his strad to the DC metro and busk at rush hour
seven people stopped to listen, twenty seven gave money total of $32.17 - $20 of that came from the one person out of 1000 who recognized the musician.…
April 7, 2007
über, duper;
hyper, super!
Astronomy has always reveled in superlatives; what with supernovae, hypernovae, ultraluminous this and thats and other Extremes of Nature.
I have reason to believe that, despite the best efforts of our few classically educated faculty, we are about to run out of…
April 7, 2007
"like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime"
The LA Times' John Kenney reports:
"...The F-14s flew by low. Each of us activated our earpieces and hand-held mini walkie-talkies, agreed on a frequency, and I slowed the car to 15 mph as Carol and the boys opened the doors and rolled…
April 6, 2007
Oh Good, Friday it is then.
By special request, here in the urban area in which the true scientific miracle of the oracular omniscience of the iPod was first revealed, we ask a burning question:
which of the Beyond Einstein missions will fly first?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering…
April 4, 2007
The National Research Council's Assessment Committee for the Beyond Einstein program had a townhall meeting here in the Windy City.
Much to my surprise, I was there also.
The Beyond Einstein program at NASA is in trouble. With cuts and squeezing by the Exploration Development effort, the original…
April 4, 2007
bloomin' heck, it is snowing!
Actually it is not the snow, it is the 40 mph gusts of wind on top of the steady 20-25 mph brisk breeze that drove me into a spot with hot cocoa and free WiFi
(this entry brought to you by PANERA - large cups of hot chocolate and unlimited WiFi, at a college town near…
April 3, 2007
Iran claims Bushehr nuclear power station is "logistically complete"
That means it is ready to be loaded with fuel and ought to be just a turn-key from being operational.
Russia is reportedly holding back fuel for 2 months, pending UN process.
Iran claims it has paid Russia in full and wants the…
April 3, 2007
John Mather is head of the Office of the Chief Scientist at NASA
That is an interesting move by Stern.
And Paul Hertz directs Science Policy, Process and Ethics Office!
Which puts him in charge of solicitation, review and awards! Yay Paul!
Mather remains JWST senior project scientist. So, I'm…
April 3, 2007
The poisoned pet food story keeps getting bigger and more worrying.
Pretty clear that some food grade (as opposed to feed grade) wheat gluten was in the contaminated batch and that the FDA is worried it got into the human food chain.
FDA summary page
They still don't really know what the…
April 3, 2007
Apparently Bee hives are suffering massive die offs in parts of the US
Colony Collapse Disorder.
It sound like something to keep an eye on, since honey bees are rather important both commercially and ecologically.
Lots of conjectures about causes, one that caught my attention as mildly plausible is…
April 2, 2007
It seems likely astronomers are the most arrogant of academia!
Yay us!
See there is this weird discussion in the current American Physical Society News about an out of context quote about the arrogance of scientists.
The whole thing is a misreading of what some journalists said, but the essence of…
April 2, 2007
Bee at Backreaction points to a use for graph theory
The topology of the High School Romance/Sexual network is interesting.
I'm a little bit surprised by the structure, and assume that the disconnected branches are real, and not illustrating sub-structure of the main graph.
I would have expected…
April 2, 2007
In honour of the occasion, Sean decided to poke the string theory pile
It is an interesting thread, including the comments.
But, especially in view of some of the stuff there and here and over on Uncertain Principles and Backreaction on general issues in physics and science, it is worth…