Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
September 22, 2006
Friday again, already?
Oh man, lets stay topical, and ask the iPod a historical question:
oh Mighty One, was there a single transition to an oxygenated archaen atmosphere, involving sudden onset of photosynthesis-2, with associated rapid mass extinction, say around the late Huronian or thereabouts…
September 21, 2006
The Weather Service has announced a severe storm warning for coastal areas as hurricane Gordon is expected to hit land friday morning.
Not, not the Gulf, or the Virginia shore: England, and Wales and Ireland.
Strong winds, gusting to 80 mph, heave rain and coastal flooding are predicted; with…
September 20, 2006
ESA Envisat press release shows north pole ice pack cracked from Svalbarð to the pole.
Finally large container ships will be able to take the short cut from Hong Kong to Rotterdam. Eh?
The NASA EOS Aqua satellite provided the complimentary data on this but have not seen an associated NASA press…
September 20, 2006
Cassini reminds us of home. It is a very pretty picture...
Spot Earth in there?
Pale Blue Dot.
PS - this is from within the solar syste,.
To do the same for a terrestrial planet around another star is million times harder and 10 billion times fainter.
On the other hand the Cassini camera is…
September 19, 2006
A panel of scientists strongly endorsed NASA's plans to return to the moon, saying in a report Tuesday that lunar exploration will open the way toward broader studies of the Earth and solar system.
Did they now. And who was on this comittee...?
Ah
September 19, 2006
A couple of years ago, some research groups reported preliminary indications of Methane of Mars.
At very low concentration - about 10 parts per million - but in the highly oxidised Martian atmosphere, methane has a short lifetime, and any amount implies either an unusual recent event, or ongoing…
September 19, 2006
Pale Blue Dot trucks on, some very interesting discussion on biomarkers and remote sensing, and ongoing plenary sessions on science and media relations and the current state and evolution of science journalism. UScentric, but very, very interesting.
Good turnout by science journalists, btw, both…
September 18, 2006
It is true that for life to prosper, it is best to prepare fertile soil.
That is best done by spreading a lot of bullshit.
September 18, 2006
Interesting poster at the meeting by Richard Carrigan on data mining infrared surveys to constrain, or detect, the presence of Dyson Spheres around nearby stars; or other Kardashev class I++ civilizations.
Short version - he looked through IRAS data.
Nothing jumped out, but the fainter sources…
September 18, 2006
The third Pale Blue Dot meeting is underway at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.
It is fun.
If you're in the Chicago area you should come down for the public event, tuesday 19 Sep, 7-9 pm at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance.
Some distinguished astronomer will give you a song and dance...
So…
September 15, 2006
I heard it from a man who,
heard it from a man who,
heard it from another...
ok, it was an e-mail, but it confirmed the strange tale I had been told.
NASA is about to do a Mad Max on its Science Missions.
Five missions enter, one mission leaves. Literally.
NASA has many houses. Within one is the…
September 15, 2006
A cool friday, and we stay on theme as we ask the mighty iPod:
oh Mighty iPod, what is with the puffy planets we're finding...
The Covering: Somewhere Only We Know - Keane
The Crossing: Homecoming - Green Day
The Crown: Söngur Bakardrengsins - Thorbjorn Egner
The Root: Cancion - Julian Bream
The…
September 14, 2006
Hrmph. If they must be dwarf planets, should they not at least have dwarf names?
Instead of Eris and Dysnomia couldn't they have gone with Ori and Nori or Þráinn & Þórinn, or go with the real classics Nýi and Niði!
Dwarf names for dwarf planets!
Andvari is a classic...
September 14, 2006
Xena is renamed ...
Eris after its demotion, and its sidekick become Dysnomia
Eris
Interesting choice of namespace, I blame the Illuminati.
see here and here
Is a Harvard special...
Praise Eris!
September 14, 2006
Through the magic of iTunes, I just got to listen to "Ever Fallen in Love" as covered by Fine Young Cannibals, right after hearing the Buzzcocks original version.
I also got "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda..." right after a straight cover of "Waltzing Matilda".
This causes severe cognitive…
September 14, 2006
First Philosophia Naturalis Carnival is up at at Science and Reason.
Some good stuff there, including new blogs to browse, in your copious spare time.
Not a plug for this 'ere blog. I was traveling and missed the deadline to submit.
September 13, 2006
Tangled Bank #62 - this time with nifty cartoons
At Hairy Museum of Natural History
September 13, 2006
Water here is hard.
Hence the kettle needs to be cleaned with vinegar regularly. Overnight.
It really isn't necessary to mention when this is done, if nothing else the smell is a hint.
In spite of this, occasionally coffee gets made with boiled vinegar, especially first thing in the morning.…
September 13, 2006
disturbingly interesting item on NASAwatch
short version - the human spaceflight budget crunch is headed for open conflict with space science and it ain't pretty
September 12, 2006
Ah, there is a plan.
Army Group Steiner will move south and save Baghdad
Science and Democracy have one unique strenght in common.
They provide institutional mechanisms for negative feedback. When pundits are wrong, the mechanisms will, eventually, reveal the error and self-correct.
When those…
September 12, 2006
Interesting Boston study just published, claiming that the travel restrictions after 9/11 caused a two week postponement in the peak of the 2001/2 influenze season.
Some lessons there.
September 12, 2006
NASAwatch reports more rumours of Science Directorate turmoil
I can not overemphasise how potentially important the top tree of SMD administration is for space science. The fine graining of science priorities, advising and solicitation is done at the level from head of the divisions (at least two…
September 12, 2006
There is an interesting SciBlog back-and-forth going on about the "pipeline" problem and retention of underrepresented subset of physical sciencists.
The discussion raises some interesting points, but I want to pick on one small item: the question of intro classes and entry into major.
Does anyone…
September 11, 2006
Joel Achenbach of the Achenblog at the Washington Post is worried about science press releases:
Eight is Enough: Achenblog
Question Scientific Authority
The latter is about our press release on a paper that came out in Science last friday.
Here is the original primary press release on EurekAlert.…
September 11, 2006
Noticed a number of dead birds on the walk to and through campus today.
Maybe I just notice these things more nowadays.
Or, maybe it is the change to cooler weather.
In the meantime here is something to cheer you up
Deaths continue to double each year.
Simplest explanation is that it is growing…
September 11, 2006
I learned some amusing little things over the last couple of weeks.
Some universities have staff who track blog and web comments about the institutions.
They seem primarily interested in comments by prospective students!
Secondary interest is comments, partiuclarly negative ones, by current…
September 7, 2006
Oh, mighty iPod, travel time, and we ask you through the magic of scheduled time displacement:
are there really habitable terrestrial planets in orbits exterior to the hot Jovians?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: King for a Day/Shout (live) - Green Day
The Crossing: Whispering…
September 7, 2006
No, not that authority, silly.
Us.
And quite right too.
My response in the Achenblog comments is below the fold...
"I think that even scientists sometimes in the thrill of announcing discoveries overstate the degree of certainty. This may be then exaggerated by journalists. No?" - Achenblog…
September 7, 2006
More than one-third of the giant planet systems recently detected outside our
solar system may harbor Earth-like planets, according to a new study by
scientists associated with NASA's Astrobiology Institute. Many of these planets
may be covered in deep global oceans, with abundant potential for…