catdynamics | June 22, 2010So, it appears that Le Bleus were ill-starred in the World Cup.
There may have been some lions in defence, but not enough water carriers and too many goats...
Yes, Domenech, the french coach, uses astrology to select the team...
"...few took Domenech seriously. It was discovered that he consulted the Zodiac in squad selection. Robert Pires was supposedly rejected owing to his mistrust of Scorpios, while William Gallas is among those challenged by perhaps his most infamous remark: "When I have a Leo in defence, I've always got my gun ready." "
I guess Anelka was in opposition.
Maybe you…
catdynamics | June 19, 2010Sean at CV is going on hiatus, pressure is on for the co-bloggers at CV.
In the meantime, here is an appropriate send off, hope the Caltech Glee Club used an appropriate arrangement...
it is not a hymn, dammit
catdynamics | June 16, 2010there have been some speculative stories out there on catastrophic consequences of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, up to and including Florida being swallowed
can't happen
the ecological consequences are going to be bad enough, along with damage to economy and tourism
the leak has now been estimated at 60,000 barrels per day,
or 2.5 kb per hour, as I'm sure BP would like it to be referrred to
if the leak continues for 3 years, without being capped, that would be about 60 million barrels, or 2.4 billion gallons, or about 10 billion liters of oil.
that is probably about the maximum that…
catdynamics | June 15, 2010Kepler released most of the first little bit of data today.
306 new candidate exoplanets, with 5 multiple transiting systems - ie stars with more than one planet transiting them.
The really interesting systems though are the 400 objects that the Kepler team got permission to withhold, and the data on which will be released later.
Statistically 100+ of those ought to be real planets, and probably the most interesting of all the exoplanets they found.
There is a story there.
More later.
Characteristics of Kepler Planetary Candidates Based on the First Data Set: The Majority are Found to be…
catdynamics | June 8, 2010Who is Responsible?
found on facebook
- I gather the fb site is either being pranked or couldn't handle the love
so link is to a blog that hijakced it first posted it - turns out it is from Rachel Maddow blog.
read it and weep
catdynamics | June 4, 2010The Falcon 9 launch was successful!!!
Video below.
Damn cool stage separation!
The Falcon 9 - heavy expendable launch vehicle developed privately by SpaceX launched successfully from Cape Canaveral today!
This is BIG news.
catdynamics | June 3, 2010A pair of papers just out show a mysterious absence of acetylene on Saturn's moon Titan.
Combined with a net flux of molecular hydrogen to the surface, this provides a tantalizing hint that there might be biochemistry taking place, with methane as the working fluid and hydrogen and acetylene as the primary energy source in a reductive metabolism.
Such a metabolic cycle was suggested five years ago by Chris McKay at NASA Ames.
The data, from NASA's Cassini Mission shows two hints of peculiarities.
C2H2 - acetylene is missing from the mix of nitrogen, methane and hydrocarbons seen in Titan's…
catdynamics | June 3, 2010Bad Astronomer reports another possible Jupiter impact
Get on it if you're on a mountain tonight.
Bad Astronomer reports another possible Jupiter impact
Phil has details and links.
Get on it if you're on a mountain tonight.
if confirmed, that is one heck of an impact rate.
YouTube video is up.
catdynamics | June 3, 2010Inspired by Iceland wants you to know Iceland is bursting with energy!
Yes, it really is, and often in a good way.
Today is a social networking blitz to promote Iceland as a destination, since all ya scaredy cat potential tourists are suddenly deciding not to go there so much any more...
What, you're scared by an itsy bitsy little volcano?
Think of it this way: at least in Iceland we have an alert and prepared civil defence authority who know what they are doing and would keep you safer than most any place else in the northern hemisphere.
We like to think.
Anyhow, the promo video is…
catdynamics | June 2, 2010Carleton College, MN is one of the very good Small Liberal Arts Colleges in the US.
It houses the Goodsell Observatory and has produced many excellent astronomers, some of whom retain the famous Carleton sense of humour, still.
Goodsell Observatory then
This week, the Observatory got dressed
click to embiggen
With sound effects.
I predict these students will do very well indeed in grad school.
Awesome.
Carleton: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - A Capella
catdynamics | May 24, 2010I am visiting the lovely Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, again.
Last thursday we had an unusual occurrence, the ocean farted.
I am staying at the new visitors' cottages at Coal Point
- by the way, if you're the type to visit KITP, and a lot of you are, you know who you are... then I highly recommend the West Cottages.
Anyway, Coal Point is so named, because it is the site of the largest natural oil seepage known - about 100 barrels per day! That is about 1% of the likely leak rate at Deepwater Horizons in the Gulf of Mexico - and it is open to the Pacific, pretty much.
The oil…
catdynamics | May 23, 2010there are rumours that the well head at the seafloor at deepwater horizons blew out late sunday night and oil leakage increased significantly
see discussion at the Oil Drum
this is rather bad, if true
BP video link from remote operated sub
see also Monkeyfister blog - with lots of image screen grabs
catdynamics | May 23, 2010The eruption in Eyjafjallajökull has abated and latest reports sunday show the vent closed and no ash or lava flow.
Míla camera shows small steam plume monday morning
The mountain is quiet, no earthquakes right now, nor any in Katla.
There have been many small earthquakes around Iceland, some in worrying places, but no consistent pattern.
The eruption could resume again, the 1821-3 eruption had interim pauses, or the montain could sleep for a few centuries now.
Next question is whether Katla will erupt as it has before, or possibly other sites long this fissure system; Katla is bad, but not…
catdynamics | May 23, 2010song by Tim Miller, for middle America
h/t < HREF="http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/">CR
catdynamics | May 19, 2010Graduate student at the University of California at Santa Barbara finds edge on transiting binary white dwarf system, with self-microlensing!
Ok, this is just way too cool...
artist conception - click for full res version
The modestly named NLTT 11748 is a dim helium white dwarf about 500 light years away.
Helium white dwarfs are the partially burned out cores of moderate mass stars, whose final stages of evolution as giants were interrupted, generally by a companion stars ripping off the giant envelope, leaving the partially burned core, typically at about 0.2 solar masses, composed…
catdynamics | May 18, 2010It is not true that, after the failure to put a specially made "top hat" on top of Eyjafjallajökull to stem the ash plume, there will be an attempt to put a hose on top of the mountain to capture the ash;
rather an attempt will be made to inject a lot of golf balls (used, collected from Akureyri, mostly) and old rubber bands into the vent in the hope that these will jam up the lava flow long enough to stop the eruption of ash...
From Edwin Roald - Golf Course Design - in Iceland
catdynamics | May 18, 2010The KISS is running a mini-workshop at KITP on doing Exoplanet Science Measurements from Solar System probes.
There are a bunch of spacecraft up there, with a lot of instruments.
Many of them, especially the solar system probes, spend a fair amount of time in a quiet cruise phase, where instruments are powered down or in passive mode.
Some missions also have a finite time prime mission, but the spacecraft continues to function and may take more observations.
There is considerable interest to make use of this capability, to use the spacecraft more efficiently, and to use the people more…
catdynamics | May 17, 2010you know how sometimes a bank will just decide that it didn't like how the original term of its loan worked out and it will just change the deal to something better?
They can do that, it is all in the fine print.
Now they've done it again
and it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people.
See, in the debacle that was the end of the Icelandic financial system, a lot of things were tried - kinda stuff I am quite sure will never happen in more mature responsible systems in the developed world.
One thing was the need for capital reserves for the banks as losses started to mount.
The simplest…