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Why The First Name On The Ballot Often Wins  

Presidential elections draw lots of attention, but voters also have to make lots of less familiar choices. The order in which their names are listed on the ballot can help candidates, a study shows.

 
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NASA puts lenses through a different drill to stare at the Sun  

19^th century optics gets the 21^st century treatment

NASA Goddard boffins and engineers have taken inspiration from the Fresnel lens to craft a “photon sieve” they hope will help them observe the processes that heat the sun's corona.…

 
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Grism  

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A volume phase holographic grism, a combination of a diffraction grating and a prism. This grism combines a grating from Kaiser Optical Systems Inc. with prism wedges from Janos Technology Inc. and was assembled at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) by Al Camacho and Heidi Yarborough. It is used in the new Multi-Aperture Red Spectrometer (MARS, which is CryoCam resurrected).

Image credit: NOAO/AURA/NSF

 
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Count seals in Antarctica from the comfort of your couch  

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Scientists are asking the public to look through thousands of satellite images of Antarctica to assist in the first-ever, comprehensive count of Weddell seals. Counting seals will help scientists better protect and conserve the pristine Ross Sea and wildlife in the area. Weddell seals are important to the Southern Ocean ecosystem and have been studied since the early 1900s. However, no one has been able to do a comprehensive count of the seals due to the harsh Antarctic weather and remote locations in which the seals live. Now, high-resolution satellite images provide a solution—counting seals on satellite images—but there are too many images for scientists to handle alone. The citizen science project, called Satellites Over Seals (SOS), focuses on about 300 miles of Antarctic coastline along the Ross Sea. Anyone can view the satellite images online from anywhere in the world and help with the count. Crowdsourcing research in this way allows researchers to efficiently and effectively comb through large amounts of data using the public's help.

Image credit: Michelle LaRue, University of Minnesota

 
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505-day trip won't engage much commercial interest

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NASA Cuts Feed!  



I have spent much time in postings discussing the anomalous objects seen on the International Space Station feeds and I think its time to put it into an article so I can stop repeating myself. I have been asked to analyze many such images and video so I want to clarify some information about these feeds before addressing the objects seen on the feeds.

It seems that any article on the feeds from the ISS inevitably start with "NASA Cuts Feed! ..." or something similar. This points out how little people who write such garbage actually know. The feeds are not "CUT" as if they are hiding something. If you are reading this article because the title grabbed you then congratulations. You were the victim of needless sensationalism. Sensationalism with a point for once.

The feeds are transmitted to the ground from the ISS of course. The ISS is moving at over 17000 mph in orbit and the orbit changes slightly with each pass such that the station doesnt go over the same spot with each successive orbit. The ground stations and satellites that relay the signal are occasionally out of range. The coverage network has all kinds of Swiss cheese holes in it where the coverage momentarily drops out or is lost.

Having watched these feeds for two years now almost daily I have come to be able to predict when they will go down based on the known holes in the feeds' groundstation network. I can usually tell where the ISS is roughly located by simply seeing if the feed is UP. Then consulting a sat mapper I can confirm that no it wasnt over Iran but over the Southern Indian Ocean for example. Both locations among others are known 'holes' in the feed.

Here is the point: If NASA were cutting feeds at "critical times" as many articles dramatically claim, then WHY would we EVER see feeds from space that are live? Why would "NASA" ever take that chance? This is a simple "Oh yea...." moment you should be feeling right now. If UFOs were always seen in orbit as a matter of course, then "NASA", if intent on keeping it from us, would NEVER have allowed a live feed that could catch such an activity in the act of happening.

Speaking of NASA, the other very important point that the conspiracy folks like to ignore is that the ISS crew is an INTERNATIONAL crew consisting of Japanese, Russian, and American astronauts. the ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Space Agency) and Roscosmos (Russian Federal space agency) would all have to fully agree to such a coverup. And lets not leave out all the folks in DLR (German Space Agency) and the University of Bonn who are using the High Definition Earth Viewing Experiment (HDEV) data for their purposes. What is perplexing to those of us who remain logical about this is that the Russians are the ones from whom we have always traditionally wished to hide our technology from and a visit from a wayward alien in an UFO would certainly be one of those hidden items.

Further, the feeds are not all managed by NASA. The downlinked feeds are picked up by hundreds of locations around the world and processed or passed on by many people who would ALSO have to be in on the big secret. Jet Propulsion laboratory, JAXA, Roscosmos, and a large international team of monitoring staff watch the feeds all day and all night when they are up. Saying "NASA Cuts the Feed!" is embarrassingly ignorant and short sighted of those who report such. It shows all at once the incredible LACK of knowledge on the part of the reporting organization. I guess we can call it sheer ignorance right?

You can routinely hear Russian controllers talking to Russian crew members on the station The more you look at it the more sinister of a coverup it has to become for the conspiracy for to work. It approaches absolute nonsense at some point. Why hide a secret UFO visiting the ISS? Well if it was a strictly NASA station it would make more sense unlikely as it would be. In such a case the USA would remain in control and in communication with an alien species that no other nation has access to.

But that is NOT the case on the ISS considering its INTERNATIONAL nature... (The "I" in ISS remember) So NOW what is the reason that several countries would hide the technology? If you try to argue that they want it for themselves, it falls completely flat. By default the Russians, Japanese, and Americans would have it... There IS NO OTHER space faring people of substance right now. The Chinese Tiangong station is the equivalent of our 1970s vintage Skylab, and here is no other contender at the moment. We are the only ones with the Russians and Japanese. So what benefit would hiding a UFO visit to the ISS generate? NONE.

I would caution against the urge to play the "world panic" card too because an alien presence on Earth would probably generate peace between warring nations not war or panic. It would be a comfort to most people on Earth to know there was a race that has been visiting us for a long time and now making contact.

It would be CELEBRATED not FEARED.

On the tech side we can easily figure out what we are seeing on the feeds. This includes a number of astronomical objects that are visible in the live video from the ISS. One such object is of course the Moon. The Moon as on Earth shows up day or night. Now night on the ISS is simply being on the backside of the Earth from the Sun. Astronauts are treated to 15 sunrises and sunsets per 24 hour period. An easy test to determine if an object is astronomical in nature or otherwise is to calculate how long it takes to move from place to place and determine which direction it is heading.

One recent sensationalist article that went around the world claimed that an object appeared to be entering the Earth's atmosphere as seen from an ISS feed... And oh yes, "NASA Cuts Feed!" of course. The object was none other than the Moon setting as seen from the ISS and a simple calculation showed the object just happened to be setting at the same rate that the station was moving around the Earth. A remarkable coincidence wouldnt you say?

But it is not just the Moon that can be seen on the feeds. Bright stars and Venus show up plenty of times. On Earth during daylight the Moon is a familiar visible object to most people besides the Sun of course. Keen eyes can spot Venus if you know where to look. On the ISS however, Sun or no Sun, astronomical objects can be seen. There are no Nitrogen and Oxygen molecules in a sky to scatter the blue light from the Sun in a phenomenon called Rayleigh Scattering. This molecular content is the reason we have a blue sky on Earth and the corresponding lack of molecular content on orbit is the reason that the "sky" that the astronauts see is always black.

Lets look at an example that is related to one that I analyzed for this upcoming season of NASA's Unexplained Files. It was called out as an anomaly near the station in the sky seen around the ISS and of course the notion that the "feed was cut" was trotted out because that adds drama. But here is that image:



Looks interesting doesnt it? But, to borrow their own conspiratorial language, what you DIDNT get to see and what the authors of the many articles didnt want you to know was that moments later the image looked like THIS:



Here we can clearly see that it is just an artifact from the bright rising Sun hitting the clear camera cover on the UStream Live ISS feed. You can see many other artifacts as well and this is due to particles that are floating around in space that adhere to the window or due to micrometeorite strikes that pit the glass covering the cameras. So read the articles if you must, provide click income to the purveyors if you want, but see these artifacts for yourself and watch them come and go like clockwork with every rise and set of the Sun as seen from the ISS.

You can follow the ISS via http://www.isstracker.com/ or UStream's live ISS view or looking up the live feeds for the High Definition Experiment (HDEV) ... Be informed!

See you next time!

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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A Sniff Test For Alzheimer's Checks For The Ability To Identify Odors  

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Nottingham's cloning success not usual, though

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Why We Are Not Ready For Mars  
After weeks of witnessing disturbing events that exemplify how angry, vindictive and dangerous humanity can be when it turns on itself, Mars -- as an escapist adventure situated enticingly in our near futures -- looks great in comparison.

Human exploration and eventual habitation of Mars is often described as the ultimate do-over, the proverbial slate wiped clean, a place where we can make a fresh start. When we get there, we will experience the unblemished purism of a new world and will have unprecedented opportunities to pursue science, increase our knowledge of the universe, extend our species beyond our native planet, perhaps even to preserve the human race if something untoward happens to our home planet Earth.

Yes, we may die trying (Musk seems pretty certain of this). It may take the next few decades to do it successfully (NASA's road to Mars is a long meandering one). We may adopt altruistic values and a commitment to off-planet diversity and get near-laughed off the playing field for spending too much time selecting the humans and not enough raising the money or acquiring the tech (Mars One).

The drive to get humans to Mars is real. Plans are afoot. Odds of success are being calculated. Money is being spent. Gobs of it. The primary emphasis is on the hardware needed to get there: sturdy conveyances, unfailing life support systems, radiation shielding and robust boosters to get the whole thing off the ground. We calculate our readiness factor on advancements in technology, while paying much less attention to the minds and spirits of the fragile humans who will be on board.

After a successful journey, safe landing, and initial check that pre-constructed habs and life support are operational, the forced unity and self-discipline required by a pressure-packed mission will begin to dissipate. Eventually, as more humans arrive, more infrastructure is put in place, and day-to-day survival becomes less stressful, some sort of social fabric will emerge. Will humans on Mars mirror and eventually become as divided and destructive as their Earthly counterparts?


Will Mars become another Earth? (photo collage by author)

Susan Ip Jewell is an L.A.-based physician whose organization "Mars Without Borders" seeks to prepare humans for off-world exploration, primarily via "analog experiences" in Mars-like environments that are not so difficult to find on Earth. She's done numerous stints at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah and is preparing for an even longer stay at the Flashline Arctic Research Station.


Susan Ip Jewell, M.D. with robot companion

Jewell insists we look at future space exploration -- and eventual human habitation of Mars -- as an opportunity to address the issues that divide humans on Earth. "We are so fractured, we are so disconnected from each other as a human race right now... How do you expect us to succeed on another planet?"

In an interview for the documentary Madame Mars: Women and the Quest for Worlds Beyond, Jewell describes the borders humans have constructed on Earth: geographical, political, cultural, belief-driven, racial and gender divides. "Earth normal" is distrusting those who are different from us. Our social values are built on divisiveness, not unity.

Clearly this won't work on Mars. Jewell argues that a successful human mission to Mars and other deep space destinations will depend on a "space without borders."

"If we have borders when we go out beyond space," Jewell said, "we would just replicate the disastrous systems that we have here on Earth."

Those who seek opportunities in distant lands are often trying to escape the difficulties or challenges disrupting their present-day lives, in favor of finding a better life elsewhere. If Mars represents a better life -- even one with intense radiation, blood-boiling atmospheric pressure, frigid temperatures and global sandstorms -- we need to ask ourselves, will those who settle on Mars still be better off than if they'd stayed on Earth?

Most debates to date over governance on Mars suggests the settlers will build their own society from within, develop and institute their own rules of behavior, and set up a way to settle the inevitable disputes. As much as all of humanity will be pulling for these first off-Earth settlers to succeed, many retain a nagging doubt over whether this will be possible. Humans may not be ready for Mars.

Before we climb on the expertly constructed spaceships, before we breathe the artificially generated air or reconstitute the dried packets of astronaut food, we need to repair the mental constructs that create Earth-based boundaries that have led to hatred of others, warfare, terrorism, subjugation of entire races or genders.

Before we go to Mars, certainly before we soil another planet, let's reframe the human associations we live with daily, with an eye toward how we will represent our species when we travel to other worlds. Let's do anything we can on Earth to boost our own confidence that humans will succeed when they put their off-Earth lives together and build communities on a whole new planet.

The early Mars settlers will be us, but they do not need to be like us.

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Henry Christy Scientist of the Day Henry Christy, an English...  

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Henry Christy Scientist of the Day

Henry Christy, an English banker and archaeologist, was born July 26, 1810.

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