1470470687000

art

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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/aug/05/vincent-van-gogh-myths-madness-and-a-new-way-of-painting
Vincent van Gogh: myths, madness and a new way of painting

A new exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum sets out to separate the artist's late work from the myths surrounding his ‘madness'. But does a clinical interpretation of his paintings miss the mystery of his vision?

When Vincent van Gogh got out of hospital in January 1889, with a white bandage covering the place where his left ear had been, he immediately went back to work in his house next to a cafe in the southern French town of Arles. A still life he painted that month looks like a determined attempt to hold on to the things of this world, to quell his inner turbulence by concentrating on the solid facts of his life. Around a sturdy wooden table he has laid out a symbolic array of the simple pillars of his existence. Four onions. A medical self-help book. A candle. The pipe and tobacco he found steadying. A letter from his brother Theo. A teapot. And one more thing: a large, emptied bottle of absinthe.

Has he drunk the absinthe since leaving hospital? Does its emptiness represent a promise to swear off the stuff from now on?

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art

1470470235000

astronomy

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/26zTv-LPXAg/cern-revealed-today-that-the-lhc-discovery-of-new-physics-photons-last-december-were-a-mirage-were-still-looking-only-at-th.html
CERN: The LHC Discovery of "New Physics" Particles Last December Were a Mirage --"We're Still Looking Only at the Tip of the Hidden Mystery"

Last December CERN announced a collection of unexpected observations at the Large Hadron Collider. Scientists quickly submitted over 500 papers, each inventing a new way to explain the observations, which seemed to challenge the foundations of the long-standing but tottering Standard Model. Now, in a new paper uploaded last night, CERN makes it clear that the exciting December measurements were mere statistical blips, flips of the hadron coin so to speak.

The particle accelerator ramped up to its fastest, most energetic collisions yet in 2015, with initially surprising results. Two different experiments (ATLAS and CMS) examine the products of collisions for new and unexpected physics—each serving as a check on the other. And in December, both teams reported the exact same thing: more pairs of photons with a combined energy of 750 gigaelectronvolts than expected. No particle or process in the Standard Model could explain the anamoly of the extra photons. The proponents of a New Physics buzzed: surely the new world of the dark universe was soon to be revealed.

Despite the discovery of the existence of the Higgs Boson on July 4, 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, puzzling questions about the nature of the universe remain unanswered. For example, the essential properties of neutrinos are still a mystery. And dark matter and dark energy, which together constitute 95 percent of the universe, are today still astonishing enigmas. The Higgs particle is unlike any other particle we have ever encountered. Why is it different? Are there more? Neutrinos are very light, elusive particles that change their identity as they travel. How do they fit into our understanding of nature? Are there new hidden dimensions of space and time?

Known particles constitute 1/6 of all the matter in the universe. The rest we call dark matter. But what is it? Can we detect these particles in our labs? Are there other undiscovered particles in nature? There are four known forces in nature. Are these manifestations of a single unified force? Are there unexpected new forces? Both matter and anti-matter were produced in the Big Bang, but today our world is composed only of matter. Why? Why is the expansion of the universe accelerating?

A similar red herring event occured in 2012 when the LHC to reach previously unachieved energies, the accelerator started up again after improvements, and ATLAS and CMS both saw extra photons summing to 125 gigaelectronvolts. Teams searched again a few months later to check their results—and continued to see photons at the exact same energy. They were definitely observing a brand-new particle. At the time, though, there remained a single unconfirmed piece of the Standard Model: ATLAS and CMS had found the Higgs boson, the final piece of the puzzle. The Higgs is a huge step toward understanding how particles acquire mass—and measured “theta one-three”—an important number that may lead to a better understanding of neutrino properties and nature's imbalance between matter and antimatter.

But, unlike the Higgs discovery, the photons announced in December 2015 were a blip of particularly interesting noise. “This is pretty unfortunate,” theoretical physicist Michele Redi wrote Wired in an email, “as it would have been the greatest discovery in several decades in our field.”

It seems likely that with the Higgs, we're seeing only the tip of the iceberg. The Higgs field seems to give mass to just some particles; others are still complete mysteries. Meanwhile, we're working to understand why there's matter and not antimatter everywhere we look. What's more, there are particles out there like neutrinos about which we are still almost completely ignorant. And then there's the elephant in the room—the “dark universe” of dark matter and dark energy.

The Daily Galaxy via CERN, Symmetry.org, Wired.com

CERN: "Will This Summer's LHC Photon Collisions Reveal a New Theory of Space and Time?"

The Higgs Particle --"It Can Disintegrate Into Dark Matter"

"Beyond the God Particle" --China to Trump CERN's LHC: Twice the Size and Seven Times as Powerful

CERN's Large-Hadron-Collider Discovery of the Higgs Boson --"Points to an Unstable, Collapsing Universe"

Particles could give us clues to the aftermath of the Big Bang

Supersymmetry? --"Standard Model of the Universe Fails to Explain Dark Matter or Dark Energy"

Europe's Large Hadron Collider --"May Unveil Something Totally Unthinkable" In Months Ahead (Weekend Feature)

astronomy

1470470232000

astronomy

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/k_d3XRjjZTg/nasa-suspends-future-live-tv-feeds-from-the-international-space-station-move-follows-ufo-cover-up-claims-nasa-has-announce.html
NASA Suspends Future Live TV Feeds from the International Space Station --"Move Follows UFO Cover Up Claims"

NASA has announced that the space agency has suspended future live TV feeds from the International Space Station. UFO theorists will now surely look at NASA's move as further confirmation after a live NASA video feed by the ISS was cut on July 9th as a blurry round object was seen descending from the upper-right corner on the live feed before the screen went dark as the UFO appeared to stop and a notice followed indicating technical difficulties. The incident was captured on a You Tube video that prompted alien hunters and conspiracy theorist to think that NASA was covering up the sighting.

Some reports theorized the object may be Chinese space station Tiangong-1, which was launched in 2011. NASA has been accused of cutting live feed before as an April video showing a horseshoe-like object supposedly changing direction suspiciously dropped.

NASA spokesman Daniel Huot told the Daily News in an email that the camera's signal was simply interrupted. The video was part of an experiment researching how ordinary cameras function in the harsh environment of space. Huot said sometimes the cameras lose connection with satellites used to transmit video to the ground, which is what happened in this case.

"It's very common for things like the moon, space debris, reflections from station windows, the spacecraft structure itself or lights from Earth to appear as artifacts in photos and videos from the orbiting laboratory," Huot said.

The Daily Galaxy via NASA Video, YouTube, Nature World News

Image credit top of page: static.guim.co.uk

ISS Destiny Module Leads to New Discovery --"Things can Happen Out There that Can't Happen Here"

"Beyond Astrobiology" --New Technologies in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

International Space Station Live Video Feed Cut "As Unknown Object Slows Down" --Triggers Viral UFO Speculation, NASA Denial

ISS-Bound Antares Explosion --Space X's Elon Musk: Rocket's Outdated Technology "A Joke"

A Moment of Zen --Titan Beyond Saturn's Rings

astronomy

1470470230000

astronomy

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/28751511106/
A Hubble Sky Full of Stars

NASA Goddard Photo and Video posted a photo:

So Coldplay isn't the only one to see a sky full of stars, these are 22K light-years away

Located approximately 22,000 light-years away in the constellation of Musca (The Fly), this tightly packed collection of stars — known as a globular cluster — goes by the name of NGC 4833. This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the dazzling stellar group in all its glory.

NGC 4833 is one of the over 150 globular clusters known to reside within the Milky Way. These objects are thought to contain some of the oldest stars in our galaxy. Studying these ancient cosmic clusters can help astronomers to unravel how a galaxy formed and evolved, and give an idea of the galaxy's age.

Globular clusters are responsible for some of the most striking sights in the cosmos, with hundreds of thousands of stars congregating in the same region of space. Hubble has observed many of these clusters during its time in orbit around our planet, each as breathtaking as the last.

bit.ly/2b85p36

Image credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA

NASA image use policy.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA's mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA's accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency's mission.

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astronomy

1470470227000

astronomy

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/4WvIKzU26DI/violent-past-as-prelude-milky-way-collided-with-a-galaxy-or-massive-dark-matter-structure-100-million-years-ago-our-milky-w.html
Violent Past as Prelude -- "Milky Way Collided With a Small Galaxy or Massive Dark Matter Structure 100 Million Years Ago"

"Our Milky Way had an encounter with a small galaxy or massive dark matter structure perhaps as recently as 100 million years ago," said Larry Widrow, professor at Queen's University, part of a team of astronomers from Canada and the United States who have discovered what may well be the smoking gun of such an encounter, one that occurred close to our position in the galaxy and relatively recently, at least in the cosmological sense. "We clearly observe unexpected differences in the Milky Way's stellar distribution above and below the Galaxy's midplane that have the appearance of a vertical wave -- something that nobody has seen before," Widrow added.

The discovery is based on observations in 2012 of some 300,000 nearby Milky Way stars by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Stars in the disk of the Milky Way move up and down at a speed of about 20-30 kilometers per second while orbiting the ce nter of the galaxy at a brisk 220 kilometers per second. Widrow and his four collaborators from the University of Kentucky, the University of Chicago and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have found that the positions and motions of these nearby stars weren't quite as regular as previously thought.

"Our part of the Milky Way is ringing like a bell," said Brian Yanny, of the Department of Energy's Fermilab. "But we have not been able to identify the celestial object that passed through the Milky Way. It could have been one of the small satellite galaxies that move around the center of our galaxy, or an invisible structure such as a dark matter halo."

"The perturbation need not have been a single isolated event in the past, and it may even be ongoing. Additional observations may well clarify its origin," added Susan Gardner, professor of physics at the University of Kentucky.

When the collaboration started analyzi ng the SDSS data on the Milky Way, they noticed a small but statistically significant difference in the distribution of stars north and south of the Milky Way's midplane. For more than a year, the team members explored various explanations of this north-south asymmetry, such as the effect of interstellar dust on distance determinations and the way the stars surveyed were selected. When those attempts failed, they began to explore the alternative explanation that the data was telling them something about recent events in the history of the Galaxy.

The scientists used computer simulations to explore what would happen if a satellite galaxy or dark matter structure passed through the disk of the Milky Way. The simulations indicate that over the next 100 million years or so, our galaxy will "stop ringing:" the north-south asymmetry will disappear and the vertical motions of stars in the solar neighborhood will revert back to their equilibrium orbits -- unless we get hit again.

The Milky Way is more than 9 billion years old with about 100 billion stars and total mass more than 300 billion times that of the sun. Most of the mass in and around the Milky Way is in the form of dark matter.

Scientists know of more than 20 visible satellite galaxies that circle the center of the Milky Way, with masses ranging from one million to one billion solar masses. There may also be invisible satellites made of dark matter. (There is six times as much dark matter in the universe as ordinary, visible matter.) Astronomers' computer simulations have found that this invisible matter formed hundreds of massive structures that move around our Milky Way.

Because of their abundance, these dark matter satellites are more likely than the visible satellite galaxies to cut through the Milky Way's midplane and cause vertical waves.

"Future astronomical programs, will be able to map out the vertical perturbations in our galaxy in unprecedented detail," Widrow said. "That will offer a strong test of our findings."

Today's Most Popular

The Daily Galaxy via Fermi Lab

Thirty Percent of Stars Have Migrated Across the Milky Way --"Was Our Sun One?"

Milky Way Found to Be Much Larger Than Thought --Extending Width 50% to 150,000 Light Years!

Colossal Void, a Dead Zone Discovered in Heart of the Milky Way --"Requires a Major Revision in Our Thinking"

The Milky Way's Massive Spinning Halo --New Insights

Astronomers Reveal the Rotation of the Hot Gas Around the Milky Way

astronomy

1470469170000

robots

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r0B0t: The Washington Post will use robots to write stories about the Rio ... - Recode

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The Washington Post will use robots to write stories about the Rio ...
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The Post is using homegrown software to automatically produce hundreds of real-time news reports about the Olympics. Starting tomorrow morning, those items ...
The Washington Post's Newest Olympics Reporter Is Artificial ...FishbowlDC (blog)
Robots will cover the Olympics for The Washington Post | TechCrunchTechCrunch
Robot reporters covering Olympics for the Washington PostThe Stack
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robots

1470467359000

culture

%feed
http://insider.si.edu/2016/08/let-games-begin/
Let the Games Begin

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

With the kickoff of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro imminent, the time was right to pull out this groovy 1972 portrait from the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. It shows the mustachioed swimmer Mark Spitz sporting the seven gold medals he won that year.

Spitz had competed in the 1968 Olympics, but the 1972 games in Munich saw him reach Olympics immortality when he set the world record for the most gold medals won during a single Olympic Games, collected in both individual and team events.

Michael Phelps, who will again swim in the 2016 Olympics, currently holds the record for the most gold medals received in a single Olympics. He won eight in the 2008 Beijing games and holds the record for the most Olympic medals won—though it remains to be seen if he can rock a star-spangled swimsuit like Spitz.

More Olympians in the Portrait Gallery's collection can be viewed here: http://npg.si.edu/portraits/olympians.

More Olympics items in the Smithsonian collection are here: http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/olympics.

The post Let the Games Begin appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

culture

1470467357000

culture

%feed
http://insider.si.edu/2016/08/another-earth-kepler-astronomers-pinpoint-likeliest-candidates/
Another Earth? Kepler astronomers pinpoint likeliest candidates

Kepler-186f, seen here in an artist's rendering and discovered in 2014 by a team of astronomers, is one of more than 200 “exoplanets” that researchers say lie within the “habitable zone” of their stars and could potentially have life. (NASA image by Danielle Futselaar)

Looking for another Earth? An international team of researchers has pinpointed which of the more than 4,000 exoplanets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are most likely to be similar to our rocky home.

The research, detailed in an article to be published in the Astrophysical Journal, outlines 216 Kepler planets located within the “habitable zone” — the area around a star in which a planet's surface could hold liquid water. Of those, 20 are named the best candidates to be habitable rocky planets like Earth.

“This is the complete catalog of all of the Kepler discoveries that are in the habitable zone of their host stars,” said Stephen Kane, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at San Francisco State University and lead author of the study. “That means we can focus in on the planets in this paper and perform follow-up studies to learn more about them, including if they are indeed habitable.”

Studying and cataloging the more than 4,000 exoplanets took more than three years and involved researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, NASA, Arizona State University, Caltech, University of Hawaii-Manoa, the University of Bordeaux and Cornell University.

This figure shows the habitable zone for stars of different temperatures, as well as the location of terrestrial size planetary candidates and confirmed Kepler planets described in new research from SF State astronomer Stephen Kane. Some of the Solar System terrestrial planets are also shown for comparison. (Image by Chester Harman)

The research also confirms that the distribution of Kepler planets within the habitable zone is the same as the distribution of those outside of it — additional evidence that the universe is teeming with planets and moons where life could potentially exist.

The boundaries of the habitable zone are critical. If a planet is too close to its star, it will experience a runaway greenhouse gas effect, like Venus. But if it's too far, any water will freeze, as is seen on Mars. The authors sorted the planets by whether they were in a conservative or a more optimistic interpretation of the habitable zone. Then they further sorted them by size: smaller, rocky planets versus larger gas giants.

The four categories are aimed at helping astronomers focus their research. Those looking for moons that could potentially hold life can study exoplanets in the gas giant categories, for example.

The 20 planets in the most restrictive category — rocky surface and a conservative habitable zone — are the most likely to be similar to Earth. The authors have already begun gathering additional data on these planets, as well as those in the other categories.

“A catalog of Kepler habitable zone exoplanet candidates,” by Stephen R. Kane, Michelle L. Hill, James F. Kasting, Ravi Kumar Kopparapu, Elisa V. Quintana, Thomas Barclay, Natalie M. Batalha, William J. Borucki, David R. Ciardi, Nader Haghighipour, Natalie R. Hinkel, Lisa Kaltenegger, Franck Selsis and Guillermo Torres, can be read online at http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.00620 and will be published in an upcoming print edition of the Astrophysical Journal.

The post Another Earth? Kepler astronomers pinpoint likeliest candidates appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

culture