Goons in action
Brownshirt alert: Watch how these union participants at this union rally react to the fact that several citizens are videotaping the event:
Author: Robert Zimmerman
73,000 blogs shut down on orders of the Federal government
Freedom of speech alert: Orders by government officials cause 73,000 blogs to be shut down.
Loss of floating ice?
A paper published on Saturday in Geophysical Research Letters by the American Geophysical Union attempts to calculate the total ice loss at the polar caps and how it will affect the sea level. Key quote from the abstract: “Rapid losses of Arctic sea ice and small Antarctic ice shelves are partially offset by thickening of Antarctic sea ice and large Antarctic ice shelves.”
WISE telescope first survey almost complete
SpaceShipTwo carries its first crew
The test flights continue for WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo. On July 15 the two ships, flying as a unit, made their first flight with two crew members inside SpaceShipTwo.
Vera-Ellen dancing to the Ocarina
An evening pause: Though Vera-Ellen made only a handful of films and is not that well known today, during the late 1940s and 1950s she was one of Hollywood’s top female dancers. Here she performs a delightful dance number from the film Call Me Madame (1953).
Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli
An Evening Pause: Let’s have some more music, this time something so deeply beautiful it makes the heart ache: Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli singing Time to Say Goodbye.
Some weekend cave exploration
Posting today shall be very quiet, mostly because I am out in West Virginia, exploring a previously unknown upper level in a cave we are mapping. This passage was only discovered last month by Aaron Moses, John Harman, and Pete Johnson, who did a bolt climb of over 70 feet to reach a high lead in the wall of the cave. This weekend we will be pushing and mapping these virgin passages. Below is a picture taken by Brian Masney of Aaron Moses as he worked his way up the wall, with Pete Johnson providing a belay. More of Brian’s pictures can be seen on his Flicker webpage.
Knowledge or Certainty
An evening pause: One of the best television science series ever produced was The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski. Rather than simply describe science and knowledge, Bronowski instead pondered the nature of humanity. The best episode of the series was Knowledge or Certainty, in which Bronowski compared the humane uncertainty of science with the terrible consequences of dogma. As Oliver Cromwell said, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”
The invention of the CD player
Want to know who invented the basic technology that made possible CD and DVD players possible? Take a look at this restrospective describing the discovery, from Physical Review Focus of the American Physcial Society.
Scientists measure the rise and fall of lakes on Titan
It appears we are entering the dry season on Titan. Scientists have observed a 1 meter drop in the levels of Titan’s methane lakes over the last four years as the seasons on the moon go from summer to fall. Fun quote: “[The scientists] report that the shoreline of Ontario Lacus receded by about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from June 2005 to July 2009.”
AP reports 25,000 new asteroids found by Wise
An AP report today says that the infrared WISE space telescope has catalogued 25,000 new asteroids, 95 of which are near Earth objects. Actual data, however, has not yet been released.