Author Archives: marcia

The Look of Fear

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Scientists find out what fear looks like from space

June 16, 2011

Scientists find out what fear looks like from spaceEnlarge

Heron Island lagoon. Image downloaded from Google Earth 13 Oct. 2010. Image date 2 Aug. 2006. Credit: 2011 DigitalGlobe

(PhysOrg.com) — While most of us could find no better use for Google Earth than checking out a holiday destination, scientists in Sydney have shown it can reveal a lot about the behaviour of marine life on the Great Barrier Reef.

In what is believed to be the first research of its kind, University of Technology, Sydney  Dr Elizabeth Madin and colleagues – including Dr. Joshua Madin of Macquarie University and Professor David Booth from UTS – have used satellite images to observe the indirect effects of behavioural interactions between predators and prey in the lagoon habitat at Heron Island.

The results, published in the paper “Landscape of fear visible from space” in the first issue of the journal Nature Scientific Reports, have revealed distinct patterns of grazing halos – rings of bare sand devoid of seaweed – within the algal beds surrounding isolated groups of coral.

to read more go to:   http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-scientists-space.html

 

Invisibility Cloak?

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Invisibility carpet cloak can hide objects from visible light

June 15, 2011 by Lisa Zyga

Invisibility carpet cloak can hide objects from visible lightEnlarge

When an input beam (black arrow) reflects off (a) a bump without a cloak, the bump causes a perturbation. When the beam reflects off (b) a bump covered by a cloak, the cloak masks the bump, and the reflected beam is reconstructed as if the bump did not exist. (c) Light after reflection from a flat mirror, a bump without a cloak, and a cloaked bump, at three different wavelengths. Image credit: Majid Gharghi, et al. ©2011 American Chemical Society

he researchers, led by Prof. Xiang Zhang at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have published their study in a recent issue of .

As the researchers explain, most previous invisibility cloaks have used metallic metamaterials for cloaking at . But at , the metal absorbs too much  and leads to significant metallic loss, and Berkeley and other groups have had to design dielectric cloaks at infrared frequencies. More recently, researchers at University of Birmingham (UK) have experimented with using uniaxial  as the cloak material, which can enable cloaking in visible frequencies, but only for a certain polarization of light.

to read more, go to:    http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-invisibility-carpet-cloak-visible.html

 

Superfast Waves found on the Sun

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Solar Dynamics Observatory detects superfast solar waves moving at 2,000 km/sec

June 15, 2011

Solar Dynamics Observatory detects superfast solar waves moving at 2,000 km/secEnlarge

(a) 171 Ĺ image showing the funnel and loop in which fast waves propagate. (b) 1600 Ĺ image showing flare ribbons. (c) 171 Ĺ base difference image showing dimming behind the CME front. The four brackets mark the smaller FOV of the other panels. (d)-(f ) 171 Ĺ running difference images showing successive wave fronts propagating in the funnel. The three curved cuts are used to obtain space-time diagrams shown in Fig. 2. The square box marks the region for Fourier analysis in Fig.4. (g)-(i) Images of (d)-(f ) in the boxed region Fourier filtered with a narrow Gaussian centered at the peak in Fig. 4(b) at frequency ν = 14.5 mHz (P = 69 s) and wave number k = 9.0 × 10-3 Mm -1 (λ = 110 Mm), which highlight the corresponding fast wave trains.

(PhysOrg.com) — Scientists using the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument on board NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), have detected quasi-periodic waves in the low solar corona that travel at speeds as high as 2,000 kilometers per second (4.5 million miles per hour). These observations provide, for the first time, unambiguous evidence of propagating fast mode magnetosonic waves at such high speeds in the Sun’s low atmosphere

to read more go to:    http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-solar-dynamics-observatory-superfast-kmsec.html

fr/Burnt Norton by T.S. Eliot

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FOUR QUARTETS by T.S. ELIOT

QUARTET #1—BURNT NORTON

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

to read the complete poem, go to:    http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/

Bigger Ash Clouds Coming?

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Ash clouds? You ain’t seen nothing yet

June 13, 2011

The recent volcanic eruptions in Iceland upset airline bosses and caused a lot of fuss, but they were trivial by comparison with what could happen next, according to Clive Oppenheimer’s new book.

End of the Delusion – Climategate exposed the fraud But climate hucksters carry on – www.heartland.org

If you thought the Icelandic volcano was bad – think again. According to a new study, the recent ash clouds that grounded aircraft and marooned holiday-makers were “just a taste” of the widespread air pollution, public health problems and agricultural crises that future, bigger eruptions could bring.

These are just a few of the conclusions of what, rather ironically, claims to be a “non-catastrophist” new book by the University of Cambridge volcanologist, Dr. Clive Oppenheimer, entitled Eruptions That Shook The World and published by Cambridge University Press.

to read more, go to:    http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-ash-clouds-aint.html

 

 

Longest Total Lunar Eclipse in Years Wednesday

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Longest Total Lunar Eclipse in 11 Years Occurs Wednesday

SPACE.com Staff
Date: 13 June 2011 Time: 07:33 AM ET
A total lunar eclipse is seen as the full moon is shadowed by the Earth on the arrival of the winter solstice, Tuesday, December 21, 2010 in Arlington, VA. From beginning to end, the eclipse lasted about three hours and twenty-eight minutes.
A total lunar eclipse is seen as the full moon is shadowed by the Earth on the arrival of the winter solstice, Tuesday, December 21, 2010 in Arlington, VA. From beginning to end, the eclipse lasted about three hours and twenty-eight minutes.
CREDIT: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The longest total lunar eclipse since July 2000 will occur on Wednesday (June 15), with skywatchers in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Australia in prime position to witness the moon treat.

The event is the first lunar eclipse of 2011 and one of two total lunar eclipses this year. The eclipse, which will occur during June’s full moon, will begin at 1:24 p.m. EDT (1724 GMT) and last until 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT), but it will not be visible from North America.

For observers in regions where it will be visible, the eclipse could offer an amazing sight: the period of totality will be 100 minutes. In the last 100 years, only three other eclipses have rivaled the duration of totality of this eclipse, according to SPACE.com’s skywatching columnist Joe. Rao. The last lunar eclipse of similar length occured on July 16, 2000 and lasted 107 minutes.

to read more,. go to:   http://www.space.com/11941-extra-long-total-lunar-eclipse-occurs-wednesday.html

Drop in Solar Activity Predicted

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Sun’s Fading Spots Signal Big Drop in Solar Activity

by Denise Chow, SPACE.com Staff Writer
Date: 14 June 2011 Time: 03:50 PM ET

Some unusual solar readings, including fading sunspots and weakening magnetic activity near the poles, could be indications that our sun is preparing to be less active in the coming years.

The results of three separate studies seem to show that even as the current sunspot cycle swells toward the solar maximum, the sun could be heading into a more-dormant period, with activity during the next 11-year sunspot cycle greatly reduced or even eliminated.

to read more, go to:    http://www.space.com/11960-fading-sunspots-slower-solar-activity-solar-cycle.html

Southwest Monsoon Season looks Severe

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Southwest USA Monsoon Season to yield more severe storms than usual

Published on June 13, 2011 5:10 pm PT
– By Kevin Martin – Senior Meteorologist
– Article Editor and Approved – Warren Miller


Click for larger image

(TheWeatherSpace.com) — It has been a colder than average June across the Southwestern United States and this is leaving me to believe the year will be more severe in terms of the intensity of thunderstorms in the Southwestern United States, from large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes.

There is a hint of hope that the season will start through Arizona and Mexico by the end of this month as the Four Corner High Pressure system develops, however a persistent trough in the Pacific will keep much of the ridge from fully forming.

to read more, go to:    http://www.theweatherspace.com/news/TWS-06_13_2011_monsoon2011.html

 

“The Second Coming” W.B. Yeats

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One of my favorite poems:

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 


Take A Breather

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Things are hectic and crazy these days.  There seems little prospect of this changing.  Our job is to deal, to cope, perhaps even to overcome.  In order to do this, we need to be in contact with WHO we are as much as possible.

The good thing about being in contact with our WHO is that we have a sense of our own worth and our own power. What we choose to so with that is our own stuff.

Under any circumstances, there is no judgement here. Rather, I am offering a suggestion for a way to make through the day with a little less stress.  It is an easy method, but as we learn from reading Taoism, the small stuff is generally the hardest.  We are conditioned to complicate.  To find reasons, to find motives to make observations.  What if you just needed one.  Hmm, not very… democratic?

Well, enough of that.  I have a small exercise (no huffing and puffing required) that, if used on a daily basis, can bring a bit of peace into the day.

Take a minute out of every hour of the day to center.  (If you are awake fourteen hours, that is fourteen minutes.  Not bad.) Just put everything down.  Close your eyes or perhaps focus your eyes on a peaceful picture.  Take two deep breaths.  See all the stuff just rolling off of you.  It can puddle at your feet.  You can send down into whatever is below you.  Feel how great it is to let things go for a bit. Watch it as it goes.  Then see a great white, shining light come down and flow through your body.  Renewing your energy.  Re-establishing WHO you are in your core self.  When it has fully engulfed you, go to your heart center, take two deep breaths. Add a bit of gratitude, a Namaste, whatever, and come back to where you were.

The end.  A one minute vacation to the center of it all.