Category Archives: Of Interest

Lunar Eclipse June 15

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And The Moon Is Eclipsed By The Earth

by JASON MAJOR on MAY 31, 2011

 

The Moon grows dark during a total lunar eclipse on December 21, 2010/ Credit: Jason Major

On June 15 there will be a total lunar eclipse visible from Australia, Indonesia, southern Japan, India, a large area of Asia, Africa, Europe and the eastern part of South America. This is expected to be one of the darkest eclipses ever (with a magnitude of 1.7), second only to the July 2000 eclipse.

to read more go to:  http://www.universetoday.com/86138/and-the-moon-is-eclipsed-by-the-earth/

Jerusalem Underground

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Beneath Jerusalem, an underground city takes shape

AP

    • In this May 17, 2011 photo, a view of Zedekiah's Cave is seen in Jerusalem's Old City. Underneath the stone buildings and crowded alleys of old JerusaAP – In this May 17, 2011 photo, a view of Zedekiah’s Cave is seen in Jerusalem’s Old City.
By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press – Mon May 30, 12:09 pm ET

JERUSALEM – Underneath the crowded alleys and holy sites of old Jerusalem, hundreds of people are snaking at any given moment through tunnels, vaulted medieval chambers and Roman sewers in a rapidly expanding subterranean city invisible from the streets above.

At street level, the walled Old City is an energetic and fractious enclave with a physical landscape that is predominantly Islamic and a population that is mainly Arab.

Underground Jerusalem is different: Here the noise recedes, the fierce Middle Eastern sun disappears, and light comes from fluorescent bulbs. There is a smell of earth and mildew, and the geography recalls a Jewish city that existed 2,000 years ago.

to read more go to:    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110530/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_underground_jerusalem

Quantum Measurement Without Distortion

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Quantum Physics First: Physicists Measure Without Distorting

ScienceDaily (June 2, 2011) — Quantum mechanics is famous for saying that a tree falling in a forest when there’s no one there doesn’t make a sound. Quantum mechanics also says that if anyone is listening, it interferes with and changes the tree. And so the famous paradox: how can we know reality if we cannot measure it without distorting it?

An international team of researchers, led by University of Toronto physicist Aephraim Steinberg of the Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control, has found a way to do just that by applying a modern measurement technique to the historic two-slit interferometer experiment in which a beam of light shone through two slits results in an interference pattern on a screen behind.

In a new experiment, researchers have succeeded for the first time in experimentally reconstructing full trajectories which provide a description of how light particles move through the two slits and form an interference pattern. (Credit: iStockphoto/Karl Dolenc)

That famous experiment, and the 1927 Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein debates, seemed to establish that you could not watch a particle go through one of two slits without destroying the interference effect: you had to choose which phenomenon to look for.

“Quantum measurement has been the philosophical elephant in the room of quantum mechanics for the past century,” says Steinberg, who is lead author of Observing the Average Trajectories of Single Photons in a Two-Slit Interferometer, to be published in Science on June 2. “However, in the past 10 to 15 years, technology has reached the point where detailed experiments on individual quantum systems really can be done, with potential applications such as quantum cryptography and computation”

to read more go to:   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110602143159.htm

Whale Dialects

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Whales Have Accents and Regional Dialects: Biologists Interpret the Language of Sperm Whales

ScienceDaily (May 12, 2011) — Dalhousie Ph.D. student Shane Gero has recently returned from a seven-week visit to Dominica. He has been traveling to the Caribbean island since 2005 to study families of sperm whales, usually spending two to four months of each year working on the Dominica Sperm Whale Project. One of the goals of this project is to record and compare whale calls over time, examining the various phrases and dialects of sperm whale

When they dive together, sperm whales make patterns of clicks to each other known as “codas.” Recent findings suggest that not only do different codas mean different things, but that whales can also tell which member of their community is speaking based on the sound properties of the codas. Just as we can tell our friends apart by the sounds of their voices and the way they pronounce their words, different sperm whales make the same pattern of clicks, but with different accents

to read more go to:   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110512104252.htm

Mirror Neurons

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Curious Phenomena:

frhttp://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/m/mirror_neuron.htm

A mirror neuron is a neuron which fires both when an animal performs an action and when the animal observes the same action performed by another (especially conspecific) animal.

Thus the neuron “mirrors” the behavior of another animal, as though the observer were itself performing the action.

These neurons have been observed in primates, including humans, and in some birds.

In humans, they have been found in Broca’s area and the inferior parietal cortex of the brain.

Some scientists consider mirror neurons one of the most important findings of neuroscience in the last decade.

 

Mexican Volcano Spewing Ash

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Volcano blasts tower of ash near Mexico City

No report of threat to populated areas from Popocatepetl eruption

Image: Popocatepetl volcano emits smoke column

Ulises Ruiz Basurto  /  EPA

Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano emits a plume of smoke and ash on Friday.
Ulises Ruiz Basurto  /  EPA 

MEXICO CITY — The Popocatepetl volcano that towers over Mexico City is rumbling again.

The 17,886-foot mountain shot a blast of ash about 2 miles above its crater at dawn Friday.

Mexico’s national disaster prevention agency says the cloud drifted first to the west and then turned back east toward the city of Puebla.

It says the mountain shook for several minutes before the ash burst out.

The agency urges people to stay at least 7 miles from the crater, which is about 40 miles southeast of Mexico’s capital.

There were no reports of threat to populated areas.

Fr/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43268083/ns/world_news-americas/

 

Latest Gravity Map

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Best Gravity Map Yet Shows a Lumpy, Bumpy Earth

Nola Taylor Redd, SPACE.com Contributor
Date: 02 June 2011 Time: 07:00 AM ET
ESA
ESA’s GOCE mission has delivered the most accurate model of the ‘geoid’ ever produced. Red corresponds to points with higher gravity, and blue to points with lower gravity.
CREDIT: ESA/HPF/DLR

Take a clay model of Earth and squish it with your fingers, and the result may look similar to the geoid — the latest and best-ever map of our planet’s gravitational field.

to read more go to:    http://www.space.com/11849-earth-gravity-map-geoid.html

UFO’s in California?

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UFOs Spotted Over California?

Benjamin Radford, Life’s Little Mysteries Contributor
Date: 01 June 2011 Time: 04:40 PM ET

A short night-vision video posted on YouTube depicting three lights in the night sky over California has been getting attention on the Web. The video was allegedly recorded in Oakland a few days ago by someone using the handle “KevinMC360.”

Was it a UFO?

Almost certainly, since KevinMC360 was unable to identify the flying objects.

Was it an alien spacecraft?

Probably not. [See the video here]

to read more go to:   http://www.space.com/11850-ufo-oakland-california.html