Archive for the 'Science' Category

Earthquakes Rattle the San Francisco Bay Area

By: alex.chrum, March 6, 2012 in News and Science. Closed Tags: , .

This morning, residents of the San Francisco Bay Area were jolted awake by two back-to-back earthquakes, which were reportedly felt as far as 60 miles away from the epicenter.

At 5:33 A.M. Tuesday, a magnitude-3.5 earthquake struck roughly eight miles northeast of San Francisco. A mere eight seconds later, a 4.0-magnitude quake hit near the city of El Cerrito. Luckily, there have been no reports of any damage or injuries as a result of the earthquakes.

Two back-to-back earthquakes hit the Bay Area this early this morning

This morning’s events stand as a reminder of the looming danger facing residents of one of the most highly-populated areas in the United States. Seismologists report that the quakes took place along the Hayward Fault, which many consider to be one of the most dangerous fault lines in California. In 2003, the United States Geological Survey reported a 27 percent likelihood of 6.7-magnitude quake in the Hayward Fault within the next 30 years.

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Genius Stephen Hawking Admits to Having Trouble With the Ladies

By: alex.chrum, January 6, 2012 in Science and Technology. Closed Tags: , .

Stephen Hawking, perhaps the most brilliant mind of our generation, has revealed in an interview with New Scientist magazine that there is still one aspect of the world that completely defies his understanding. Hawking, a University of Cambridge physicist and theoretical cosmologist, has dedicated his life’s work to unearthing the nature of the universe at large, including where it came from, what it is and where it is going. He gained fame for his bestselling book “A Brief History of Time,” in which he attempts to explain a wide variety of subjects in cosmology to the common reader, including the Big Bang, black holes and light cones. Hawking, who is about to celebrate his 70th birthday at a symposium entitled “The State of the Universe,” has been left almost paralyzed from the rare motor neurone ailment called Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Stephen Hawking still doesn't understand women

In an interview with one of the world’s best science and technology news magazines, Hawking admitted the most significant mistake of his career. “I used to think that information was destroyed in black holes,” he said. “But the AdS/CFT correspondence led me to change my mind. This was my biggest blunder, or at least my biggest blunder in science.” Garnering more attention, however, is a comment in the same interview regarding the one aspect of the world that still totally defies his comprehension: females. “Women,” he said, “are a complete mystery.”

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Author and Visionary Christopher Hitchens Passes Away at 61

By: alex.chrum, December 16, 2011 in Literature, Passings, Politics and Science. Closed Tags: , .

“Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.” –Christopher Hitchens

Yesterday, December 15, 2011, controversial author, journalist, humanist and political activist Christopher Hitchens lost his battle with esophageal cancer. Hitchens, an outspoken atheist, was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant minds of our time.

Christopher Hitchens speaks during a debate in New York in 2005

In fact, he was voted the world’s fifth top public intellectual in a Prospect/Foreign Policy poll. While exceptionally smart, he was also remarkably accessible, writing for The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate and other publications. In 2007, he published a book on atheism and the nature of religion titled God is Not Great. His central argument, which is both incredibly powerful and controversial, is that the concept of god is a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom. He believed that free expression and science should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization. Undoubtedly, he was one of the most prophetic and brilliant minds of the century.

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Could the God Particle Save Our Society?

By: alex.chrum, December 13, 2011 in Science and Technology. Closed Tags: , .

The age-old battle between religion and science might soon be coming to an end thanks to researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also called CERN. CERN, located in Geneva, Switzerland, is home to the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider. For days now, speculation has been running rampant that scientists at CERN had finally located the elusive “God particle,” officially called the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is believed by many to hold the key to the origin of the universe, as it has potential to explain the origin of mass (in accordance with the Big Bang Theory).

Workers in front of the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider

On Thursday, December 13, scientists at CERN announced that they had narrowed the list of possible hiding places for the Higgs and appear to be hot in its trail. “I think we are getting very close,” said Vivek Sharma, a physicist at the University of California, San Diego, and the leader of the search for Higgs. “We may be getting the first tantalizing hints, but it’s a whiff, it’s a smell, it’s not quite the whole thing.”

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Earthquake in Turkey Reminds Midwesterners of the Fears Lurking in Their Own Backyard

By: alex.chrum, October 24, 2011 in News, Politics, Science and Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , .

Yesterday around 1:40 P.M. local time, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit about 12 miles from the Turkish city of Van. Its effects and aftershocks left most of the eastern part of the country in utter destruction, with a total of 970 buildings having collapsed, including 25 apartment buildings and a student dormitory.

The Golcuk Mosque and Minaret stand unaffected amidst the destruction of Sunday's earthquake

So far, 264 people have died and 1,300 are injured. Unfortunately, however, these numbers are expected to rise astronomically, as more extensive rescue efforts are underway today. The main obstacle to clean-up efforts now is the near-freezing temperatures, forcing rescuers and survivors alike to test their own physical limitations. Despite this frigid atmosphere, a good number of residents refuse to return to their homes and are instead sleeping on the streets, either because their residences have been destroyed or simply because they are scared.

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Space Shuttle Atlantis Jettisons Toward Space for the Last Time

By: Zack Stovall, July 8, 2011 in News and Science. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The Space Shuttle Program, the primary means by which man has journeyed into space for the last three decades, began its final chapter this morning, launching the Shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station for the the last time.

Atlantis is taking supplies to the International Space Station as its final mission. It’s the shuttle’s 135th launch to date.

NASA began making cuts to the Space Shuttle Program in 2003 after the Columbia disaster, in which the shuttle exploded returning to Earth. Shortly after the tragedy, then-President Bush said the program would be closed by the end of the decade, citing the expensive cost of contract workers needed to run the program. He also announced a new moon initiative, but never brought it up again after that announcement and the Obama Administration has deemed that too expensive to be completed.

So for Americans to get into space, they will now have to taxi with Russian cosmonauts or hope the private sector can develop space flight relatively quickly. The Obama Administration has called this a “flexible” plan going forward, as it hopes the private sector will eventually pick up the slack for American-manned space flight.

Tomorrow Is Earth Day: Give the Planet an Actual Pat on the Back

By: Zack Stovall, April 21, 2011 in Celebrities, Holidays and Science. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Tomorrow is the much-ballyhooed holiday, Earth Day, created to celebrate the vast wealth of natural resources afforded to us by this gorgeous celestial orb of ours and to remind us, the lowly and humble inhabitants therein, to cherish its beauty and splendor and to be good stewards while we have our precious moments on its terrestrial plains.

Roughly translated: NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR GAS GUZZLER ANYMORE, DAD.

While tomorrow is Earth Day, the entire week has been dedicated to Earth Week. You may have noticed several television stations have made their logos green and feature some of their most vaunted spokespeople reminding you what you can do in your day to day routine to be a more conscious inhabitant of the environment. Because if anything says “We don’t want to just look like we care about the environment,” it’s getting people who are paid good money to speak words that they don’t really mean and that other people write for them to say things for them.

I think by now people get the basics: Recycle, homies. It’s not that hard, just get another trash can for recyclables. Carpool into work if you can. With gas prices the way they are, the environment of your wallet will thank you before the Earth will. Ladies, cut back on the hair drying if you can, and gentlemen, turn off the Sportscenter if you’re not watching it. They replay the same episode like NINE TIMES, you don’t have to keep watching it. Get better light bulbs, high efficiency washing machines and use both of them less.

Oh yeah, and give the good ole Earth a pat on the ole back. It’s put up with your crap for, what? a few billion years now? That’s stout. You go, Earth. You go.

The Day the Earth Moved

By: Suzanne Obszanski, March 14, 2011 in Science. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Last Friday, the world watched in horror as details of the magnitude 8.9 earthquake that rattled Japan came to fold.  Although initial reports estimated death tolls in the hundreds, more recent reports indicate that actual tolls will thump those numbers, as thousands have already been confirmed deceased and over 10,000 are reported missing.

It took only minutes for the 30 foot tsunami, a wave of water often following in the wake of a massive earthquake, to wash away full towns along the Pacific Coast.  Left in its path are flattened villages, washed away roads and stranded survivors.  What’s worse, rescue efforts have been hampered by over 200 aftershocks, many of which measure at or above 6.0 on the Richter scale, and nuclear power plant explosions, which have also contaminated the area with radiation.

Japan Earthquake

The people of Japan react to the devastation caused by the earthquake and resulting tsunami with character, dignity and pride.

The quake, the largest recorded in Japan’s history, not only changed the country forever, but it also changed our planet forever.  The quake rotated the earth on its axis four degrees and moved the entire island of Japan an estimated 8 feet. According to Toronto professor Andrew Miall, “It’s going to make minute changes to the length of a day. It could make very, very tiny changes to the tilt of the earth, which affects the seasons, but these effects are so small, it’d take very precise satellite navigation to pick it up.”

When it is all said and done, people worldwide might remember the chaos, the devastation and the destruction; however, people will always remember how the Japanese people reacted.  The character and dignity of the people of Japan is something to model when tragedy strikes.  Already a community bonded by strength and courage, the entire country seems to maintain a “we’re in it together” attitude.  The Japanese will bury their dead, rebuild and move on with their lives because they possess discipline, respect and a terrific work ethic.

Zodiac Changes?

By: Max Turnier, January 14, 2011 in Movies, News, Science and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Ophiuchus, the forgotten sign of the zodiac.

Grounds upon which the tradition of astrology are based continue to quake after an astronomer said in the Star Tribune another sign should be added to the list. Parke Kunkle, a board member with the Minnesota Planetarium Society said, “When [astrologers] say the sun is in Pisces, it’s really not in Pisces.” He said this is due to to the Earth’s axial wobble which is largely believed to be the result of the Moon’s gravitational pull on the earth. The truth is that the entire zodiac and all of astrology depends on this fundamental and observeable phenomenon, but we’ll get to that later. The new sign is actually an old one ousted by the Babylonians. It’s called Ophiucus, the serpent holder.

So does this mean the self-proclaimed “Zodiac” killer of San Francisco had it all mixed up? Perhaps. But even then, it’s only speculated that the killer loosely adhered to symbols of the Zodiac. He gave himself the name for one. Also, the infamous coded messages he left behind have only partially been decrypted. Maybe he knew all along about the ancient cosmic adjustment and factored it accordingly. No one really knows but it’s still fun to think about, as macabre as that sounds. Hollywood took advantage of the story in two films recently, “The Zodiac,” and “Zodiac“, 2006 and 2007 respectively.

So what does this revived information mean to the rest of us? Well, modern astrology thus far stands by its 12-symbol structure while astronomer Parke Kunkle has already inserted the new dates in which your sign should fall. According to the new chart, I am now an Aquarius and no longer a Pisces. Do I care? Not really. CNN reported this story earlier.

Here’s the thing. Before you get all upset about your Zodiac tattoo, please do yourself a favor and read about the history of the zodiac. It’s not all about horoscopes, and it’s most certainly not some brand new topic.  Read about the difference between the sidereal zodiac and the tropical zodiac. You’ll learn that dates and celestial positions vary between the two. Read about The Great Year, axial precession and what the ancients observed as the precession of the equinoxes. Trust me, you might find the topic just as interesting as what your horoscope told you this morning. Just to be clear, if you follow the tropical zodiac, which is likely if you live in the western world, then nothing changes.

NASA’s Kepler Mission Spots First Rocky Planet

By: Max Turnier, January 12, 2011 in Science and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .
Kepler 10b

HOT! Artist's depiction of planet Kepler 10b

Scientists as NASA have discovered strong evidence of a rocky planet outside our solar system using data gathered by the Kepler space telescope. It is the first discovery of a so-called “exo-planet” credited to the relatively new stargazing satellite.

Kepler spent 8 months gathering data from May, 2009 to January, 2010. NASA scientists have spent the last year sifting through the data looking for a specific kind of clue, that is, a dip in a star’s brightness which signifies the passing of a planet. Scientist can also make a rough sketch of the exo-planet’s composition by analyzing light during the planet’s passing. The supported data suggests that it is likely a rocky planet which lies very close to its star, and comparatively speaking, is much closer than Mercury is to the Sun. The planet has been named Kepler 10b.

Scientists expect to find many more planets in the coming months and the hope is to find Earth-like bodies which orbit in habitable zones.

Using telescopes on Earth, scientists claim to have found at least 500 exo-planets. The most promising find thus far is a planet 20.5 light-years away called Gliese-581g, which NASA says, likely orbits in a habitable zone suitable for liquid water to exist.

Any astrobiologist will tell you, if you want to have a good chance at finding life on other planets, follow the water.