With simulations of geology, tides, heat, and wind, two astronomers
have shown that
Venus's
retrograde motion is its most natural state.
Any or all of these effects could have turned the planet over, with no
need to assume a large initial tilt.
ISSN 1534-0236
Technology and ideology alike are exercises in applied imagination.
With simulations of geology, tides, heat, and wind, two astronomers
have shown that
Venus's
retrograde motion is its most natural state.
Any or all of these effects could have turned the planet over, with no
need to assume a large initial tilt.
The true surprise, however, was that Venus may not have tipped over at all.Instead, the atmosphere may simply have slowed the planet down and then started it spinning the other way. This insidious process is the unique result of the thick atmosphere always lagging behind as the planet rotates.
"Everything
Better Now in Oklahoma City. In case you had doubts
about the execution of Timothy McVeigh:
Said Olahoma City schoolteacher Sherrie Olsacher, 37, who was blinded in the bombing: "You can't imagine how healing this is. My eyesight's even returned."
Phil Agre passed along this
hysterical column about "the Bushian dialectic":
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill recently said: "If you set aside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the safety record of nuclear is really very good."Mr. O'Neill has an ear for the Bushian dialectic, having recently spent a great deal of time beating the drum for the tax-cut package, which was a great idea if you set aside the fact that it wouldn't stimulate the economy and we couldn't afford it.
This goes nicely with the idea that anything that happened before, oh, last week is just a "youthful indiscretion."
More theoretical cosmology:
magnetic
fields in the early universe may have been too strong to allow
the growth spurt that is basic to current theories.
Magnetic fields can stiffen space, says Christos Tsagas, just as embedded metal wires can stiffen rubber. The lines of the magnetic field -- the invisible lines of force that are revealed by iron filings around a bar magnet -- push back against the bending.It is surprising that no one has deduced this fundamental fact before, given how central relativity is to the modern view of time and space. Most physicists have previously assumed that magnetism would be too weak to deform space-time....
Many cosmologists favour the idea that very early on, when space was highly curved, the Universe grew unusually fast.
If space was permeated by strong magnetic fields, however, such rapid growth might not have been possible.
Cordwainer Smith's daughter has created a
site devoted to
her father's work, and his life. You can buy most of the books
from NESFA, but go here for Rosana Hart's reminiscences,
and maybe a t-shirt.
Marylaine Block discusses one of the
essentials
of human life and happiness: conversation.
Small talk and big are no longer built into the fabric of my days, a byproduct of the daily grind of work. I can't get them automatically from those who share my household -- cats may be good listeners, but they don't laugh at my jokes and they're lousy conversationalists. Just as I have to go out on expeditions for groceries, I have to make deliberate expeditions in quest of the good talk I'm just as hungry for....It's more than just ideas we are sharing when we talk. Conversation is love you can hear.
A biological puzzle: after six years of research,
geneticists have found
no
genetic variation between different Wollemi pine trees.
They don't have a complete map of the genome, but they have
compared a thousand points on the genome, for a variety of trees.
The trees reproduce both by growing new, essentially cloned trees
from their roots, and by seeds: the odd part is that the
seedlings appear genetically identical to their parents.
What has most stunned Dr Peakall is that the two stands of the Wollemi Pine are two kilometres apart and separated by such rugged terrain that he says, in a report prepared for the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, any genetic interchange is extremely unlikely.[via Electrolite]The two sites are likely to have been independent of each other for at least 10,000 years - the time of the end of the last ice age. Yet both stands of pines, remarkably, share an indistinguishable genetic code.
The Electronic Freedom Foundation and Prof. Edward Felten
are
filing
suit against the RIAA, which has threatened Felten to stop
him from publishing his research into the weaknesses of their
watermark schemes.
"When scientists are intimidated from publishing their work, there is a clear First Amendment problem," said EFF's Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "We have long argued that unless properly limited, the anti-distribution provisions of the DMCA would interfere with science. Now they plainly have."[via rc3.org daily]"Mathematics and code are not circumvention devices," explained Jim Tyre, an attorney on the legal team, "so why is the recording industry trying to prevent these researchers from publishing?"
For the first time, there's evidence of an
extra-solar
asteroid belt. The apparent belt around the young, hot star
Zeta Leporis may be a planet-forming region: there's about 200 times
as much material there as in our asteroid belt. Somehow, I find
this far more encouraging than all those "hot Jupiters" they've been
finding.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is holding a
Plutonium
Memorial Contest. The goal is a sort of anti-Yucca Mountain,
where the plutonium will be simultaneously safe and visible.
Basic safety information is provided, as are broad hints:
it would be nice if at least some of those responsible for the world's mountain of plutonium could readily appreciate your ingenious plutonium resting place. Red Square, the National Mall in Washington D.C., and Kensington Gardens are probably out of the question. But you might consider siting your masterpiece in an imaginative place....Judging A panel of judges will evaluate all entries based on the following criteria, in no particular order: artistry, elegance of solution, practicality, novelty, and sense of humor. All decisions are final.
Bees measure distance indirectly--they tell their sisters
how
much scenery to fly past. Bees have no depth perception,
so they measure optical flow. Bees trained to fly down a pipe
mismeasured the distance for open air
and danced a message that sent their hivemates too far.
For future research:
moving a beehive from an optically cluttered environment, such as a woodland, to an open one -- a grassland perhaps -- and seeing how it affects the dance-distance relationship.
The
greening
of the Arctic over the last half-century
is probably due to global warming, and the additional plant
growth could absorb some
carbon dioxide, thus possibly reducing future warming. Plant
cover in North America north of the Arctic Circle--photographed
in the 1940s by people
exploring for oil--has doubled in some areas, but is still too sparse
to support many humans or other animals.
There's some good advice in the Internet draft on
interplanetary
networking:
Never confuse patience with inaction.... Each node must make its own operating choices in its own understanding, for all the others are too far away to ask. Truly the solar system is a large place and each one of us is on his or her own. Deal with it.
Tourism is a weird thing: people are now visiting
Tallahassee
to see the sites of the post-election mess.
Copyright 2001 Vicki Rosenzweig. Comments welcome at vr@redbird.org.
If you like this, you might also like my home page.