Purport

Purport:

1. to present, especially deliberately, the appearance of being; profess or claim, often falsely: a document purporting to be official.
2. to convey to the mind as the meaning or thing intended; express or imply.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/purport

Defying Expectations: Lovejoy lives on!

Usually a sun-grazer, a comet approaching the Sun, reaches the end of its life as it gets closer and closer to the Sun. It burns or maybe evaporates. Like what we saw past July for a sun-grazer for the first time.

This was not the case for the Lovejoy comet, which was discovered just this November! As all eyes were on Lovejoy, it defied expectations, and stayed alive! Worthy of its name, Lovejoy lives on!



References:
[1]http://geeked.gsfc.nasa.gov/
[2]http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/12/16/lovejoy-lives/
[3] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/track-comet.html
[4] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/comet-streaks-sun.html

An institution is being overthrown in America!

"
The share of all U.S. adults who are married has dropped to a record low 51 percent, according to a new report. If the trend continues, the institution will soon lose its majority status in American life.

"But what it does bring home to us is that we can no longer pretend that marriage is the central organizing principle of society. We have to take account of the many, many social networks and relationships that people cycle through, marriage being just one of them," Coontz says.

"

Read or listen to the complete report here.

Credulity

Credulity: willingness to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper or adequate evidence; gullibility.

Sun Could 'Sandblast' the Moon

Solar storms and ejections can significantly affect and erode the surface of the moon. "In addition to removing a surprisingly large amount of material from the lunar surface, this could be a major method of atmospheric loss for planets like Mars that are unprotected by a global magnetic field." Learn more about this research being led by Rosemary Killen at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md, and watch her computer simulations here. I envy Rosemary Killen for studying Sun and Moon everyday and learning how they interact and affect each other.

Reference:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/dream-cme.html

First Planet in Habitable Zone of Sun-like Star!

"NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets."*

* Learn more here.

Butterflies

Did you know that little butterflies can travel 2000 miles to find a new sanctuary? That is what butterflies in Mexico did and what I learned last night from a NOVA show.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/journey-butterflies.html

How fast are we moving?

When sitting on your couch or sleeping on your bed, how fast you think you are moving in the universe? Your speed varies depending on where on Earth you are but to give you an idea suppose you are on equator.

1) The Earth moves with a velocity of 0.5 km/s or 1800 km/h around itself.
2) The Earth also moves 30 km/s or 108,000 km/h around the Sun.
3) The Solar System is moving 230 km/s, 828,000 km/h, around the center of its galaxy.
Now the 0.5 km/s movement of the Earth around itself seems negligible. Let's ignore it now. For half of the year, the movement of the solar system and earth around the sun are in the same direction 230+30 = 260 km/s and for another half if moves in the opposite direction 230-30 = 200 km/s, or 720,000 km/h.
4) Finally, our own galaxy with a local velocity of 40 km/s and a larger cluster velocity of 600 km/s.

Adding it all up, for half of the year we are moving:

260 km/s + 40 km/s + 600 km/s = 900 km/s = 3,240,000 km/h.

and for another half we are moving:

200 km/s + 40 km/s + 600 km/s = 840 km/s = 3,024,000 km/h .

So, the next time you are sitting relaxing over a cup of tea and coffee, know that the whole universe is running around crazily more than 3 million kilometers per hour for you to be here. What are you waiting for you?

ابر و باد و مه خورشيد و فلك در كارند
تا تو نانى به كف آرى و به غفلت نخورى

Reference:
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=507

Margaret Sanger

A couple of days ago I listened to a program on NPR on life of Margaret Sanger, who lived during 1874-1966. Do you know her? It is amazing that considering her contributions, I had never heard of her before. She coined the term birth control, organized a campaign to legalize birth control 100 years ago, and established Planned Parenthood. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, which led to her arrest and being jailed. She continued educating women about contraception and birth control in jail. Her work was motivated and influenced by her mother's life, who became pregnant 18 times in 22 years and died at 48 from cervical cancer! Some accuse her of wanting to remove the black race by opening her clinics in poor black areas. The guest of the program argued that she would have been considered a racist had she not opened any clinics for those communities. Pro life groups argued that Sanger promoted abortion. Sanger died in 1966, years before abortion was legalized in the U.S. in 1971. Sanger believed women will be better mothers, raising children better if they could decide when to have children. She believed "no woman was free if she could not control her body". Regardless, she remains an iconic figure in Reproductive Rights movement. You can see the program's highlight here, and read its full script here.

References:

[1] http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-11-15/jean-baker-margaret-sanger-life-passion
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood

The power of vunlerability

I thought of this talk today and felt the need to listen to it again.

"
... you cannot selectively numb emotion. You can't say, here's the bad stuff. Here's vulnerability, here's grief, here's shame, here's fear, here's disappointment, I don't want to feel these. I'm going to have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin. I don't want to feel these. And I know that's knowing laughter. I hack into your lives for a living. God. You can't numb those hard feelings without numbing the affects, our emotions. You cannot selectively numb. So when we numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. And then we are miserable, and we are looking for purpose and meaning, and then we feel vulnerable, so then we have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin. And it becomes this dangerous cycle.
"

Brene Brown: The power of vulnerability, full lecture here.

"
This is what I have found: to let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee -- and that's really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that's excruciatingly difficult -- to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?" just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive." And the last, which I think is probably the most important, is to believe that we're enough. Because when we work from a place I believe that says, "I'm enough," then we stop screaming and start listening, we're kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we're kinder and gentler to ourselves.
"

7 Billion and counting

The world's population reached 7 billion this past Monday! A baby girl who was born in India was chosen as the symbolic 7th Billion baby. Who is this baby? Nargis :-) She has already drawn attention to "the serious issue of declining child sex ratio in India". Good job Nargis! Keep it up. The world needs more of us. It may seem Narcissistic of us to most, but do we really care? ;-)

A Sense of Place

The theme for this year's TEDxMidAtlantic conference was "A Sense of Place":

"Our existence is defined through our experience of place: our place on Earth, in the universe, in culture, and in time. Understanding place is critical to the spread of knowledge, ideas and to progress. From the smallest sub-atomic particles to cities, to galaxies and undersea mountain ranges, everything has a place. TEDxMidAtlantic 2011 celebrates and explores place, mobility, context, and locality – and humanity's ongoing desire to achieve a sense of place."

What we learned more and more as the day progressed, was not only that we do not understand and appreciate our place on Earth, universe, and culture properly, rather that we have lost a sense of community and belonging in our local neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, and cities. We do not embrace what each individual has to offer and bring to the table to build better communities rather we keep alienating and ignoring them. The Wire cast shared their experiences of growing up in poor areas of Baltimore, Brooklyn, and Washington D.C. and how after thirty years not only things have not changed for the better, but that they also have lost the sense of community in those neighborhoods, their only shelter and protection against violence and poverty, their only source of hope and encouragement.

In fact, I learned a disturbing fact from Rebecca Renard of DC's Public Libraries who noticed teenagers out of school with no work hanging around in her library without receiving any love, care, education, and attention. She mentioned that how people who lived, worked, and commuted to/from the Gallery Place China town area in D.C. were bothered with noisy loitering teenagers in the area and complained to city officials about them. What was the city's solution to that problem? Get rid of them! They installed Mosquito noise devices at Gallery Place China town, a noise that only teenagers' ears were sensitive to [1]. I cannot think of a more humiliating and offensive approach to the youth. Instead of trying to employ and educate them, the city sent them away to make them someone else's problem, and then they are surprised by seeing gangs and crime rates increasing. It is a sad story for the so called capital of the free world* int the 21st century!

Rebecca Renard recognized all the potential, talent, and energy that was being wasted daily by teenagers hanging around in her library and city. She made a social network aimed for teenagers to learn about activities of value and interest to them, to learn from each other, and run a radio together [2]! She engaged them, created a welcoming and supportive environment for them, and let them shine and grow. Something city officials should have done.

National Youth Rights Association filed a complaint and had the noise maker devices removed, but the youth problems and their need for care and attention remains [3].

Do you know your neighbors? Their kids? Your kids' school friends and teachers? Do you have a good community? Are you of any value to your local communities? What are you waiting for?

References:

[1] Mosquito noise device at Gallery Place aims to annoy potential troublemakers
[2] Generation PRX, Youth Radio Producer's Hub.
[3] DC City Council: Fight Youth Crime, Not Youth
[4] Rebecca Renard
* A slogan of one of D. C. area's radio stations.

Captcha and Duolingo!

Most of you must know what Captchas are (even if you have not heard the term) and have spent some time deciphering and typing what they display. They often are distorted words you see as figures and need to type, when paying a bill or making a comment online, ... so that a website verifies it is indeed a human filling out a form, doing a transaction, or making a comment and not an automatic computer program. Sometimes, it is hard for me to decipher what one of the words is to type and have to ask for a different Captcha before I succeed. Sometimes they are annoying, sometimes you think you are wasting time. This bothered captcha's inventor as well and motivated him to do something else with them.

Yesterday, I attended the 2011 TEDxMidAtlantic. Another wonderful event, with enthusiastic and passionate speakers and audience. A whole building full of enough positive energy to keep you going till the next year's conference. Among the speakers was Luis von Ahn, the inventor of Captcha, founder of reCaptcha, and a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

So it turns out we spend about 10 seconds every time we type a captcha, and that people around the world all together type about 200 million captchas a day, that is over 5000 hours a day. So, Luis von Ahn thought is there a harder problem that could be mapped and translated to typing captchas, so that by filling out the forms and doing transactions online people actually spend that 10 precious seconds doing something worthwhile, and solving a hard computational problem?

In fact there exists such a problem: digitizing books. Many old books have weird fonts, washed out words, or ones that are dragged across the paper over the years, in a way that it is very hard for computers to automatically understand them. For humans, on the other hand, that is an easy task. So, what do they do? They provide one of the words from the books they are digitizing to you in a captcha. However, since the point of the captcha was to verify you were in fact a human, they cannot test you with something that the computer does not know the answer to. So, they ask you to type two words: one is the word they know what it is and they can correctly verify your answer, and the other the one they are asking you to recognize to help them digitize books. They also gain some confidence when you type the word that they know what it should be. Then, when enough people distinguished the ambiguous word the same way you did, they declare it digitized. They continue the same process word by word, line by line, page by page, book after book. So, the next time you get frustrated digitizing books, do not! You are doing something great for free!

p.s. You can also learn a new language while helping translate the whole web! Brilliant idea by the same person on Duolingo!

References:
[1] Captcha
[2] reCaptcha
[2] Duolingo.
[3] Luis von Ahn.

NPP Launch

"The NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) mission is scheduled to launch on Friday October 28 at 2:48 a.m. PDT/ 5:48 a.m. EDT from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., is managing NPP for the Earth Science Division in NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

NPP will extend and improve upon the Earth system data records established by NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) fleet of satellites that have provided critical insights into the dynamics of the entire Earth system: clouds, oceans, vegetation, ice, solid Earth and atmosphere."

You can watch it live on NASA TV or in person if you are in CA close to Vandenberg Air Force Base! Learn more about this mission here.

Reference:
[1] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NPP/main/index.html

No grounds for climate sceptics' concerns

Global warming has been a controversial topic. Policies required to revert its affects and progress have huge economical and thus political implications to the extent that global warming has often found its place in political debates and is treated as such instead of a scientific subject. It has many skeptics despite various scientific evidence supporting it. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel peace prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" [1]. Some used the email leaks in 2009 to suggest conspiracies that exaggerated the data supporting global warming [2]. It was a huge setback but many scientists who used that data were willing to start their research and analysis all over again if they had to with enough transparency to win over the skeptics. Well, an independent group of international scientists made their job much easier and announced their investigation results: "Independent investigation of the key issues sceptics claim can skew global warming figures reports that they have no real effect"[3].

[1] http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/
[2] http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-11-20/green_sheet/30085487_1_real-temps-warming-travesty
[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/20/global-warming-study-climate-sceptics

Plots!

"Use different line styles (solid, dashed, dotted, etc.) even if you
use color plots, because an estimated 10% of the population is color blind.", says a professor I admire immensely, and my dear co-editor!

Hubble Does it Again, Time After Time!

There are at least three major science news releases thanks to data of the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble is not giving up on the Jaw Dropping business!

1) "When astronomers detected intense radiation pumping out of the Crab Nebula, one of the most studied objects in space, at higher energies than anyone thought possible, they were nothing short of stunned." Learn more here.

2) "Observations made by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of a special type of supernovae contributed to research on the expansion of the universe that today was honored with the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics." Adam Reiss, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Krieger-Eisenhower professor in physics and astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Saul Perlmutter, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory won the Physics 2011 Nobel Award for transforming our understanding of our universe by discovering that not only the universe is expanding, but also its expansion is accelerating. Learn more here.

3] In a re-analysis of 1998 Hubble data, astronomers have found "visual evidence for two extrasolar planets that went undetected back then."

Kudos to NSF!

Balancing family life and professional work is a hard task, both for men and women. Today's job market and economy is so competitive that scientists and researchers have to put so many hours going extra miles, performing duties not necessarily listed in ones' job description. These can be reviewing papers, proposals, hosting events, mentoring interns, bringing money and resources for one's projects, etc. One cannot simply just sit behind a desk and do their assigned tasks. It is like scientists act as secretaries, accountants, lawyers, lobbyists, marketing specialists, teachers, ... and finally a scientist! This requires sacrificing personal time and family time. While both genders are affected by these, women are hit harder: the years you are supposed to put these efforts to get tenure, establish yourself in a field, etc coincide with when one wants to have family and children, specially after being out of the PhD program. While men may be able to delay parenthood, there is not much women can do about their biological clocks. Also, by nature women are more involved in the child rearing process because of unique tasks required of them from nine months of pregnancy to breast feeding. On the other hand, employers can change other clocks if they are interested in maintaining such skilled and educated work force and not make the already low women/men ratios in STEM fields approach zero.

NSF made a bold move. Now, one can delay, or get a break in, using already won research grant funds due to child birth or taking care of an elderly family. This is similar to universities stopping the tenure clock when one goes on maternity leave and restarting it again when the person comes back. I wish more professional conferences start offering child care services so that mothers could travel with their kids and attend talks and conferences with some peace of mind and without feeling guilty about having left their child in a different city, or simply choosing not to attend conferences or work related trips (the option that is often chosen due to circumstances).

Kudos to NSF for recognizing the values of supporting work-life balance policies and taking steps in addressing this issue by not asking scientists to choose between their jobs and families.

Reference:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/helping-women-reach-their-economic-potential/2011/09/25/gIQA1dODxK_story.html

Map of the Universe

Scientists at University of California Santa Cruz have simulated a map of the universe using world's most powerful supercomputing facility at NASA AMES Research Center, in Mountain View, California. This simulation took four years to develop! It takes into the account the effects of dark matter and dark energy in formation and evolution of our universe and "is based on the latest version of a “map” of the early universe that was created nearly 10 years ago by a satellite called the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or Wmap". Learn more here.

WMAP has mapped the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation (the oldest light in the universe), produced the first fine-resolution full-sky map of the microwave sky, and determined the age of the universe to be 13.73 billion years old to within 1% error, which is 0.12 billion years, among other findings!

References:
[1] http://www.mysanantonio.com/life/article/UC-scientists-map-out-the-universe-2195884.php#ixzz1ZSYrVW5a

[2] http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Another satellite is falling

As we just had sighs of relief after NASA's UARS satellite entered the Earth into the Southern Pacific ocean on September 24, 2011 without causing any harm, we learn about another dead satellite that is expected to fall back to the Earth in early November! This time it is the ROSAT satellite of the German Space Agency. ROSAT was launched in 1998 and was decommissioned in 1999 after its star tracker failed and caused its on-board camera to point directly to the Sun! UARS of NASA that was launched in 1991, was originally planned to be a three-year mission only. However, UARS was operational for fourteen years, till 2005 when it was decommissioned due to budget cuts. Yet, some consider UARS's decommissioning controversial since the mission was studying the ozone layer! I have come to believe there is no way out of having conspiracy theorists, even if the mission goes 11 more years than the original plan and enters the earth six years after it being over.

I guess as time goes by, we will have more and more of such incidents, considering so many satellites that are up there, commercial and non-commercial ones. Maybe this opens up a whole new industry and field of study for cleaning the space junk for de-orbiting them and sending them away from the Earth or re-entering them safely back to Earth.

References:

http://www.space.com/13111-falling-satellite-rosat-november-crash.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/uars/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/uars/uars_science.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Atmosphere_Research_Satellite

Why the West, and less so the rest?

We often pride in the Eastern culture, history, past achievements, but why is it that the West has prospered more than the rest of the world? When writing, medicine, first civilizations were in places like Babylon, Mesopotamia, Egypt, why their current state is not as advance and prosperous as the west? I always wondered about this question. I initially thought the west has learned from experiences and mistakes of the rest, took the lessons learned, and prospered. But could not the owners of those mistakes do the same? Historian Niall Ferguson answers this question by summarizing the ingredients of the west's prosperity as:

1- Competition
2- Scientific revolution
3- Property rights
4- Modern medicine
5- The consumer society
6- The work ethic

Learn more here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/niall_ferguson_the_6_killer_apps_of_prosperity.html

Gamification to the rescue!

I know grown men in late thirties or in their forties, playing computer games for hours and hours. I never liked such a hobby for myself as an adult, and honesty believed they could do better things with their time. Well, here is their chance to convince me of the great work they can do, with the trainings and expertise they gain from playing games: "Gamers have unlocked protein mystery that baffled AIDS researchers for years". That is, using an online game, gamers predicted the structure of a protein that plays an important rule in how HIV spreads. In other words, they solved an instance of the protein unfolding problem.

Reference:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393200,00.asp#fbid=wI-RjiePJpA

Was Einstein Wrong?

I have been waiting to hear about the results of the experiments at CERN for a while, ever since I heard about the LHC experiments. Then, there were delays and I lost track and never learned what the outcome was. Now here comes this news! Scientists have detected sub atomic particle moving faster than the speed of light, a finding that undermines Einstein's theory of relativity that claims the speed of light to be a cosmic constant, an upper limit on how fast anything in universe can travel. Now, how much faster was the detected velocity? 60 nanoseconds faster! My intuition tells me the difference is not large enough and might be do to some error, as the article mentions to. But for theoretical physicist, especially those specialized in particle physics, this may be a large enough number!

I guess we have to be careful what we wish for. Do we want to break the light-speed barrier? Are we ready to accept the consequences and live in a world in which time travel would then become possible?


Reference:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/science-light-idUSL5E7KM4CW20110922

Wean

"Wean: 1. to accustom (a child or young animal) to food other than its mother's milk; cause to lose the need to suckle or turn to the mother for food.
2. to withdraw (a person, the affections, one's dependency, etc.) from some object, habit, form of enjoyment, or the like: The need to reduce had weaned us from rich desserts."

Reference:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wean

Citizen Science: Discovery of Two New Planets

Scientific data sets grow at a faster pace than scientists can keep up with them, analyze them carefully, make discoveries, find trends, etc. For this reason Citizen Science, asking and involving citizen scientists and volunteers to perform scientific tasks, has become popular and essential. NASA has embraced the idea of Citizen Science and already has several active projects in which the public can participate. The tasks may vary from collecting ground truth data to finding hay in stacks (it is usually the second case).


One of the most successful citizen science projects of NASA is Zooniverse, composed of several projects like Moon Zoo, Planet Hunters, Galaxy Zoo, Solar Stormwatch, etc.

The SETI Institute, dedicated to finding extraterrestrial life, is asking citizens help find signals of others who might be out there in the universe, using setiQuest, by simply scrolling through signals and images and marking unusual activities and features!

Citizen Science has multiple benefits. In addition to the increased work force and chance of making scientific discoveries, it is educational and inspirational for students and a good tool for educators. In addition, it shows the taxpayer the value of the scientific projects by engaging them in the process, and as a result securing various missions and projects. If government decides to cut the budget on a mission, which the public around the globe is extremely invested in and supportive of, chances are very slim. This was the case for Hubble and its beautiful imagery.

We are already seeing the value of the citizen science. Two new planets, possibly habitable, were discovered by citizen scientists participating in Planet Hunting project! There is much more to be found and learned about.

How can you benefit from citizen science in your work and project? Can you interest and engage the public to help you? The public can be students, researchers, and professors all over the world in your field, anyone outside your own organization.

PAAIA

I spent a nice Sunday afternoon at an event titled Passing the Torch of Success hosted by Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA) at Washington D.C. An inspirational afternoon, full of positive energy in the room, listening to success stories of Iranian-Americans in various fields, influential individuals who paved the way for many others.

Speakers included Christian Amanpour, Anousheh Ansari, Ramin Asgard, Nazie Eftekhari, Nariman Farvardin, Firouz Naderi, Vali Nasr, Faryar Shirzad, and Pardise Sabeti. Amazing set of individuals, who each had many lessons to offer.

In this post, I encourage you to learn about PAAIA, its objectives, and consider participating in their survey and becoming a member.

The America Invents Act

President Obama signs the America Invents Act today, a major change to the U.S. patent laws. By this new regulation, patents will go to the first innovator who filed the application, as opposed to the one who first made the invention without reporting it. It prevents inventors from coming out and claiming the invention, and I assume it prevents so many lawsuits, court, and lawyer fees. I am thinking some firms whose jobs is to challenge and fight for an existing patents may go out of business!


Reference:

http://whitehouse.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/16/obamas-day-ahead-the-america-invents-act/?iref=allsearch

Save Money and the Planet!

Did you know that you might be spending hundreds of dollars more than you could have spent on gas per year, just because your car's tires are under-inflated? And that your tires may go flat sooner and faster, and worst of all you are contributing to the global warming? What would be the economical and environmental impacts of under-inflated tires just in the U.S.? Can you make a guess? Are you ready to hear it?

"If the nearly 250 million vehicles in the United States have tires that are under-inflated by seven percent, proper inflation could result in national annual savings of $23 billion and 3.3 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. However, the government estimates that the average vehicle tire is under-inflated by 26 percent, so the potential for savings is far greater."

Just put some air in those tires. It is free!

Reference:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/05/14/idUS150498+14-May-2008+BW20080514
http://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/edmunds-employees-put-to-the-tire-pressure-test.html

Even Astronauts Commit Suicide!

"I am writing this now though to ask all of us to not let suicide be a taboo topic. It takes too many great people. In 2001, more people died due to suicide (849,000) then to homicide (500,000) and war-related (230,000) deaths combined (World Health Organization data). ", says my friend Loretta in her article titled "Even Astronauts Commit Suicide: A Tribute to a Friend and a Plea".

September 4–10 was the National Suicide Prevention Week. You can learn about suicide risk factors and warning signs here. If you have lost a loved one to suicide, talk about it.

Recycle!

"In just 10 years, citizens of the U.S. wasted enough aluminum cans to reproduce the world's entire commercial air fleet 25 times.", Container Recycling Institute.

in Our Choice, A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis by Al Gore.

Paucity and snark

I just learned two words: paucity meaning smallness of quantity, scarcity, and snark meaning a mysterious imaginary animal! You may like the context in which I learned them even more. Well, most likely if you are a woman!

"So I'll keep it short and simple: It's not that women "overdo it" but that some men, like poorly cooked pork at a depressing state fair, are "underdone."

To our abundance, they bring paucity; to our enthusiasm, they bring flat-lined skepticism; to our light, they bring the fog of snark.

I'll take excess over scarcity every time. And I won't apologize for it, either."

from When Apologies Don't Work by Gina Barreca,

Reference:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201109/oops-dealing-mistakes/when-apologies-dont-work

4G Communications and more

I attended another IAAP lecture on 4G Wireless Communications [1]. We hear the term 3G and 4G, etc., but what does characterize 4G technology? Several properties: mobility, which immediately requires it being wireless, broadband (being able to send and receive different types of data), speed, and adhering to requirements of International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a division of United Nation, where telecommunication leaders of all countries meet and set the requirements and standards.

We also learned about how different carriers use different frequencies of the spectrum to avoid interferences. The speaker talked about some companies fighting with agencies such as FAA because their technologies are using frequencies very close to the boundaries of the frequency ranges that are used for GPS technology for aviation for example, among other applications. These concerns have led to deployment of a website for avoiding such problems, called Save Our GPS! [2]

As the time for questions and answers came, and as the topic of interference and FAA came up and there was at least one telecommunication expert in the room, I had to ask about the regulations restricting cell phone use on planes. Even though the speaker was not very happy with all the restrictions FAA puts on telecommunication companies, he immediately answered by saying the minimum effect cell phones on planes have is that they add background noise to the signals. In an ideal case, we expect all devices to use only the frequencies they are designed for. If that happens, there would be no problem. But other times, a technology such as cell phone may try another modulation of the frequency it is designed for, in which case it might be the same frequency that a device on plane is using, and thus cause interference. He suggested you can see the effects of your cell phones interference when you walk in front of your TV using it. I always think about how easily interferences or another problem, not receiving a signal, can occur by thinking about old fashioned radios we had back home. If we moved in front of it or moved the antenna a little here or there, it affected the performance of the radio. So does throwing in more signals, noise, static, or parazit at it.

[1] http://www.iaadc.net/2011/09/lecture-41-4g-wireless-communications/
[2] http://www.saveourgps.org/

GRAIL

The GRAIL mission is set to launch on September 8, 2011 to the moon! GRAIL will help scientists obtain high resolution map of moon's gravitational field [1]. This mission will deploy two spacecrafts in the same orbit around the moon, moving toward and away from each other. Measuring the changes in their relative velocity is the key to obtaining moon's high resolution gravitational map. The same technique was used for the GRACE mission, in orbit since 2002, for measuring the gravitational field of the Earth [3].

"NASA's Twin GRAIL Spacecraft Are Ready For Launch

These images show the various stages of pre-launch preparations of NASA's twin GRAIL spacecraft at Space Launch Complex 17B on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech." [2]


References:
[1] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/main/index.html
[2] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/grail/multimedia/collage20110907.html
[2] http://science.nasa.gov/missions/grace/

World's Smallest Electric Motor

If you work with Micro-Electro-Mechanical (MEMS) devices and you thought that was so cool, you are way out of touch with the latest and greatest (well, not in size) technology! How small do you think is the world's smallest technology? The previous record was 200 nanometers, while a single strand of hair is about 60,000 nanometers!
Now, researchers in Tufts university have built the smallest electric motor, which is one nanometer in size! We humans can now build and control something that small, and at the same time see things millions of light years away. Mind boggling, is not it?


Reference:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110904140353.htm

Compassion

Here is a way to encourage selfish people become compassionate! It is good for you! From building a better immune system to a more cognitive and active brain, to the way you will feel later, if living in a better world is not good enough.

What is compassion and empathy anyways? According to Joan Halifax:

The capacity and ability to see clearly into the nature of suffering, to recognize that one is not separate from that suffering, to engage in activities to transform suffering, without being attached to the outcome. Compassion has enemies such as pity, moral outrage, and fear.

Reference:
http://www.ted.com/talks/joan_halifax.html

Smog Levels

Smog levels in the U.S. are higher than what scientists consider safe for public health. In order to change it and enforce lower emissions, rules and regulations need to be updated. Today, president Obama refused to update 2008 rules and regulations on this issue and postponed this decision till 2013, or after election as the author of this article points out. Read the article to see what the recommended levels by scientists are, and what the enforced and regulated levels were during the Bush and Obama administrations, as well as a general cost-benefit comparison of these different levels.

Reference:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/09/02/smog-levels-to-remain-higher-than-scientists-suggest-safe-for-public-health/

Recent statistics on Marriage

According to the PBS news, based on 2010 U.S. census bureau, 30% of Americans have never been married, the largest percentage ever recorded. More people in their thirties and forties are single and never married, not divorced or widowed. Also, people in southern and western regions have the highest rate of divorces in the U.S. The southern region surprised me.

The hottest and driest summer

According to NPR radio this morning, this summer has been the hottest and driest summer on record in the United States, and the drought has cost the agriculture industry more than 5 billion dollars and counting.

Related:
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/26/139947317/drought-puts-texas-ranchers-and-cattle-at-risk
http://www.ktul.com/story/15176316/2011-on-pace-for-hottest-driest-summer-on-record

Hurricane 101

After being surprised with the largest earthquake in our region this past week, now we have time to prepare for the next natural disaster: Hurricane Irene. What should you do and have before, during, and after a major Hurricane.

I know I have to do grocery shopping, have flash lights, battery powered radios, enough water and food to last you days, but is that it?

Here is Red Cross's Checklist for Hurricane readiness:

http://www.redcross.org/www-files/Documents/pdf/Preparedness/checklists/Hurricane.pdf

Stay safe!

WISE Eyes: Coolest Stars

Not long after detecting the darkest planet ever by the Kepler mission, now we have the news of seeing the coldest class of stars via WISE eyes!

How cold are they? As cold as our bodies or cooler. You think that is not cold enough? It is very cold for a star, just compare it with our own Sun! Well, technically they belong to a star-like class of celestial bodies called brown dwarfs, believed to be failed stars.  They just did not make it even though they were well on their way of becoming a star.

Reference:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110823.html

Earthquake 101

Today Washington D.C. area experienced the largest earthquake (5.8 magnitude) known to ever hit this region!*  Apparently we east coast people are not well-educated about what to do or not to do during an earth quake.  Everyone evacuated their buildings.  Now we know earthquake protocol is to find a safe place inside the building: (e.g. under the table/desk, etc).  I knew this but at the moment when it happened, I reacted like I would to fire alarms and other emergencies:  evacuate!  Maybe because we are so used to other threats and hazards in this region requiring us to evacuate once in a while.  I was not alone, everyone came out, and everyone was wrong.  However, to our credit, the quake did trigger our fire alarms. So, we were responding to that as well!  Besides, we did not have much choice.  We were not allowed inside the building and were told to stay out!  In fact we were sent home so that all buildings be inspected and cleared by structural engineers!.  Here is Red Cross' Check List of what to do or not to do during an earthquake.

Next, in any emergency, if everyone calls each other, as you might have realized today, the lines get congested and cannot handle the communications traffic when it is needed the most.  So try just texting or not using the lines as much as possible so that emergency response personnel and those more in  need be able to use the lines.

Finally, on a personal note, it is good to have cash, extra car, home keys in different places.  We were not allowed to get back to our offices until all buildings were cleared and inspected. I had my keys and cell phone but my purse with my credit cards and money are all inside the office!

* http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/23/washington-area-has-history-earthquakes/

p.s. Many west-coasters or those on other major earthquake lines may think we are making a huge deal out of nothing since they constantly deal with such earthquakes.  However, please keep two points in mind: 1) our building codes are not designed for enduring earthquakes and yours are.  2)  The earth crust in those regions is fragmented so earthquakes are felt locally, whereas here the earth crust is all one huge connected piece and that is why the waves traveled to many states including NY, NC, and even Toronto, CA.

Space Weather

It was only 51 years ago, on April 1, 1960, that NASA's first weather satellite, TIROS-1,  was launched.  Back then, weather satellite technologies, weather forecasting models, ...were at their infancy. I would imagine scientists having a hard time convincing politicians about the importance of weather satellites, get budget for it, etc.  Now, so many industries such as agriculture, tourism, aviation, and navigation all rely on these satellites' data, weather models and forecasts for their day-to-day business.  We take the convoluted process of designing, building, testing, launching, and operating weather satellites, processing their data, and improving existing models all for granted.

Now, space weather is as new to us as weather forecasting business was 50 years ago.  Understanding atmospheres and weathers of the celestial bodies in our solar system and their effects on the Earth's atmosphere and our satellites and spacecrafts there are as vital and necessary for us as weather modeling and satellites are.  For example, solar flares and eruptions can disrupt our communication and navigation satellites*.  Imagine a day when your cell phones and GPS devices do not work, and nor does the communications and navigation of the airline and navigation industry.  That is a doomsday scenario, one that Solar Dynamics Observatory and Stereo are trying to understand better and help us prepare for.

Today the news of a major milestone was announced: 
For the first time we have been able to track a space storm!**

You can learn more about space weather and look at current space weather and forecasts via
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SWN/ , or
http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/weather.html.

You can also install Space Weather Apps developed by NASA on your smart phone, even though they may not work during an bad space storm!

*   http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/sftheory/spaceweather.htm
** http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/solarstorm-tracking.html

گعده

امروز اين كلمه رو در پست يكى از دوستان در فيسبوك ديدم.  به روايت ويكى پيديا، گعده در عربى قعده است و به معناى دور هم نشستن و شب نشينى و خوش و بش كردن هست. من نميدانم چرا با وجوديكه من عاشق اين كارم و اين همه هم ما ايرانى ها اين كار را ميكنيم تا به حال اين كلمه را نشنيده بودم؟  آيا اين كلمه خيلى رايج و جا افتاده است؟

Reference:
http://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%DA%AF%D8%B9%D8%AF%D9%87

The Darkest Planet

NASA's Kepler spacecraft, designed to find Earth-size planets and smaller around a star has been doing a magnificent job so far.    In the first data release, the Kepler team identified 1235 candidate planets around 997 stars.  A second data release is scheduled for September 2011 [1].  "The team estimated that 5.4% of stars host Earth-size planet candidates and 17% of all stars have multiple planets" [2].  Most importantly, from those candidates, scientists announced the discovery of the darkest world and planet ever.  One that reflects only less than 1% of the light that it receives.  It is a giant gas planet, orbiting too close to its sun star, 750 light years away from us [3].  Detecting such far and dark planet by Kepler is amazing!  The transit method is working like clock-work by the book.

[1]  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html
[2]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_%28spacecraft%29
[3]  http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/08/18/139745242/the-darkest-world-scientists-discover-darth-vader-planet?sc=fb&cc=fp

Assateague Island National Seashore

My friends and I also visited the Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland.  It is one of the few places in the United State where you can see wild horses.  We saw many of them.  They were beautiful.

Interactions of wind, ocean waves, and the Island make life on this coast very dynamic and hard to adapt to, as the plants and animals on this shape-changing and dynamic Island can do.  Here is the list of animals and wild life on this Island, including the horseshoe crab.
"

	Did You Know? ...that horseshoe crabs may save your life? A protein in their blood is used to test injectable drugs for bacterial contamination. " [2]

[1] http://www.nps.gov/asis/naturescience/index.htm
[2] http://www.nps.gov/asis/naturescience/animals.htm

Fat for Freedom!

If you did not know by now, we have everything in Maryland!  We even have a Berlin, a lovely little city with a historic downtown.  My friends and I stopped there one noon and found it appropriate to have a Hamburger in a place called Rayne's Reef*.  The place was nice and made me nostalgic of Hamburger places back home.

There was another reason the place seemed familiar!  Oh, wow, they had filmed the "Runaway Bride" there.  How lovely to eat where Julia Roberts and Richard Gere were making a film and sharing a meal.  Well, I am diverging from the real lesson of that day.  The restaurant was full of images and reminders of the World War II.  There was a sign encouraging people or maybe the workers and the Chef not to throw away extra and unwanted fats.  Why?  They were used for making gunpowder!  Did you know that?  Apparently, housewives were encouraged to save fat for freedom!

* http://www.raynesreef.com/

Reef

Okay, I should have probably named this blog "one lesson a (working) day"!  I often times find it hard to update this blog during weekends and during my vacation, like this past week.  I know, that is no excuse and I am making up for the lost time and backdating the posts for make-up-lessons.

So, I am in Ocean City, Maryland.  Tonight is my last night here, and as I am typing these I am enjoying the sound of the Atlantic ocean's waves.  It will be appropriate to use lessons learned in this trip.  So many stores and things in this town were called "reef" this and "reef" that.  What does reef mean anyways?

Here is the meaning of reef.

Mad and Depressed?

No worries, apparently that is what world needs more of!  According to Dr. Nassir Ghaemi, the author of "A First Rate Madness", manic people are more creative and depressed people have more empathy and are more realistic!  Now, I wonder if it was because they were too creative and too empathetic that they got madly depressed to begin with?  Is it a one way cause-effect or a two-way relationship?  I guess I have to read his book.  His ideas actually makes sense to me, well just the little that I heard here:

http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/mon-august-8-2011-nassir-ghaemi

"Gratitude never radicalized anybody"

"Our job is not to make young women grateful. It is to make them ungrateful so they keep going. Gratitude never radicalized anybody"

"There shall never be another season of silence until women have the same rights men have on this green earth."

"I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on earth. The sense of independence and security is very sweet."

"Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences..."

"Woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself.
Susan B. Anthony:  Learn about her and her life if you get a chance!

What does it take for them to compromise?

These days the economic crisis of the U.S. is the headline of all news and breaking news.  Each party blames the other for not compromising, for putting their interests before the interests of the nation and the good of the country, etc.  They take their own government's employees hostage to cut deals with each other.  Letting millions of families and employees live in limbo, leaving work on a Friday afternoon not knowing if they will be at work on Monday. Both parties, like mad old married couples, bring out irrelevant issues at such times.  When there was a threat of a shutdown over finalizing fiscal year 2011 budget half way through fiscal year 2011, they made the disagreement be about government funds given to a clinic for women's health, and oh, God, guess what they do, they perform abortion procedures!  It did not help repeating a zillion times that federal law prohibits them to use federal funds for abortion.  It was like yelling to deaf ears.  It did not matter.  They wanted the public to hear and beleive what they wanted them to hear and believe.  It did not matter that the money they were talking about was maybe 0.005% of the federal civilian budget and that the federal civilian budget is a small fraction of the military budget!  It did not matter!  They had to hold any grudge they could at the price of millions of govenrment employees.  So much honor and respect was floating around for public service.

FAA employees had been through this shutdown threat twice this year already.  The first time with everyone else over FY11 budget and the second time as their agency was singled out and they indeed did experience a shutdown this time.  The fights seemed to be over financial issues but it became over unions and having union rights, etc.

The U.S. was fast approaching its debt ceiling and parties did not work out a deal fast enough to increase it or straighten out plans for mitigating long term debt affects.  The whole circus was so painful and frustrating to watch, that I did not follow the details.  I just know the signed off on something but it was not fast enough, and America lost its good credit score.

FAA employees were at home throughout this whole ordeal, and they prbably thought, the debt ceiling thing was of a higher priority than them, the airline safety, etc. The poor FAA administrator on TV was begging: this is summer time, the construction time, and they have stopped our work and contracts.  We are losing construction time, revenue, jobs, taxes.   Congress's response: it is time for our 5 week summer recess!

Who in government takes 5 weeks of recess that these guys should in such crisis.  No sense of urgency, no sense of guilt, no sense of shame, no sense of empathy, nothing!  I do not understand how it is that we stay weekends and nights, postpone our summer vacations till say our summer interns are gone, project deadlines met, ... , but they can let the country lose 1 trillion dollars in airfare taxes, lose construction jobs and employees' taxes, risk safety of the passengers in the air,  and go on a five week vacation.  Similarly, I do not know what it takes for airlines and FAA workers who continued working without pay to go on strike.  For all airlines to show solidarity and empathy and not fly until issues are resolved; or maybe no airline or pilot flies any congress man/woman to their vacation destination.  Pilots have the authority of not flying if they do not want someone on the plane!  What does it take for anyone to do something?

I tell you.  This issue was getting some good media attention and publicity.  They were on their case day and night.  Before you knew it, Friday they came and signed a budget and Monday FAA employees were back to work.  All it takes is to take their vacation hostage:  you cannot go till you sign a deal, or we make you pay for it for the rest of your life.  Oh, and did we mention elections are on the corner?

Lesson I learned: media has great power and that all it takes for politicians to compromise and forget their disagreements is to stand between them and their vacation.  Their patriotism, humanity, sense of duty, conscious, or whatever you like to call it does not work, at least not in a capitalist country.  Their vacation does!  Now, can you imagine what would happen if we stand between them and their salaries?  You won't get paid until you do your job, which is to have a fiscal budget ready before the year starts!

Just static?

Do you remember the static on analogue TVs?  If you live in the U.S. the analogue signals are not broadcast anymore, and what it means is that our old friend, the TV static, is gone.  Well, why should we care you ask?  Just for childhood memories?  What were you calling those when you were a kid? Did you compare them with snow flakes like most kids do?  Well, I for one have a good memory of my brother pulling my leg about it once.

One day after school he ran to my room, excited and happy.  "Have you heard about the new cartoon?", he asked.  "No, what cartoon?".  Now, let's get some perspective,as it is always good.  At that time we were living in Iran.  It was during war years.  We had only two public channels, each having programs for children one hour a day only.  Not all their cartoons were brand new either.  Some we had watched several times.  Anyways,  he told me how it was a foreign made brand new cartoon, maybe European or American.  It was fictional too!  It was about colony of aunts trying to survive a hard winter.  It always snowed where they lived, and yet ants, the hardworking organized creatures they are, they always survived.  It was about their stories and struggles, and if it was not exciting enough, that show was on all the time whenever there was no other program.  That was like a dream show!  You can imagine my face when we turned on the TV after running downstairs impatiently for me to see this brand new cartoon.  That was my most exciting experience with TV static.

Now, I have learned it was something even more exciting!  Not just because of our imagination and story telling talents in absence of enough entertainment, but for our own amazing universe and how it was born.  Did you know that every time you watch static on TV, you are also observing parts of the Big Bang?  The microwave radiations it had sent us billions of years ago, which have just reached us?  Is not that amazing?  Do not you miss watching Big Bang on your own TV?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjLtdorH0iE

The child in me is happy to get back at my brother with a better story.

Redshifts

Astronomers often calculate what is called redshift to determine different properties of celestial bodies, mainly their distance from us.  The redshift is often related to the Doppler effect of the light that is coming to us from that body, say a star.  In the same way that an ambulance siren's pitch varies to our ears when it approaches and leaves us,  the light spectrum of a star varies to our eyes (telescopes) as it travels through the space.  The change in wavelength of  that body's spectrum determines its redshift.

So far so good.  We have a simple and yet powerful concept to work with.  We can effectively derive the age, distance, velocity, temperature, and mass of bodies billions of miles away from us just by looking at their light spectrum's period and amplitude.  You see redshift and Doppler effect in so many astronomy papers and textbooks that even to a non-astronomer like me they become common knowledge. Something as famous and powerful as E = mc^2 or F = ma.  And just as you feel a little comfortable and confident about calculating at least one thing in astronomy, here came our professor and announced the biggest misconception in astronomy textbooks:  The redshift of galaxies is not due to Doppler effect, it is due to the expansion of the universe! Astronomers call this cosmological redshift!  Doppler effect is responsible for redshifts in our solar system and in our own galaxy.  When we look at spectra of other galaxies, their redshift is a result of the Hubble's law!

Ouch!  My summer intern was calculating redshifts for galaxies and he had mentioned Doppler effect in his report.  I emailed him directly from the training.  They cannot get a return on investment from an Astronomy for Engineers training any faster than that!  Of course, it does not affect calculations of the redshift and the results, but just the motivation behind the solution was not stated correctly scientifically.

Neutron Stars

Neutron stars are leftovers from huge beautiful explosions called Supernova.  They are the destiny of the dying stars if their core mass ends up less than three Sun masses.  They are very dense.  What is their density?  10^12  g/cm^3.  Think about that for a minute. More fascinating is that they rotate very rapidly.  Can you imagine how fast they rotate?

Let's get some perspective.  The Earth goes around itself once every 24 hours.  Our Sun,  the size of a million Earths,  rotates around itself once in about 25 days.  These dense stars, Neutron stars,  on average have a mass equivalent to 1.5 Sun masses.  How fast do you think they rotate?  Like Sun? Maybe twice faster? or maybe 25 times faster, going around themselves in 1 day or so?  Are you ready?

Neutron stars have a period of 0.0003 to 4 seconds.  That is every 4 seconds they can rotate somewhere between  once to 12000 times, while being as big or larger than our Sun!  Can you imagine something that huge spin that fast?  60 times to 720,000 times a minute?  Can you imagine if our Earth rotated that fast?  If you cannot be amazed and fascinated by this, like our professor said today, I give up!  I leave and never write or teach anything else.  That is it!

Yet, these massive and rapidly rotating bodies have properties with frequencies more accurate than the best atomic clocks we humans have built to date.  They are universe's most accurate clocks.  I get to that property some other time.

The Skies

I am taking an astronomy class these days from 8am to 5pm!  I have learned enough today that I can write about them for at least a month on a daily basis.  However, now I am too tired to write about the more sophisticated lessons and historical stories of astronomy.  I just go over some interesting trivia!

The class started on a sad note:  that humans 40,000 years ago were much more familiar with the skies than we are.  Most people used the sky at least as their clock, map, and calendar. You could ask any random person to show you a particular star or constellation  on a dark sky, and that person could quickly do that.  It is hard to imagine a random person these days passes this test.  I myself cannot locate famous stars and planets naturally.  Can you?  I should work on that.

So, here are the trivia:

1) "Moon" is from the Greek word Metron meaning to measure!  As it was mainly used to measure different things in old times.
2) "Clock" is a German word meaning Bell, since traditional clocks were made of bells.  Remember these?
, and finally
3) Brahe was a Danish astronomer who became the first federally funded researcher.  He has funny stories.  Maybe  I tell you sometime.

Till then,
Good night!

Schadenfreude

Do you know what Schadenfreude means?  This is a German word that has entered English language meaning "pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others."  It appears to be closely related to experiencing feelings of envy and jealously, when emphathy is replaced by Schadenfreude.

I learned this from my friend Pedram who made a program about it for Radio College Park in Persian.  The link for that program and the related Scientific American article it was based on are listed under references.

Here are some suggestions for its English translation.  One listener suggested the word glee.  Among friends, we thought it is close to  "دل خنك شدن"  in Persian.

References:
http://www.radiocp.com/?p=249
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=schadenfreude-why-the-news-corp-pho-2011-07-19

First Arab Astronaut

Did you know that the first Arab astronaut flew on shuttle Discovery in June 1985? and that he was officially representing ARABSAT of Saudi Arabia? This is an important part of history, especially for the Arab countries.  Why do not we hear about such history and accomplishments of theirs?

Reference:
http://onelessonaday.blogspot.com/2011/07/wise-eyes.html

WISE Eye!

WISE eyes have observed the first Trojan asteroid sharing Earth's orbit!
What is a Trojan asteroid? "asteroids that share an orbit with a planet near stable points in front of or behind the planet."

While the news is amazing, it tells me how little we humans know! We are still finding things in our own orbit! Yet, we expect discovering all sorts of things around Mars, Jupiter, Pluto! We have a lot to explore, to learn, to discover!

"Asteroid 2010 TK7 is circled in green, in this single frame taken by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The majority of the other dots are stars or galaxies far beyond our solar system."   Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA.

Reference:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110727.html

Pleasure and pain

The mind is its own place,
and in itself,
Can make a Heaven of Hell,
a Hell of Heaven
John Milton.

Paul Bloom argued how the same experience can feel more pleasurable or painful to us based on how we think about it and perceive it in this Ted talk.

Helium again!

Apparently, there is a Helium crisis and there is only a limited amount of it available! Helium is often used for cryogenics, "the study of very low temperatures (colder than any place on Earth), how to produce and exploit them, and how materials behave at those temperatures."*. Many scientists and engineers need to test their devices in cryogenics conditions. For example, for satellites or instruments, which will have to operate under those cold temperatures. To simulate those conditions, they cool down a closed system using Helium. Those experiments are time consuming and expensive. Now, this piece of information, makes it way more crucial to perform these experiments wisely and correctly; It is not just time, manpower, and good data that is lost if these engineering or scientific cryogenics experiments are not conducted correctly, but a scarce resource that cannot be obtained again.

p. s. I wish I knew this when I was performing analysis on hundreds of images obtained at cryogenics condition. I wonder how much that project contributed to this crisis!

* http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/education/tutorials/magnetacademy/cryogenics/

Sleep

At least forty million Americans suffer from long term sleep disorder. There are millions of dollars spent on health related issues that sleep deprivation causes, not to mention the lost productivity at work.* Tonight, ABC News had a story about the effect's of sleep deprivation on memory and our brain cells. If you hardly get enough sleep or always wake up during your deep stage of your sleep, before having gone through a complete sleep cycle, say by an alarm for work or a crying baby, or both, it affects how your brain cells work. Specially, it affects your memory. You won't remember things as well as you could or used to, and it can get worse. This is just one of the side affects. I was going to search for the full story online, which led me to discovering ABC's Sleep Center! They have a whole website dedicated to this cause and supporting people with sleep disorder, emphasizing sleep's importance, and raising awareness. Take advantage of its guidelines and support.

Sleep well! It is important.

* According to ABC News' Sleep Center site, and they say according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Eggplant!

One cannot talk about kashk, or whey as we know now, without mentioning its companion baademjaan or eggplant. There is this delicious Iranian meal I like a lot, kashk-e-bademjaan, and also a delicious gourmet served with rice that is made with eggplants and peas. Anyways, this past weekend my dear friend made me this delicious meal. We were admiring all the good stuff one can make with eggplant, that the inevitable question came to mind: "Eggplant! What is it good for anyways?" My friend claimed probably nothing.

I did not like that idea, nor did I want to ruin my lovely eggplant experiences. So, my dear friends, here is the final verdict: it is good for you!

Eggplant is a good source of fiber, protein, potassium, vitamin B, magnesium, and phosphorus! If that is not good enough, it is low in calories too, and good to add to your diet for weight loss. Just be careful, as you know eggplants are famous for soaking in all the oil during cooking. So, if you just boil it or fry it on the pan without any oil, that is the best. Actually my friend had fried the eggplant without any oil and it did turn out very well.

Enjoy!

p.s. Have you noticed that during and around weekends, all posts are somehow food related? By the time we get to Friday, I will be all into the latest space and science news, no worries. Mondays are hard!

هندوانه

هوا بسى گرم بود و دور هم جمع بوديم و هندوانه ميخورديم جاى شما خالى و بسى شيرين و آبدار بود و چسبيد. به تعريف از هندوانه پرداختيم كه خانم عموى من گفتند كه اوايل كه آمده بودند آمريكا، در اين ديار هنوانه در سوپر ماركت ها اصلا نبوده، و مردمان بر اين باور بودند كه هندوانه متعلق به سياهپوستان است و بس. نكته جالبى بود از تاريخ نه چندان دور آمريكا.

Kashk!

Today, I learned the answer to the question I had posted before.
The translation of the Farsi word pronounced kashk to English is whey.

The Largest and Farthest Ever Detected Reservoir of Water in Universe!!

Where do you think the largest ever detected reservoir of water exists? On our home planet, dear Earth? After all, that is what makes it habitable for us, and that is what we have been searching for everywhere. We got thrilled when we found buckets of water on moon, or some ice on Mars. But now we have found water "equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole, called a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away."

Think about those amounts and distances. Now, only if we could send a probe there! But wait, it says it is close to "a black hole 20 billion times more massive than the sun and produces as much energy as a thousand trillion suns." Attractive and unattainable? Maybe so!

Reference:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/universe20110722.html

Neural connections!

Apparently, there are more neural connections in a milli-meter cube of our brains than there are stars in the milky way!*, **

* According to David Eagleman, author of Incognito on Colbert Report tonight!

** Do you know how many stars are there in the milky way? This many! Now, does David Eagleman know this? How is it possible to have so many connections in such a little space? I cannot grasp neither the greatness of the milky way nor the brain!

Yet another Moon!

Today's lesson of the day is a no-brainer! Pluto's fourth moon is discovered!

Pluto is becoming more and more interesting! It was only in 1930 that Pluto itself was discovered! I let you entertain yourself to the story of what led to that discovery! The first and biggest moon of Pluto, Charon, was discovered in 1978 by astronomer James Christy.

For decades we grew up thinking of Pluto as a planet in our solar system, a planet with a big moon, just like our home planet! Until 2005, when two new moons of Pluto, Nix and Hydra, were discovered, and later verified with 2006 HST observations. This discovery made Pluto lose its planet status and be classified as a dwarf planet! I let you hear about this discovery's story from the person who made it, Max Mutchler!

Just as textbooks were changed and teachers and the general public were adjusting to Pluto not being a planet and having three moons, here comes today's discovery! Ironically during a time when many eyes are on Vesta and working hard to find a moon of it! Pluto comes and steals the show :-) New Horizon mission will have a lot to visit and learn about during its Pluto fly-by in 2015!

Now I wonder if this 4th moon appeared in 2005/2006 HST Pluto images and was undetected/missed or that it was somewhere else in its orbit and not in those frames. If it was missed before, we, especially the Dawn team, have to learn how and why it happened before it is too late.

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p.s. Can you imagine how exciting 2015 will be? We see Pluto and its moons from New Horizon's eyes, and we see Ceres and all it has to offer via Dawn mission! We are going to see so many new worlds for the first time, and soon later in 2016 Juno reveals Jupiter to us!

Juno!

Juno is the name of another cool mission scheduled to launch between August 5-26, 2011 to go on a five year cruise to Jupiter! Arriving there on July 2016! (yes, another eventful July). It will then orbit Jupiter for a year. To learn more about Juno click here.

Vesta, the word; Or maybe back to the rock!

So, what does Vesta mean anyways? The word does remind me of the Zoroastrian's Holy book, Avesta. Today, a good friend of mine confirmed my intuition. She said Vesta is a girl's name among Zoroastrians, derived from the word Avesta. Yet, I do not know its Persian meaning. Do you?

In English, Vesta is related to the name of a Roman Goddess of the hearth! Considering that fire is holy in Zoroastrianism, the connection to Avesta makes sense. So does the complete definition: the goddess of hearth is worshiped in a temple with a sacred fire that is kept burning by vestal virgins! Similarly, Zoroastrian temples in Iran have fireplaces that have been kept burning for hundreds of years! So, where do Romans come into the picture?! It is so interesting.

Back to the Vesta of the skies now! Vesta is the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. As of Saturday (July 16, 2011), Dawn became the first spacecraft orbiting such a body. Look at its image only 9500 miles away from Vesta's surface!*

Compare it to the July 9th, 2011 image! It is amazing going for a ride on Dawn, millions of miles, all the way to the Vesta!

* http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/news/dawn20110718.html

What does it take to become an Aussie?

Yesterday I learned from a friend that in Australia the citizenship test includes questions on cricket, its Australian team players over the years, results of important games, ...! Just imagine if all permanent residents in the U.S. were tested on NFL football, its rules and players, when applying for the U.S. citizenship!

Vesta Fiesta!

Asteroid Vesta was discovered on March 29, 1807 by German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers [1]. Vesta is the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. How large is it? 530 kilometers wide. How far is it? 211 million kilometers (131 million miles) from Earth when Hubble observed it [2]. For the first time since its discovery 204 years ago, we are able to see it so clearly via Dawn mission. Here is an image from July 9th, 2011 observation of Vesta from Dawn [3]:

It took Dawn four years to get to Vesta, on a slow and steady approach [2,5]. Dawn will enter Vesta's orbit on July 15, 2011 [4] (July 16th EST) and stays there for about a year to study this asteroid. Then, it will leave Vesta's orbit for its next destination Ceres, a dwarf planet. Ceres is in the same class of celestial bodies as Pluto! Most people note that Pluto got demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet because of the discovery of two of its moons, Nix and Hydra. However, this new classification implies to astronomers and planetary scientists that so many other celestial bodies, such as Ceres, got promoted to the same class as Pluto! Whether or not Vesta has moons, will also imply different things about our solar system and creation. Stay tuned!


[1] http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/29mar_vesta/
[2] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/multimedia/pia13428.html
[3] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/multimedia/dawn-image-070911.html
[4] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/news/dawn20110714.html
[5] http://dawn.ucla.edu/dawn/mission.html