Naming Lunar Plains, Martian Mountains

In the spirit of Neil Armstrong, I recently reread some information about the Apollo missions and the moon itself.  The names of the seas (aka "maria") are so ethereal: Tranquillitatis (tranquility), Frigoris (cold), Humorum (Moisture), Imbrium (Showers) and Ingenii (Cleverness).  What I did not appreciate until today was that all maria on the moon are named for either states of the mind (tranquility, cleverness) or water (moisture, showers).  Who knew?  Not me!

Since we are currently moving beyond the moon in space exploration, scientists are needing to name aspects of more distant heavenly bodies.  Luckily, the International Astronomical Union has rules in place!

Mercury mountains are given names meaning "hot." = ex. Caloris Montes (mountains of heat)

Venus canyons are named in honor of goddesses. = ex. Ishtar Terra (Ishtar is the Babylonian goddess of love), Aphrodite Terra (Aphrodite being the Greek goddess of love and beauty)

Mars craters get their names from villages on Earth.  = ex. Ada (Oklahoma), Ajon (Russia), Bombala (Australia)


Read more about the tales of woe surrounding these naming philosophies here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7412/full/488429b.html

Naming is always a fun task for scientists.  Read here about the funny names we give proteins.

Hurricane Isaac

It made it.  I knew it had a chance once I saw that the prediction cone went over Key West, Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico.  The warm waters there help strengthen storms.

As of 1 pm EDT, Hurricane Isaac has maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (Category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson scale) and its minimal pressure central pressure is 976 MB.

SETI at Home; Folding at Home

Want to help out science on a daily basis just by using your computer?  These are two options that are available to you - I find both to be great causes!

SETI, or the "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence," has been collecting and analyzing radio signals from all over skies since the 1960s in the hunt for other intelligent life in our cosmos.  Unsure where exactly to point the telescopes or what frequency to find information on, SETI has more data than it can possibly go through.  Instead of filling up the processing capabilities on a few computers, these scientists have decided to spread out the information on many computers across the world.  Your computer, which will still functions normally while performing SETI analysis in the background, can be one!  Look it up, sign up, and check it out here: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

Biological scientists study proteins every single day.  Each one is created as a string of amino acids, but then folds up on itself to create a 3-dimensional structure capable of fulfilling some function (Lost?  Check out my Central Dogma post!)  Each string of amino acids folds into a shape that is specific, but we still don't understand many of the links between amino acid sequence and final, 3-dimensional shape.  Programs exist to model protein folding, but they require large processing capabilities.  Much like SETI@home, Folding@home also works by breaking down a large job into many smaller jobs capable of being run in the background on your home computer.  The information gained from these models can be helpful for future treatments in all sorts of human diseases.  Find out more on their website: http://folding.stanford.edu/English/HomePage

Isaac and Joyce

While both tropical storms, Isaac and Joyce are churning down in the Atlantic, I jumped over to www.nhc.noaa.gov to check out the pictures!  Unfortunately, I expected something more grand.  Neither storm has the lovely cloud swirls yet and are instead more like cloud clusters.

Tropical Storm Isaac has a chance to turn hurricane before hitting the Domincan Republic and Haiti.  The storm's current pressure (as of Advisory #10) is 1003 MB.  As a hurricane strengthens, its central pressure drops, the eye becomes more well formed, and the hurricane takes on its classic cyclone shape. 

Check for updated pictures of the storms every 30 minutes here: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/satellite.shtml (Atlantic views, GOES-East, Atlantic Wide View, Visible link)

Advisories, predictions, current stats of the storms can be found here: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Here's a post I did last year on my main blog about hurricanes in the past:  http://www.amedeo-amedeo.com/2011/08/hurricanes.html



 

Aristotle or Plato?

Scientific American sent me a short, special report addition to their magazine this week.  Apparently, physics predicts upwards of four different levels of parallel universes and this pamphlet was going to explain it to me.  It didn't.  All it really did was make me have this face:

However, I did learn something interesting about myself and I now want to pose the question to you.

Are you Aristotelian or Platonic?

Aristotelian: "Physical reality is fundamental and mathematic[s] is ... a useful approximation."

Platonic: "Mathematics is the true reality and observers perceive it imperfectly."

So, which do you believe?  Our reality of gravity, planetary movement and energy is something math will only be able to approximate (Aristotelian) or that we are all governed by math, but we don't completely understand it all yet (Platonic)?

I am Platonic.


Reference: Tegmark, Max. "Parallel Universes: A Scientific American Special Report." Scientific American (2009).
PDF Copy: http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/PDF/multiverse_sciam.pdf

Twitter

I've joined Twitter.

With some things in my life winding down and other things just beginning, I've decided it's time to up my readership.  Twitter seems to be a good way to go about it.

Check me out at @AmedeoBlog.

Mice and Rats

Oh my god, Bill Bryson. I love your writing and aspire to be you one day, but I will never write such a frightening section of a book unless it deals with flesh eating viruses. 

Here's what Bill taught me today:

- "Two mice, breeding prolifically, could theoretically produce a million descendants in a year."

- "Each mouse voids about fifty pellets a day... Because of the impossibility of achieving perfection in storage, hygeine regulations in most places allow up to two fecal pellets per pint of grain."

- "Rats are smart and work cooperatively.  ...one rat would embrace an egg with all four legs, then roll over on his back.  A second rat would then drag the first rat by its tail to their burrow..."

- "It is commonly written that there is one rat for every human being in a typical city, but studies have shown that to be an exaggeration.  The actual figure is more like one rat for every three dozen people."

Why am I reading this??  I just wanted to learn about why a study exists in a home!

Anyway, all of this excellent info comes from Bill's newest book "At Home," which is wonderful, if not a little unsettling about all the things in your home.

I had to find the cutest picture of a rat ever after reading all this this morning.  I succeeded.