When A Leaf Turns » Science

Amazing Satellite Photos of Earth

Venture Free — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:17:42 +0000

I’ve found some new favorite wallpaper for my computers. These are absolutely amazing satellite images of Earth! From the site:

The images in this compilation are from the Landsat 7 satellite and were created to introduce the general public to the Landsat Program.

Various combinations of the eight Landsat 7 spectral bands were selected to create the vivid RGB composites that we have featured.

Go here or click on the image to see for yourself. I highly HIGHLY recommend it.

Change Blindness

Venture Free — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:44:52 +0000

One might be tempted to read more into this than can be legitimately claimed. I certainly am. Whatever you think, it is most definitely an interesting phenomenon.

Febrile Nitwits

Venture Free — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 16:30:00 +0000

When the hacked emails first came out, I said they would be a quote miners heaven. I was right, but to a much, much lesser extent than I would have thought possible, which is saying a lot. It’s amazing how little material the climate deniers have actually found to backup their claims of conspiracy.

And then someone goes and makes a video like this, blasting the two most “damning” quotes out of the water.

As usual it’s not looking good for the deniers, and I’m sure that as usual they’ll simply ignore that fact and continue to proudly proclaim their “victory”.

(Thanks to Pharyngula for this one)

Baloney Detection Kit

Venture Free — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:02:19 +0000

In case you’re not sure.

More Scale

Venture Free — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:42:15 +0000

I’m not sure that this is related the way that I think it might be, but the latest Radio Lab Podcast had a segment on the fact that very young children think of numbers logarithmically. Perhaps our difficulties with scale and magnitude are a reflection of this natural understanding of numbers (rather than our “unnatural” understanding of numbers as serial).

Scale

Venture Free — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:07:11 +0000

I think people automatically think on a kind of logarithmic scale when contemplating extraordinary distances simply because the analogies used by our intuition cause magnitude to be lost. The moon orbiting the earth is roughly analogous to the earth orbiting the sun and so our minds map the moon to the earth and the earth to the sun, and the difference in magnitude is lost. We look at a galaxy and it appears roughly similar to the solar system. We can tell ourselves that the galaxy is incomprehensibly larger, but in our heads we see a solar system and the size difference is reduced to “It’s like this, but bigger.” We look at the universe, at all of the galaxies out there, and it appears roughly similar to the stars in our own galaxy. “It’s like our galaxy, but bigger.”

My hope is that these resources might help you get a grip on the actual sizes involved when thinking about the universe.

First, this website (http://www.phrenopolis.com/perspective/solarsystem/) shows the solar system to scale. According to the site: “This page shows a scale model of the solar system, shrunken down to the point where the Sun, normally more than eight hundred thousand miles across, is the size you see it here [approximately 6 inches]. The planets are shown in corresponding scale.”

Next a comparison of celestial bodies, including the planets and various types of stars.

Finally, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D.

All this really does for me in the end is highlight just how bad I am at imagining the sizes and distances involved in the universe. Even knowing it I find myself unable to do any better.

Programmable Quantum Computer

Venture Free — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:12:48 +0000

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, CO. have built a quantum computer that is programmable. Unlike previous quantum computers, which were mostly restricted to specific tasks, this computer was able to run 160 different tasks chosen at random by the researchers. It was said to be accurate only 79 percent of the time (estimates are that it must be 99.99% accurate to be useful), but it’s a great next step.

“What’s most impressive and important is that they did it in the way that can be applied to a larger-scale system,” says Blinov, of the University of Washington in Seattle. “The very same techniques they’ve used for two qubits can be applied to much larger systems.”

(Fer chrissakes people, read the original article already, and the original paper itself if you can. My little summary is almost certainly wildly inaccurate, as all short summaries of science articles probably are.)

The Counter-Intuitive Water Bubble

Venture Free — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:33:01 +0000

Our intuition is formed by what we commonly experience in our lives.

This video shouldn’t be surprising, given even a basic understanding of how water and air interact. And yet it is because out intuition automatically includes the concept of up and down. Bubbles float up, and water droplets fall down. Get rid of up and down and things don’t act “the way they should”.

I love videos like this that remind me to question intuition. After all, what is intuitive isn’t necessarily true.

(Thanks to Maggie over at Boing Boing for this video)

Nuclear Strike Averted

Venture Free — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:01:42 +0000

Apparently Obama loyalists flexed their military muscles and shot a nuclear missile at the Denver International Airport!

Either that or it was a meteor. But what are the chances of that? It’s much more likely to be a vast government conspiracy to hide nuclear attacks right in the middle of the U.S. MUCH more likely! MUCH MORE LIKELY!!!!

Okay, now that that’s out of my system, this video really is very cool. Dr. Plait over at Bad Astronomy points out that these kinds of meteors probably happen multiple times a year. The difference now is the ubiquity of recording devices which are able to actually record such events.

You know, there may be a lot of drawbacks to the idea of pervasive surveillance, but this is definitely one of the benefits.

Mandelbrot Zoom (Best I’ve Seen Yet)

Venture Free — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:47:03 +0000