Science

Beautiful Minds features Northern Star

Pete Baker on April 8, 2010, 9:54 pm

| Readers 4

BBC NI’s excellent 2007 Northern Star profile of Belfast-born poetry enthusiast, and astrophysicist, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, may be lying forgotten in a dusty archive, but last night the discoverer of pulsars was the subject of the first episode of a new BBC 4 series, Beautiful Minds. If you missed it, it’s worth taking the time to view it on the iPlayer where it’s available for the next 21 days. The Guardian’s Tim Dowling was watching. I dimly recall once …

“have you seen The Wire?”

Pete Baker on April 7, 2010, 1:06 am

| Readers 1

Bobballs’ first blog round-up for the Belfast Telegraph included a suitably sceptical post by Keith Belfast in the face of apparent local political unanimity in support of the banning of mephedrone – despite actual evidence of harm from the drug’s use being largely absent and amid concerns about political interference in the work of the advisory council on the misuse of drugs. At his Guardian blog Roy Greenslade picks up on a column by Simon Jenkins in the same paper …

“The Nasa administrator is in a dog-fight, and he knows it.”

Pete Baker on April 5, 2010, 6:49 pm

| Readers 2

Another spectacular early morning launch for the Space Shuttle Discovery today on Mission STS-131 – one of the last 4 scheduled missions of the 30-year-old shuttle program. The BBC’s Spaceman blog has a great, but unembeddable, clip of “a tear-filled-but-determined” Nasa administrator Major-General Charlie Bolden discussing what happens next for Nasa. For the International Space Station it means Russian Soyuz rockets ferrying astronauts to the station while the US develops its new era of commercial launchers and capsules. From the …

Relativity’s final test?

Pete Baker on April 3, 2010, 8:37 pm

| Readers 3

Here’s an interesting New Scientist article on the efforts of astronomers to detect evidence for gravitational waves by observing “suitable” pulsars – first discovered by Northern Star, Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell. And there’s an accompanying video via the newscientistvideo channel From the New Scientist article So how long will it be before we have a definitive detection of gravitational waves? Hobbs’s prediction of next week is, he admits, on the optimistic side. “But with the data we already have, it …

“the hunt begins for dark matter, new forces, new dimensions and the Higgs boson”

Pete Baker on March 30, 2010, 7:34 pm

| Readers 2

As it turned out the Irish Times’ Dick Ahlstrom was a tad optimistic. About the time, not the end of the world… And, despite the Guardian’s live-blogging Ian Sample’s tongue-in-cheek concern that the early glitches today were due to “the Higgs particle wooing its way back in time and jinxing the machine”, again, at approximately 1300 Central European Summer Time [12pm local] the beams of protons in the Large Hadron Collider at Cern were stabilised and fully aligned and the …

“At these energies we are starting to enter a new regime”

Pete Baker on March 30, 2010, 4:04 am

| Readers 4

Ahead of the start of First Physics at the Large Hadron Collider tomorrow, and I should correct the times for streaming on-line coverage as 7.30am to 5pm local time, the Irish Times has a report on Belfast-born director of accelerators at Cern, Steve Myers, at the annual conference of the Institute of Physics in Ireland in Athlone. Meanwhile, The Guardian’s Science Blog interviews Cern physicist Jon Butterworth on the [cautious] way forward So, the first results are in. The detectors …

“WISE is very good at this kind of work.”

Pete Baker on March 27, 2010, 10:28 pm

| Readers 3

The BBC science reporter notes that funding concerns at the Arecibo Observatory might affect its planned radar tracking of the potentially hazardous Near Earth Object, Apophis, in January 2013 [when it will pass by the Earth at a distance of 13 million kilometres] – no update yet on Russia’s plans to affect its orbit… Meanwhile, Nasa’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer [WISE], which produced a medley of images in February, spotted its first never-before-seen near-Earth asteroid, 2010 AB78, at the end …

“It’s a bit like firing needles across the Atlantic and getting them to collide half way.”

Pete Baker on March 24, 2010, 1:12 am

| Readers 4

The Large Hadron Collider at Cern set another new world record for particle accelerators on Friday with twin beams each at an energy of 3.5 trillion electronvolts (TeV) and, as the BBC notes, on Tuesday 30th March those beams will be made to collide. Btw, that’s still only half-maximum power. And there’ll be a live webcast of the event, LHC First Physics, on the Cern website from 8:30 to 18:00 CEST (Central European Summer Time) – 10.30am to 8pm local …

“Holy shit, indeed.”

Pete Baker on March 22, 2010, 9:23 pm

| Readers 15

I’ve previously noted some of the stunning images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. And at The Guardian Sam Leith praises the “compelling stillness and strangeness” of the latest “photographs [which] inspire not only awe and wonder, but also a sort of longing.” You can see what he means in this short video compilation – more images here. Video credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. Pete Baker

“Tendrils of the coldest stuff in our galaxy”

Pete Baker on March 18, 2010, 2:54 am

| Readers 3

ESA’s cool infrared Herschel observatory sent its first images back in October last year, just after its launch companion, the even cooler Planck observatory achieved first light. Both are twittering away – Planck and Herschel. But as the BBC notes Planck scientists have now released “a snapshot of the colossal swathes of cold dust that spread through the Milky Way galaxy.” Wednesday’s pictures come from Planck’s highest frequency channels and cover about 10% of the sky. They show the great …

“We’re able to take advantage of the close proximity of the Moon”

Pete Baker on March 16, 2010, 4:02 pm

| Readers 2

Stunning images of the lunar surface from Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. You can almost taste the water… Video Credit: NASA/GSFC/Moscow Institute for Space Research/UCLA/MIT. Pete Baker

“Nothing shows more clearly the scientific illiteracy that prevails in the House of Commons”

Pete Baker on March 13, 2010, 4:52 am

| Readers 13

As David Colquhoun’s Improbable Science blog notes, 55 MPs [and counting – Ed] have signed Early Day Motion 908, expressing “concern at the conclusions of the Science and Technology Committee’s Report, Evidence Check on Homeopathy” – previously mentioned here. Among the signatories of the EDM are the DUP MPs, Peter Robinson, Nigel Dodds, Gregory Campbell, William McCrea, Ian Paisley Snr, and David Simpson… and the UUP’s the independently minded Lady Hermon. [What?! No Peter Hain? – Ed] Not yet… As …

“It was no longer appreciated that the structure as a whole comprised two separate components”

Pete Baker on March 12, 2010, 7:43 pm

| Readers 9

Yesterday RTÉ reported the publication of the independent report [pdf file] into the collapse of the Broadmeadow rail viaduct near Malahide last August. As the Irish Times reports today, following work carried out in the period 1966-1968, “It was no longer appreciated that the structure as a whole comprised two separate components: a causeway/weir and a viaduct”. From the Irish Times The report said the structure of the viaduct was unusual because the piers holding it up did not extend …

“Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong?”

Pete Baker on March 10, 2010, 9:27 pm

| Readers 8

As I said at the end of last year – It’s still the experiment most likely to find more than a pair of WIMPy socks. If they’re really there… But it might take a little longer than expected. Belfast-born director of accelerators at Cern, Steve Myers, has told the BBC that the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s highest energy particle accelerator, will only be run at half-maximum power for 18 to 24 months before being switched off for a year …

The Caves of Titan?

Pete Baker on March 6, 2010, 3:44 am

| Readers 4

After landing the Huygens probe on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, in 2005, the Cassini orbiter has been hanging around the neighbourhood taking some stunning images of a strangely familar world. The latest images come via the orbiter’s radar instrument and there’s a JPLnews video to accompany the press release. From the JPL News press release. Karst terrain on Earth occurs when water dissolves layers of bedrock, leaving dramatic rock outcroppings and sinkholes. Comparing images of White Canyon in Utah, the …

“There’s not one flavour of water on the Moon; there’s a range of everything”

Pete Baker on March 3, 2010, 4:40 am

| Readers 3

When Nasa’s LCROSS mission disappeared into the lunar crater Cabeus the initial data collected showed evidence of “a significant amount” of water vapour and water-ice in the impact plume. Now, as the BBC reports, “A radar experiment aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar spacecraft has identified thick deposits of water-ice near the Moon’s north pole” – estimated as “at least 600 million metric tonnes of water-ice”. And there’s been further analysis of the LCROSS impact plume. From the BBC report Scientists have …

Some Royal Society Stamps

Pete Baker on February 26, 2010, 7:52 pm

| Readers 3

The BBC hosts a neat, but unembeddable, audio slideshow on a new series of commemorative Royal Mail stamps marking The Royal Society’s 350th anniversary year. Ten eminent scientists are featured starting with the Honourable Robert Boyle – who was born at Lismore Castle, Co. Waterford, on 25 January 1627. Missing from the list is the Ingenious Mr Robert Hooke. Possibly because his only known portrait, held by the Royal Society, was allegedly, destroyed by his long-term rival Sir Isaac Newton …

“the Government should not endorse the use of placebo treatments”

Pete Baker on February 23, 2010, 6:29 pm

| Readers 20

I’m still not aware of any response from the NI Health Minister to the report on Peter Hain’s alternative remedy clinical trial scam self-assessing pilot scheme administered by Get Well UK – that report sits frozen in time on the departmental website. Still no sign of embarrassment from the BBC about the propaganda they broadcast on behalf of that scheme either. But the Commons Science and Technology Committee has just published a report which “concludes that the NHS should cease …

“We’ve got a candy store of images coming down from space”

Pete Baker on February 19, 2010, 9:37 pm

| Readers 5

Launched on 15 December 2009, Nasa’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer [WISE] opened its eyes for first light in January. And, as the BBC report, Nasa has just published the first survey images from the latest space telescope. Downloadable images here. And here’s a neat video compilation from JPL news Pete Baker

Hubble Views Saturn’s Stunning Aurorae

Pete Baker on February 13, 2010, 7:50 pm

| Readers 2

Cassini may have captured Saturn’s Northern Lights but the Hubble Space Telescope has gone one better – observing both northern and southern aurora together. And those observations form the basis of this informative Hubble videocast. Here’s a video clip of the observed aurorae in isolation. Video Credit: NASA, ESA and Jonathan Nichols (University of Leicester) Pete Baker