Hubble is saved!

NASA's most famous observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, will get a much anticipated life extension after all. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announced on Tuesday that a space shuttle will be sent to upgrade Hubble and add a few years to the lifetime of the venerable queen of the sky.

"We are going to add a shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope to the shuttle's manifest to be flown before it retires [in 2010]," Griffin said to applause at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, US.

The move, though not unexpected, still had astronomers on the edge of their seats. The telescope is enormously popular and has brought back a wealth of data since its launch aboard a space shuttle in 1990.

"The Hubble Space Telescope has been the greatest telescope since Galileo invented the first one," said US Senator Barbara Mikulski, who pushed NASA to reconsider a final servicing mission.

Now we can find out ever so more about the cosmos. Kudos to NASA for a good decision.

Sexsomniac

THE first time it happened, Lisa Mahoney woke up to her boyfriend trying to have sex with her. "What are you doing?" she said, pushing him off.

"You started it," he said.

A few years later, a friend of hers crashed in her bed one night. The next morning he told her that she had made sexual advances toward him in her sleep.

Now, eight years after the first incident, Mahoney has a different boyfriend. She attacks him nearly every night they share a bed, aggressively trying to initiate sex - and remembers none of it in the morning.

This is strange but I'm sure it's quite true.

If you have ugly children, you're beautiful

Sexy males sire dowdy daughters and attractive females bear insipid sons – in fruit flies, at least.

This perverse pattern of inheritance may be one reason why not all individuals are highly attractive. It may even help explain why many of the showiest sexual displays are found in birds and butterflies, rather than other organisms.

The paradox arises because many of the traits that enhance a male's reproductive success are detrimental to female success, and vice versa. For example, female flies that devote a lot of time to feeding may have more energy to put into egg-laying, whereas males may do better spending more of their time mating instead.

So, let's hope the converse isn't true: If you have beautiful offspring, does that mean you're ugly?
I have three beautiful children, I guess I know why now.

Birth control: IUDs better than the Pill?

IT'S a tricky question for women in stable relationships. Do you stay on the pill, even though prolonged use slightly raises the risk of heart disease and other conditions, or do you switch to a less effective contraceptive? Now it seems there is an alternative.

Anneli Pouta at the University of Oulu, Finland, and colleagues studied 2814 women, all aged 31, taking the combined pill, no hormonal contraceptive or fitted with an intrauterine device (IUD) that releases small doses of progesterone into the womb.

Women on the combined pill had higher blood pressure, cholesterol and insulin levels than those who were not. Women fitted with IUDs, which are more than 99 per cent effective at preventing pregnancy, had none of these problems, probably because hormones are released locally rather than into the general circulation, Pouta says.

So, for young women the pill is fine. After the age of 40 the IUD seems the better choice.

Mars Rover: Getting moving

The Mars rover is starting to move again after spending the Martian winter hunkered down. Above is a panaromic picture of the red planet.

Printing on water

I forgot to post this. The link is from an email and I found that email tonight while sorting out my folder.

Just looking at this, a letter on the surface of water, gives me chills. Do you remember the movie The Abyss? Remember the scene where the deep sea creatures manipulate water, "at the molecular level" to quote one character?

Carl Sagan Videos

Click the link to start to view Carl Sagan's Cosmos series television shows.

Enjoy!

(hat tip: Ilachina)

Science: Professionals only?

Here's an article from Slate magazine where a sociologist, Harry Collins, was able to answer questions on gravitational waves as well as researchers in the field.

In a recent experiment of his design, British sociologist Harry Collins asked a scientist who specializes in gravitational waves to answer seven questions about the physics of these waves. Collins, who has made an amateur study of this field for more than 30 years but has never actually practiced it, also answered the questions himself. Then he submitted both sets of answers to a panel of judges who are themselves gravitational-wave researchers. The judges couldn't tell the impostor from one of their own. Collins argues that he is therefore as qualified as anyone to discuss this field, even though he can't conduct experiments in it.

The article (weakly) argues that maybe non-scientist can participate in scientific debates and understand science. This idea though is very misleading.

To begin, the idea that non-scientists cannot debate with scientists is true. To truly debate the merits of a theory (not a theorem that is true or is not true, and please don't post about Godel!) each debater needs to know the theorem and have an insight into the field.

But, and here's the point, if the so-called non-scientist knows enough to debate other scientists, then he's not a non-scientist at all. He's a scientist, pure and simple. One need not have a degree to be a scientist. What's more, one doesn't have to know mathematics to be a scientist either.

(Hat tip: Ilachina)

Meteor Shower

Another beautiful picture from Astonomy Picture of the Day.

New word: Aleatory

Last week, October 16--20, I attended a conference on security technology where I presented a paper. At the end of the week there was a talk on the Evaluation of Risk from Acts of Terrorism. Interesting topic.

The author used the word "aleatory" and that was new one for me. Here's what it means:

1.	Law. depending on a contingent event: an aleatory contract.

2.	of or pertaining to accidental causes; of luck or chance; unpredictable: an aleatory element.

3.	Music. employing the element of chance in the choice of tones, rests, durations, rhythms, dynamics, etc.

(From Dictionary.com Click here for the definition.)

Makes sense, and I thought I'd pass along my new vocabulary word.

Pamphlets for publishing

I ran across this site, or publisher really, from checking out a political blog that linked to a what I thought would be a book. The book, that really is a pamphlet of some sort, costs $10.00. Pretty cheap today so I looked a little closer. The publisher is "The New Pahphleteer" and a Yahoo! search led me to this site (see link above).

The site is for people to get ideas out in a short pamphlet instead of, or in supplement to, a long book. It's a great idea because I think people will read a pamphlet, take away an idea or two, and them move on to the next topic. We're so busy today, so bombarded with talk, television, pundits (some of whom are not even close to experts) that we have little time to read and digest ideas.

A pamphlet is a good way to stay informed within the short time we have to read.

New Blogger

Google has a new beta version for blogs. I just switched to it and am trying it out.

Worthless feat

A Japanese man recites pi to 100,000 digits. Is this not a totally worthless feat?

I'll tell you what would have been impressive: If he had calculated the digits instead of reciting them from memory. Now that would have been something, but again, not much.