Archive for August, 2008
Soon to Be Gassed by the Department of Environmental Protection
Posted by Grg in Grg's Reference, Rant/Rave on Wednesday, August 27, 2008
I’m sure you aren’t on their press release e-mailing list, so you here you go. The missus only heard of it because she was passing by a TV and caught the noon news on channel 6.
This also makes me wonder about my newspaper habits. The Inky wrote a lovely article on how the DEP cocked the whole thing up, but I hadn’t read it until just now.
I get the paper, but I usually just read it online. If I had gone cover to cover as I used to, I might have caught it.
So, if you are in Eastern Montgomery County or Lower Bucks tonight, keep your windows up.
I believe it is Monday, people…
Posted by Grg in General stuff on Monday, August 25, 2008
Federal funding for academic R&D sucks and you should worry
Posted by Grg in Science Fandom on Friday, August 22, 2008
This, of course, just will not do. Do something. Complain.
Elephants in Motion
Posted by Grg in Grg's Reference, PR Guy, Science/Geek on Friday, August 22, 2008
It has everything, elephants, baby elephants, and a lede that mentions both Shakespeare and Aristotle. Not to mention clear and unexaggerated reporting on an interesting topic. Brilliant. Well done, Kathryn Phillips.
Elephant legs are much bendier than Shakespeare thought
Throughout history, elephants have been thought of as ‘different’. Shakespeare, and even Aristotle, described them as walking on inflexible column-like legs. And this myth persists even today. Which made John Hutchinson from The Royal Veterinary College, London, want to find out more about elephants and the way they move. Are they really that different from other, more fleet-footed species? Are their legs as rigid and ‘columnar’ as people had thought? Traveling to Thailand and several UK zoos, Hutchinson and his team investigated how Asian Elephants move their legs as they walk and run and publishes his results in The Journal of Experimental Biology on August 22 2008 at http://jeb.biologists.orgStriking up collaborations with elephant keepers at Colchester and Whipsnade Zoo, Hutchinson explains that the keepers were keen to know more about the animals’ natural limb movements to develop training programmes and prevent the onset of arthritis. Fortunately for Hutchinson, the animals were fantastically cooperative when he turned their exercise enclosure into a film set to record their movements; ‘this is the same 3D capture technology used in Hollywood blockbusters,’ explains Hutchinson. After the team had stuck hemispheres covered in infrared reflecting tape to joints on the elephants’ fore and hind limbs, the animals were happy to walk and run in front of the arc of infrared detecting cameras as Hutchinson and his team filmed their steps at speeds ranging from 0.62 m/s to 4 92m/s. ‘The big problem was keeping the markers in place,’ says Hutchinson, ‘the little ones kept on pulling them off with their trunks.’ Having filmed animals ranging in size from 521 to 3512kg, Hutchinson, Lei Ren and Charlotte Miller travelled to Thailand to film the athletic elite; Thai racing elephants that easily outpaced the UK elephants at 6.8m/s.
LED Table of Total Awesomeness
Posted by Grg in Grg's Reference on Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Dear Lord Crom, before I die* I must build one of these amazing interactive LED tables .**
* To put a date on it, let’s go with June 2, 2441
** after I get the uke down.
Toys from Trash
Posted by Grg in General stuff on Monday, August 18, 2008
A fellow in India (I’m assuming its the eponymous Arvind Gupta) has a whole site devoted to interesting things you can make with trash and junk. No banana peel particle accelerators, but a heck of a lot of neat and nifty gizmos that you can put together with balloons, paper, matchsticks and polonium.
I love these pecking birds.
There’s also a few science-y things in there in case you need to pull a MacGuyver and produce a railgun from some old film canisters, C batteries and a rare earth magnet.
GMOs Will Kill Us All, says Mutant
Posted by Grg in General stuff on Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Can someone name something currently cultivated or bred in captivity that has not been genetically modified in some way?
Charles himself is the product of centuries of selective breeding without regards to genetic consequences.
UPDATE: Brian Dunning is there . Last week, no less. He’s good.
Magna-Doodle for Grownups
Posted by Grg in Grg's Reference on Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Dry-erase boards always look nasty after a few months, so this might be a better option. I wonder if it gets the "stuck pixel" thing that Julia’s gets, where you can fully erase one or two spots.
Impalement AND ATVs, this story has everything
Posted by Grg in General stuff on Friday, August 8, 2008
A 19-year-old man was impaled on a fence last night in South Philadelphia after he crashed an all-terrain vehicle into a police car and then tried to run away, police said.
…
As he tried to hop over an iron fence, the man was impaled. The Fire Department had to saw off part of the fence and leave the metal in the man’s body so he could be safely transported.
I wonder if this kid did anything in particular…other than driving an ATV in the city streets, which is common, but must be illegal. They get ‘em all souped up and chromed out and do wheelies down Broad street like crazy. One of these nuts almost nailed me once as I was heading to the shore some two summers past, so I’m not terribly sympathetic.
Philly is also a great place to be impaled on old, rusted iron fences. The city had quite the reputation at one point for fine ironwork. Now, some of the best examples can be found in the some of the poorest neighborhoods, or at least those that have escaped gentrification thus far. Given that these neighborhoods tend to have more crime, folks evading the police here have a greater than average chance of going out like Zoltan, Hound of Dracula.
I need to see something explode into space, sometime
Posted by Grg in General stuff on Wednesday, August 6, 2008
It just reminds me that I’ve always wanted to see a shuttle launch…or rocket launch in general. I have a certain longing to see stuff explode into space. It gnaws at me…or it could be the antibiotics. Either way, this past weekend’s failed Space X launch contributes to the mood as well. (Sorry about the rocket, Elon. Spectacular job with the webcast, BTW)
Here’s NASA’s launch schedule. The problem with scheduling a trip is that things rarely seem to go off when planned.