Lunar Transit of the Sun

Source - Space Weather News for Jan. 29, 2014: http://spaceweather.com

LUNAR TRANSIT:  The Moon is about to pass in front of the sun, producing an eclipse that can be seen only from space.  NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory will record the 2.5-hour  "lunar transit" beginning at 1331 UTC or 8:31 EST on Thursday, Jan. 30th.  Tune into http://spaceweather.com for pictures during the event.

SOLAR FLARES: A large and moderately active sunspot is slowly turning toward Earth, increasing the chances of geoeffective solar activity this week.

X-flare alerts are available from http://spaceweathertext.com (text) and http://spaceweatherphone.com (voice).

Big Picture Science for 01/27/14 - The Pest of Us

Big Picture Science - The Pest of Us

Picture a cockroach skittering across your kitchen. Eeww! Now imagine it served as an entrée at your local restaurant. There’s good reason these diminutive arthropods give us the willies – but they may also be the key to protein-rich meals of the future.

Get ready for cricket casserole, as our relationship to bugs is about to change.

Also, share in one man’s panic attack when he is swarmed by grasshoppers. And the evolutionary reason insects revolt us, but also why the cicada’s buzz and the beetle’s click may have inspired humans to make music.

Plus, the history of urban pests: why roaches love to hide out between your floorboards. And Molly adopts a boxful of mealworms.

Guests:

• Jeffrey Lockwood – Professor of natural sciences and humanities, University of Wyoming, author of The Infested Mind: Why Humans Fear, Loathe, and Love Insects
• David Rothenberg – Musician, author of Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise
• Dawn Day Biehler – Assistant professor of geography and environmental studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore county, author of Pests in the City: Flies, Bedbugs, Cockroaches, and Rats (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)
• Andrew Brentano, Jena Brentano and Daniel Imrie-Situnayake – Co-founders, Tiny Farms, Berkeley, California

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/The_Pest_of_Us

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Water Detected on Dwarf Planet Ceres

Source - NASA Science News for Jan. 22, 2014

Scientists using the Herschel space observatory have made the first definitive detection of water vapor on the largest and roundest object in the asteroid belt, dwarf planet Ceres.

The complete article can be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/22jan_ceres/

Climate Warming Trend Sustained in 2013

NASA Science News for Jan. 21, 2014

NASA scientists say 2013 tied with 2009 and 2006 for the seventh warmest year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. With the exception of 1998, the 10 warmest years in the 134-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the warmest years on record.

The complete article can be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/21jan_2013/

Big Picture Science for 01/20/14 - Forget to Remember

Big Picture Science - Forget to Remember

You must not remember this. Indeed, it may be key to having a healthy brain. Our gray matter evolved to forget things; otherwise we’d have the images of every face we saw on the subway rattling around our head all day long. Yet we’re building computers with the capacity to remember everything. Everything! And we might one day hook these devices to our brains.

Find out what’s it’s like – and whether it’s desirable – to live in a world of total recall. Plus, the quest for cognitive computers, and how to shake that catchy – but annoying – jingle that plays in your head over and over and over and …

Guests:

• Ramamoorthy Ramesh – Materials physicist, deputy director of science and technology, Oakridge National Lab
• Michael Anderson – Neuroscientist, Memory Control Lab, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge in the U.K.
• Ira Hyman – Psychologist at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington
• James McGaugh – Neurobiologist, University of California, Irvine
• Larry Smarr – Professor of computer science, University of California, San Diego; director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2)

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Forget_to_Remember

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Countdown to Pluto

Source - NASA Science News for Jan. 14, 2014

Eight years after it left Earth, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is approaching Pluto. The encounter begins less than a year from now.

The complete article can be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/14jan_pluto/

A companion video is posted below and can also be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUB7dRgClSQ



License: Standard YouTube License

Big Picture Science for 01/13/14 - Skeptic Check: Zombies Aren't Real

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Zombies Aren't Real

ENCORE: Zombies are making a killing in popular culture. But where did the idea behind these mythical, cerebrum-supping nasties come from? Discover why they may be a hard-wired inheritance from our Pleistocene past.

Also, how a whimsical mathematical model of a Zombie apocalypse can help us withstand earthquakes and disease outbreaks, and how the rabies virus contributed to zombie mythology.

Plus, new ideas for how doctors should respond when humans are in a limbo state between life and death: no pulse, but their brains continue to hum.

Meet the songwriter who has zombies on the brain …. and we chase spaced-out animated corpses in the annual Run-For-Your-Lives foot race.

Guests:

• Guy P. Harrison – Science writer and author of 50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True
• Jonathan Coulton – Singer and songwriter
• Robert Smith? – Mathematician and epidemiologist at the University of Ottawa, in Canada
• Dick Teresi – Science writer and author of The Undead: Organ Harvesting, the Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers—How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death
• Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy – - Respectively Senior Editor at Wired Magazine and veterinarian, and the co-authors of Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus

This encore podcast was first released on November 12, 2012

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Skeptic_Check_Zombies_Aren_t_Real

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Amazing Pictures of Venus Passing by the Sun

Source - Space Weather News for Jan. 11, 2014: http://spaceweather.com

VENUS AT INFERIOR CONJUNCTION: Today, Jan. 11th, Venus is at inferior conjunction. That means it is located almost directly between Earth and the sun. Around the world amateur astronomers are taking special precautions to avert eye damage as they photograph Venus passing by the sun in broad daylight.

Visit http://spaceweather.com to see their amazing photos.

Starting Fire with Water

Source - NASA Science News for Jan. 10, 2014

Astronauts on the ISS are experimenting with a form of water that has a strange property: it can help start fire. This fundamental physics investigation could have down-to-Earth benefits such as clean-burning municipal waste disposal and improved saltwater purification.

The complete article can be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/10jan_firewater/

A companion video is posted below and can also be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TysrIYJOlpk



License: Standard YouTube License

Hubble Images Become Tactile 3-D Experience for the Blind

Below is some of the text from an article posted on the NASA Hubble Space Telescope site on the use of 3-D printing to produce tactile 3-D astronomical images for the blind and visually impaired:

"Three-dimensional printers are transforming the business, medical, and consumer landscape by creating a vast variety of objects, including airplane parts, football cleats, lamps, jewelry, and even artificial human bones."

"Now astronomers Carol Christian and Antonella Nota of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., are experimenting with the innovative technology to transform astronomy education by turning images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope into tactile 3-D pictures for people who cannot explore celestial wonders by sight. The 3-D print design is also useful and intriguing for sighted people who have different learning styles, said the researchers. Christian and Nota admit their task is a challenge because astronomers really can't see space objects in three dimensions."

You can read the complete article here: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-images-become-tactile-3-d-experience-for-the-blind/#.Us91WfSrweo

Huge Sunspot Erupts

Source - Space Weather News for Jan. 7, 2014: http://spaceweather.com

STRONG SOLAR ACTIVITY:  One of the largest sunspots in years, AR1944, has turned toward  Earth and it is crackling with strong flares.  So far on Jan. 7th, the active region has produced M7- and X1-class eruptions, and more appear to be in the offing.  As this alert is being issued, analysts are waiting for more data from solar observatories to clarify the possibility of CME impacts and geomagnetic storms in the days ahead.

For updates, stay tuned to: http://spaceweather.com.

SOLAR FLARE ALERTS:  Would you like a call the next time sunspot AR1944 erupts? X-flare alerts are available from http://spaceweathertext.com (text) and http://spaceweatherphone.com (voice).

Big Picture Science for 01/06/14 - Can We Talk?

Big Picture Science - Can We Talk?

ENCORE: You can get your point across in many ways: email, texts, or even face-to-face conversation (does anyone do that anymore?). But ants use chemical messages when organizing their ant buddies for an attack on your kitchen. Meanwhile, your human brain sends messages to other brains without you uttering a word.

Hear these communication stories … how language evolved in the first place… why our brains love a good tale …and how Facebook is keeping native languages from going extinct.

Guests:

• Mark Moffett – Entomologist, research associate at the Smithsonian Institution, author of Adventures among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions
• V.S. Ramachandran – Neuroscientist, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego
• Clare Murphy – Performance storyteller, Ireland
• Mark Pagel – Evolutionary biologist, University of Reading, U.K., and author of Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind
• Margaret Noori – Poet and linguist at the University of Michigan, specializing in Ojibwe, and director of the Comprehensive Studies Program

This encore podcast was first released on June 11, 2012

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Can_We_Talk_

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

New Year's Day Solar Flares

Source - Space Weather News for Jan. 2, 2014: http://spaceweather.com

SOLAR ACTIVITY: The New Year began with a burst of solar activity.  Active sunspot AR1936 is crackling with strong M-class solar flares, including an M9.9 event on Jan. 1st that stopped just short of becoming a powerful X-flare. Also on New Year's Day, another large sunspot emerged over the sun's eastern limb: AR1944 appears set to add its own contribution to the fusillade of explosions.

Check http://spaceweather.com for updates and more information.