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| Time and Date dot com |
Today is International Women's Day in Women's History Month.
One Billion Rising: the organization lists it's "birthday" on 14 February 2013. Inspired by several recent turn of events, two of note: the brutal public gang rape and murder of a New Delhi woman sparked outrage across the globe; Malala Yousafzai, a young Afghan activist shot in the face for promoting education and erasing ignorance was also a catalyst.
As so should have been Hadiya. When honor students are murdered, it should be a time of mourning, and a response of resolve.
As so should be Tonya McDowell. Judging from the verdict, the court in Connecticut forgot the mercies and sympathy poured on to Sandy Hook (the majority killed there were women): apparently, wanting the best for a six-year-old in Orwellian speak is now thoughtcrime. And, the best place for a six-year-old is not at the side of his homeless mother who's doing the best she can under circumstances engineered way above her pay grade: it's obviously in the foster care system, where he will most likely end up on a collision course with the same criminal justice system that just sentenced Tonya to 12 years in prison.
It has been lately, not easy to be a woman. For the "fairer sex," it's been no more easier to be a woman than it is to be a minority, or gay, middle class or a teacher. Quvenzhané Wallis could not enjoy her night at the Oscars: apparently, nine-year-old talented actresses are somewhat threatening to small minds, in possession of Napoleonic smaller male appendages, that hide behind the 1st Amendment and the nebulous non-action statement "they have been disciplined" (not fired).
"In time we hate that which we often fear." William Shakespeare
Organizations, mostly dominated by men, are telling everyone else what they can be, how they can act, what to do with decisions about their own welfare, bodies and careers.
I think of my "little engineer," an endearing term I use not as a slight but a realization: at 8, she's kind of short! Her name is Naomi ("pleasant"). She has a smile that would light up a room on a grey, cloudy day. She and her young female friend/electronics lab partner at a science fair I organized at our church, engineered a simple switch for a flying saucer/helicopter when they ran out of parts (I had 31 kids - pizza = popular). It was amazing; THEY were amazing! They deserve to inherit a world a little less dangerous; a little less bigoted towards their gender.
On Friday March 8, we should make sure that the women in our institutions enjoy a coffee or a lunch. Let them talk and exchange their thoughts, and take pictures to show the world that there are women in science, and sharing their experience on Twitter and Google+ (hashtag #WomenOfScience). They are here, not a majority, but they are an important part of scientific work and discussion.
For all the "little scientists and engineers," and the pleasant world I would like them to inherit...
Official Site: International Women's Day
Office of Science and Technology Policy: Women in STEM
US Department of Commerce: Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation
NSF: Women, Minorities and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering
Cosmic Diary: Featuring the Women of Science
STEM connector: 100 Women Leaders in STEM
WAMC: Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
STEMinist: Voices of Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math
I repost this poem from time to time to remind myself of why I write... and because I love it :). Namaste Fam!
(for my man Quinton Veal, my children and my beautiful, beautiful writing famiy)
With blood beating at my temples
and horizons beckoning for discovery
land, magical strange taboo
waited for my pen
Miles and Coltrane's nightingales
awoke to trill of moonbeams
and desire
Zora,Langston and Octavia whispered: "We waiting
on you, you better create worlds..."
That's I when I knew it was time to speak
rivers-- funky motifs
rip a piece of soulful sinew
Sweeten it
Season it
cry loud my passion
And shards of gold flecked violet
split the air with sound and fury!
With laughter, love and tears
I touched my lips to them
breathed life into these spirits
freed them to walk across
the page
In that hour liberation found me
In that hour I embraced her
And gave voice to my writing hand
Copyright 2009 Valjeanne Jeffers
Published in Liberated Muse: How I Freed My Soul Vol I
Available at http://www.OutskirtsPress.com/LiberatedMuse
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc: "after this, therefore, because of this."
Not saying Dr. Tyson is "committing" a post hoc fallacy. He eludes to the dangers of simple conclusions, and what I'd term "market-driven-bottom-line" education. As expressed by one teen I recall tutoring: "is THIS the answer?" That's a very "bottom-line" question in the moment as said teen was very concerned about the state standardized exam, rather than developing the skills to (and the pleasure in) solving the problem. Just see his responses to Soledad, and you'll get the idea.
You may not become an astrophysicist; the director of a planetarium, or feature in a Superman comic, but you'll THINK clearly, you'll come to decisions in a logical manner, and in this day and age, that's a very important (and waning) skill.
Web site: STEMCareer.com
Well, it's March, folks! And that means my book, "From Slate to Crimson," will soon be released. Stay tuned! It's currently in the "coming soon" section of the Whispers Press website, and will be available later this month as an e-book. I will certainly keep all who are interested in touch. Incidentally, is anyone interested in this? Let me know, and I will personally send you notification of its release. And please, tell anyone you think will be interested!
“You will be torn apart by bullets or teeth.”
Now if you don’t see the huge parallels between Rick and Morgan, then you’re not paying attention. Two fathers, two husbands, two men who should have kept their families safe, both failed or failing.
Morgan is Rick (he’s also the Governor, but more on that in a moment) which means he wears the weight of responsibility for the people around him. I imagine Rick would have been very much the same way had he lost Lori and Carl. He’s halfway to being like Morgan having only lost his wife. And it’s all so important to remember what Morgan said when he saw Rick’s face. You’re wearing a dead man’s face. That’s just another way of saying he’s seeing a ghost. Just like Rick currently is.
I have to amend my predictions a little here. Now that we know the shooter is Morgan, don’t expect they’re partying ways with tonight’s episode to be the last we see of him. Morgan is going to be the person who saves Rick. When he said that Rick would die, that the good guys die and the bad guys die, but weak people like him survive, that’s a bit of foreshadowing. Expect Morgan to play a part in the resolution of this season. With Morgans ability to make traps and his plethora of weapons, Rick’s group is going to be pinned down and just wanted looks like they are on the verge of being overwhelmed, Morgan will arrive.
He will save Rick from death and trade places with him. Morgan will either kill the Governor directly or setup the circumstance which results in his death.
The real question is, who will the Governor take with him?
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| Ars Technica |
The first lunar base on the Moon may not be built by human hands, but rather by a giant spider-like robot built by NASA that can bind the dusty soil into giant bubble structures where astronauts can live, conduct experiments, relax or perhaps even cultivate crops.
We've already covered the European Space Agency's (ESA) work with architecture firm Foster + Partners on a proposal for a 3D-printed moonbase, and there are similarities between the two bases—both would be located in Shackleton Crater near the Moon's south pole, where sunlight (and thus solar energy) is nearly constant due to the Moon's inclination on the crater's rim, and both use lunar dust as their basic building material. However, while the ESA's building would be constructed almost exactly the same way a house would be 3D-printed on Earth, this latest wheeze—SinterHab—uses NASA technology for something a fair bit more ambitious.
Ars Technica: Giant NASA spider robots could 3D print lunar base
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| Space Daily |
In this month's special edition of Physics World, focusing on quantum physics, Thomas Jennewein and Brendon Higgins from the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, Canada, describe how a quantum space race is under way to create the world's first global quantum-communication network.
The field of quantum communication - the science of transmitting quantum states from one place to another - has received significant attention in the last few years owing to the discovery of quantum cryptography.
Upon measuring the state of a particle you instantly change this state, meaning an encryption key made of photons can be passed between two parties safe in the knowledge that if an eavesdropper intercepts it, this would be noticed.
The transmission of encryption keys over long distances still remains a significant challenge for scientists, however, as the intensity of signals tends to weaken as they travel further because photons get absorbed or scattered off molecules.
Space Daily: Space race under way to create quantum satellite
All you have to do is go to www.razorlinepress.com, click on any post and respond with, "Yes, I'd like a free copy of The Prophet." Make sure your email address is included because that's what I'll be using to send it to you as a gift through Amazon's website.
Description
Greg is a reporter who is about to get the story of his life. The Prophet, an elusive figure who makes predictions about disasters has just tapped him to do an exclusive interview. Except Greg's not really a reporter. Two minutes before entering his apartment, he didn't exist and when he meets the Prophet he finds out his true purpose- to kill the Prophet. But killing someone who is near omnipotent isn't easy, in fact, it takes more than one try even if you get it right.
The Prophet is a half horror, half weird, half comedy that will leave your jaw fully dropped by story's end.
Excerpt
No,” the Prophet materialized out of the flashes- shoeless, in jeans with ragged cuffs and his hands stuffed in the pockets of a grey hoodie. His beard hung to his knees, but it was edged at his cheeks and jawline. Locks of hair spilled out of his hood, trailing down to mid-chest. If it weren’t for the eyes, he’d look like a hippie-ish twenty-something. But those eyes held the ancient stare of the bug-fucking nuts. Greg realized this person had the same face, but this wasn’t the man he’d seen earlier in the shower.
“Where?” the Prophet said.
“The guy… y’know, the one standing right there.”
“I don’t see anyone.”
Blue walked over and grabbed Greg by the shirt sleeve, giving it a good tug. “He’s right here.”
“No. Sorry, I see nothing but you making the international sign for jerking off.”
“Wha—oh.” Blue sounded embarrassed and let go of Greg’s shirt.
“I knew Anthony was up to something.” The Prophet scratched under the corner of his lip. He looked in the general area where Greg was. Greg was glad those eyes couldn’t find him. “Did he send you here to kill me? He should have told you I can’t die. I am not a man.” Somebody giggled. “Shut up! You know what I mean.”
The Prophet reached up with both hands and made tight fists around his eyes. He grimaced, a single, strangled cry coming from his throat as trickles of blood ran down his cheeks. He yanked his hands back and Greg saw empty holes where his eyes used to be, blood flowing freely from the empty spaces.
“Gather closer, children,” he said. They all pulled in tight around him and he began reaching out, feeling their faces one at a time.
“Too big… too squishy…” he mumbled as he passed each one by. “I really should have done this part first.” Finally, he settled on a face that seemed to be to his preference. A short, fox-headed man looked nervously right and left, but his body went rigid. He seemed to be struggling, but didn’t move.
“Now open your eyes… wide.” Fox-head reared his head back, but it was a far cry from the distance he needed to get away from the Prophet. He made small, grunting noises as the Prophet raised his hands, turning them so his thumbs were poised directly over his face.
He plunged them beneath Fox-head’s eyes, working his hands like he was trying to work twin combination locks with only his palms. Fox-head’s mouth was pulled back like he wanted to scream, but no sound came out. Everyone was silent. The only sound was the dual squelching as Fox-head’s eyes were being plucked out.
It probably only took seconds, but they stretched on forever as Greg watched Fox-head’s bulging eyes being extracted from the sockets.
They finally came free and he collapsed, his limbs curling up to his torso like a newborn baby. His mouth hung open in agony, but still he didn’t scream.
Greg didn’t know how long he stared at the manimal on the ground, but at some point the Prophet had put the new eyes in his own head.
“There you are,” he said, looking at Greg and wiping the trails of blood off his cheeks with the backs of his hands. He pointed a gun finger at him and fired. “You’re dead.”
Greg felt a flash of white, pain more intense than anything he’d felt in his life and then it was gone. He looked down and saw a perfectly circular hole in his chest and stomach that he guessed went all the way through. Something warm and red squished around in his socks. He looked up at the Prophet, wanting to ask a question, but the words were suddenly a million miles away.
He collapsed.
“Now that that problem’s taken care of, let’s get Neil out of my forge.”
“It’s Harry, master.”
“Whatever. Just get him out. I’ve got a schedule to keep.”
Greg lay on the ground, listening to them talk and mill about. It surprised him that he could listen to anything at all, unless this was supposed to be the afterlife. But then he opened his eyes and looked at his hand and then he began drumming his fingers on the dirt.
“Would somebody scoop that thing up and feed it to something?”
Feet moved closer to him and then two pairs of arms lifted him half to his feet.
Greg raised his head and saw the Prophet surveying the pit.
“You have everything you need,” Anthony had said. Greg wondered at that, but quickly realized he had the solution to his current problem.
He opened his mouth, moving his lips and waggling his tongue. Despite having no lungs, he was trying to speak.
The words came out, but they were thick and unintelligible. But loud enough that the two people-things holding him heard and most importantly, so did the Prophet. He turned and let his hands slide from the small of his back.
“What?” the Prophet said. He had a look of dumb shock, so Greg repeated.
“I said,” Greg began and cleared his throat, “you’re a pizza.”
So-called self-assembly technology. When I saw this:
It naturally made me go back to this:
Skylar Tibbits is a trained architect, designer and computer scientist whose research currently focuses on developing self-assembly technologies for large-scale structures in the physical environment.
Skylar, who is also a TED2012 Senior Fellow, recently presented a new concept at TED2013: 4D printing – where materials can be reprogrammed to self-assemble into new structures. Apparently, this is just the tip of the iceberg in manufacturing with minimum energy consumption.
Yet: as we assemble these great technologies, we tend not to think of the impact of replacing the previous "John Henry" model and economy with the newer steam engine. I'll never say to not do tech, but we need to do it with the ripple effect on society as a whole in mind: class structure, education, the increasing wealth gap, etc. I could see this impacting construction jobs in the 22nd Century, as in there wouldn't be as much need for manual labor (as John found out the hard way).
Engineering.com: MIT Unveils 4D Printing
© 3 March 2013, the Griot Poet
If I had a daughter, she’d look like Quvenzhané Wallis.
And her name would be the combination of my wife’s, Qulyndreia, a teacher, and my own, Venjie Wallis, Sr., a truck driver.
And we’d anoint the creation of the third syllable of her name with the Swahili word for “fairy.”
Flitting like one, eyes beaming, pearly-white teeth, dress of royal hue; rocking the toy "pooch pouch."
And we,
The descendants of diaspora
Ripped from the shores of Eden
Through Gorée Island gates
To Atlantic Oceans vast
Sleeping in bile and filth
Separated from families, children, tribes, language
Piled up end-to-end like logs and shipping crates
Endure captivity, Civil War, lynching and Jim Crow
Repeated in Louisiana
Near the French Quarter where slave Sundays birthed Jazz, Gospel, Blues, Ragtime
During Hurricane’s Katrina and Rita
Tossed over like so much trash
And fish food to “Jaws”...
And we,
Creators of algebra, astronomy,
Architects of pyramids,
Taken to Rome to engineer the aqueducts, buildings, obelisks and modern plumbing
The descendants of 3/5th humanity
Teeth examined like livestock,
Skin lightened by forced miscegenation,
The first thing post emancipation…we went looking for wives, husbands…children.
So, we weren’t looking for disrespect
To our young queen on her night,
From Seth “American Dad,” “Family Guy” McFarlane
Insulting her and George Clooney
Or, the self-important Onion
Of which,
You don’t have to peel too many layers
To see three important things:
1. You entered this life from a woman’s womb!
2. Nine-year-old children are not “small adults” you can insult.
3. It’s never a joke in this American rape-celebrating culture…to insult a woman!
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| This image shows a computer simulation of the polarized electron-spin density on a plane that contains the Earth's rotational axis and Amherst, Massachusetts. (Courtesy: Daniel Ang and Larry Hunter of Amherst College, more info @ link) |
Evidence of a minuscule force that could exist between two particle spins over long distances could be lurking in magnetized iron under the Earth's surface. That is the conclusion of a new study by physicists in the US, who have used our planet's vast stores of polarized spin to place exacting limits on the existence of interactions mediated by unusual entities such as "unparticles".
The intrinsic angular momentum, or "spin", of a particle gives that particle a magnetic moment, and the interaction between spins generates magnetism. A ferromagnet, such as iron, becomes magnetized when the spins of some of the electrons in its constituent atoms line up, while quantum mechanics tells us that the magnetic force between spins results from the electrons exchanging "virtual" photons.
Some theoretical physicists have suggested that other, as-yet-undiscovered particles might be exchanged virtually and so give rise to new types of spin–spin interaction. In 2007, for example, Howard Georgi of Harvard University proposed the existence of unparticles, which would have the unusual property that their masses would scale with energy or momentum.
Physics World: Search for 'unparticles' focuses on Earth's crust
A fun, loosely-related embed from "minute physics":
(CNN) -- Richard Turere, 13, doesn't like lions. In fact, he hates them. Yet this bright Maasai boy has devised an innovative solution that's helping the survival of these magnificent beasts -- by keeping them away from humans.
Living on the edge of Nairobi National Park, in Kenya, Turere first became responsible for herding and safeguarding his family's cattle when he was just nine. But often, his valuable livestock would be raided by the lions roaming the park's sweet savannah grasses, leaving him to count the losses.
So, at the age of 11, Turere decided it was time to find a way of protecting his family's cows, goats and sheep from falling prey to hungry lions.
"One day, when I was walking around," he says, "I discovered that the lions were scared of the moving light."
He fitted a series of flashing LED bulbs onto poles around the livestock enclosure, facing outward. The lights were wired to a box with switches and to an old car battery powered by a solar panel. They were designed to flicker on and off intermittently, thus tricking the lions into believing that someone was moving around carrying a flashlight.
And it worked. Since Turere rigged up his "Lion Lights," his family has not lost any livestock to the wild beasts, to the great delight of his father and astonishment of his neighbors.
What's even more impressive is that Turere devised and installed the whole system by himself, without ever receiving any training in electronics or engineering.
The 13-year-old's remarkable ingenuity has been recognized with an invitation to the TED 2013 conference, being held this week in California, where he'll share the stage with some of the world's greatest thinkers, innovators and scientists.
CNN Inside Africa: Boy scares off lions with flashy invention
I am a science fiction writer with a deep and abiding love for the military/space opera part of the genre. I only recently became familiar with steampunk...at least its trappings, having never read the literature. My first introduction to steampunk were steamfunk story excerpts the great Milton Davis wrote and posted in Black Science Fiction Society.com. Then I read The Switch by Valjeanne Jeffers, an absolutely clever and mesmerizing tale that broadened my understanding of steamfunk. Her story also demonstrated that different authors were free to interpret the genre in radically different ways while remaining within the genre's framework.
Still when I decided to contribute a story to the Steamfunk anthology, I felt a bit out of my comfort zone. Having never written anything steamfunk/steampunk oriented, I struggled with story ideas. So, how did I overcome this obstacle of the unfamiliar? Simple, I reached into history, pulled a figure from obscurity plopped him into my imagination and built a steam powered world around him! Who was this figure? His name was Benjamin Montgomery, a slave who was an inventor. Born in Virginia in 1819, Benjamin was owned by Joseph E. Davis, older brother of future Confederate president, Jefferson Davis. Interestingly enough, Benjamin was taught to read and write by the Davis brothers. He was also entrusted with the responsibility of running the plantation store. This special status he enjoyed in bondage, however, was not his claim to fame.
Benjamin was a mechanic and used his skill to invent a type of propeller that helped steamboats maneuver through shallow water. In the late 1850s, he attempted to get a patent for his invention. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Attorney General's office refused to grant a patent to a slave. When the Davis brothers tried to patent Benjamin's invention, they were denied as well, due to neither being the true inventor. How ironic that when Jefferson Davis became president of the Confederacy, he enacted a law making it possible for slaves to patent their inventions.
I'd read about post-slavery black inventors who managed to create their technical wonders despite the harsh, spirit-crushing racial repression they lived under. Benjamin Montgomery and the many nameless slave inventors in existence in Antebellum America intrigued me all the more due to the absolute restrictiveness of their circumstances. Speculative fiction cried out for a historical figure like Benjamin to make an appearance. Once I made the decision to answer that call, all the literary pieces fell into place, making the subsequent writing of my story a smooth and pleasurable undertaking.
Those of you planning to read Steamfunk, I hope you enjoy my story Benjamin's Freedom Magic. Those who've already read it, I hope you liked it. I'm certainly looking forward to reading Steamfunk from cover to cover.
A bit of humor post sequestration...
WHEN Sydney physicist Brendan McMonigal got down on one knee to propose to his partner of seven years, Christie Nelan, he pulled out a physics paper, not a ring.
His paper, Two Body Interactions: A Longitudinal Study, (link below), is laden with science geek speak and tracks the couple's relationship, including a graph (''happiness over time'') and the all important question.
Fellow physics major Ms Nelan - who said yes - published a link to a digital copy of the proposal on social news site Reddit this week and it went viral, viewed over 1.7 million times with tens of thousands of Facebook shares and dozens of news articles.
''I guess we won the internet,'' said Ms Nelan.
The article: With this physics paper I thee...
The paper: Two Body Interactions
Hey, folks!
After talking for awhile with some of you guys in the chat area, I've learned that some of you are aspiring video game makers. In case you didn't know, there is a LOT that goes into making a successful video game, so much that you could fill chapters of books with all you need to know. And we're not talking about knowledge of coding or game writing software. This is where the web show, "Extra Credits" comes in. Hosted by game designer James Portnow, animator Daniel Floyd, and artists Allison Theus and Elisa Scaldaferri, this show tackles the deeper issues of video games and video game design, like understanding your audience to tailor your game for them, content, dialogue, etc. It has been around for about 3 or 4 years now, and has amassed quite a library of shows on a wide range of subjects in the interest of gaming and game design. Here is the link to the current library, found on PATV, an offshoot of the popular webcomic, "Penny Arcade."
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/extra-credits
If you have any aspirations towards video game design, then you owe it to yourself to watch this show. It's presented in a rapid-fire, funny, and insightful manner, and these guys are very knowledgeable about the subject. Hope you enjoy, and you're welcome! Happy gaming!
-Brandon
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| Wolf tumblr blog |
“My testimony today makes clear that sequestration, especially if accompanied by a year-long CR [continuing resolution], would be devastating to DoD -- just as it would to every other affected Federal agency. The difference is that, today, these devastating events are no longer distant problems. The wolf is at the door.” So warned Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter at a recent Senate Appropriations Committee hearing focusing on the impacts of automatic budget reductions on civilian and defense departments and agencies. Unless Congress and the Administration reach a new agreement the cuts will occur on March 1.
The following is what is now known:
National Science Foundation:
In a February 4 letter to Mikulski, NSF Director Subra Suresh wrote:
“The required levels of cuts to our programmatic investments would cause a reduction of nearly 1,000 research grants, impacting nearly 12,000 people supported by NSF, including professors, K-12 teachers, graduate students, undergraduates, K-12 students, and technicians.”
“Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction funding at $160 million or less in FY 2013 will result in the termination of approximately $35 million in contracts and agreements to industry for work in progress on major facilities for environmental and oceanographic research. This would directly lead to layoffs of dozens of direct scientific and technical staff, with larger impacts at supplier companies. In addition, out year costs of these projects would increase by tens of millions because of delays in the construction schedule.” [Note that the current and requested budget for this program is approximately $196 million.]
American Institute of Physics: The Wolf is at the Door
Probably as Brigade Commander of my hometown and county, I was given the "I Dare You" Award. Inspired by William H. Danforth, founder of the Ralston, Purina Company, it was given to students to inspire "responsibility and leadership." The award was a handsomely bound leather book. After reading it, I was supposed to give it away.
So, I Dare You:
- To think. Critical thinking is defined as "the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness."
- To help your teachers. Lord knows, they're trying to help you, they're literally betting many times, putting their faces on Facebook, Twitter feeds, news sites and blogs that their districts can't fire all of them at once, and pass assigned standardized tests. Frankly, the standardized tests they drill you on isn't what they went to school for, or qualified to do: they want to teach their subjects. That's why they studied them; qualified to teach them.
- To help yourselves. Every generation has a symbol of rebellion: pomade grease and leather jackets (50's); Afros, bell bottoms, hippy style and mini skirts (60's); more minis, leotards, wide collared polyester suits, disco (70's); more leotards, leggings, and dance wear, valley girl, preppy, Miami Vice, big jewelry, track suits and heavy metal (80's), more preppy, more hippy, more leggings, grunge look, punk, pastel and hip hop (90's)...you get the idea. This is not an inclusive list, by far. Like your parents and grandparents before you, this too shall pass. You'll get older, get responsible, get hopefully a child when you and your mate are ready by mature age, financially, emotionally...and, you'll have to go to work.
- To educate yourselves. That seems a restatement of #1, but it's not. Education is: "the act, or process of educating"; "the knowledge and development resulting from an education process." It is sharpened with critical thinking, as you might ask: "how does all this standardized testing eventually get me a job?" "Where are the jobs?" "Are they coming back?" "What kind of citizen is this curriculum preparing me to be?"
Eventually, I'll stop blogging. I'll either be too old, or too dead (and Zombies usually don't blog). This world will be yours, and STEM - science, technology, engineering and mathematics - will be central to your lives in ways I can only imagine. For time and giants before you have tackled mountains like the Civil War, Women's Suffrage, Women's Rights, Voting Rights et al. Time's arrow goes ever forward. And our survival as a species will depend of a diverse group, and that group is you, if you're younger than my 1/2 Century in age, and reading this.
You'll have to define what it means to be human - literally, as the economies of the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's are in our past, and entropy prevents backwards time travel, sadly. There will be new problems of climate, food supply, economics, politics, wars and rumors of wars. They will not be insurmountable: you can solve them.
I audes...I dare you...for you.
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: On 15 February at 0920 local time, a huge fireball raced across the skies above the Chelyabinsk region of Russia. This meteorite then exploded creating a shock wave that injured more than 1000 people.
Today, Jorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin at the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, take this approach a step further by reconstructing the meteorite’s original orbit around the Sun.
Calculating the rock’s orbit around the Sun is a more complicated affair. This depends on six critical parameters which must all be estimated from the data. Most of these are related to the point at which the meteorite becomes bright enough to cast a noticeable shadow in the videos, its ‘brightening point’. They include the meteorite’s height, elevation and azimuth at this point as well as the longitude and latitude on the Earth’s surface below. The velocity is also crucial.
“According to our estimations, the Chelyabinski meteor started to brighten up when it was between 32 and 47 km up in the atmosphere,” say Zuluaga and Ferrin, who estimate the velocity at between 13 km/s and 19 km/s relative to Earth.
Their conclusion is that the Chelyabinsk meteorite is from a family of rocks that cross Earth’s orbit called Apollo asteroids.
These are well known Earth-crossers. Astronomers have seen over 240 that are larger than 1 km but believe there must be more than 2000 others of similar size out there.
Smaller Earth crossers are even more common. The sobering news is that astronomers think there are some 80 million about the same size as the one that hit Russia.
Physics arXiv: A preliminary reconstruction of the orbit of the Chelyabinsk Meteoroid
