Bored enough to do a home experiment?

Do you know what happens when molten potassium chlorate reacts with sugar? Just try putting in a tiny gummy bear inside a vial containing some of it....

Drama at NASA

NASA has always been among my most admired and respected agencies of the Federal Government, known for its reputation and highly-skilled scientists. The movie Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks if you haven't seen it, is a true IMAX experience, but in addition, captures the astronomical abilities and leadership skills of these NASA folks both on the shuttle and back down at their Houston center. While I was in TX, I made it a point to visit Houston just to be inside the Johnson Space Center, just for kicks....

However, it is a pity to observe the recent happenings at this great insitution that hosts some of the best mathematical brains in the world.

(1) On at least 2 occasions, NASA astronauts were permitted to fly after drinking heavily, according to a report that was released last Friday by an independent investigation panel. Are you kidding me? While heavily is a relative term and the reports don't quantify it, dude c'mon, what are they flying here...? space shuttles for God sake...although the report also does not mention whether they were flying the space shuttle or were on the training planes. In either case, I don't think anyone would consider it acceptable or pardon the misdeed jeopardizing the flight safety.

(2) To add to their miseries, the space agency is also currently investigating the sabotage of a computer scheduled for delivery to the International Space Station (ISS) during a space shuttle mission next month. Reports say that a worker at a subcontractor deliberately cut the wires on the computer.

I wonder what is happening to the agency and what the government is planning to do to fix these issues, and restore its slowly tarnishing reputation...

The new ultra deep sea driller

Q: How many people operate the new independent hub by Anadarko Petroleum in Houston, TX?

A: 16 people

That's right! Just 16 people! This is the deepest hub or sea driller ever built, it goes 8000 feet deep. And, it is a $2 billion project - yes, this is a very capital intensive industry, says Anadarko CEO, James Hackett.

A space elevator? A 21st century achievement?

Yes. LiftPort corporation says within the next 15 years they believe they can take people to space through a space elevator that they are building. They think it would take around a week to get to space through this robot, in other words, the trip itself is a vacation! :)



NASA recently hosted a competition for this, and that's when LiftPort came to the limelight. They've staked their corporation on this concept which they themselves don't see going live before the next 15 years. So, they see something in it. They are dedicated to building a mass transportation system to open up access to the inner solar system.

Well, I'd definitely do it if it happens on my watch. Enjoy their interview.

Ponce de Pinot Noir - makes one healthy

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Have you ever wondered why the French women are so slim and attractive, or why the French have fewer heart attacks than the Americans ? Probably, this is why...

Scientists have just discovered that a substance found in Pinot Noir (red wine), called resveratrol, protects mice from obesity and the effects of aging, and could perhaps do the same for humans too!
While mice are the only mammals tested so far, the researchers who've studied this effect are so convinced of its powers that some of them are already taking the stuff as nutritional supplements that can be purchased commercially.

Is this a biological free lunch?

The iconic Griffith observatory reopens!

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The Griffith Observatory, the home for stargazers and famous backdrop for key scenes and stars like James Dean's "Rebel without a cause" in 1955, and Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1984 film, "The Terminator", re-opened on Friday after a 4-year $90 million makeover.



For history, the Griffith observatory was opened in 1935 by amateur astronomer Jenkins Griffith, with a vision of making astronomy and observation accessible to everyone. The 3-domed building atop the Hollywood Hills, offers a bird's-eye-view of Los Angeles, the second largest U.S city.

Discovery, a "GO" for launch

This is the 3rd time the space shuttle Discovery has been scheduled for launch. The NASA management has turned more conservative giving top priority to safety measures for the astronauts. However, they did find a pencil-sized crack in the foam insulation around the shuttle's fuel tank, but the engineers have confirmed that the structure is in good shape and ready to launch. NASA administrator Michael Griffin said, "I personally want every engineer to express the best opinion that they can give us". Since the Columbia tragedy, NASA has spent more than $1.2 billion in just ramping up its safety measures. As a side note, NASA has an annual budget of $16 billion, out which it spends $4 billion in launching the vehicles. The rest is spent on new technologies and newer vehicles.

But anyway, now, Discovery is good to go! The 7-member crew of Discovery were in all smiles as they suited up Tuesday morning. This is the first time a U.S space shuttle has attempted to lift off on the 4th of July. The scheduled launch time is 2:38 PM E.S.T, that is around 2 hours away from now. Keep watch, the launch is covered live on MSNBC.

S^2: New Moons and Rings around Planet Uranus

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Pictures taken from the Hubble Space Telescope show that the planet Uranus has two additional moons and faint rings never observed before.


Like many other moons of Uranus, these have also been named after characters in Shakespeare. They are called Mab (after Queen Mab, the subject of a famous speech by Mercutio, a character in Romeo and Juliet) and Cupid (also, a character in the lesser known play - Timon of Athens). These bring the total number of satellites orbiting Uranus to 27.

S^2: LEDs used for street lighting

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Dutch Electronics group, Philips, the world's leading lighting maker, has replaced bulbs in lamps on the streets of the Dutch town Ede with light emitting diodes (LEDs). With 50,000 light hours, LEDs do not have to be replaced for 11 to 12 years lit at an average of 12 hours per day. The lamps contain yellow and white LEDs which allow for brighter and softer tones according to the season and time of the day. Gas filled electric lamps last for an average of 12000 hours, and are difficult to replace. These new LED street lamps are twice as expensive as the gas-filled street light lamps, but are compensated for by the longer life span.

S^2: Scientists discover planet with 3 suns

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Astronomers have detected a planet outside our solar system, with 3 suns - a finding that challenges the astronomers' theory of planetary formation, that planets usually form out of gas and dust circling around a single star. The implication is that there are more planets than is believed.



This newly discovered planet which is slightly larger than Jupiter, is around 149 light years from Earth [ 1 light year is about 6 trillion miles or 10 trillion km.

S^2: Discovery - launch yet again delayed

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Will it ever launch ? Well we'll have to wait and see. Atleast I'm happy they're catching all the bugs in the QA and regression testing stages, unlike the Columbia disaster. The launch has been delayed multiple times since June 15th. This time, it was called off just 2.5 hours before the scheduled launch, due to a glitch in 1 of its 4 fuel sensors. To test the sensors, commands were sent such that the reading should change to "dry" or "empty", but one of the sensors didn't change, The first ever launch ever since failed Columbia mission, which disintegrated over Texas on Feb-1 2003, killing all 7 astronauts on board, is still hanging in thin air.

So, I understand that NASA is desperate to make the Discovery space shuttle a grand success, and are not willing to compromise on such minor flaws. But they're running out of time, if they dont launch it by July 31st, I believe they have to wait until September. That is not a shame though, I would say. They're just being cautious- once bitten, twice shy. So, there's still of lot of heavy work happening at the Kennedy Space Center at Florida, with the NASA controllers working hard to meet their schedule.

Irrespective of whether they launch it or not, such glitches, and skipping deadlines at such high levels as the NASA, well, make me feel good as a software engineer :)

S^2: Deep Impact Mission - a sci-fi story

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NASA's barrel-sized unmanned Deep Impact space probe successfully collided on 4th July 2005 10:52 pm pacific time, into a comet by name Tempel 1 which was around 134 million km away and about half the size of Manhattan, in an attempt to start to learn more about the earth's formation.

One theory holds that a giant cloud of gas and dust collapsed to create the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, and comets formed from the left-over building blocks of the solar system. And this mission now also gives scientists an idea of how to stop such a comet from colliding with the earth in future if required :)

It was a big milestone for the U.S Space Agency, as even though it did not place any man on the moon now, no other space mission has flown this close to a comet. This collision caught the attraction of millions of people, scientists apart. The Nasa's Deep Impact website had nearly 1 billion hits. Around 10,000 people gathered on Hawai's Waikiki beach where the collision wass telecasted on a huge screen. Wasn't it one of the most joyeous ways of celebration of an American birthday ?

S^2: Einstein's legacy

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He stopped traffic on Fifth Avenue like the Beatles or Marilyn Monroe. He could've been president of Israel or played violin at Carnegie Hall, but he was too busy thinking. His musings on God, love and the meaning of life grace our greeting cards and day-timers.
Fifty years after his death, his shock of white hair and droopy mustache still symbolize genius.

Who else could it be but Albert Einstein?

Einstein remains the foremost scientist of the modern era. Looking back 2,400 years, only Newton, Galileo and Aristotle were his equals.
Around the world, universities and academies are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Einstein's "miracle year" when he published five scientific papers in 1905 that fundamentally changed our grasp of space, time, light and matter. Only he could top himself about a decade later with his theory of general relativity.

Here is a brief chronology of his miracle year:
March, 1905: Conventional physics described light as a wave and could not explain how light can knock electrons off metal. Einstein showed that light is made of tiny packets of energy, or quanta, that can behave like individual particles, too.
This duality is the basis of quantum theory, a pillar of modern physics. His explanation of this "photoelectric effect" won him the Nobel prize in 1921.

April: Based on cafe conversations over tea, Einstein submits a paper that determined the size of sugar molecules by calculating their diffusion in the liquid.

May: He shows how particles (like pollen) that appear to be independently moving in water are being jostled by atoms in water that are moving chaotically. Known as Brownian motion, Einstein's calculations confirmed the atom's existence and by extension, the makeup of chemical elements.

June: Einstein's paper on "special relativity" separates him from the mainstream physics crowd. Scientists had concluded that light was just one of many kinds of electromagnetic waves moving through an unseen medium they called ether, and the speed of light is always the same.
Einstein recalled a teenage daydream of racing a light beam. According to the physics of his day, if he moved as fast as the light, then the beam would be stationary in space. Einstein said the speed of light is constant at 186,282 miles per second. But it will appear different depending on where you are and how fast you are traveling.

November: Einstein publishes an extension of special relativity regarding the conversion of mass into energy, noting that the "mass of a body is a measure of its energy content." In 1907, he abbreviated it to what would become science's most famous equation: The amount of energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, or E=mc2. This became the theoretical basis for both atomic explosions and atomic energy.

"Each of these papers is a landmark in physics," said University of Maryland physicist S. James Gates. "And yet all of his work in 1905 is a prelude to his greatest composition -- the theory of general relativity."

Einstein described relativity this way: "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."

It is heard that as an old man, Einstein, rightly one of the greatest scientists of all times, used to say in a melancholy tone:
"The physicists say that I am a mathematician, and the mathematicians say that I am a physicist," he said. "I am a completely isolated man and though everybody knows me, there are very few people who really know me."

But his legacy, like the universe, keeps on expanding.